Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below. You can also follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Election update: In the Colorado Senate primaries, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) defeated Andrew Romanoff, while Tea Party darling Ken Buck defeated former lieutenant governor Jane Norton. In Connecticut, former Stamford mayor Dannel Malloy bested former Senate candidate Ned Lamont in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and will face former ambassador Tom Foley, while WWE executive Linda McMahon secured the GOP nomination for the senate. The Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia is still too close to call.
Environment
The Democratic candidates to fill Sen. Robert Byrd’s seat unanimously oppose cap-and-trade legislation to stop global warming, though former Republican Sheirl Fletcher is the only one who believes “the cooling and warming cycle is a natural cycle.”
Canada’s tar sands mining operations produce “vast and fast-growing quantities of deadly substances, including mercury, heavy metals and arsenic,” new data released by Environment Canada shows.
Smoke from the forest fires smothering Moscow adds to health problems of “brown clouds” from Asia to the Amazon, and “Russian soot may stoke global warming by hastening a thaw of Arctic ice,” environmental experts say.
Health Care
“The top executives at the nation’s five largest for-profit health insurance companies pulled in nearly $200 million in compensation last year — while their businesses prepared to hit ratepayers with double-digit premium increases, according to a new analysis conducted by healthcare activists.”
“As U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill traversed rural Missouri on Tuesday for town hall meetings during Congress’ August recess, the federal health care overhaul remained a target. About half the questions from the 50 constituents at the day’s first stop in Concordia concerned health care reform.”
“Ninety percent of employers expect their health care plans to lose their grandfathered status by 2014.”
Economy
The Federal Reserve moved yesterday “to try to boost growth, an about-face by a central bank that has spent most of the last year winding down its aggressive measures to support the economy.”
A federal judge yesterday “ordered Wells Fargo to pay California customers $203 million in restitution for claims that it had manipulated transactions to maximize the overdraft fees it charged.”
“George Mason University and Towson University are among 11 institutions nationwide with little or no disparity in graduation rates between black and Hispanic students and white students,” according to a new study by the Education Trust.
Immigration
“Tea party” groups are planning a large rally on Sunday in Arizona, near the Mexican border, to support both the state’s immigration law and the senatorial campaign of J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ).
Following yesterday’s passage of the $600 million stand-alone border bill, the Senate may return to Washington from recess for a vote, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office.
Yesterday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that immigration officials have access to the fingerprints of every inmate booked into jail in all 25 U.S. counties along the Mexican border.
National Security
Micah Zenko writes in the Los Angeles Times “It’s time for Israel to come out of the closet.”
Indonesia’s best-known radical cleric was charged Wednesday with helping plan terrorist attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim nation — a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death, police said.
Jury selection continues today in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the U.S. military commission trial of Canadian Omar Khadr.
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