Your customized headlines for Fri, Apr 13, 2012

More than 130 years after the first residential phone line was installed, telecom companies are pressing to be freed from the obligation of providing low-cost fixed-line telephone service to homes, a move critics say will leave Americans with less reliable or more expensive options.

The severe fiscal problems that crippled state budgets and sparked brutal political battles in the wake of the recession are easing, as state tax revenue rose substantially last year, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday proposed reversing a ban on exorbitant credit card sign-up fees, frustrating consumer groups and raising questions about the scope of the agency's authority.

A trustee probing the collapse of the MF Global brokerage firm said Thursday that "certain responsible individuals" at the firm could be accused of violating the law.

The trustee, James W. Giddens, has concluded that "there are claims he may assert" against insiders at the firm and its parent company, according to a statement issued by his office. The statment did not name any of the suspected offenders.

Google shares were up 2.4 percent in after hours trading following the company's Thursday report that its revenue climbed 24 percent to $10 billion, beating analyst estimates. Net income for the quarter was $2.89 billion, up $1.8 billion from the same period last year.

The severe fiscal problems that crippled state budgets and sparked brutal political battles in the wake of the recession are easing, as state tax revenue rose substantially last year, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

— Is Facebook making us lonelier?

— Alec MacGillis is truly outraged at a wave of fake umbrage.

— Meanwhile, Ann Romney was talked about a lot on Twitter today — twice as much as Justin Bieber.

— Robert Caro "now spending more time writing the years of Lyndon Johnson than Johnson spent living them."

Quite valuable. Nate Berg writes up a new study (pdf) for the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that urban trees in Tennessee alone provide $638 million in net benefits each year. That's $2.25 per tree:

Here's something odd: There's nothing on Mitt Romney's Web site about the sixth anniversary of Romneycare. No news releases. No blog posts. Nothing.

And yet, Romneycare is doing pretty well. As you can see in Sarah's charts, it's covered about 95 percent of Massachusetts adults. Premiums are growing more slowly than the national average in both the employer and individual markets. And the law is, perhaps most importantly, very popular in Massachusetts.