Political Scene

SENATE

Pakistani Taliban wanted on terror list

Several lawmakers are urging the Obama administration to put the Pakistani Taliban on a State Department terrorism blacklist that would impose sanctions on the group, which officials say is linked to the failed Times Square car bombing.

In a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at least five Democratic senators - including those from New York and New Jersey - asked Tuesday that the group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, be designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” The move would freeze the group’s U.S. assets and make it a crime for Americans to offer it material support.

U.S. officials have said the Pakistani Taliban provided financing and training to Times Square bomb-plot suspect Faisal Shahzad, who is thought to have spent five months in Pakistan preparing for the attack.

VICE PRESIDENT

Biden’s son treated for suspected stroke

PHILADELPHIA | Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s older son, the Delaware attorney general, had a mild stroke Tuesday and was transferred to a Philadelphia hospital, where he was alert and talking with family.

Beau Biden, 41, had been admitted to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., on Tuesday morning. Later in the day, he was transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. The White House said earlier that he would undergo further observation and examination there.

Mr. Biden was expected to recover, his doctor said.

Christiana Hospital’s Dr. Timothy Gardner said the younger Mr. Biden was in good spirits and was talking with his relatives. The doctor said in a statement issued through the White House that Mr. Biden was fully alert and in stable condition and had full motor and speech skills.

EGYPT

Obama criticizes ’emergency’ extension

The White House is expressing disappointment in Egypt’s decision to extend a controversial emergency law for two years and is calling for it to be replaced with a promised counterterrorism measure that would protect Egyptian civil liberties.

In place since 1981, the law gives the Egyptian police broad powers to arrest people and to hold them indefinitely without charge. Egypt has said it would only use the law in counterterrorism and counternarcotics cases, but human rights activists have warned that the law will continue to be used to suppress dissent by the government of President Hosni Mubarak.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that even the revised law gives the Egyptian government extraordinary powers to restrict the rights of its citizens.

OHIO

Democrat ad shows shirtless workers

COLUMBUS | Ohio Democrats have released a political ad full of shirtless workers. It’s the party’s answer to a sexually suggestive GOP ad that depicted a bare-chested U.S. Senate candidate.

The original ad, created by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, features an image of a shirtless Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in a provocative pose.

The Democratic response ad Monday features male workers, and one woman wearing a sports bra, who have “lost their shirts” in Ohio’s lousy economy. Mr. Fisher’s Republican Senate opponent is former Bush budget director and trade representative Rob Portman. Both ads seek to tie the opposing party to state job losses.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Portman’s campaign said he denounced the GOP ad last week. He stopped short of answering Democrats’ calls to reject future campaign help from the NRSC.

FDIC

Regulators propose securities crackdown

Federal banking regulators have proposed stricter rules for asset-backed securities, the bundles of loans that helped spark the market collapse in 2008 and the near-meltdown of the financial system.

A divided board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. voted 3-2 Tuesday to propose new disclosure, risk-holding and other requirements for banks for asset-backed securities.

The securities, which are packaged loans of mortgages, credit cards or auto loans, would have to meet the new requirements so the government wouldn’t seize them if the bank failed.

Banks would be required in most cases to hold at least 5 percent of the securities on their own books. The idea is that banks with such exposure to risk would be more careful about properly screening borrowers.

SEC

Sharp stock sell-off still a mystery

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission told a congressional panel Tuesday that regulators need more time to figure out what caused last week’s stock market plunge.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said her agency has yet to pinpoint the reason for the sell-off that sent the Dow Jones industrial average falling nearly 1,000 points in less than a half-hour.

“We will move as quickly as we can, but I can’t give you a final date,” Ms. Schapiro said at a hearing examining the historic market drop.

Some causes have been ruled out, she said. The agency’s review found no evidence of terrorist activity or computer hacking. There also was no evidence “that this was done in any kind of a malicious way,” Ms. Schapiro said.

Ms. Schapiro said that establishing a stronger system for slowing trading during periods of high volatility would help.

Six major U.S. securities exchanges on Monday agreed in principle to a uniform system of “circuit breakers” that could slow trading during sharp market swings. Most of the 50 U.S. exchanges regulate themselves and design their own tools for slowing or halting trading.