Your customized headlines for Fri, Jul 13, 2012

While president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy F. Geithner pressed British regulators to reform the way a critical global benchmark called the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, is calculated, according to a June 1, 2008, e-mail obtained by The Washington Post.

In one of the largest fair-
lending payouts in history, Wells Fargo agreed on Thursday to spend at least $175 million to settle federal accusations that it steered black and Latino borrowers into high-cost loans and charged them excessive fees.

Congress is poised to scrap funding for the only program that consistently tests select vegetables and fruit for pathogens — an initiative that's led to about 30 recalls since 2009.

The Agriculture Department, which runs the Microbiological Data Program, says getting rid of it is a necessary belt-tightening measure during tough fiscal times. USDA officials have suggested that the initiative would be a better fit for the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates vegetables and fruits. But that agency lacks the money needed to marshal more inspectors, and there's no sign that the program will be moved there.

Mortgage rates continued their plummet to historic lows, according to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac.

The 30-year fixed-rate average sank to a record-low 3.56 percent, down from 3.62 percent last week and 4.51 percent a year ago. The 30-year rate has lingered below 4 percent for 16 consecutive weeks.

Yahoo is looking into a major hack that slurped up the usernames and passwords of 450,000 accounts Wednesday.

According to the security firm TrustedSec, a hacking group known as D33D Company picked up the passwords from Yahoo Voices, the Sunnyvale, Calif.,-based company's crowd-sourced publishing platform. Yahoo Voices, formerly known as Associated Content, invites users to submit articles through the Yahoo Contributor Network.