Wednesday Federal Afternoon Newscast

It doesn’t happen often, but a sitting member of Congress is eyeing the top spot at the Government Accountability Office. The Hill reports that Pennsylvania Republican Todd Platts is interviewing for the position of comptroller general of the United States. He is one of 18 candidates, including acting comptroller general Gene Dodaro, who has held that position since March of last year. However, a sitting president has never chosen someone from inside the agency.

Congress has passed just five of twelve 2010 spending bills. The remaining seven are not expected to pass individually, and will probably be put into an omnibus bill. Because we’re already in November, and lawmakers take a Thanksgiving break, the time-squeeze has already begun. The current continuing resolution keeps the federal government running until December 18th.

To honor America’s service men and women, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced that areas managed by the department will not charge entrance fees on Wednesday, November 11. Visitors to public recreation lands managed by the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation are invited to take a day to honor and reflect on what our service men and women have done to maintain our freedom and keep peace around the world, Salazar said. “The Department of the Interior is honored to offer this fee free day to thank our nation’s service men and women. The sacrifices and achievements of the brave men and women of our armed forces can never be understated. We invite all of our visitors to enjoy this fee free day and take time out on this national holiday to remember our service men and women who are currently serving overseas in harm’s way.” The Department of Agriculture also is waiving entrance fees at its national forests.

The American Federation of Government Employees has some concerns with how the Social Security Administration is handling H1N1 preparation. The union has sent a letter to agency Administator Michael Astrue. The union says that Social Security has provided its workers with tissues and hand sanitizer, and will provide face masks if employees ask for one. But they claim the agency will not acknowledge that H1N1 is a – in their words – serious communicable disease. Federal News Radio is reaching out to both the union and the social security administration for more.

Veterans Affairs continues to work on how to improve processing times for veterans’ disability claims. So, they’ve brought in Craig Newmark, the founder of “craigslist,” to serve on the panel that will review and evaluate ideas to help them in the process. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki says they want to improve processing times and provide more transparency for vets.

A computer glitch which led to problems with traffic lights in Montgomery County this morning will apparently not be fixed in time for the afternoon commute. A county police spokeswoman says officers will be sent to intersections around the county to help direct traffic. Because of the problem with a central computer early this morning, traffic signals stayed in their non-peak mode and did not switch into the rush hour mode as they should. That led to huge backups this morning as many lights stayed green for too long.

Metro says some of its communication services are back up after an outage to an internal power distribution unit took the Metro data center computer out of commission early this morning, causing several services to shut down. The transit system’s Web site and customer call center are online again. Fare boxes are now working on Metrobuses and MetroAccess. Other services, such as Metro rail station public address systems, remain out of service as technicians work to fix the glitch.

An Italian judge says he has convicted 23 Americans in absentia of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in a CIA extraordinary rendition. Twenty-two of the convicted Americans were immediately sentenced to five years in jail at the end of the nearly three-year trial. The other convicted American, Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady, was given the stiffest sentence, eight years in prison. The State Department says it is disappointed in the verdict, but wouldn’t comment further.

The National Zoo’s elderly male sloth bear has died after a 48-hour illness. On Monday morning, the sloth – named Merlin – underwent a routine physical exam but his anesthetic recovery was prolonged. Due to concerns about the recovery time, and his previous medical history of a twisted stomach, the animal care team determined he required surgery to correct a partially twisted spleen. After the procedure, Merlin showed signs of wakefulness, but never fully recovered. The bear was attended by staff who provided intensive care continuously for two days, until he passed away this morning. Merlin was born at the National Zoo in December 1981. He sired a total of seven cubs.

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