News briefs for Friday, May 11

Biden pushes Obama to declare gay marriage support, then offers his apologies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sorry, Mr. President.

After nearly single-handedly pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the presidential campaign and inadvertently pressuring President Barack Obama to declare his support for same-sex unions, there was only one thing left for Vice President Joe Biden to do: apologize.

Biden’s mea culpa came Wednesday in the Oval Office, shortly before the president sat for a hastily arranged interview in which he told the American people that he now supported gay marriage.

The vice president expressed remorse and regret for declaring his support for same-sex unions ahead of Obama, said a person familiar with the exchange, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation. Obama accepted the apology, saying he knew Biden had only been speaking from the heart.

Biden’s apology followed days of frustration in the West Wing after the vice president went off script, something he had done plenty of times. Without White House approval, Biden declared on a Sunday talk show that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex married couples having the same rights as heterosexual married couples.

Obama heads for hard-hit Nevada in wake of Clooney fundraiser and gay marriage buzz

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Barack Obama is turning his attention back to the economy after a day spent raising millions of dollars for his campaign and riding a media wave on his newly declared support for same-sex marriage.

Obama was to promote housing policies to help homeowners avoid foreclosure in a quick visit Friday to struggling Nevada, which ranks second in the nation in foreclosed homes and has the highest unemployment in the country.

Obama won in Nevada in his 2008 presidential election. But the economy presents new challenges as well as an opportunity for his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

Four years ago, Nevada was economically reeling from the recession and Obama and union allies seized on the anxiety to mobilize voters and win the state. Today, the Nevada is still in dire straits and the economy belongs to the president.

Obama was stopping in Reno, looking to shore up his support and draw attention to housing proposals that he says Congress must pass to help homeowners struggling with their mortgages.

JPMorgan Chase acknowledges $2 billion trading loss and ’many errors’

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.

The company’s stock plunged almost 7 percent in after-hours trading after the loss was announced. Other bank stocks, including Citigroup and Bank of America, suffered heavy losses as well.

“The portfolio has proved to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than we thought,” CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters. “There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment.”

The trading loss is an embarrassment for a bank that came through the 2008 financial crisis in much better health than its peers. It kept clear of risky investments that hurt many other banks.

The loss came in a portfolio of the complex financial instruments known as derivatives, and in a division of JPMorgan designed to help control its exposure to risk in the financial markets and invest excess money in its corporate treasury.