By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
Days before news broke this week that HSBC Holdings agreed to pay nearly $2 billion in fines to settle a federal money-laundering probe, a veteran Democratic senator disclosed selling off at least a quarter-million dollars worth of the company's stock, records show.
The U.S. electricity grid is dangerously vulnerable to sabotage by hackers, spies and terrorists, despite a seven-year effort to protect it from cyberattacks, senators and officials said Tuesday.
Four years ago, Heather Wilson gave up her House seat from New Mexico to make a run for a rare opening in the Senate. She lost in a bare-knuckled Republican primary. This year she has the luxury of sitting back as the Democratic successor to her House seat takes a similar gamble.
Ending a week that began with consensus but fractured into contention, the Senate voted Thursday to strengthen insider trading bans for its members, and in the process agreed to ban bonuses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives.
New light-bulb efficiency standards kicked in Sunday, despite a last-minute Republican move that prohibits the federal government from spending money on enforcement.
Anti-nuclear activists are lining up against legislation to create national parks at Los Alamos National Laboratory and two other sites where the world's first nuclear bombs were developed, calling the plan an expensive glorification of an ugly chapter in history.
The threat of wildfire reaching the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the town that surrounds it eased after crews made progress under cloud cover and rain, but concerns turned Friday to lands held sacred by Native American tribes as firefighters braced for a hot, dry weekend.
Climate change is likely to diminish already scarce water supplies in the Western United States, exacerbating problems for millions of water users in the West, according to a new government report.
Amid concerns that rising gas prices could derail the economic recovery, Democrats are calling on President Obama to tap the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The White House is praising a departing U.S. ambassador for supporting the administration and working closely with President Obama.
Hawaii Sen. Daniel K. Akaka said Wednesday he won't seek re-election next year, the fifth member of the Senate Democratic Caucus to decide not to face the voters in 2012.
Hawaii Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, 86, said Wednesday he won't seek re-election next year, the fifth member of the Senate Democratic Caucus to decide not to face the voters in 2012.
Just hours after House Republicans passed their bill late last week to cut $61 billion from 2010 spending, or what amounts to $100 billion below President Obama's original proposal, Senate Democrats countered with their ante — $41 billion short of Mr. Obama's budget, or essentially a straight spending freeze at the current fiscal year's levels.
Democrats put on a brave face after Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico announced Friday that he would leave office in 2012, but it's hard to see how his retirement contains any good news for the party.
!["Our on-again, off-again tax credits are no match for [overseas] competitors," Sen. Jeff Bingaman said. He also said that companies will relocate to places that are leading the way in alternative energy. (Associated Press)](http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/01/31/20110131-191826-pic-534351750_s101x67.jpg?3f8f75feaa16a88f2d94cdcab8953f23a5f589cd)
The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Monday that the crisis in oil markets sparked by Egypt's political unrest should not divert Congress from pursuing long-term strategies to develop more clean and renewable energy resources.
"He did not know about the settlement," Bingaman spokesman Jude McCartin wrote in an email asking about the lawmaker's stock sale.
The federal agency and the private council have been sparring over standards ever since, Mr. Bingaman said.
