WASHINGTON — Just in time for Christmas, a massive $577 billion defense-authorization bill headed for a vote in the Senate next week is packed with goodies that have nothing to do with national security.

One provision pushes forward a National Women’s History Museum in Washington, DC — long advocated by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

Also tucked in the bill are pet projects that would establish a Harriet Tubman national historic park in Auburn, NY, and study the creation of federal historic sites in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

In all, more than a quarter of the 1,648-page defense bill is dedicated to federal land-use projects, angering some conservatives upset that a critical defense bill is slathered with pork projects.

Sen. Tom Coburn ­(R-Okla.) tweeted that Congress was sneaking through “hundreds of millions worth of pork into unrelated Defense bill via backroom deals.”

He used the hashtag #SecretSanta to drive home the…

Zerohedge:

Suspected metals fraud in China sparked claims of betrayal by both U.S. bank Citigroup and trade house Mercuria over who would absorb about $270 million in exposure to financing deals, a London court heard this week.

The dispute:

Mercuria held copper and aluminium in Chinese warehouses and agreed a series of deals that were effective loans from Citi using the metal as collateral.

Under the repurchasing agreements, or repos, Citi agreed to purchase metal from Mercuria before selling it back at a slightly higher price to include interest on the effective loans.

The two groups were in the midst of several repo deals when the potential fraud in China was uncovered in warehouses in both Qingdao and Penglai. Citi demanded early repayment of the repos and Mercuria refused.

As Bloomberg reports,

Citigroup was in a “state of panic” when alleged fraud was uncovered in two Chinese ports…