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The political action committees of banks, investment firms and real estate interests — all of which are regulated by Frank’s committee — donated more than $106,000 to the Massachusetts Democrat from Aug. 1 to mid-October, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign-finance data shows.

The donations included $5,000 on Oct. 13 from the political committee of Bank of America, which received $45 billion in federal bailout funds.

As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank oversaw billions in bailout money in the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program and helped write legislation signed by President Obama this year that imposed rules on nearly every part of the financial industry.

On Nov. 2, Frank beat Republican Sean Bielat by 10 percentage points, his closest margin of victory in years. Two years earlier, Frank won re-election by 43 percentage points.

Overall, Frank received more campaign money from the securities industry than any other sector, a total of $265,000 through mid-October, according to the most recent campaign reports analyzed by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. That’s an uptick from Wall Street contributions to Frank in the 2008 election. Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, the committee’s top Republican who is in line to become chairman in January, received $132,000 from the securities industry, the center’s data show. He had no Democratic opposition in this year’s election.

Mary Boyle of the congressional watchdog group Common Cause said last-minute donations to vulnerable incumbents raise questions. “Are you beholden to the public and your constituents or to the donors who just saved your job?” she said. “We have a huge concern that … the public interest takes a back seat.”

Frank spokesman Harry Gural said the 15-term congressman is “absolutely not” influenced by donations. “He doesn’t pay close attention to who gives what.” Gural called fundraising a “necessary evil” for lawmakers.

“Everyone hates it,” he said. Frank “doesn’t like it either.”

Three other committee chairmen also raised sizable contributions from political action committees and lost their seats in this month’s Republican landslide that saw Democratic stalwarts and newcomers alike tossed out of the House.

Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar, chairman of the transportation committee; Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; and South Carolina Rep. John Spratt, who oversees the House budget panel, all received far more political action committee contributions than their Republican challengers.

Oberstar, an 18-term Minnesota congressman, raised more than five times the campaign money collected by Republican Chip Cravaack, who ousted Oberstar by a narrow margin. More than half of Oberstar’s money came from political action committees, compared with fewer than $1 out of every $10 that went to Cravaack.

“It helps to have seniority and the chairmanship because it makes fundraising easier,” said Oberstar spokesman John Schadl. “But, ultimately, donors don’t vote. … Elections are determined by people showing up at the polls, not campaign contributions.”

Last-minute donors to Oberstar included the political action committee of the American Association of Airport Executives, which contributed a $1,000 check Oct. 9, federal records show.

The association sent in the check after seeing poll numbers that showed Oberstar faced trouble, said Todd Hauptli, the airport group’s senior executive vice president. He called Oberstar’s defeat a “loss for the country” of someone who deeply “understands the critical role transportation infrastructure plays in our economy.”

Outside interests also spent heavily in the Frank and Oberstar races.

Conservative groups spent more than $200,000 on advertising and other independent campaign activity to target Frank, campaign records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Frank chipped in a $200,000 personal loan to his campaign to combat the outside spending, Gural said.

Early on, Frank had said he would not accept campaign money from the top 10 recipients of the government Troubled Asset Relief Program, including Bank of America, or their executives. Once the bank repaid the government in December 2009, “that restriction was lifted,” Gural said.

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said the bank has traditionally supported Frank. “He’s chairman of a key committee that matters to the bank and matters to our customers,” she said.

China complained Thursday that it was being criticized for proposing a return to six-party talks to defuse the tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“It seems that some people think it’s reasonable to brandish weapons while criticizing China for promoting dialogue as the host of the six-party talks — do you think it’s fair?” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

On Wednesday, America’s top military officer had called China’s offer of talks an inadequate response to the threat posed by North Korea.

“Beijing’s call for consultations will not be a substitute for action,” said Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He called on China to take action against North Korea because it has the best leverage to stop the rogue nation’s “reckless behavior.”

Four South Koreans were killed by North Korean shelling on November 23, Yonhap reported officials as saying.

North Korea has said the South provoked the attack, which also left 18 people injured, because shells from a South Korean military drill landed in the North’s waters.

As North Korea’s largest trading partner and strongest ally, China has been urged by the international community to confront the crisis.

China reacted to the increased tensions after the artillery shelling by urging a return to the six-party talks that include North Korea, South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

“I want to add that the emergency consultation by the heads of delegation of six-party talks is not a formal round of talks,” Jiang said Thursday. “So it shouldn’t be a difficult decision for relevant parties. Our purpose for such a proposal is to have relevant parties sit down and exchange views on major issues of concern to ease the tensions on the peninsula.

“We need to start talking before we can see any positive results and talking is the only way to possibly resolve problems.”

South Korea has said it doesn’t think the time is right for a resumption of the six-party talks, but promised it would “bear in mind” the Chinese proposal.

The first soldier to face a court martial in connection with alleged sport killings of Afghan citizens pleaded guilty to four of five charges against him Wednesday and was sentenced to nine months in military confinement.

Staff Sgt. Robert G. Stevens was also reduced in rank to private — the lowest grade in the Army — and ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances during his imprisonment.

The investigating officer, Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks, accepted Stevens’ plea and imposed sentence Wednesday night.

Stevens had asked the court to allow him to stay in the Army; the prosecution had asked for a dishonorable discharge.

Stevens is one of seven soldiers “facing charges of serious misconduct while deployed in Afghanistan,” the Army said in a statement.

Earlier hearings and court filings painted a picture of a group of soldiers gone rogue, accused of killing civilians, covering up the murders and keeping body parts as war trophies. Some of the men also are said to have taken pictures of themselves posing with dead civilians.

Stevens is one of 12 soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord facing charges in the case. Five of them are accused of murdering Afghan civilians. Authorities say the killings took place at or near Forward Operating Base Ramrod in southern Afghanistan’s volatile Kandahar Province.

According to investigative documents made available to CNN, one of the men collected human fingers from the victims.

Stevens, 25, faced five charges and waived his right to an earlier hearing to determine whether his case would proceed to court martial. The soldier served in Afghanistan as a medic. It was his first deployment, he said Wednesday.

The nine-month imprisonment — significantly lighter than the 27-year sentence Stevens initially faced — came after Stevens accepted a plea deal in which he agreed to cooperate with the prosecution in the case.

Stevens’ attorneys pleaded not guilty on the charge of conspiring to commit aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon on three Afghan men.

They pleaded guilty for the soldier on charges of lying to investigators about being fired on and having a grenade thrown at his vehicle, shooting “in the direction of” two Afghan men, throwing a grenade from his vehicle while there was no threat to him or other soldiers, and not accounting for/disposing of the grenade properly.

Prior to sentencing, Stevens addressed the court for nearly an hour, discussing a tough childhood and how serving in the Army gave his life focus.

Stevens apologized for faking an enemy grenade attack on fellow soldiers and shooting near Afghan civilians.

“I did it, I screwed up, I didn’t want to hurt anybody, I didn’t want to scare anybody,” he told the court. “I want to make up for the things I have done in Afghanistan, show people I am still a moral person, still a moral soldier.”

During his testimony earlier Wednesday, Stevens told the court that Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, accused of being the ringleader behind the killings, provided him with the grenade he is charged with throwing.

Gibbs gave him the grenade wrapped in a sock inside a box in December 2009, Stevens testified.

“Paranoid” that he would be caught with the grenade, Stevens said, he threw it from the back of a truck convoy he was riding in one night months later.

“There’s a grenade!” Stevens yelled. “Let’s go get him!” Then he fired several rounds, he said, as if the convoy were under attack.

Stevens said he did not believe that any Afghans were injured by his actions.

During his testimony, he said he could have easily hurt his fellow soldiers.

“It was definitely reckless,” he said. “I was in the back of the vehicle going 30 or 40 mph. I could have mishandled it.”

Stevens also testified that in March, he and Gibbs were on patrol with five other soldiers in Kandahar when they spotted two Afghan farmers. One of the men carried a shovel, he said.

“They were not posing any threat to us,” Stevens testified. According to Stevens, Gibbs said the men were carrying an rocket-propelled grenade launcher and ordered the soldiers to shoot them. Stevens told the court he intentionally shot 75 yards away from the Afghans, who took cover.

“Sgt. Gibbs said we needed to work on our accuracy,” Stevens testified, “because it did not appear that we hit anyone.”

During testimony from witnesses, Maj. Samuel Linn testified by telephone from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, that the grenade incident led to the false belief that soldiers had come under attack from enemy forces.

Fourteen soldiers were awarded Combat Infantry Badges, which were rescinded once officials learned that Stevens had thrown the grenade, Linn said.

News that a fellow soldier threw the grenade caused morale among many of the men to fall, Linn testified. Linn said he would not choose to serve with Stevens again.

But several other trial witnesses who had been in Afghanistan with Stevens said they would go back to war with him.

“I know that ‘Doc” Stevens got my back,” Sgt. Tim Schmidt said while appearing to fight back tears. “He made a mistake but he’s a damn fine man.”

Iranian officials, outraged over attacks against two nuclear scientists, say they suspect Israel and Western countries were responsible for incidents that Iran continues to investigate.

“The main suspects are those Western countries that claim to advocate human rights but use it as a political tool to exert pressure on other countries,” said Ramin Mehmanparast, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, according to Iran’s state-run Press TV. “All those countries that are threatening the Islamic Republic of Iran … are the main suspects behind such incidents.”

Assailants on motorcycles attached bombs to cars carrying Majid Shahriyari and Fereydoun Abbasi on Monday. Shahriyari died but Abbasi and his wife escaped with minor injuries. Shahriyari’s wife and driver were injured.

The two were nuclear physics professors at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a non-profit group in the United States focused on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, also identified the two as nuclear scientists.

Both were members of the Basij, Iran’s volunteer paramilitary group, semi-official Fars news agency said.

Iranian lawmakers condemned the attack Tuesday and urged police to identify the attackers. On Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed Israel and Western powers.

Mehmanparast didn’t rule out a link between the attacks and remarks from the head of the British intelligence agency MI6 “about challenging Iran’s civilian nuclear program,” Press TV reported.

Thousands of students rallied at the school Tuesday and chanted slogans against the United States, Israel and Britain. They demanded the attackers be brought to justice.

Asked about the attacks, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that “all I can say is we decry acts of terrorism wherever they occur, and beyond that, we do not have any information on what happened.”

A United Nations resolution cited Abbasi as a “nuclear scientist,” the state-run Press TV said. That suggests that the “perpetrators behind the assassination could be traced through those who included the professor’s name in the U.N. resolution,” Press TV said.

The resolution, from March 2007, identifies Abbasi as one of several people “involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities” in Iran. It does not call him a “nuclear scientist” but describes him as a scientist for the Senior Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics who has links to the Institute of Applied Physics.

Foad Izadi, a lecturer at the University, told Press TV on Monday that the resolution was a “hit list.”

“Those atomic physics professors were very active in Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy [program] … during the past seven to eight years. … The United States and the Zionist regime [Israel] have been trying different methods to stop Iran’s peaceful nuclear program,” Izadi said.

The European Union froze Abbasi’s assets last month as it imposed additional sanctions on Iran.

The U.N. resolution says Abbasi worked closely with another scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, who led the Physics Research Center in Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency had sought to interview Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, but Iran declined to allow that, the resolution says.

A separate bomb attack in Tehran in January killed “an Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist” identified as Massoud Ali Mohammadi, Fars news agency said.

The attacks come amid international worry over Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

U.S. diplomatic documents leaked by WikiLeaks indicate that along with Western nations and Israel, Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, also are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program.

There have been efforts by international powers to head off what many believe is Iran’s work to develop nuclear weaponry.

Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran has agreed to another round of nuclear talks with the United States and other nations.

A spokeswoman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said the talks will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday and Tuesday of next week, Press TV said.