The U.S. Army has accused an American company based in Kuwait of paying nearly $300,000 in bribes to obtain military contracts.

According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Alabama, Lee Dynamics International was suspended from contracting services in July, after an investigation in which two Army officers admitted taking bribes.

Accredited Home Lenders, the troubled mortgage company with two former S&L regulators on its board, lost a key director this week.

A. Jay Meyerson, the former CEO of Aames Investment Corp., resigned effective immediately. Meyerson joined Accredited board’s last October, when Accredited acquired Aames.

Thursday, a day after Meyerson resigned, Lone Star Fund informed Accredited that it was lowering the price of its takeover offer to $8.50 a share. In June, Lone Star offered $15.10 a share.

The Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign announced yesterday that it would give to charity $23,000 received from Norman Hsu, a major Democratic supporter who has an outstanding arrest warrant for a 1991 fraud charge. Campaign officials pledged to review thousands of dollars in other donations from Hsu.

California authorities said Hsu left the state in 1992 after pleading no contest and agreeing to serve up to three years in prison for defrauding investors. Hsu now lives in New York, where he is in the apparel business. On campaign finance reports, he lists his companies as Next Components, Dilini Management, Cool Planets, NBT and others.

A voter turnout group backed by George Soros has been fined by the Federal Election Commission for improper fundraising in the 2004 election.

The now-inactive organization called America Coming Together agreed to pay a $775,000 penalty. According to the FEC announcement, the group failed to properly report expenditures to candidates and failed to meet federal guidelines for administrative expenses.

America Coming Together conducted a major get-out-the-vote campaign in 2004, in an effort to help elect John Kerry.

The Washington Post had a good profile yesterday of Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who is “facing his first big test as point man between the powerful global firms in the world’s financial capital and the policymakers who oversee them from Washington.”

The Post says Geithner is a strong crisis manager. During the turmoil in the debt markets, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. have been in touch with Geithner regularly.

While other funds struggle through the mortgage crisis, a hedge fund founded by former Harvard Management Co. CEO Jack R. Meyer is flourishing.

Meyer and former Harvard colleagues run Convexity Capital Management, which makes trading bets that benefit from volatility. The fund, started last year, had disappointing early results. But recent market swings have brought a turnaround.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under intense fire from both Democrats, resigned today.

Saying he had “lived the American dream,” Gonzales announced that he would leave office Sept. 17. He had received heated criticism for the firing of nine assistant U.S. attorneys, and for his congressional testimony about domestic surveillance programs.

President Bush said he had accepted the resignation reluctantly. Gonzales, he said, had been “dragged through the mud for political reasons.”

Andre Agassi has plenty to keep him occupied since his tearful farewell to tennis at last year’s U.S. Open.

Agassi is the founder of a charter school in his hometown Las Vegas and a charitable foundation headed by his long-time friend and agent, Perry Rogers.

The foundation board includes such luminaries as Elton John and Emeril Lagasse.

Florida investor Bruce Sherman finds himself in the midst of another media company buyout. This time it’s Hearst-Argyle Television, which received an offer from majority shareholder Hearst Corporation.

Hearst, a privately held publisher of newspapers, magazines and Internet properties, already owns more than 73 percent of the broadcaster’s shares. It is offering $600 million for the remainder.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, plagued by scandal and political missteps, is tapping the expertise of several seasoned political and financial leaders.

The New York Times reports that Spitzer has consulted with real estate developer Jerry I. Speyer, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and Abraham M. Lackman, a Republican who served as aide to Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.