AN INTERNET poker company that was blocked from operating in the US last spring as part of an online gambling crackdown was “not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme”, federal prosecutors have claimed.

NORMALLY the New York summer lingers like an unwanted late-night party straggler until just after the US Open champions are crowned in Queens.

A JUDGE agreed yesterday to free former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn from a New York City jail on the condition he post $1 million (almost €700,00) in bail and remain under house arrest, under the watch of armed guards, at a private apartment in Manhattan.

If your heart is weak and your boiling point strong be warned that Ferguson’s masterful, thoughtful and brilliantly researched look at how we were all driven to the bread line will leave you seething with understandable rage.

The United States has been “asleep at the switch” and a financial regulatory upgrade is needed in the wake of Bernard Madoff’s alleged $49.4bn (€34.5bn) fraud scheme and the $692bn (€484bn) Wall Street bailout, president-elect Barack Obama said today.