#UK Ultimate endurance test: 7 marathons, 7 days, 7 continents

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In this Feb. 27, 2015 photo, Becca Pizzi trains for the Boston Marathon along Heartbreak Hill in Newton, Mass. Pizzi, a veteran of 45 marathons, vies to be the first American woman to complete the World Marathon Challenge -- seven marathons in seven days on seven continents -- in January 2016.  (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

BOSTON (AP) — Seven marathons in seven days on seven continents? You’d be forgiven for thinking Becca Pizzi is seven kinds of crazy.

“I get that a lot,” said Pizzi, who’s vying to be the first U.S. woman to complete the World Marathon Challenge.

The 35-year-old day care center operator from Belmont, Massachusetts, is one of 15 competitors from around the globe who will attempt the feat in January.

Pizzi is no stranger to the rigors and ravages of the classic 26.2-mile distance. She’s a veteran of 45 marathons, including 15 Bostons, and she’s 27 states into her quest to run a marathon in all 50.

Friends say she’s got one setting: Beast Mode.

But she’s never tried anything like this. Nor has any other woman from the U.S. — a singular enticement to tackle the ultimate endurance test.

“The second I heard about it, I knew I was born to run this race,” Pizzi told The Associated Press. “I’m doing it to represent my country and to inspire the world that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

On Jan. 23, 2016, she’ll be in Union Glacier, Antarctica, to run the first of seven full marathons. Next up, on consecutive days: back-to-back marathons in Punta Arenas, Chile; Miami; Madrid; Marrakech, Morocco; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Sydney.

Within a span of 168 hours — 59 of those spent recovering in compression socks aboard a charter flight shuttling competitors 23,560 miles from race to race — she’ll have conquered all seven continents: Antarctica, South America, North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

“It’s going to be an uncomfortable seven days,” she said. “We may not even get a shower. It’s basically going to be run, sleep, eat, repeat.”

Four other Americans — all men — will join her, along with competitors from Australia, Germany, Japan, Morocco and Singapore, including three other women. So far, only one woman, Marianna Zaikova, of Finland, has completed the Challenge; she did it in its first running in 2015.

It’s not just exhausting; at $36,000, it’s expensive. Pizzi fronted the cash but has been lining up corporate sponsors to help defray the cost. So far, two companies — Ultima, which makes electrolyte replacement drinks, and Dr. Cool, which sells compression sleeves and other performance items — are covering about half of her expenses.

A busy single mom, Pizzi has been training 30 hours a week. That includes 80-100 miles a week of running, plus yoga and cross-training workouts.

Boston lawyer Jenny Rikoski, who does long runs with Pizzi on weekends, is flying to Chile — and possibly to Antarctica — to cheer for her friend on an odyssey she finds both inspiring and empowering.

“It shows how far we’ve come,” said Rikoski, 37. “Forty years ago, women weren’t allowed to run the Boston Marathon. Now we have a Bostonian who’s ready to run not just one marathon, but seven in a week. It shows how strong women are and what they can accomplish.”

Training partner Janet Chambers, 43, of Boston, is confident Pizzi has the right stuff: “She can do anything. She finishes everything she starts.”

Pizzi, whose marathon personal best is 3 hours, 25 minutes, plans to pace herself by running each of the seven races closer to four hours. She’ll have to cope with extreme cold and heat as well as wildly varying running surfaces: snow in Antarctica, sand in the Sahara.

What’s stressing her out the most? Thinking about being apart from her 7-year-old daughter — and just thinking in general.

“It’s all going to be about focus. Mind over matter,” she said. “If I let my mind go, the race is over. I’ll really have to take this one marathon at a time.”

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#UK European Space Agency launches probe to test gravity mission

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BERLIN (AP) — The European Space Agency says it has successfully launched a probe that will test technology for a future mission to measure gravitational waves.

The probe was lifted into orbit from ESA’s space port in French Guiana shortly after 0104 local time (0404 GMT) Thursday. It separated from the Vega rocket about two hours later.

The LISA Pathfinder probe will now travel to a position in space 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth before it begins operations in January.

Scientists hope the $450-million mission will demonstrate that it’s possible to shield objects from external influences well enough to detect the minute effects of gravitational waves caused by massive black holes and pairs of tiny, dense stars called white dwarfs.

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#UK Report: FIFA officials again subject of pre-dawn raids

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ZURICH (AP) — The New York Times says Swiss authorities have conducted another series of pre-dawn raids and arrests as part of investigations into corruption in international soccer.

The newspaper, citing law enforcement officials, reported that at least some of the arrests took place at the same luxury hotel where FIFA officials were arrested in May in early morning raids that rocked the sport.

The report said Swiss police entered the hotel, the Baur au Lac, through a side door at 6 a.m. A hotel manager told visitors in the lobby they had to leave the property because of “an extreme situation.”

Authorities in Switzerland, where FIFA has its headquarters, and in the U.S. are investigating current and former senior soccer officials on charges that include racketeering, money laundering and fraud.

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#UK New wave of arrests in FIFA scandal – New York Times

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More than a dozen individuals were expected to face charges following the latest arrests

New York (AFP) – Swiss authorities arrested several football officials in a fresh wave of dawn raids early Thursday in a dramatic widening of the FIFA corruption scandal, the New York Times reported.

More than a dozen individuals were expected to face charges following the latest arrests, many of which took place at the same luxury hotel in Zurich raided by authorities in May, the Times reported.

The Times, which broke news of the police raids earlier this year, said Swiss police entered the Baur au Lac hotel at around 6am local time on Thursday.

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#UK A new ‘Batman v Superman’ trailer is here and it finally reveals the villain

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Ben Affleck stopped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday evening to debut a new “Batman v Superman” trailer, and it shows off a lot of new footage.

While we know the two superheroes will go head-to-head in next spring’s movie, the biggest reveal was a new villain the two will face off against: Doomsday.

doomsday batman v supermandoomsday

While Batman and Superman may start off as likely foes, it looks like they’ll have to put their beef aside in order to deal with, what appears to be, a resurrected General Zod (Michael Shannon) (Yep! We’re going there!) in the form of a monstrous creature known as Doomsday in the comics. 

Oh yeah, and they’ll get a little bit of help from Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) who makes an appearance alongside the duo in the trailer.

wonder woman batman v superman

“Batman v Superman” will be in theaters March 25, 2016. 

Check it out below.

SEE ALSO: A new clip for “Batman v Superman”

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#UK New Yorker who aided Peruvian rebels finally goes home

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In this Nov 27, 2015 photo, U.S. activist Lori Berenson, poses for a portrait in her home in Lima, Peru. Berenson is heading home to New York,  two decades after being found guilty of aiding leftist rebels. The 46-year-old has been living quietly in Lima with her 6-year-old son since her 2010 parole. She’s been barred from leaving the country until her 20-year sentence lapsed. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvians still largely resent Lori Berenson for conspiring with the nation’s No. 2 leftist rebel group in the 1990s, and she and her prison-born son lived in a kind of limbo for five years after she was paroled.

On Thursday, the native New Yorker who came to Peru two decades ago bent on revolutionary change was heading home as a 46-year-old single mother who faced hostility to the end.

With son Salvador, 6, in her arms, Berenson sped through Lima’s airport terminal ringed by police. Recognizing her, people shouted “get out of here terrorist!” In a text message, Berenson called the incident “incredibly surreal although entirely typical.”

Formally expelled, Berenson was scheduled to depart for New York after midnight.

Although paroled in 2010, Berenson was not permitted to leave until her 20-year sentence for “collaboration with terrorism” for aiding the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement lapsed.

Before her departure, Berenson had harsh words for Peru’s economic and political elite. In an interview, she said it was unwilling to confront the open wounds of the country’s 1980-2000 internal conflict.

And she said she still believes, as she declared when arrested, that Tupac Amaru was not a terrorist group.

“It could have acted at times using terrorist tactics, but that it was a terrorist organization, I don’t think the label fits,” said Berenson, calling it similar to the Salvadoran rebels, who negotiated peace in 1992. She worked for them before moving to Lima in late 1994.

Berenson says that while she regrets any harm she may have done — Tupac Amaru robbed, kidnapped and killed but did not commit massacres like the fanatical and much larger Shining Path — she also objects to Peru’s economic inequality and racism.

“It’s not like feudalism went away recently,” she said, recalling how rural estate holders denied peasants education well into the 20th century.

Berenson said she and Salvador initially plan to live in New York City with her university professor parents. She hopes for employment in social work. Last year, she finished a bachelor’s degree in sociology online from the City University of New York.

“My objective is to continue to work in social justice issues, in a different capacity obviously,” she said.

While on parole, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout did translations at home for clients she would not name, including a human rights group.

The view from her 6th-floor apartment in Lima’s middle-class Pueblo Libre district provided comfort after years behind bars.

The streets below were not very friendly.

People would regularly shout “terruca” at her — a slang term for “terrorist,” though rarely to her face, she said. Several times people threatened Salvador’s life, she said, including from the street over the intercom.

Many Peruvians were angered when mother and son were allowed to visit her family in New York in 2011. In response, Congress passed a law barring paroled foreigners from travel abroad.

At the time she was paroled, a government decree stripped others of the same benefit in what Berenson termed “vengeance.” About 400-500 people were affected, said Anibal Apari, an MRTA militant and Salvador’s father. She and Berenson met in prison and are amicably divorced.

Initially convicted of treason by hooded military judges, Berenson was re-tried in 2001 by a civilian court after U.S. pressure.

Before that, her health suffered behind bars, the skin of her hands cracking and turning blue during nearly three years in a frigid penitentiary at 12,700 feet.

Today, she says most Peruvians who despise her have been misinformed by a media establishment largely controlled by the country’s conservative elite.

Peruvians tend to lump Tupac Amaru, which a truth commission blamed for 1.5 percent of the deaths in the 1980-2000 internal conflict, together with the Shining Path, which it held responsible for 54 percent.

The conflict claimed nearly 70,000 lives, three-fourths of the victims impoverished Quechua-speaking highlanders. The truth commission found that security forces committed more than 40 percent of the slayings, and rights activists complain that a disproportionately small number of state actors have been brought to justice for war crimes.

Berenson was convicted of helping the Tupac Amaru prepare to seize Congress and take lawmakers hostage.

She denies knowledge of the plot, but had visited Congress with journalist’s credentials accompanied by a “photographer” married to top Tupac Amaru leader Nestor Cerpa.

The conspiracy was foiled on Nov. 30, 1995, when police stormed the safe house that Berenson and Panamanian Pacifico Castrellon had rented. Three rebels and a police officer were killed, and police found an arsenal — of which Berenson said she was unaware.

Paraded after her arrest before TV cameras, Berenson shouted angrily that Tupac Amaru was a revolutionary movement, not a terrorist group. That outburst probably added five years to her sentence, said Castrellon, who served 11 years before his 2007 release.

Tupac Amaru projected a Robin Hood image, stealing food and distributing it to the poor. But it also committed ransom kidnappings, killed police and soldiers and assassinated an army general.

The insurgency’s 1996 hostage-taking at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima sealed its fate.

Berenson’s name was No. 3 on the list of people whose release rebel leader Cerpa demanded in the 126-day ordeal, which ended when commandos killed him and other hostage-takers.

“There is no way anyone can look at her story and conclude anything other than she knowingly, willingly and enthusiastically worked for a terrorist organization,” said Dennis Jett, then the U.S. ambassador.

Supporting that argument is Castrellon’s claim that he and Berenson met with Cerpa in Ecuador in 1994 on their way to Peru. Berenson denies ever having met Cerpa.

Asked whether she had any regrets — and about criticism that she was arrogant and naive for falling in with the Tupac Amaru — Berenson was typically circumspect.

“That’s my life. I chose that, and I’ll live with that.”

She did allow, though, that she wished she’d finished college before moving to Latin America.

Asked whether she thought taking up arms against abusive governments could be morally justified, she demurred.

The 1980s and 1990s were different times; people in the region now prefer the ballot box, she said.

In New York, Berenson said she hopes to find a job as a social worker “supporting disenfranchised populations.”

As far as political activism goes, she said “I don’t believe much in electoral politics,” preferring “community empowerment.”

“I could be out in the streets,” she said. “But I don’t need to be a leader. I can be a follower.”

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#UK Manning says he doesn’t know when he’ll be back

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Denver Broncos injured quarterback Peyton Manning watches prior to an NFL football game against the New England Patriots, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015, in Denver. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — All the speculation over returning Brock Osweiler to his backup role when Peyton Manning gets back could prove a waste of time.

Manning isn’t close to being healthy.

The Denver Broncos’ 39-year-quarterback told a select group of news outlets Wednesday, including The Associated Press, that he has no idea when he’ll play again.

Sitting at his locker to take the weight off his injured left foot, Manning said during a nine-minute interview that his focus isn’t on his future or who starts at quarterback for the Broncos (9-2).

“That’s so far ahead of what I’m thinking about,” Manning said. “I’m doing what Coach Kubiak asked me to do, is to try to get healthy. I’m following his instructions and I look forward to being healthy yesterday, I can assure you. This cast is kind of like a holding pattern. Everybody asks, ‘Is it better? Is it better?’ The answer is: I don’t know because I’m not putting any pressure on it and it’s sort of immobilized.

“But the idea is for it to help toward the healing process. But there’s no guarantee whatsoever. So, all the other questions and speculation, I don’t have anything for you on that.”

Manning consulted with noted foot specialist Dr. Robert Anderson in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week “and everybody wants to know what did he say? He said I have an injured foot. And everybody says, ‘Well, when did he say you’re going to get better?’ When it heals. You know, some earth-shattering medical information there,” Manning said.

Despite the 10 pieces of mail he gets every day with “solutions and suggestions, some healing medicines, which I appreciate,” Manning said Anderson told him “there’s no magic fix to this, it’s kind of an individual thing.”

Manning had the walking cast removed Tuesday night and now he’s in a bulkier walking boot until Friday. He said he’ll start his rehab Saturday “and after that I’m just kind of on a one-week-at-a-time basis.”

That’s how Osweiler and coach Gary Kubiak characterized Osweiler’s starting status Wednesday amid rampant speculation that the Broncos should stick with the longtime backup with the offense humming along with big wins over Chicago and New England.

Osweiler said he’s not ready to view his starting job as more than a temporary gig.

“You know, I’m not really focused with how long am I going to be the starter? Am I the starter? Am I not the starter?” Osweiler said. “All I know is I’m the starter this week against the Chargers.”

After practice, Kubiak said nothing’s changed from his perspective: Osweiler’s his quarterback this week and the goal is to try to get Manning healthy and back on the field as soon as possible.

Manning revealed his foot has been bothering him for much of the season, although he declined to say exactly when he first hurt it, suggesting “timelines and all that are kind of irrelevant. It’s bothering me now.”

Playing on the turf in Indianapolis on Nov. 8 exacerbated the injury. He was replaced by Osweiler in the third quarter against the Chiefs the following week after throwing four interceptions on the same day he became the NFL’s all-time passing yards leader.

He remains tied with Brett Favre for most wins by a starting quarterback in the regular season with 186.

Under Osweiler, the Broncos are a much different team. The athletic quarterback’s ability to run bootlegs and play action has opened up Kubiak’s zone-based offense, which had been modified for Manning.

Osweiler credited Manning with giving him tips at halftime Sunday night that helped Denver come back from a two-touchdown deficit to beat the previously undefeated Patriots 30-24 in overtime.

“It’s obviously difficult not being out there,” Manning said. “… But while I’m not, I try to do whatever I can to help. I’ve always been a team player, try to be a good teammate, whether it’s answering any questions that Brock may have or (quarterbacks coach) Greg Knapp may have.”

Manning said he’s proud of Osweiler’s play and happy for his teammates.

He’ll let everyone one else speculate about his football mortality, though.

“This is when ‘they’ and ‘sources’ seem to show their heads a little bit,” Manning said. “And I’ve always wanted to meet ‘they’ and ‘sources’ because both seem to know a lot. But I haven’t thought much more than about trying to get healthy. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

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#UK Officer prepares to face jury in first Freddie Gray trial

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William Porter, left, one of six Baltimore city police officers charged in connection to the death of Freddie Gray, walks to a courthouse with his attorney Joseph Murtha for jury selection in his trial, Monday, Nov. 30, 2015, in Baltimore. Porter faces charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)

BALTIMORE (AP) — The first of six officers charged in a police custody death that sparked riots in Baltimore went on trial Wednesday as a prosecutor focused on what the patrolman failed to do: Push a button to call for a medic who might have saved Freddie Gray’s life.

Attorneys for Officer William Porter disputed this and other claims made in the trial’s opening statements, questioning how and when Gray’s neck was broken in the back of a police van, and whether the young black man was really in need of medical attention when he first asked for it.

“You may hope finding him guilty will quell unrest,” but Porter committed no crime, defense attorney Gary Proctor told jurors.

“Let’s show Baltimore the whole damn system isn’t guilty as hell,” Proctor said, paraphrasing a chant used by protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Porter wasn’t initially involved in Gray’s arrest, but he was there at five of the six stops the van made that turned a short trip into a 45-minute ride to the local police station.

Prosecutors said the young black man told Porter he could not breathe and could not move from the floor of the van, where he had been placed head-first, in plastic handcuffs and leg shackles.

Gray’s neck was broken between the second and fourth stops, which made his breathing increasingly difficult, said the prosecutor. He suggested the fatal injury could have happened when the brakes engaged, since Gray could not have used his hands or feet to brace himself.

“If it slams on its brakes, he’s going to move at the speed it was going before it slams on its brakes,” prosecutor Michael Schatzow said. “He’s completely at the mercy of whatever happens.”

Rather than call a medic, Porter picked Gray up from the floor and placed him upright but unsecured on the bench, despite Baltimore Police Department policy requiring a seatbelt restraint, he said.

Pointing to a poster-sized photo of the van with one of its rear doors open, Schatzow said: “The city paid extra to get those seat belts in that van, any one of which would have saved Mr. Gray’s life.”

Then, rather than take him directly to the station or a hospital, police made a fifth stop to pick up another suspect. By then, Gray was fatally injured, prosecutors said.

The defense attorney disputed the timeline, arguing that Gray was found slumped over on his knees by the fifth stop, so he could not have been already injured. “It’s impossible. His legs wouldn’t have worked,” Proctor said.

Porter also suspected Gray had a case of “jail-itis” — police slang for feigning an injury to avoid going to jail, his attorney suggested.

Porter “knew he didn’t go quietly” during earlier arrests, so when Gray became more passive while still requesting a medic during van stops 4 and 5, the officer assumed he had simply exhausted himself rocking the vehicle early in the ride, Proctor said.

As for pushing the “talk” button on his shoulder radio to summon a medic, Porter’s experience told him that could mean spending hours with Gray in an emergency room awaiting a doctor’s note clearing him to go to jail, the defense attorney said.

Gray, 25, was picked up after running from police who were patrolling his neighborhood. A neighbor recorded a video of him being dragged into the van. He was unresponsive on arrival at the station, and was taken to a hospital where he died a week later, on April 19.

Porter, who also is black, is charged with manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment, carrying maximum terms of about 25 years in prison. He is expected to take the stand in his own defense.

The jury of eight women and four men was seated on the third day of a brisk selection process, given defense assertions that it would be impossible to seat an impartial panel in a city so convulsed by the case.

Gray’s death triggered protests and rioting in Baltimore, fueling the Black Lives Matter movement nationwide. The troubles forced Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to fire her reform-minded police chief and abandon her re-election campaign. Homicides skyrocketed at a rate unseen in decades.

Many fear that an acquittal could prompt more protests and unrest, and that a conviction could send shock waves through the city’s troubled police department.

The other officers charged — two black and three white — will be tried separately beginning in January and lasting through the spring.

No reputations hinge on the trial’s outcome as much as that of state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby and her husband, Nick Mosby, a councilman for Baltimore’s west side who announced his mayoral candidacy shortly after Rawlings-Blake pulled out.

Marilyn Mosby, who took office in January, spoke so forcefully when she announced the charges against the officers in May that defense attorneys argued she should recuse herself for bias. She listened Wednesday in the courtroom. Gray’s mother, stepfather and other family members were in the courtroom as well. Porter also had family present.

The state’s first witness, Officer Alice Carson-Johnson, taught Porter at the police academy. She said officers must sometimes “do a little detective work” to understand medical complaints, but she hopes they will have already summoned an ambulance before trying to determine why someone is saying, “I can’t breathe.”

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This story has been corrected to say the prosecutor said Gray’s neck was broken between the second and fourth stops, not the third and fourth stops.

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#UK House panel finds Secret Service rife with problems

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FILE - In this May 23, 2012, file photo, then-U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. A new congressional report says there have been 143 security breaches or attempted breaches at facilities secured by the Secret Service in the last 10 years. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report says the Secret Service is an

WASHINGTON (AP) — There have been 143 security breaches or attempted breaches at facilities secured by the Secret Service in the last 10 years, according to a lengthy House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report critical of the agency released early Thursday.

The committee concluded that the Secret Service is an “agency in crisis” after a series of high-profile embarrassments over several years, including a South American prostitution scandal and multiple security breaches involving President Barack Obama and the White House. The report faults both leadership failings within the agency and budget cuts imposed by Congress that have led to what the committee concluded was a “staffing crisis.”

The committee is chaired by Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz and has been investigating the agency since details of the April 2012 prostitution scandal became public. Three directors have led the Secret Service in the last three years and multiple agents and officers, including senior officials, have been fired, transferred or disciplined in the last several years as details of scandals and security breaches have become public.

“This report reveals that the Secret Service is in crisis,” Chaffetz said. “Morale is down, attrition is up, misconduct continues and security breaches persist. Strong leadership from the top is required to fix the systemic mismanagement within the agency and to restore it to its former prestige.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said while the committee’s report highlights the agency’s failures it should also serve as a warning to Congress that lawmakers “cannot make some of the biggest budget cuts in the history of the Secret Service and expect no repercussions to the agency’s staffing and its critical mission. Reversing these problematic trends will require bipartisan and creative work by both the agency and Congress to ensure that the Secret Service is the lean, effective, and respected organization we know it must be.”

Most recently it was revealed that dozens of agents used a secure government database to view Chaffetz’s decade-old, unsuccessful job application starting 18 minutes after the start of hearing focused on another scandal involving allegations of drunken driving involving two senior officials.

The yearlong investigation also found new information about past scandals, including the Colombia prostitution case.

The report said that the Secret Service’s own investigation of that incident uncovered multiple emails sent between agents and officers discussing the trip and eluded to plans to enjoy their surroundings. One email described the motto of the trip as “una mas cerveza por favor,” or one more beer please. Another listed a check-list of things an agent planned to bring, including “swag cologne,” ”pimp gear” and cash for prostitutes.

The committee also found that agents failed to properly vet multiple armed security guards who were near Obama during a September 2014 visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. During that trip Obama rode an elevator with an armed contractor who had not been vetted.

Then-Director Julia Pierson was fired after details of that incident were published by The Washington Post.

The 438-page report also found that the agency is understaffed and agents and officers are overworked.

The committee said the agency’s staffing crisis started in 2011 amid the government-wide budget sequester. The agency has fewer employees today than a year ago, despite recommendations from an independent panel that staffing be increased.

The committee blamed the staffing situation on “significant (budget) cuts … systemic mismanagement at (the Secret Service) that has been unable to correct these shortfalls and declining employee morale leading to attrition.”

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#UK Council on American-Islamic Relations on the San Bernardino massacre: ‘This certainly is not about the Muslim faith’

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CAIR press conference San Bernardino shooting

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has held a press conference to address the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.

CAIR executive director, Nihad Awad said, “We unequivocally condemn the horrific act that occurred today.

Muzammil Siddiqi, a Religious Director of the Islamic Society of Orange County urged people to “not implicate Islam or Muslims” at large for the attack.

In the wake of the massacre that has left at least 14 people dead and 17 others injured, one potential suspect has been identified.

Several news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press, have cited law enforcement officials who say one of three potential suspects is Syed Farook, a man who may have been involved in a shootout with police, hours after the violence began. 

Farhan Khan, a man identified as Farook’s brother-in-law, said “Why would he do something like this? I have absolutely no idea.”

 

FBI officials investigating the Inland Regional Center shooting have suggested the incident may be considered an act of domestic terrorism, though no such classification has been made official.

Farook was reportedly a US citizen, and a San Bernardino County employee, who worked for the health department.

The LA Times reported Wednesday that police radio transmissions suggested that Farook attended a company event  at the Inland Regional Center and “was acting nervous” then “left out of the blue,” minutes before gunfire began.

 

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