Nation in brief: House votes to kill IRS outsourcing

The House voted 238 to 179 Tuesday to kill an Internal Revenue Service program that relies on private debt collectors to pursue scofflaws for back taxes.

Fourteen Republicans joined 224 Democrats in voting to end the two-year-old effort, which has the IRS on track to lose more than $37 million as it pays contractors to do what the government’s own tax experts say IRS agents could do more efficiently. Despite aggressive collection tactics, the contractors have brought in only $49 million in revenue, little more than half of what it has cost the IRS to implement the program.

“This program violates the public trust and must end,” Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a chief sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.

Similar legislation has passed the House before. The real battle will be in the Senate, where one of the program’s staunchest defenders, Charles Grassley of Iowa, is the top Republican on the Finance Committee, which must approve the bill.

Grassley’s state is home to one of the two private debt collectors still used by the IRS.

Orange, Calif.

Deputies accused of Tasering cat

A Southern California sheriff’s department is investigating a report that deputies used a Taser stun gun on a cat at Theo Lacy jail, a department spokesman said Tuesday. A cat’s corpse was later found on the jail grounds in Orange, Calif.

The investigation comes a week after the release of grand jury transcripts that showed Theo Lacy deputies allowed inmates to discipline each other while guards watched television, played video games and exchanged cell phone text messages in a glass-walled guard station.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials were conducting a necropsy Tuesday to determine whether the dead cat was shocked with a Taser, said sheriff’s spokesman John McDonald.

Chicago

Subway riders evacuated

Up to 100 passengers were evacuated from a subway tunnel Tuesday after a single train stalled and officials shut down all service on a major route between downtown and O’Hare International Airport.

Four people were taken to hospitals but none of their injuries were considered life-threatening, Chicago Transit Authority president Ron Huberman said.

One eight-car train stalled shortly after 8 a.m. inside a tunnel near the station at Clark and Lake streets in Chicago’s Loop and some passengers jumped off, Huberman said.

CTA employees attempted to get those passengers back on the train, but because some refused, the authority shut down power to the whole Blue Line to make sure no one touched the electrified third rail.

Colonial Beach, Va.

Harvests cut for blue crab

Virginia and Maryland will cut their female blue crab harvests a third this year to protect the hallmark seafood of the Chesapeake Bay.

The governors of both states announced the cuts Tuesday on the banks of the Potomac River as scientists fear the crab population in the Chesapeake is reaching numbers too low to survive.

“We do not want to wake up in five or 10 years and realize we have lost this important part of who we are,” Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine said.

He and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said rules to meet the harvest cuts would be issued within weeks. Neither state has made final plans to reach the 34 percent goal, though both appear headed toward a size limit of 6.5 inches for females.