The Internal Revenue Service is about to pay $70 million in employee bonuses despite an Obama administration directive to cancel discretionary bonuses because of automatic spending cuts enacted this year, according to a GOP senator.

By Matt Scuffham LONDON (Reuters) – Britain should introduce laws making it possible to jail "reckless" bankers and claw back past bonus and pension awards, an influential panel of lawmakers said on Wednesday. The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, set up by the government last year after Barclays was fined over the manipulation of global interest rate benchmarks, said deep lapses in standards had been commonplace and recent scandals had exposed "shocking and widespread malpractice". "Taxpayers and customers have lost out. The economy has suffered. …

By Kim Palmer CLEVELAND (Reuters) – A former Cleveland school-bus driver accused of holding three women captive in his home and torturing them for a decade is scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing on Wednesday. Ariel Castro, 52, pleaded not guilty last week to more than 300 charges and was scheduled for an initial hearing before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Michael Russo. He is being held in a county jail on an $8 million bail. …

By Steven Scheer and Ari Rabinovitch JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is ready to act to aid the euro zone economy if needed, while signs of market stabilization mean interest rates are becoming a more effective tool again, ECB chief Mario Draghi said on Tuesday. Speaking in Jerusalem at a farewell conference for Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, Draghi said there were numerous measures the ECB could and would deploy if needed, and that it was ready to tackle any unintended consequences. …

The abortion wars return to Congress in a big way with House legislation to ban almost all abortions after a fetus reaches the age of 20 weeks.

By Joseph Lichterman OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Michigan (Reuters) – FBI agents will resume searching an overgrown field in suburban Detroit on Tuesday for former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared nearly 38 years ago and is thought to have been murdered by members of organized crime. A backhoe was driven onto the property, not far from where Hoffa was last seen alive, on Monday and video recorded from a helicopter by Detroit television station WDIV showed FBI agents digging for the union leader's remains. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama does not believe the recently disclosed top-secret National Security Agency surveillance of phone records and Internet data has violated Americans' privacy rights, his chief of staff said on Sunday. …

By Ann Saphir, Jonathan Spicer and Alister Bull (Reuters) – When do you take the addict off the methadone? That's essentially the dilemma facing the U.S. Federal Reserve's 19 policy makers when they meet in Washington this week. Since the height of the financial crisis in 2008, the U.S. economy and everyone with a stake in it have become hooked on the massive amounts of stimulus injected by the U.S. central bank. …