Leid Stories - 09/15/14

Detroit Bankruptcy Trial: Judge to Seal Creditor’s Sweet Deal

Independent’s Day?: Sen. Bernie Sanders ‘Thinking’ of Running’ for President

After calling a time-out Sept. 10 in Detroit’s bankruptcy trial so that bond insurer Syncora Guarantee, a major creditor and opponent of the city’s bankruptcy-exit plan, could come to settlement terms with the city, Judge Steven Rhodes is expected to sign off on a sweet deal Syncora landed over the weekend when court reconvenes today.

Another bond insurer, Financial Guaranty Insurance Co.—the largest creditor, with more than $1 billion owed—and more than 600 individuals are contending in court papers that the city’s plan is neither fair nor feasible.

Abayomi Azikiwe, who has been Leid Stories’ correspondent on Detroit’s bankruptcy, reports on Judge Rhodes’ decision on Syncora; whether FGIC, too, is in line for a similar sweet deal; and whether individual petitioners will get their day in court.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the longest-serving Independent in Congress in U.S. history, yesterday confirmed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday that he’s “thinking of running” for president in 2016. By the time the program aired, he’d made a two-day foray in Iowa—in Waterloo, Dubuque and Des Moines—“to find out what kind of support there is for a progressive agenda.”

Leid Stories explores with listeners their perceptions of the Democratic Socialist and the impact they think his candidacy could have—on the presidential race and on American political discourse.