Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The federal government is spending less and less on preventing wildfires even as the nation endures increasingly destructive blazes.

Federal prosecutors have secured new indictments against a former BP engineer and a former BP executive charged separately with obstructing investigations of the company's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Wednesday's indictment of former BP executive David Rainey adds language alleging that he knew of the pending congressional investigation he is charged with obstructing.

A suburban Chicago man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for binding and blindfolding two of his children in a Wal-Mart parking lot in eastern Kansas. 6News Lawrence (http://bit.ly/11ZU2Rg ) reports that 53-year-old Adolfo Gomez also was ordered during Wednesday's sentencing hearing in Douglas County District Court to serve two years of probation.

The Federal Reserve expects the U. S. unemployment rate to fall faster this year and next than it did in March.

It's maintaining its plan to keep short-term rates at record lows at least until unemployment reaches 6.5 percent.

A State Department official says the United States and Cuba have agreed to resume bilateral talks on migration issues next month, in the latest evidence of a thaw in chilly relations.

FBI Director Robert Mueller is cautioning Congress to give careful consideration before making any changes to the National Security Agency programs for mass collection of people's phone records and information from the Internet.

FBI Director Robert Mueller (MULL-er) says the law enforcement agency uses drones for surveillance but does so rarely.

Switzerland's lower house of parliament has for the second time rejected a government proposal on relaxing Swiss banking secrecy laws, a move that would have helped the country's banks avoid facing U. S. criminal charges for shielding tax cheats.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she now supports gay marriage, becoming the third Senate Republican to do so.

Unmanned aircraft have helped rescue stranded hikers, worked to contain wildfires and gathered data at nuclear accidents. One helped a Russian tanker find its way through Arctic ice to bring oil to a stranded Alaskan community.

Large-scale protests have engulfed Turkey and Brazil, which are thousands of miles apart, but share some traits such as being new democracies with a growing middle class. Here's a look at the protests in both countries, highlighting the similarities and differences in how they started and developed:

A new report says homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure must wait too long for their loan modification applications to be reviewed by some of the nation's top mortgage servicers. Such delays can plunge borrowers deeper in debt.

The FBI has spent this week digging up a field in suburban Detroit for the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared 38 years ago. He was last seen outside a restaurant about 20 miles from the digging site where he was to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain.

Shares of gene therapy developer Bluebird Bio Inc. are surging in their trading debut.

Country singer Slim Whitman has died at the age of 90 in Florida.

China and Vietnam agreed on Wednesday to set up a hotline to resolve fishing incidents in disputed South China Sea waters that have been a frequent source of tensions between the two ideological allies. The two countries' agriculture ministers signed the agreement in Beijing. No details were immediately available. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and its island groups, while Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries claim some areas.