Last week, federal spending again reached the debt limit put in place by Congress -- the legal amount, above which the federal government cannot borrow. If borrowing exceeds this ceiling, currently set at roughly $7.4 trillion, immediate action is necessary. Treasury Secretary John Snow was recently forced to take action to ensure that normal monetary transactions can continue.

After passing the Corporate Tax Bill on Columbus Day, the Senate approved with little debate measures to fund both the Military Construction and Homeland Security appropriations bills for FY 2005, which began Oct. 1. Together with the Defense and the District of Columbia appropriations bills Congress recently approved, these bring the total passed to only four of the thirteen bills needed to fund discretionary spending for FY 2005.

A University of Delaware professor of communications is suing the Pentagon to make public the photos of returning soldiers' coffins to American soil. The lawsuit challenges a 1991 ban on media coverage of fallen soldiers' coffins flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before being returned to their hometowns around the country. Former network television correspondent Ralph Begleiter, together with the National Security Archive, had filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain photos and moving recordings of all coffins passing through Dover since October 2001.

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed designating 376,095 acres essential to the survival of the southwestern willow flycatcher. The southwestern willow flycatcher is an endangered bird whose habitat covers the southwestern portion of the United States. Information related to this endangered species was challenged under the Data Quality Act in 2003 and may have helped shape the habitat designation.