WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The FBI and federal prosecutors are investigating how some $600 million of MF Global customers’ money has gone missing, CNN learned Tuesday from sources close to the probe.

The investigation of MF Global (MF) is being conducted by the FBI and other federal regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

This past weekend, executives at MF Global had been scrambling to sell the firm to Interactive Brokers, but the missing money cost the firm the deal and forced it into bankruptcy, regulators said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Craig Donohue, CEO of CME Group (CME), the operator of the nation’s largest commodity exchanges, told analysts that his firm has determined MF Global had broken government and CME rules requiring it to keep its customers’ funds separate from the firm’s assets.

CHICAGO — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will help raise money for President Barack Obama’s re-election effort at a $35,800-a-ticket fundraiser next month in Chicago, an Obama campaign official said on Wednesday.

Buffett will attend the October 27 event at a private home on Chicago’s North Shore that is expected to include major donors to Obama’s 2008 presidential run. The Democratic president, who is not expected to attend, is running for re-election in 2012.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Donald Trump used a trip to Scotland on Friday to give his strongest hint yet that he may run for president in 2012.

After picking up an honorary degree from a Scottish university, the American property tycoon told journalists his country needs better leadership and he might run against President Barack Obama.

“A lot of people have asked me to do it and until recently I would have no interest,” he said.

Trump said Obama was “having a very hard time.”

It’s not just the 4th of July holiday that’s raising memories of revolution. The idea of active anti-government resistance, once the province of the fringe or a mere historical parable, is now a common component of the national discourse. If all the voices actively calling for or raising the specter of insurrection since Obama’s election in 2008 were to have their way, there would be a logjam of militias on the White House lawn. Three-cornered hats and muskets would sell out in minutes. They’d have to institute a ticket system. One pitchfork jab per man, woman, or child.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Lawmakers are closing in on melding two different versions of Wall Street reform.

Late Thursday evening, lawmakers had just started to tackle one of the last and more controversial issues: Cracking down on the big banks’ investment activities and risky bets.

Washington (CNN) — Federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from companies they monitored, the Interior Department’s inspector general concluded in a report released Wednesday.

In one case, an inspector in the Minerals Management Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, conducted inspections of four offshore platforms while negotiating a job with the company, the report states. Others let oil and gas company workers fill out their inspection forms in pencil, with the inspectors writing over those entries in ink before turning them in.

WASHINGTON – The financial system has stabilized but needs new regulations to curtail behavior and practices that led to the meltdown that brought Wall Street to the brink of collapse, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night in a prime-time press conference at the White House.

The president specifically mentioned regulatory changes that would require shareholders to have nonbinding votes on executive compensation packages. He said the government could impose new fees on institutions that engage in what he called “far-out transactions.”