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When banks in Charlotte and San Francisco merged in 1998, creating Bank of America with headquarters in Charlotte, the mayor of San Francisco called the merger “an economic crisis.”

Here are the Observer's recommendations for attorney general, state auditor and agriculture commissioner. We will endorse candidates in the remaining four Council of State races on Saturday.

To ask God to silence any candidate is chilling. To offer such a prayer about Barack Obama, whom many worry is at heightened risk of assassination because of his race, is truly stunning.

Our smartest economists are scratching their heads – and the Observer asks

So Wachovia was going to provide a junket for some of its executives

If you think this current $700 billion financial bailout is troubling, you haven't seen anything yet. It's just a warm-up act to what we face if Washington doesn't come to terms with Medicare's looming bankruptcy.

Libya has started making payments into a nearly $2 billion fund to compensate the families of American victims of Libyan-linked terror attacks in the 1980s, another step in the full normalization of long-strained ties between Washington and Tripoli, the State Department said Thursday.

NATO joined a growing international force to protect vessels off Somalia's perilous coast Thursday, sending military ships to the treacherous waters where pirates are negotiating the release of an arms-laden tanker.

More than 10,000 children remained hospitalized after being sickened in China's tainted milk scandal, eight of whom were in serious condition, officials said.