The Chevrolet Volt got a clean bill of health, last Friday, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closing its investigation into potential problems with the plug-in hybrid’s battery pack – but that doesn’t mean General Motors’ problems with the Volt are over, as a Congressional hearing is scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

The Volt controversy stems from a fire that occurred last spring, weeks after one of the battery cars went through a federal crash test. A second Volt battery pack caught fire after being tested in November. That triggered an investigation by the NHTSA – as well as hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, California Republican and committee chairman Darryl Issa contending that the government agency initially tried to cover up the original fire.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Is insider trading by members of Congress legal? How common is it? What’s being done about it?

Congress itself is tackling those questions right now following an explosive report on 60 Minutes last month.

The program accused House leaders John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, as well Spencer Bachus, a key House lawmaker on financial issues, of making investments based on confidential knowledge gained over the course of their work.

All three have rejected the allegations, but that hasn’t stopped the issue from gaining steam over the past few weeks.

Now, both houses of Congress have taken up versions of a bill called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — the “STOCK Act” — that would explicitly outlaw the practice.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The rift between Verizon and its 45,000 striking employees grew wider on Friday, after the telecommunications giant called in the FBI to investigate allegations of sabotage.

Verizon spokesman Rich Young said more than 90 acts of sabotage have taken place since the strike began on Sunday. Saboteurs have cut phone lines, affecting the service of several thousand customers primarily in New York and New Jersey but also in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Acts of sabotage are hardly uncommon in contentious labor strifes, but Young said that these acts “cross the line.” A police station and a hospital were among those that lost service as a result of the sabotage, he said.

Full Story at Verizon claims sabotage, calls cops on strikers – Aug. 12, 2011

Verizon claims sabotage, calls cops on strikers

Aviation regulators were discussing Sunday whether to seek court approval to extend the grounding of Tiger Airways Australia, as the airline vowed to fix its problems and get back in the air.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) on Saturday suspended all the budget carrier’s domestic services as they posed a “serious and imminent risk to air safety”.

The decision — the first grounding of an entire fleet in Australian aviation history — followed a series of incidents that raised questions about its airworthiness.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Watch out millionaires: The IRS is coming for you.

Especially if you make more than $10 million. Audits of these folks surged 73% last year, hitting more than 18% of taxpayers in the highest income bracket, according to recently released statistics from the IRS.

DALLAS – Alaska Airlines and its Horizon Air affiliate canceled 95 flights Saturday because a computer system used for flight planning failed.

The outage lasted intermittently for about seven hours and resulted in the two airlines scrapping about 12 percent of their combined schedule before technicians fixed the system, which returned at 10 a.m. Pacific time.

Company spokesman Paul McElroy said many other flights were delayed, and customers had trouble getting flight-status updates on the airlines’ website because of the outage.

The former Guns N’ Roses bass player says years of drug and alcohol abuse caused the rupture, which left him sidelined for months. As he recovered from the incident at home and sobered up, he found himself with hours of free time and little to do. McKagan wandered into his basement one day and came across a file cabinet containing GnR’s financials from the previous six years. While thumbing through the reports, he realized he had no idea what they meant. Then, he panicked.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Thursday’s $100 million settlement between Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission was a reminder that the government is going after tech’s bad boys — and Intel is likely next on the feds’ list.

According to the SEC’s complaint against Dell, Intel paid the computer maker rebates as part of a deal in which Dell agreed not use microchips manufactured by Intel’s rival AMD. We’re not talking small change: The payments totaled $4.3 billion between 2003 and 2006.

WASHINGTON — A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems.

In the survey, commissioned by the rig’s owner, Transocean, workers said that company plans were not carried out properly and that they “often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday that it has received a grand jury subpoena and is cooperating with a federal investigation stemming from multiple recalls of its popular non-prescription drugs.

The company, which also reported its quarterly results, said it was addressing a variety of legal actions, including lawsuits against its McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit, ongoing investigations into the recalls and a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — BP knew of problems with an offshore well hours before it exploded last month, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a House committee chairman said Wednesday.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the oil company told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight privately that the well failed a key pressure test just hours before it exploded on April 20.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Top Goldman Sachs representatives — including CEO Lloyd Blankfein — attempted to deflect criticism Tuesday as they faced a blistering cross-examination from lawmakers about the firm’s role in the financial crisis.

For more than ten hours, members of a Senate panel skewered current and former executives at Wall Street’s top firm with pointed questions and criticisms in an effort to understand how Goldman had positioned itself just as the nation’s housing market started to come unraveled in 2007.