House, Senate OK highway funding bills

WASHINGTON – The House and Senate have passed competing versions of legislation to prevent the federal trust funds providing highway and transit funds from running dry next month and to buy more time for Congress to draft a new highway bill.

The House measure provides $11 billion to keep the fund solvent through May; the Senate approved an $8 billion measure that would keep the fund afloat through late December. The House is expected to prevail even though its measure relies on a provision known as pension “smoothing” that is widely derided as a gimmick.

New FBI headquarters planned outside D.C.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation would move its headquarters from a storied, decades-old home in the nation’s capital to a new location in the suburbs under a federal government proposal released Tuesday.

The General Services Administration, which oversees federal office space, named two sites in suburban Maryland and one in northern Virginia as the three finalists for the new FBI headquarters.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building began housing FBI workers in 1974 on prime Pennsylvania Avenue real estate between the Capitol and the White House. The building, which occupies a downtown city block across the street from the Justice Department, is known by many Americans for its appearances in news broadcasts and movies.

Associated Press