A federal judge ordered that a Chevy Chase scientist remain jailed on a charge that he tried to pass national secrets to the Israeli government in exchange for $11,000. Stewart D. Nozette, 52, was arrested Monday afternoon on a charge of attempted espionage after authorities accused him of passing classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence ...

Complaints from the federal workforce alleging discrimination by the government increased slightly in the latest figures from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ending a recent downward trend. The EEOC's Annual Report on the Federal Workforce notes 16,752 complaints alleging employment discrimination filed against the federal government in Fiscal Year 2008 -- up 2.4 percent from the prior year. The complaints ...

There was no red carpet or pregame show. No musical acts or (good) jokes. No celebrity appearances, and perhaps best of all, the ceremony didn't drag on for hours (just 58 minutes). But the awards distributed Tuesday at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium honored achievements much more noble than "best supporting actor" or "best on-screen kiss." They heralded the federal watchdogs who ...

Latino Americans may be the nation's fastest-growing minority group, but they're also the most underrepresented among civilian federal employees. As of last September, Hispanics accounted for about 8 percent of the total civilian federal workforce, according to the Office of Personnel Management. That's well below the 13.2 percent of Hispanics in the national civilian labor force, according to Labor Department statistics. ...

Sometimes Uncle Sam sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. Read, if you can, the accompanying excerpt from an Education Department regulation, which was printed in Wednesday's Federal Register. This one sentence has more than 220 words, nearly the equivalent of a typed page, double-spaced. It's typical of impenetrable fedspeak that produces more indigestion than information. But help is on ...