Some of the more interesting and important items for February 25th :

• Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Seek $3.1 Billion Amid Improved Earnings – Bloomberg – Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance companies operating under U.S. conservatorship, requested another $3.1 billion in Treasury Department aid as they reported quarterly earnings reflecting improving health.
• Rift Opens Over Budget at CFTC – WSJ.com – The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has halted development of a technology program used to flag suspicious trading because of an $11 million cut in its technology budget, increasing rancor within the small agency about how it should spend its money.
• Fannie Mae posts $2.1B loss for Q4 – Yahoo! Finance – Government-controlled mortgage buyer Fannie Mae has posted a narrower loss of $2.1 billion for the October-December quarter of last year, and asked for an additional $2.6 billion in federal aid.<br />
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  The new request is slightly more than the $2.5 billion it sought in the July-September quarter. The mortgage buyer also reported a $21.7 billion loss for all of 2010.
• U.K. Court Orders Assange Extradited – WSJ.com – A U.K. court ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be extradited to Sweden to face questioning about sexual-assault allegations, dealing a serious blow to the document-leaking site and its founder.
• Rising Oil Prices Raise the Specter of a Double Dip – WSJ.com – A sustained and significant rise in oil prices could derail the U.S. economic recovery by stirring inflation and putting the brakes on spending.