Your customized news for Mon, Feb 27, 2012

The Defense Department wants to add as many as 1,612 employees to oversee and audit contracts next year even as it plans for a 5 percent cut in the U.S. military's budget.

Spending on the workers would rise 14 percent, to $1.9 billion, in fiscal 2013, from $1.7 billion a year earlier, according to the Pentagon's budget request. Staffs at two defense agencies that manage and audit contracts would increase 10 percent, to 17,226, during the same period.

When the Washington law firm Howrey dissolved and entered bankruptcy last year, most of the firm's lawyers landed new jobs, bringing with them their clients — as well as the electronic and paper records of those clients' active matters.

I am drawn to tattoo artist Vinnie Myers for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact that my mother was a breast cancer survivor who went on to live a full, productive 93-year life.

You may wonder: What does a tattoo artist have to do with breast cancer?

Bank of America made the seemingly dramatic decision last week to stop selling its mortgages to Fannie Mae. But BoA's decision hardly means that banks are abandoning the government-sponsored housing giants, as I explain this weekend:

"Taxmageddon" is coming. That's what Hill staff are calling the pile-up at the end of 2012, when the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, the payroll tax cut is set to expire, the $1.2 trillion spending trigger is set to go off, and the debt-ceiling is expected to be breached. But some members of Congress see opportunity tucked behind this coming crisis.