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Hackers have breached a database containing a wealth of sensitive information from federal employees’ security background checks, the Obama administration said Friday — news that experts say could deal a devastating blow to U.S. intelligence gathering. The revelations came just a week after officials disclosed a previous massive cyber intrusion into the same federal personnel office, compromising records of more than 4 million current and past employees in a breach that administration officials have privately blamed on Chinese hackers. The stolen records in the hack disclosed Friday included data on intelligence and military personnel, The Associated Press reported. A senior...

Comedian David Brenner passed away Saturday, a spokesman for his family said. He was 78. Jeff Abraham, who was Brenner’s publicist, said the “Tonight Show” favorite died Saturday afternoon at his home in New York City. The gangly, toothy Brenner made more than 150 appearances as a guest and substitute host on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” starting in the 1970s. The exposure turned the former documentary filmmaker into a hot comedian. Brenner was a regular on other TV talk shows and game shows and starred in four HBO comedy specials. He also briefly hosted his own syndicated talk show in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer died unexpectedly Friday at age 70, the Supreme Court of Ohio has announced. He’s survived by his wife, Mary, and their children. The Chief Justice had been experiencing health problems, but they were not thought to be life threatening, a media release from the Supreme Court of Ohio stated. He was admitted to Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus late Thursday morning. He was pronounced dead at approximately 4 p.m. Friday. Moyer held the distinction of being the longest-serving state chief justice in the U.S. He's also a noted Ohioan.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner also has to make the eligibility information available to all 88 county election boards and use government records to check for voter registration fraud. Nine of the 16 members of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with an opinion that upheld a lower court's ruling in the lawsuit filed by the Ohio Republican Party against Brunner.

A German bricklayer, who accused his girlfriend of liking her pet guinea pig more than him, killed the pet and turned it into a “romantic” dinner for two. Lara Hochner, 23, from Darmstadt only found out what had happened when she went to her beloved pet Rudi after the candle-lit meal, to make sure he had enough food and water. When she realised he was not there, her 29-year-old boyfriend Werner Brenner admitted that the couple had just eaten the animal.

Albany, N.Y. -- A Republican long shot vying to challenge U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quit the race Wednesday, leaving two front-runners to battle over the party's nomination. William Brenner, a tax attorney, said collecting the 15,000 signatures needed to make the Sept. 12 primary ballot was too expensive and daunting, given his business responsibilities. "However, we have two good Republican candidates," Brenner said in an interview with The Associated Press. Polls have shown a tight race developing between former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer and Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland. Clinton is far ahead of either potential competitor...

Marie Brenner, a writer-at-large for Vanity Fair magazine whose reporting career began against the backdrop of the Watergate era, said Saturday that war is being waged against this nation's press and journalists must stand together to turn back assaults on their freedoms. Her speech opened the two-day San Antonio Express-News/Poynter National Writers' Workshop, one of several such journalism conferences held around the country each year. In her speech, Brenner drew parallels between the Watergate era of the 1970s and today's "Plamegate" era, in which the disclosure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity led to a criminal investigation that saw...

William Brenner is a small-town guy with a big ambition Never mind the new Stop Her Now movement, here's the plain truth about mounting a challenge against Hillary Clinton: Even the most seasoned politician would face a hell of a time unseating New York's junior senator in 2006. So what does that mean for the first person willing—foolhardy?—enough to say he'll take her on, a self-styled Republican everyman named William Brenner? Last month, the Sullivan County attorney announced he was up for the task. Brenner—most folks call him Bill—is a virtual unknown outside the hinterlands of Grahamsville, his adopted hometown....

How did executives obtain such drastically increased compensation over the last 10 years? Why did boards allow it? The answer lies in regulatory and court decisions that have impeded hostile takeovers over the last 12 years. These decisions took away one layer -- a most important one -- from the checks and balances controlling boards' and CEOs' behaviour. The elimination of this layer and its unintended consequences were, in themselves, unintended effects of events in previous years, especially some taking place between 1982 and 1992. Following the Williams Act passed by U.S. Congress in 1968, American states passed so-called "first...