The federal government has paid out less than 6 percent of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, largely in the form of social service payments to states.
AP - Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.
AP - The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan.
AP - The Army sergeant accused of killing five fellow soldiers in Iraq was typically not a violent person, but counselors "broke" him before the gunfire erupted in a military stress center, his father said Tuesday. Wilburn Russell, 73, told reporters that his son, Sgt. John M. Russell, was treated poorly at the stress center and had e-mailed his wife calling two recent days the worst in his life.
The U.S. soldier who authorities say killed five fellow troops -- including a Navy commander -- at a stress clinic in Iraq apparently used a weapon he wrested away from another soldier, a Defense official said. Army Sgt. John M. Russell then stole a military vehicle and drove to the clinic, where earlier he had been in a fight, the official said. "He broke. He just couldn't handle it," Russell's father said.
A source close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now confirms that Pelosi was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was actually used on CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah.
President Obama's special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan told members of Congress on Tuesday that greater financial assistance to the Pakistani government is required to roll back recent Taliban and al Qaeda gains.