By CHRIS SERRES, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Capt. Lyndsey Olson had little time to organize her personal finances during her year at the Joint Base Balad in Iraq, which was hit so often by mortar fire that soldiers called it "Mortaritaville."

But Olson claims that Citibank made a difficult situation worse by illegally altering terms of her student loan.

Plans by major banks to largely eliminate free checking accounts could push millions of American households outside of the traditional banking system, bankers and experts warn.

Dead men pay no bills, but their grieving families can. Collecting on those debts has become a lucrative specialty throughout the nation in the booming collections industry -- some are even sending sympathy cards.

Todd Murray recalls the exact moment when he decided to end his brief career as a debt collections attorney.

Attorney Pete Barry points expectantly at the video screen, drawing the attention of 16 attorneys in a hotel conference room who have come to learn his trade secrets.

On the screen, a debt collector with spiky hair is squirming, his eyes darting back and forth as Barry barrages him with questions.

Nine months ago, the Obama administration offered banks $75 billion in taxpayer money to rework troubled mortgages.

For more than a decade, the nation's payday lenders have battled the perception that they operate on the shadowy fringe of the mainstream financial system, outside the reach of government regulators and rules dictating prudent lending.

Now, payday lenders have a powerful new ally in their quest for respectability: big banks.

John Schafer wore a pained expression as he stepped back from the snack food display at a Minneapolis grocery store.
He held two bags of Old Dutch Puffcorn, each costing $2. Yet one weighed 10 ounces and the other 9 ounces.

MINNEAPOLIS -- For Jasmine Krebs of Minneapolis, the evening of Sept. 11 started out like any other.After finishing her homework and chatting on WeeWorld.com, a social-networking site for kids, the 11-year-old ran outside in her pajamas to look for a toy she left behind her family's backyard swimming pool.

Six Somali women claim they were ordered by the manager of a suburban Twin Cities food-processing plant to wear pants and shirts to work instead of their traditional Islamic clothing of loose-fitting skirts and scarves, says the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties group representing the women.