Senate OKs trafficking measure
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a stalled bill to fight human trafficking, freeing the chamber to consider the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be the next attorney general.
The 99-0 trafficking vote moved the Senate past legislation that has been delayed for about six weeks, since Democrats withdrew their support for the bipartisan bill over an anti-abortion provision. Senators finally reached a compromise on that provision Tuesday. On Wednesday, they waded into a sea of amendments, one of them closing a loophole that has allowed convicted military sex offenders to avoid having their names placed on public registries.
The House has passed similar legislation and the White House has voiced support.
Cybersecurity bill OK’d
WASHINGTON — The House passed a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for private companies to share information about cybersecurity threats with each other and the government without fear of lawsuits.
The vote was 307-116 in favor of the “Protecting Cyber Networks Act.” There were 202 votes in favor from Republicans and 105 from Democrats. A similar bill is in the Senate pipeline.
8M IRS callers cut off
WASHINGTON — The IRS’s overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this filing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from taxpayer services to help pay to enforce President Barack Obama’s health law.
For those who weren’t disconnected, only 40 percent actually got through to a person. And many of those people had to wait on hold for more than 30 minutes, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Wednesday.
Campaign finance push
WASHINGTON — A week after a Florida man illegally landed his gyrocopter at the U.S. Capitol to deliver a message on the need for overhauling campaign financing, House Democrats on Wednesday announced the “relaunch” of a task force to push toward that same goal.
The title of their updated effort to promote a package of measures to overhaul how elections are funded: “Democracy for All.”
Also in the nation …
A SkyWest airlines flight to Connecticut was diverted, descended steeply and made an emergency landing at the Buffalo airport Wednesday after a passenger lost consciousness. … The defense team for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday tried to blunt the shock value of an incendiary photo that the prosecution showed the jury of him thrusting his middle finger at a security camera three months after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. … Psychiatrists at the Washington, D.C., hospital where John Hinckley has lived since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan told a federal court Wednesday that he should be released full time to his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Va.