United States Government Employees

Sparked by heightened security concerns since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Defense Department has begun laying the groundwork to ban non-U.S. citizens from a wide range of computer projects. The planned policy--slated for adoption within 90 days--extends restrictions on foreign nationals handling secret information to "sensitive but unclassified positions," which include the swelling numbers of contract workers who process paychecks, write software, track supplies and maintain e-mail systems.

Ana Belen Montes, a senior intelligence analyst with the Defense Department, appeared before a federal magistrate for the first time, charged with giving classified defense information to Cuba.

A federal judge has ordered Lewis Allen Rivlin, a former Justice Department attorney, to pay about $6.5 million for defrauding investors, including an Ecuadorean charity for underprivileged girls.

The U.S. military on Wednesday rejected a South Korean court order for one of its American civilian employees to stand trial on charges of dumping toxic chemicals into a river.

A key House panel overturned President Bush's proposal to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees, virtually ensuring that the benefit provided to 1.

A former Immigration and Naturalization Service official was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $2,400 for accepting bribes from two men who were previously found innocent of the charges.

The best thing that ever happened to Ian Thomas was losing his government job. Thomas was a contract employee for the U.S. Geological Survey when earlier this spring he posted a map of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's caribou calving areas on a federal Web site.

A spy dispute between Russia and the United States played out Friday, with officials here moving to eject four American diplomats and pledging to oust more later to replicate steps taken this week by Washington.