Men should no longer receive a routine blood test to check for prostate cancer because the test does more harm than good, a top-level government task force has concluded . The recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force runs counter to some two decades of medical practice in which many primary care physicians routinely gave the prostate specific-antigen, or PSA, test to healthy middle-age men. Read full article > >

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Government task force discourages routine testing for prostate cancer

When USA Basketball invited pros to play in the Olympics, it invited an inevitable debate about whether to pay them for their services.

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Sports of The Times: What Price Glory in Olympic Basketball? Glad You Asked

The senior government executive at the center of the General Services Administration spending scandal told investigators that he believed it was all right not to get competitive bids because he was paying for quality. Read full article > >

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Competitive bidding drives GSA inquiry

The inspector general for the General Services Administration this week asked the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation into the activities of the senior official at the center of the Las Vegas spending scandal , officials said. Read full article > >

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Criminal probe sought in GSA case

VIERA, Fla. – Davey Johnson has experienced too much death, and so these days he mostly ignores it. He stopped going to funerals. He will not gaze into the casket. Johnson was deeply saddened when his good friend, Gary Carter, died of a brain tumor this winter . Johnson would have fit perfectly among the baseball dignitaries at the services, the man who managed Carter and the New York Mets to the World Series 26 years ago. He sent his respects, and on the day they buried Gary Carter, Davey Johnson went to the ballpark. Read full article > >

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Nationals’ Davey Johnson: ‘I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now’

VIERA, Fla. – Davey Johnson has experienced too much death, and so these days he mostly ignores it. He stopped going to funerals. He will not gaze into the casket. Johnson was deeply saddened when his good friend, Gary Carter, died of a brain tumor this winter . Johnson would have fit perfectly among the baseball dignitaries at the services, the man who managed Carter and the New York Mets to the World Series 26 years ago. He sent his respects, and on the day they buried Gary Carter, Davey Johnson went to the ballpark. Read full article > >

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Nationals’ Davey Johnson: ‘I’m enjoying what I’m doing right now’

Three former directors of the sub-prime lender Cattles and its subsidiary Welcome Financial Services are fined and banned by the FSA.

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Former Cattles directors banned

Smartphone users could see a future of fewer dropped calls and zippier video and music downloads because of a government decision Friday to auction off a scarce resource: airwaves. The massive sale of beachfront-property spectrum is expected to raise as much as $25 billion and help pay for a payroll tax cut. Providing the airwaves to private companies has the potential to enhance the services of existing wireless providers such as Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, or even create new competitors. Read full article > >

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FCC spectrum auction to fund payroll tax cut, public-safety network

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case. Read full article > >

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Rep. Spencer Bachus faces insider-trading investigation

Google said Tuesday it will follow the activities of users across e-mail, search, YouTube and other services, a shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices. Read full article > >

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Google announces privacy changes across products; users can’t opt out

Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing are planning to black out their services Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act by showing users the bill’s effect on Web companies. These companies object to language in the bills, which are aimed at stopping online piracy on foreign Web sites, that grant the U.S. government the right to block entire Web sites with copyright-infringing content on them from the Internet. Read full article > >

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SOPA: Twitter will not join Wikipedia, Reddit in blackout

It usually costs about $70 to replace an exhaust fan, but federal watchdogs said a General Services Administration employee sentenced this week to more than two years in prison once paid a contractor $2,150 for the job. In return, the contractor slipped Eric Minor an envelope stuffed with $1,000 in cash. Read full article > >

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GSA worker gets over 2 years in prison for kickback scheme

TULSA, Okla. — One of the nation’s largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners’ assistance and other services. The Cherokee Nation acted this week after its Supreme Court upheld the results of a 2007 special vote to amend the Cherokee constitution and remove the slaves’ descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls. The 300,000-member tribe is the biggest in Oklahoma, although many of its members live elsewhere. Read full article > >

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Cherokees expel slaves’ descendants from tribe, cutting medical care, housing, other services

Rail services between Cardiff and Newport are suspended after a person is hit by a train, with disruption affecting other services.

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Train disruption after incident

Wolf Trap , to many, denotes commercial pop at the Filene Center. But the Wolf Trap Opera is a different animal: a tiny, can-do opera company focused not on presenting big stars but on cultivating future ones. In Wolf Trap’s 40 years, singers from this company have colonized the opera world as artists and administrators. A raft of them returned to the Filene Center on Wednesday for a gala concert, the highlight of Wolf Trap’s 40th anniversary, of a type and caliber even the Kennedy Center hasn’t offered for years. The singers care so much about the place they even donated their services. Read full article > >

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At Wolf Trap Opera gala, enough star wattage to power operahouse 40 more years