Boring but Important
Bush lawyers cleared 
A Justice Department ethics inquiry has concluded that the Bush administration lawyers who drafted the “torture memos” will not face sanctions for professional misconduct.
AIG investigation
An independent investigator is trying to determine if the New York Federal Reserve improperly kept to itself details about its bailout of insurance giant AIG.
FBI illegally snooped
According to The Washington Post, the FBI illegally gathered records of more than 2,000 domestic telephone calls between 2002 and 2006.
More war funding
President Obama plans to ask Congress for $33 billion in additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
Health-care politics
Democratic leaders began meeting with President Obama to reconcile the House and Senate health-care bills, prompting GOP criticism that the normal conference committee process had been bypassed.
E-mail haul
Two watchdog groups that sued the Bush administration over 22 million missing e-mails said computer technicians have found or reconstructed the documents and are settling their lawsuit.
Bailout results
While the Troubled Asset Relief Program calmed Wall Street and prevented “an economic panic,” it did not slow home foreclosures, ease the credit crunch, or shore up small banks.
Disclosures delayed
Millions of intelligence documents scheduled for release will remain classified because some agencies failed to review the material in time and others are resisting disclosure.
Vulnerable air cargo
A government watchdog says the Transportation Security Administration is failing to ensure the security of boxed cargo in passenger planes.
Warning on Medicare
A plan to cut future Medicare spending would sharply curtail benefits for some senior citizens and could hamper access to health care for others.
Blackwater bribes?
Top executives at Blackwater apparently approved secret payoffs to buy the silence of Iraqi officials after the firm’s guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians.
Ethics disclosure
More than 30 members of Congress are being scrutinized for possible ethics violations.
Giant rocket launched
NASA launched one of the world’s tallest rockets into space in a key test of the vehicle slated to return astronauts to the moon.
Body armor problems
The Army made serious errors when testing its newest type of body armor and the Pentagon said it would shelve the 240,000 plates it has already ordered.
A bigger bunker buster
The Pentagon has fast-tracked production of its largest non-nuclear bomb, a 30,000-pound model designed to destroy underground weapons bunkers.
Health-care moves
The Senate Finance Committee will delay its vote on health-care legislation until next week, while it awaits an analysis of the bill’s cost from the Congressional Budget Office.
Help for local housing
The Obama administration plans to commit as much as $35 billion to help cash-strapped state and local housing-finance agencies provide mortgages to low- and middle-income home buyers.
Border fence problems
The 600-mile-long fence being built along the U.S.-Mexico border is seven years behind schedule, millions of dollars over budget, and will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion to maintain during the next 20 years.
Flu vaccine is coming
A national vaccination program to prevent swine flu will begin in three weeks.
White House opens logs
The Obama administration announced that it will publish logs of visitors to the White House, though certain “sensitive” visits would remain secret.
