cincinnati.com - WASHINGTON - It's bronze, really. But it's beautiful - and a long time coming.

It's the Congressional Gold Medal - the nation's highest civilian honor. It was awarded Wednesday to Jean Springer, 89, of Hyde Park, and about 180 other living veterans of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, program.

Excluded from flying in combat - and not even considered part of the U.S. Army - Springer and the other female pilots transported military personnel, towed targets for gunnery practice or shuttled planes from factories to the bases where they were needed.

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Huffington Post - The chair of a Senate panel overseeing the Federal Reserve wants the Obama administration to appoint Fed officials committed to transparency, consumer protection and lowering the unemployment rate—three critical areas that the Fed needs to beef up.

In a Wednesday letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) expresses his concern about the two current vacancies on the Fed's seven-member Board of Governors and the impending vacancy to be created with the June departure of vice chairman Donald L. Kohn.

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Industry Week - At a meeting with President Obama and Cabinet members to discuss climate change legislation, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) urged that "done right, clean energy legislation can be a jobs bill."

He pointed out however that the bill needs to promote the "competiveness of U.S. manufacturing through targeted retooling assistance and border equalization measures. A great risk of a weak bill is that U.S. industries incur increased costs, and as a result, cheaper products would be imported from abroad. That’s unacceptable and won’t create jobs or reduce emissions.

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