QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The IRS always claims to be short on resources. But it appears to have $70 million for union bonuses.”
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, criticizing an IRS plan to give money to employees despite a government order for agencies to cancel discretionary bonuses Article, this page
FBI uses drones in U.S., director says
WASHINGTON - The FBI uses drones in domestic surveillance operations in a “very, very minimal way,” Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Mueller, in Senate testimony, acknowledged for the first time that the FBI uses “very few” drones in a limited capacity for surveillance.
“It’s very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident when you need the capability,” Mueller said when asked about the bureau’s use of pilotless aircraft with surveillance capabilities. “It is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs.”
Mueller’s remarks about the FBI’s use of drones - and the regular use of the vehicles by other law enforcement agencies - come as lawmakers and civil-liberties groups are raising concerns about the reach of the government in the wake of the disclosure of two highly classified National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Bipartisan student-loan plan in works
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan compromise on student loans started to take shape in the Senate on Wednesday linking interest rates to the financial markets. If approved, it would prevent rates for new borrowing from doubling in coming days.
Students from lower-income families, who pay substantially lower interest rates than those more affluent, would see interest rates rise slightly to 3.8 percent on new subsidized Stafford loans.
Despite the increase, the rate is still lower than the 6.8 percent students would face if Congress doesn’t reach a deal by July 1 to prevent rates from doubling. The current rate is 3.4 percent
Rates for new loans would vary from year to year, according to the financial markets. But once students received a loan, the interest rate would be set for the life of that year’s loan.
Panel wraps up revamp of education bill
WASHINGTON - House Republicans on Wednesday finished their rewrite of former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, sending to their colleagues a bill that would strip Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his successors of power and give more authority to the states.
Members of the Republican-led House Education and the Workforce Committee scrapped vast pieces of the existing education law in favor of an alternative they branded the Student Success Act. The updated version would allow state and local school chiefs - not Washington - to decide if students are being well served.
The Democratic-led Senate education panel already finished work on its rewrite of the law. The Senate version also shifted responsibility away from the one-size-fits-all requirements of the existing No Child Left Behind Act and would allow state officials to write their own school improvement plans.
But the Senate version still gives the education secretary the authority to approve or reject plans.
No vote has been scheduled for the Senate proposal.
9/11-suspect hearing exclusions sought
NEW YORK - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused of masterminding the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon should be excluded from pretrial hearings when classified information is disclosed, a prosecutor told the judge Wednesday in the case in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
On the third day of hearings this week before the military tribunal, a government lawyer urged the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, to bar the five men from pretrial proceedings whenever classified material is discussed. That spurred a heated response from defense lawyers.
“Mr. Mohammed has the right to be present when we’re talking about matters that deal with his torture,” his lawyer, David Nevin, told Pohl.
In asking to exclude the accused plotters from hearings where confidential matters are discussed, Joanna Baltes, a prosecutor, said the government is “not suggesting” that they be excluded from the trial whenever such evidence is presented. Rather, she said, the government wants “protections” for classified information at the pretrial stage.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 06/20/2013