The U.S. Park Police couldn’t account for hundreds of military-style weapons in its inventory, a new inspector general report found, leaving the agency’s firearms vulnerable to “theft or misuse.”
The investigation found approximately 1,400 weapons, including handguns, rifles and shotguns missing from inventory lists. In one instance, an officer working at President Obama’s January inauguration kept a semiautomatic rifle and stored it at home without permission.
As comforting as that is, this isn’t the first time the Park Police have had problems keeping tabs on its weapons. The IG said it found similar problems at the agency in 2009 and 2011, and they have yet to be resolved. -- See the report here
SENATE PASSES IMMIGRATION REFORM With a bipartisan vote of 68 to 32, the Senate approved the “Gang of Eight’s” bill that provides a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, dramatically boost border security, and creates a new work-visa program for future immigrants. The legislation, however, is considered dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House. “Senate’s final vote may well be a Pyrrhic victory – one emblematic of the continued dysfunction and partisan gridlock of a Congress that can barely claim the approval of one in ten Americans,” The Fiscal Times’ Eric Pianin writes. Read more at The Fiscal Times
CONGRESS MISSES DEADLINE, FLUNKS STUDENT LOANS The Senate packed up and left town Thursday without reaching a deal on student loans. That means that after July 1, students taking out new subsidized Stafford student loans will pay a 6.8 percent interest rate instead of the current 3.4 percent rate, unless lawmakers fix the rates retroactively when they return after the July 4th recess. However, as The Fiscal Times’ Beth Braverman points out, “focusing solely on that rate, which will ultimately have little impact on students’ ability to make their payments after graduation, ignores the bigger issues of soaring tuition and record increases in the amount of financial assistance students are borrowing.” - Read more at The Fiscal Times
FED: IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE “The economy is the victim of a little misunderstanding,” the New York Times’ Binyamin Applebaum writes, referring to the markets’ panicked reaction over Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s announcement last week. The reaction from investors forced the Fed into damage control mode this week. Fed members across the country assured markets that Bernanke’s announcement did not signal the end of the Fed’s easy money policy. - Read more at The New York Times
WHITE HOUSE MAKES ITS FED SHORT LIST The Obama administration is cobbling together its short list of candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he steps down in January. Though the search is still in its early stages, here’s a list of possible contenders: Read more at The Fiscal Times
NYT WILL TAKE A BATH ON SALE OF BOSTON GLOBE The New York Times Co. is expected to sell the Boston Globe for a tenth of the $1.1 billion it paid for the paper in 1993, a sign that the Times really are a changing for the newspaper industry. According to Bloomberg, the bids are set to be in the range of $100 million, and potential buyers include Rick Daniels, a former president of the Globe, and former Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin. - Read more at Reuters
