Nation in brief: Senators fail to kill C-17 plane funding

Washington – The Senate on Wednesday shot down an effort to kill funding for Boeing C-17 military cargo planes that President Barack Obama says are not needed, underscoring the turbulence the White House faces in trying to cut money for politically popular projects.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading critic of pork-barrel spending, sided with his Democratic opponent in last year’s presidential election in pushing to end the production of additional planes “that we don’t need, the Pentagon doesn’t want and that we can’t afford.”

But a bipartisan group of senators, in a 64-34 vote, thwarted the effort to strike $2.5 billion for 10 additional C-17s from the annual defense spending bill. McCain vowed to continue to try to strip the funding from the measure.

Group alters name due to acronym

Madison, Wis. – A Wisconsin tourism lobbying group is changing its name after realizing its initials formed a crude acronym.

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation group did a quiet rebranding in July, changing its name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin and updating its logo from WTF to TFW after it was featured on Web sites and blogs poking fun at it. It had no way of knowing 30 years ago that the letters would go on to take on a crude association.

Lead lobbyist for the group Chet Gerlach said Wednesday that the federation made the change after the meaning of the common text message lingo was brought to their attention.

FWIW (For what it’s worth), officials say Wisconsin’s tourism industry is a $13 billion business and grew 2.7 percent last year.