The taper begins

December 19, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

Americans, like people in every developed country, live in a managed economy.

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A presidential advisory panel has recommended dozens of changes to the government’s surveillance programs, including stripping the National Security Agency of its ability to store Americans’ telephone records and requiring a court to sign off on the individual searches of phone and Internet data. The panel did not recommend that the NSA stop seizing phone and Internet data entirely, and it was unclear whether the changes would limit the scope of the collections. The White House authorized the release of the review group’s report Wednesday, weeks ahead of schedule.

The Federal Reserve has decided to reduce its stimulus for the US economy because the job market has shown steady improvement. The shift could lead to higher long-term borrowing rates for individuals and businesses. The Fed’s decision amounts to a vote of confidence in the economy six years after the Great Recession struck. It signals the Fed’s belief that the US economy is finally achieving consistent gains.

The first criminal trial produced by the Justice Department’s probe of BP’s massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ended Wednesday with a jury convicting a drilling engineer of trying to obstruct investigators by deleting text messages from his cellular phone. Kurt Mix, a former BP employee, worked on the company’s efforts to stop the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. The charge against him is punishable by as many as 20 years in prison.

At least 500 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed in South Sudan since Sunday, a senior government official said, as an ethnic rivalry threatened to tear apart the world’s newest country. Fighting spread on Wednesday to Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan.

A Bavarian town council has voted unanimously to strip Adolf Hitler of honorary citizenship bestowed 80 years ago after an outcry prompted by their decision last week not to adopt a resolution denouncing the 1933 decision. The issue came up after an archivist discovered documents showing both Hitler and the president who appointed him, Paul von Hindenburg, had been given honorary citizenship of Dietramszell.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has finalized its plan for the destruction of Syria’s stockpile of weapons and precursor chemicals, with the most toxic material to be destroyed at sea aboard a US ship. But factors beyond the Nobel Peace Prize-winning watchdog’s control could lead to delays. The exact text of the plan remains classified, but Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu sketched the broad outlines in a speech Tuesday to the OPCW’s 41-nation executive council, the text of which was released Wednesday.

The Library of Congress Wednesday inducted 25 films into the National Film Registry to be preserved for their cultural, historical, or cinematic significance. This year’s selections include Disney’s “Mary Poppins,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” and the space race film “The Right Stuff.”

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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