Volkswagen AG will pay owners of its polluting diesel cars up to $7,000, and agree to fund a grant program to offset air pollution, under a $10 billion settlement being negotiated for submission to a federal judge next week, people familiar with the talks said.

VW will provide cash payments worth between $1,000 and $7,000, depending on the vehicle’s age and other factors, to compensate consumers, the people said. All spoke on the condition they not be identified because U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who is supervising the settlement discussions, has imposed a gag order.

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The IRS sent one of its intrusive scrutiny letters to a nonprofit group in order to throw up a smokescreen and prevent the group from complaining to Congress about poor treatment, according to one of Lois G. Lerner’s apparently lost emails, which were recovered by auditors and released by an interest group Tuesday.

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MARION — Women are not only as capable as men at running a government office, they are equally equipped to steal from it, too. And the notion that women may be the more trustworthy of the genders can lead to women gaining unchecked positions of power — and ultimately, crimes that rob taxpayers of millions.

The latest research paper published by the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute rings that warning, calling attention to a little-told chapter in Illinois’s long book of political corruption: the “bad girls” of women in government.

“We definitely need to have outside auditing and government oversight, no matter who is playing the part in the system,” said Ryan Ceresola, a doctoral graduate student in the Department of Sociology, and author of the report. “We can always point to bad apples, but there’s still a bad barrel in government that allows for this to happen and it can sweep anybody up.”

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