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Lockheed, the biggest provider of information technology to the U.S. government, is grappling with “major internal computer network problems,” said one of the sources who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

A second source, who also asked not to be identified, said the issue was “affecting a lot of people” at Lockheed, maker of the stealthy F-22 and F-35 fighter planes and other critical weapons systems.

Lockheed notified the Pentagon about the problem and its response, including resetting passwords for employees, said the defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

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The sources said Lockheed employees were still able to use mobile devices to access their company email accounts.

The slowdown began on Sunday after security experts for the company detected an intrusion to the network, according to technology blogger Robert Cringely. He said it involved the use of SecurID tokens that employees use to access Lockheed’s internal network from outside its firewall,

A spokesman for EMC Corp, whose RSA division makes the tokens, declined to comment on any security issues affecting specific customers.

EMC disclosed in March that hackers had broken into its network and stolen some information related to its SecurIDs. It said the information could potentially be used to reduce the effectiveness of those devices in securing customer networks.

EMC said it worked with the Department of Homeland Security to publish a note on the March attack and provided web addresses to help companies identify where the attack might have come from.

Any attacker would need multiple pieces of information about the token, the customer, the individual users and their pin numbers — some of which are never held by RSA. “In order to mount a successful attack, someone would need to have possession of all this information,” the company said.

Steve Winterfeld, cyber technical lead at TASC, an advanced systems company spun off from Northrop Grumman Corp, said TASC and other companies were extremely concerned about the breach since it meant that the SecurID tokens could no longer be viewed as completely secure.

It’s hiring two aides of former President George W. Bush as lobbyists.

Joel Kaplan, previously deputy chief of staff in the Bush White House, is joining Facebook as vice president of U.S. public policy, a new position in which he will oversee the company’s public policy strategy and interact with federal and state policymakers.

Myriah Jordan, who worked in the Bush White House in the office of the chief of staff, is joining Facebook as policy manager, focusing on congressional relations.

The Skylon, which is being developed at the UK’s Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines Ltd., is an unpiloted and reusable spacecraft that can launch into low-Earth orbit after taking off from a conventional runway.

Looking like something out of Star Wars, Skylon is a self-contained, single stage, all-in-one reusable space vehicle. There are no expensive booster rockets, external fuel tanks or huge launch facilities needed.

The vehicle’s hybrid SABRE engines use liquid hydrogen combined with oxygen from the atmosphere at altitudes up to 26km and speeds of up to Mach 5, before switching over to on-board fuel for the final rocket-powered stage of ascent into low-Earth orbit.

The Skylon is intended to cut the costs involved with commercial activity in space, delivering payloads of up to 15 tons including satellites, equipment and even people into orbit at costs much lower than those that use expensive conventional rockets.

The report, titled “A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis,” said that banks’ lobbying efforts may be motivated by short-term profit gains, which can have devastating effects on the economy.

“Overall, our findings suggest that the political influence of the financial industry played a role in the accumulation of risks, and hence, contributed to the financial crisis,” said the report, written by three economists from the International Monetary Fund.

Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.

Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.

The tactic has drawn comparisons with the science-fiction concept of ‘pre-crime’, popularized by the film Minority Report, in which security services can detect someone’s intention to commit a crime. Unlike the system in the film, FAST does not rely on a trio of human mutants who can see the future. But the programme has attracted copious criticism from researchers who question the science behind it (see Airport security: Intent to deceive?).

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The Free Press discovered the ruins this week. Judicial experts expressed shock that evidence would be handled so recklessly.

“It’s incomprehensible that any law enforcement agency would not be mindful to preserve evidence,” Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny said.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr., told about the crime lab Thursday, launched an immediate investigation. “I will make sure that this never happens again,” he said.

The lab, housed in a former elementary school in Brush Park, was ordered closed in 2008 because of sloppy investigations. It’s now littered with tools, computers, TVs, cameras and microscopes, in addition to the other items.

The lab was open to trespassers for at least the past week. Parts of a fence around the perimeter have collapsed, and a window was broken. As recently as Monday, the front door was ajar.

Some of the recipients are leaving first-rate institutions like Harvard and Stanford to take the fellowship. In a press release, the foundation’s head, James O’Neill, said that in taking the fellowship they were “challenging the authority of the present and the familiar.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Thiel thinks ideas can develop in a start-up environment much faster than at a university. And the project is also intended to question the idea of higher education. Thiel told TechCrunch in April that the United Sates was in a higher education bubble.