by Laura Conaway

Bernie Madoff was "astonished" that investigators with the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to uncover his Ponzi scheme after questioning him in 2006, the agency's watchdog reports.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is watching the unraveling of that $1 trillion global economic rescue package he brokered at the April meeting of the G20. Countries like Germany are worried that the stimulus plan has them taking on too much debt and risking inflation. Some $200 billion of the agreed-upon money still hasn't come in, including $75 billion pledged by the European Union.

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has voted to keep the benchmark interest rate at a record low 1 percent, a sign that it's less worried about inflation than it is about getting a recovery going.

HMOs in California deny one in every five patient claims, an analysis shows.

Meanwhile, part of the reason it's so hard to find work these days is that older people have lost the financial means to retire and they're hanging on to their jobs longer.