Two states, Puerto Rico join N.Y. in diet supplement probe

By Christie Smythe and Chris Dolmetsch, Bloomberg News

Bloomberg




NEW YORK — Dietary supplements are facing more scrutiny from U.S. regulators as two states and Puerto Rico joined New York in a probe of the $33 billion industry after testing showed some products didn't appear to contain key ingredients advertised.

Attorneys general in Connecticut and Indiana and the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs will investigate industry business practices and whether claims of authenticity and purity are valid, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Tuesday in a statement.


Pittsburgh-based GNC Holdings Inc.'s stock price fell as much as 7 percent Tuesday following news of the expanded probe. Herbal supplements make up about 8 percent of the nutritional retailer's sales, according to analysts from Jefferies.

The real $61 billion per year question is whether or not the entire supplement business is one big criminal fraud that steals by deception $61 billion a year of consumer payments. Anyone who has been spending money buying supplements needs to take this case very seriously. It is after all not...

Earlier, a researcher hired by New York found evidence that store-brand products from GNC, Wal-Mart Stores, Walgreens and Target labeled as containing supplements such as echinacea and ginkgo biloba lacked those signature ingredients or contained substances not on the label. GNC has disputed Schneiderman's findings and called his testing methods "incomplete and unreliable."

GNC "fully complied" with inquiries about products from Schneiderman and "took the additional step of commissioning independent, third-party tests to verify the quality of our products," Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for GNC with Sard Verbinnen & Co., said in a statement Tuesday. The additional tests and the company's own procedures "confirm in no uncertain terms that our products are safe, pure, properly labeled and in full compliance with all regulatory requirements."

Based on work at Ontario's University of Guelph, the DNA barcoding testing method in Schneiderman's probe identifies organisms using a small amount of genetic material.

Minneapolis-based Target and Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens Boots Alliance have pulled products flagged by Schneiderman's results from store shelves nationwide. GNC and Wal-Mart have said they would remove some of their supplements from stores in New York.

"We take these issues very seriously," Emily Hartwig, a spokeswoman for Walgreens, said in a statement Tuesday. "We continue to review this matter and also intend to continue cooperating."

Evan Lapiska, a spokesman for Target, declined to comment on the states' actions. Brian Nick, a spokesman for Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, didn't immediately respond to phone and e-mailed requests for comment.

The Food and Drug Administration requires supplement sellers to verify that products are safe and properly labeled. Supplements don't undergo the same strict evaluation process as drugs.

One problem for the industry as the probe expands is "consumer perception" of supplements, Jefferies analysts Mark Wiltamuth, Christopher Mandeville and Clayton Meyers said in a note to investors Tuesday. The timing of the probe is "unfortunate" as companies begin to shake off the effects of scrutiny of products such as fish oil and multivitamins, they said.

Ted Craig, a Miami lawyer who has defended companies in regulatory disputes and class actions, said other states may see Schneiderman's investigation as "low-hanging fruit" and seek to "jump on this bandwagon" by joining it.

Schneiderman said in his release that the industry "contributes" $61 billion to the U.S. economy. According to the Nutrition Business Journal, a trade publication, supplement companies had 2012 sales of $32.5 billion.

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UPDATE 1-FBI investigating reported shots near U.S. spy agency headquarters

Tue Mar 3, 2015 8:59pm EST



(Recasts with FBI leading investigation, adds Maryland transportation police)

(Reuters) - The FBI is leading an investigation into reported shots fired on Tuesday near National Security Agency headquarters in Maryland and damage to an NSA building, an NSA spokeswoman said.

There were no reports of injuries to NSA personnel, spokeswoman Meagan Roper said in an email.

U.S. Park Police spokeswoman Sergeant Lelani Woods said shots were reported near an exit to Fort Meade, site of the spy agency, along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Officers found damage to an NSA building "and they are investigating if it is damage from shots fired," Woods said.

The incident came after Maryland Transportation Authority Police reported two people suffered minor injuries from shots fired at a vehicle on the Inter-County Connector, a highway about 12 miles (19 km) from the NSA.

There was no indication the incidents were related, "but obviously, investigators are looking at all leads," a Transportation Authority Police spokesman said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Red Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a ‘Trade Secret’

The charity is fighting our public records request for information on how it raised and spent money after the superstorm.

by Justin Elliott

ProPublica, June 26, 2014, 11:38 a.m

The NSA Revelations All in One ChartRed Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a ‘Trade Secret’Should Public Schools be Free to Pin Down Students? Join ProPublica's DiscussionViolent and Legal: The Shocking Ways School Kids are Being Pinned Down, Isolated Against Their WillWhere Do the Guns Traced in Your State Come From?No Warrant, No Problem: How the Government Can Get Your Digital DataThe NSA Revelations All in One ChartPodcast: Mapping the NSA’s SpyingHow To Edit 52,000 Stories at OnceFAQ For Our NSA Chart

(Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a "trade secret."

The Red Cross' "trade secret" argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it's not clear yet how much since the documents haven't yet been released.

As we've reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.

The Red Cross did give some information about Sandy spending to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who had been investigating the charity. But the Red Cross declined our request to disclose the details.

So we filed a public records request for the information the Red Cross provided to the attorney general's office.

That's where the law firm Gibson Dunn comes in.

An attorney from the firm's New York office appealed to the attorney general to block disclosure of some of the Sandy information, citing the state Freedom of Information Law's trade secret exemption.

The documents include "internal and proprietary methodology and procedures for fundraising, confidential information about its internal operations, and confidential financial information," wrote Gabrielle Levin of Gibson Dunn in a letter to the attorney general's office.

If those details were disclosed, "the American Red Cross would suffer competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross's business model for an increased competitive advantage," Levin wrote.

The letter doesn't specify who the Red Cross' "competitors" are.

The Red Cross is a public charity and occupies a unique place responding to disasters alongside the federal government.

Among the sections of the documents the Red Cross wanted redacted was "a two-line title" at the top of a page, one line of which was "American Red Cross."

The attorney general's office denied that redaction, writing that it "can not find disclosure of this two line title will cause the Red Cross any economic injury."

Asked about the effort to have Sandy materials kept secret, Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego told ProPublica: "We sought to keep confidential a small part of the letter [sent to the AG] that provided proprietary information important to maintaining our ability to raise funds and fulfill our mission."

Doug White, a nonprofit expert who directs the fundraising management program at Columbia University, said that it's possible for nonprofits to have trade interests — the logo of a university, for example — but it's not clear what a "trade secret" would be in the case of the Red Cross. He called the lawyer's letter an apparent "delaying tactic."

Ben Smilowitz of the Disaster Accountability Project, a watchdog group, said,

"Invoking a 'trade secret' exemption is not something you would expect from an organization that purports to be 'transparent and accountable.'"

In agreeing to withhold some details, the attorney general's office found that portions of the documents the charity wanted to redact "describe business strategies, internal operational procedures and decisions, and the internal deliberations and decision-making processes that affect fundraising and the allocation of donations."

The attorney general's office also found "that this information is proprietary and constitutes trade secrets, and that its disclosure would cause the Red Cross economic injury and put the Red Cross at an economic disadvantage."

Another section the Red Cross wanted redacted was a paragraph that noted the charity's "willingness to meet with the [Office of the Attorney General.]" The attorney general's office denied that part of the request

Borrego, the Red Cross spokeswoman, declined to say how much the charity is paying Gibson Dunn but said, "we do not use funds restricted to Superstorm Sandy to cover those expenses."

We'll let you know when we get the documents we asked for — at least the parts that aren't trade secrets.

If you have experience with or information about the American Red Cross, including its operations after Sandy, email justin@propublica.org

Related articles: Read our other coverage about how the Red Cross' post-storm spending on Sandy is a black box.

Justin Elliott

Justin Elliott is a ProPublica reporter covering politics and government accountability. Previously, he was a reporter at Salon.com and TPMmuckraker and news editor at Talking Points Memo.

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Vatican willingly appearing before UN committee, spokesman says

By Cindy Wooden on Wednesday, 16 April 2014


In This Article United Nations

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Fr Lombardi said the Vatican would file reports on its anti-torture efforts (CNS)



The Vatican’s scheduled May appearance before a United Nations committee monitoring adherence to an anti-torture treaty is being done willingly and not because Church officials were ordered to appear for questioning, a Vatican spokesman has said.

Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi told reporters yesterday that as a signatory of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Vatican promised to file periodic reports about its laws and efforts to fight torture.

Along with representatives of seven other states, Vatican representatives are scheduled to review the periodic report with committee members from May 5-6 in Geneva.

“This is part of the ordinary procedures to which all state parties to the convention adhere,” Fr Lombardi said. “It is not that the Holy See was convoked in a way outside the normal procedures.”

In addition, he said, the treaty was signed in 2002 “in the name of Vatican City State – not for the universal Church – because the convention has juridical characteristics” that apply to a geographical nation-state.

The UN committee’s questions to the Vatican representatives “must take into account the nature of the convention, its text and the fact that it regards Vatican City State,” and not the worldwide church, he said.

The UN committee tentatively scheduled a May 2 session for nongovernmental organizations wanting to discuss the Holy See’s position. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, representing SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, filed a report with the committee stating that “rape and other forms of sexual violence are recognized as torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and the Vatican has fallen woefully short of its obligation to prevent and protect against these crimes” in the way it has handled the clerical sex abuse scandal.

In a statement April 14, SNAP said it hoped the UN committee would “call out Catholic officials for saying one thing and doing another, and for putting children in harm’s way time and time and time again, not just in years past, but today as well.”

SNAP said it hoped the committee would be as tough on the Vatican as the UN committee monitoring adherence to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was after Vatican representatives took part in the normal review process in mid-January. The committee said the Vatican was not doing enough to prevent clerical sexual abuse of children and even suggested that, for the good of children, the Catholic Church change its teaching on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.

The Vatican’s report to the committee against torture focused on the laws and policies of Vatican City State regarding crime and punishment, but also mentioned the work of Vatican representatives and the Vatican media to educate people around the world about the sacredness of human life and the immorality of torture.

“The Holy See notes that ‘in times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture,’” the report said, quoting from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Continuing to quote from the catechism, the report said, “Regrettable as these facts are, the church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person.”

The Holy See condemns torture and “other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which may not amount to torture but are equally contrary to the inherent dignity of the human person and his or her integrity and identity. They include the death penalty, in cases where bloodless means are available to protect public order and the safety of persons; subhuman living conditions in prisons… arbitrary imprisonment, detention or deportation,” the report added


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Senate Report Shows CIA Torture Ineffective

 

A Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation” is poised to elevate hostility between the two groups into an all-out war.


By Frederick Reese @FrederickReese | April 2, 2014
 



Protestors demonstrate the use of water boarding to volunteer Maboud Ebrahim Zadeh, Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, in front of the Justice Department in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)


In recent months, the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee have been in a perceived state of hostility. A disagreement over the CIA’s handling of the “enhanced interrogation” program under former President George W. Bush has evolved into a rare fight between a federal agency and its oversight board. The escalation of harsh words and allegations — including the Intelligence Committee accusing the CIA of illegal spying on, and hacking into the computers of the committee and vice versa — has turned the investigation into allegations of George W. Bush-era torture into an embarrassment for both the Democrat-ran Senate and the Obama White House.

A 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report is set to add fuel to this spreading fire. As reported by The Washington Post, the classified, recently-concluded report alleges that the CIA knowingly misled the government and the American people about the severity and effectiveness of the “enhanced interrogation” program. The agency allegedly took credit for intelligence obtained without the use of “enhanced interrogation” and overstated the importance of information that “enhanced interrogation” did manage to extract.

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” one U.S. official briefed on the report told The Washington Post. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the classified nature of the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

However, with the committee stating that it does not seek any administrative or criminal inquiries based on the findings of the report, and considering that the administration has already closed the door on seeking culpability in the question of the use of “enhanced interrogation,” the question begs to be asked: What is the net result of this investigation?

As this report will likely reignite the debate on the use of torture, it will also likely create a screaming match this election year between Republicans defending the actions of the last Republican president and Democrats defending their rationale for not prosecuting these “crimes against humanity.”


“Enhanced interrogations”

“Enhanced interrogations” refer to a set of interrogation methods involving torturous or physically- and mentally-stressing activities to coerce cooperation. It includes tactics such as inducing hypothermia, waterboarding and stress positioning, or positioning the body in such a way that extraordinary weight is supported by just one or two muscle groups, as in forcing someone to stand on the balls of his feet and making him squat low to the ground.

Waterboarding is a form of water torture in which a victim is immobilized on a downward-inclined table with a cloth covering his face while water is poured over the cloth. This triggers the gag reflex and causes the victim to think he is drowning. As the gag reflex can cause the victim to vomit, the procedure is potentially fatal. In World War II, the United States arrested and hanged Japanese soldiers accused of waterboarding, as pointed out by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during a 2007 Republican Presidential Primaries debate.

“Enhanced interrogations” were carried out in “black sites,” or secret detention facilities, spread throughout the Afghan and Iraqi war zones and within allied nations. In 2009, President Obama brought an end to such interrogation activities, and the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense closed all of the “black sites.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report mentions undisclosed acts of terror that do not appear on the U.S. Department of Justice’s approved list of interrogation techniques, such as the repeated dunking of a terrorism suspect in Afghanistan in tanks of ice water.

Torture is recognized as a grave violation of basic human rights and is explicitly prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and all four of the Geneva Conventions. However, due to the United States’ status as a veto-carrying permanent member of the Security Council, the agency charged with the enforcement of international law, the international community does not have the power to force the U.S. to obey these laws or punish the nation if it breaks them.


Differences in interpretation

Defenders of “enhanced interrogations” point to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida’s propagandist from 1999 to 2001. In 2003, Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in a joint CIA-Pakistan raid. In 2006, Mohammed left CIA custody and was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

According to early reports of the death of Osama bin Laden, news agencies reported that CIA interrogators were able to retrieve the pseudonym of one of bin Laden’s aides from Mohammed and Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Officials from the George W. Bush administration credited this information gathering to “enhanced interrogation.”

However, later reports indicated that waterboarding did not prompt Mohammed to reveal the information. Instead, he gave the information up under standard interrogation months before the military started the procedure. Mohammed’s disclosure occurred three years after the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. The Senate report indicated that the National Security Agency — not the CIA — was the most useful in securing intelligence that led to the death of bin Laden.

While the report’s favoring of the NSA over the CIA may reflect the current politics of the committee, which is trying to justify the NSA’s current surveillance apparatus as being both useful and essential for national security, it still points to the George W. Bush administration’s willingness to use violence to gather information, despite the fact that most experts agree that torture is not an effective means of gathering credible intelligence.

“The defenders of ‘enhanced interrogation’ believe it ‘saved American lives,’ yet never identified which life it saved,” Joseph Wippl, a former CIA officer and currently a professor of the practice of international relations, told MintPress News. “Had it really done so, I am confident that person or persons would have been identified.

“The debate about whether enhanced interrogation was effective against terrorists is the wrong debate. What if it was effective? Would you still engage in methods defined as torture — that is, ‘cruel, inhumane, degrading?’ Those methods of enhanced interrogation which can be defined as torture are wrong, even if justified by Justice Department memorandum, under all circumstances — even at the expense of American lives.”


Making amends

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been working to expose the “enhanced interrogation” program, argues that the Obama administration must do four things in order to redress the fact that the U.S. submitted to the use of torture: fully investigate the use of torture and kidnapping by the federal government and prosecute those responsible; release the records documenting the planning and approval of the program; honor and pardon those service members that objected to the use of torture; and publicly apologize for what has happened and duly compensate the victims and their families. While there is no indication that the administration will agree to every term dictated by the ACLU, there are signs that the White House seeks disclosure on this issue.

“There needs to be a further accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break it entirely along party lines, to the extent that there are independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take,” President Obama said on April 21, 2009.

With the Senate Intelligence Committee set to vote Thursday on whether the report should be sent to the White House for declassification, this report may be the first step in the nation’s reconciliation with its use of torture. However, with the CIA fervently refuting its accounting, the report is more likely to result in in-fighting and political arguments than healing.


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Hishammuddin: Importance being given to that corridor as it’s a vast open sea

 
Published: Thursday March 20, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Updated: Thursday March 20, 2014 MYT 8:42:02 AM



. . .
SEPANG: Maldive officials have refuted claims that the missing flight MH370 was seen flying low over a nearby atoll but the multinational teams searching for the plane are continuing to give emphasis to the more challenging southern corridor.

There are still many reports that the aircraft could have flown to the area which stretches from Indonesia to the southern edge of the Indian Ocean.

“As regards to the southern corridor, it is a vast open sea, so some degree of importance is being given to that area,” Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein told the daily press conference at Sama Sama Hotel.

While the southern corridor was not more “interesting” compared to the northern corridor which comprises overland territory from north Thailand to Kazakhstan, it was more challenging due to the logistics required, the acting Transport Minister said.

A number of foreign newspapers and international wires have reported that MH370 was likely to have flown to the southern corridor.

Reuters, quoting an unnamed source, said the Boeing 777-200 most likely flew into the southern Indian Ocean. This, it said, was due to a lack of evidence from countries along the northern corridor that the plane had crossed their airspace.

Hishammuddin said that he had spoken to the commander of the United States Pacific Command Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III to identify the equipment needed to locate the aircraft and its data recorder which will provide information on what happened to the missing MH370.

The minister said he had also spoken to experts involved in the search and recovery of Air France Flight 447 – which plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris – to determine the kind of equipment needed if indeed MH370 had crashed into the sea.

Hishammuddin said the main technical team organising the search and rescue operation had been organised into three groups: a diplomatic team led by Wisma Putra; an assets deployment and logistics team led by the Malaysian Armed Forces; and a technical group retaining overall operational control, led by the Department of Civil Aviation.

“I can confirm that the Malaysian Chief of the Defence Force has contacted his counterpart in the Maldives, who has confirmed that the reports of the plane’s sighting are not true.”

On reports that additional waypoints had been added to the aircraft’s flight routing computer, Hishammuddin said MH370 flew on a normal routing until the IGARI waypoint located off the coast of Kelantan.

“There is no additional waypoint on MH370’s documented flight plan, which depicts normal routing all the way to Beijing.”

Hishammuddin said investigators have received some radar data from several countries which may help in the search for MH370 but he could not yet reveal details about it.

“This data is sensitive to the nations and I will need their clearance before I can release them,” he said.

Related stories:

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Missing MH370: ‘Radar shows no sign of plane’

Missing MH370: Flight simulator’s info erased

Fishermen spot debris in India

It changed course only after ‘all right, good night’

Hisham orders probe into ruckus at hotel

Malaysia Airlines to send out SMS blasts to families

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Smooth sailing through checkpoints despite tighter security

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High-level team to update next-of-kin in Beijing

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Hectic days as journalists converge at Sama-Sama Hotel

Tighter security at all entry points

Tough for Malaysia if foreign govts slow to react or not forthcoming with info

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Abuse Charges Roil Heavily Catholic Puerto Rico

ARECIBO, Puerto Rico March 12, 2014 (AP)
By DANICA COTO Associated Press





First, the Catholic Church announced it had defrocked six priests accused of sex abuse in the Puerto Rican town of Arecibo. Then, local prosecutors disclosed that at least 11 other priests on the island were under investigation for similar accusations.

Now, as U.S. authorities acknowledge that they, too, are looking into abuse allegations by priests on this devoutly Catholic island, many are reeling from revelations of abuse involving some of the U.S. territory's most beloved clerics.

Puerto Ricans had largely been spared the lurid accounts of sex abuse involving the Catholic Church, and many had come to believe they were immune. But Barbara Dorris, a director with the U.S.-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said the new reports mean it's likely the problem is much worse than previously imagined.

"In general, these things tend to snowball because victims are afraid to come forward," Dorris said. "If the priests have been on this island for a while, it probably means that it's dozens upon dozens of victims out there."

Puerto Rico Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda said last week that at least four dioceses are being investigated. He also warned he might file charges against church officials suspected of withholding information.

He described the situation as "truly scandalous."

"We are not going to rest," Miranda said. "We are going to capture them, we are going to process them and we are going to put them in jail."

Allegations of sex abuse by priests are not new here, but the latest wave of investigations has dwarfed anything seen on the island of 3.6 million people, more than 70 percent of whom identify themselves as Catholic.

"People want to believe in the specialness of the priests, in the power of the priests," said Richard Sipe, a California-based psychologist and former priest who is an expert on clergy sexual abuse. "The Latin American community is much slower in bringing charges against the priests. ...The priests themselves are held in greater esteem, and the culture is identified with the Catholic Church more closely."

On a recent Sunday morning in Arecibo, churchgoers streamed through the heavy wooden doors of the city's 17th century cathedral. A swell of voices soon joined the priest inside in prayer, while 44-year-old Jose Soto hurriedly walked past the Mass in the town's deserted streets.

"When you go in through those doors, it is supposed to be a spiritual, wholesome place," he said, adding that he once regularly attended Mass in the cathedral. "You don't know who you're listening to anymore ... It's like using the word of God for other purposes."

The wave of allegations began in late January with a series of reports in local media, primarily in the newspaper El Nuevo Dia.

In response, Arecibo Bishop Daniel Fernandez released a statement disclosing that since 2011 he had defrocked six priests accused of sex abuse, an unusually large number for a diocese with about 90 priests. Church officials said they have also provided counseling for at least one alleged victim and reparations in an unspecified number of cases across the island.

Last week, one of Arecibo's defrocked priests, Edwin Antonio Mercado Viera, was charged with committing lewd acts. The 53-year-old, who had been a popular figure in the parish, is accused of fondling the genitals of a 13-year-old altar boy in 2007.

Prosecutor Jose Capo Rivera said the bishop himself is "part of the investigation" due to accusations he committed lewd acts involving a minor. Fernandez has said he is innocent.

"Clearly, it's revenge for the decisions I've taken since the moment I assumed leadership of the diocese, where the situation that I found was not the most positive," he said in a written statement.

Agnes Poventud, an attorney for a man who says Fernandez molested him when he was child, told The Associated Press that federal agents recently interviewed her and her client. She declined to say when the alleged abuse occurred or how old her client was at the time, only to say he was a minor.

A federal official confirmed to the AP that U.S. authorities have requested information about alleged clergy abuse from the Puerto Rico Justice Department. The official agreed to discuss the case only if not quoted by name because the information was not yet public.

Further revelations have followed the Arecibo cases. The Diocese of Mayaguez, on Puerto Rico's west coast, said it has handled four cases of alleged sex abuse, the majority of them being reviewed by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which takes on such accusations.

In addition, San Juan Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez Nieves said prosecutors are investigating six alleged sex abuse cases in the diocese of Puerto Rico's capital. He said the accused priests have been suspended and the statute of limitation has expired in five cases.

Prosecutors also are investigating a sex abuse allegation in the Diocese of Caguas, Capo said.

Meanwhile, justice officials accuse the Arecibo diocese of withholding information and are fighting a lawsuit still pending in court that the diocese filed to keep secret the names of alleged victims to protect their confidentiality. Prosecutors assert the move is intended to protect the accused priests, a charge diocese attorney Frank Torres denies.

"The church has cooperated and has a policy of transparency, but that cooperation does not mean the church is free to violate the guarantees of confidentiality it has awarded the victims," Torres said in a phone interview.

Diocese officials in Puerto Rico say that the statute of limitations has expired in many cases, an argument that Florida-based lawyer Joseph Saunders said has been the church's first line of defense. He said many church officials argue they should have been sued when the alleged violations occurred.

"Nobody sued a bishop or a priest back then," he said. "There's an underlying fear of going to hell for suing the bishop."


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Trawl the Net, says Congress report on U.S. security clearances

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:25am EST




The Capitol building is seen before U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address in front of the U.S. Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington January 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Gary Cameron



Related Topics

U.S. »
Politics »


(Reuters) - The U.S. security clearance process that failed to flag former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden and the Washington Navy Yard shooter needs reforms as simple as letting investigators use the Internet and forcing local law enforcement to cooperate, a congressional report said on Tuesday.

The report suggested federal investigators be allowed to tap tools ordinary Americans use to find out about a specific person: Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The Office of Personnel Management's Investigative Handbook, updated in 2007, places an almost blanket restriction on Internet use, it said, but social media and search sites "contain a treasure trove of information about their users".

"Congress should force OPM's investigative practices into the 21st century by allowing investigators to use the Internet and social media sources in particular for the first time," it said.

The report was compiled by the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee and reflected closer government scrutiny of the security clearance process and the contractors who carry it out. The report was released before a committee hearing with key figures in the security process.

It was triggered by last September's killings of 12 people at the Navy Yard. Shooter Aaron Alexis was a Defense Department contract employee who received a "secret" clearance in 2008 despite his involvement in a series of violent incidents and his erratic behavior.

Last month, the Justice Department accused United States Investigations Services, the largest private provider of security checks for the government, of bilking the government of millions of dollars through improper background checks.

USIS vetted both Alexis and Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed secrets about U.S. government surveillance before taking refuge in Russia.

The House committee report said Congress had a responsibility to determine how Alexis got clearance despite red flags, which included a warning from his mother to his employer that Alexis had "a history of paranoid episodes and most likely needed therapy.

Much of Alexis' background information was not passed on to the adjudicator who granted his clearance, the report said. Specifically, his 2004 arrest was not included in the Office of Personnel Management's background investigative file that went to the Navy, which ultimately granted him clearance twice.

MORE REGULAR CHECKS NEEDED

The committee, led by Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, said legislative fixes it was considering included requiring continuous evaluation of clearances, which now have to be re-evaluated every five or 10 years.

It also proposed giving government greater access to the mental health information of people holding clearances and ensuring local law enforcement offices fulfill their obligation to provide specific information to background investigators.

The report said local police departments are now required by law to cooperate in federal security clearance investigations, but more than 450 offices around the country do not, including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The OPM is in charge of background investigations for security clearances for non-intelligence personnel. Information compiled by OPM and its contractors is relayed to the agency that requested clearance, which decides whether to grant it.

In prepared testimony before the committee, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, who has been in the job three months, said that last week she ordered the quality review process be done only by federal employees, not contract workers.

"We no longer will have contractors participating in our ongoing final federally controlled quality review process," she said.

The Justice Department lawsuit said USIS failed to perform quality control reviews of its background investigations.

The new CEO of USIS, which said it is cooperating with the government, tried to minimize contractors' role.

"It is critical to recognize that USIS and OPM's other contractors have no role in deciding whether an individual actually receives or retains a security clearance," Sterling Phillips said in prepared testimony. "We only collect and report information and we do not even make a recommendation."

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Storey and James Dalgleish)


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Two Secret Service agents cut from Obama’s detail after alleged misconduct

By Carol D. Leonnig and David Nakamura, Published: November 13



A call from the Hay-Adams hotel this past spring reporting that a Secret Service agent was trying to force his way into a woman’s room set in motion an internal investigation that has sent tremors through an agency still trying to restore its elite reputation.

The incident came a year after the agency was roiled by a prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, prompting vows from senior officials to curb a male-dominated culture of hard partying and other excesses.

The service named its first female director, Julia Pierson, seven months ago, and an extensive inspector general report on the agency’s culture launched in the wake of the Car­tagena scandal is expected to be released in coming weeks.

The disruption at the Hay-
Adams in May involved Ignacio Zamora Jr., a senior supervisor who oversaw about two dozen agents in the Secret Service’s most elite assignment — the president’s security detail. Zamora was allegedly discovered attempting to reenter a woman’s room after accidentally leaving behind a bullet from his service weapon. The incident has not been previously reported.

In a follow-up investigation, agency officials also found that Zamora and another supervisor, Timothy Barraclough, had sent sexually suggestive e-mails to a female subordinate, according to those with knowledge of the case. Officials have removed Zamora from his position and moved Barraclough off the detail to a separate part of the division, people familiar with the case said.

Details about the Hay-Adams episode and related findings were provided by four people who have been briefed on the case, including two who have viewed summaries of the internal Secret Service review.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan declined to comment on the internal review of the Hay-
Adams incident or the supervisors’ alleged behavior. He said that no employees — including Zamora and Barraclough — wished to comment.

An attorney for Zamora and Barraclough also declined to comment on the allegations or the Secret Service’s internal inquiry. Messages left for Zamora on his home phone were not returned; efforts to reach Barraclough through home and fax numbers were unsuccessful. An attorney for the female agent in the protective division declined to comment.

“We have always maintained that the Secret Service has a professional and dedicated workforce,” Donovan said in a statement, referring to the Hay-Adams incident. “Periodically we have isolated incidents of misconduct, just like every organization does.”

Donovan added that “we work diligently with our Office of Professional Responsibility and Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General” to resolve such cases “appropriately and quickly.”

But the inspector general’s office was unaware of the hotel incident or the related findings until The Washington Post began making inquiries about the case last month, according to people briefed on the matter.

The Secret Service did not refer the case to the inspector general until the week of Oct. 28. In a preliminary look, the office concluded that the Secret Service had handled the case administratively and that the alleged misconduct did not require independent review, according to a person familiar with the referral.


Bill Hillburg, a spokesman for the DHS Office of Inspector General, said the upcoming report on Secret Service culture seeks to answer whether the antics of agents in Cartagena were atypical or the result of a broader culture that included excessive partying and womanizing. Hillburg declined to say whether the Hay-Adams case was part of the review.

“At each stage, as we conducted interviews, we were made aware of other incidents and potential misconduct that we are now pursuing,” Hillburg said.

The Hay-Adams, which overlooks the White House and served as the Obama family’s temporary home before the president’s first inauguration, is accustomed to seeing Secret Service agents on and off duty. One night in May, hotel staff alerted the White House about odd behavior by an agent demanding access to one of their guest rooms.

Colette Marquez, the Hay-Adams’s general manager, declined to comment when asked about the incident.

According to the Secret Service’s internal findings, Zamora was off duty when he met a woman at the hotel’s Off the Record bar and later joined her in her room.

The review found that Zamora had removed ammunition from the chamber of his government-issued handgun during his stay in the room and then left behind a single bullet. He returned to the room when he realized his mistake. The guest refused to let him back in. Zamora identified himself to hotel security as a Secret Service agent.

The incident led to an investigation that included a routine search of Zamora’s government-issued BlackBerry, which contained sexually charged messages to the female agent, according to the people briefed on the findings.

The review of the communications revealed that Barraclough also had sent inappropriate and suggestive messages to the female agent, according to people familiar with the case.

The Post is not disclosing the woman’s name because, according to the people briefed on the findings, she has not been disciplined.

All Secret Service employees must maintain top-secret security clearances to be employed. An inspector general’s report this year that dealt with events in Cartagena said employees’ sexual behavior should be considered in granting or revoking security clearances “when the behavior may subject the individual to coercion, exploitation, or duress, or reflects lack of judgment or discretion.”

Zamora, a veteran agent who had risen to become a shift commander at the top rungs of Obama’s protective detail, previously headed first lady Laura Bush’s protective detail. Barraclough joined the presidential protective detail four years ago.

Zamora is described by those who have worked with him as a professional, sometimes brash agent who formerly led the agency’s Mexico City office. In Bush’s memoir, she called Zamora one of a handful of agents she relied on to keep her safe just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Zamora was promoted to the president’s protective division several years ago, most recently serving as a shift supervisor overseeing the rotating assignments of about two dozen agents, according to two people who have worked with him.

The new incidents echo some of the elements of the most damaging scandal in the service’s history, in which male agents brought prostitutes back to their rooms in Cartagena after a night of heavy drinking in April 2012. An agency that had a reputation as the creme de la creme of law enforcement was suddenly the subject of congressional hearings, multiple investigations and questions about whether it had fostered a male-dominated culture of sexism and partying.

Then-Director Mark Sullivan apologized for the scandal but called it an anomaly in an agency of 3,500 agents and 1,400 uniformed officers. In the wake of that incident, the agency adopted new policies banning the consumption of alcohol 10 hours before employees report to work and limiting consumption to “moderate amounts” during off-duty hours. Agents and officers cannot drink alcohol when stationed at the hotel of the public official they are assigned to protect.

Sullivan stepped down this year, giving Obama an opening to pick a woman to head the agency for the first time. People familiar with the agency said Pierson has been focused largely on budget issues, as the agency deals with government-wide spending cuts.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.


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The Truth About Obamacare

Stefan Molyneux


Published on Oct 24, 2013


Obamacare facts explained by Stefan Molyneux. A comprehensive look at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and it's implementation.

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Coast Guard visits mysterious 'Google barge'

Go to article to see video: 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/30/coast-guard-visits-mysterious-google-barge/3318347/


Natalie DiBlasio hosts NewsBreak covering the 'Google Barge' mystery.

Agency mum on trip and San Francisco vessel's purpose, citing "commercial confidentiality."



(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

Story Highlights
Google refused to acknowledge any connection to the barge and three others like it
But a Treasure Island worker offered the barest of details
One observer thinks it may have something to do with Google Glass

SAN FRANCISCO — The Coast Guard on Wednesday visited the mysterious "Google barge" floating in San Francisco Bay, but the agency would not reveal anything about the tech giant's hush-hush vessel.

Google has refused to acknowledge any connection to the barge and three others like it. But it is zealously guarding its privacy around the four-story stack of containers docked at a pier on Treasure Island and a companion in Portland, Maine.

At least one Coast Guard employee has been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the company regarding the San Francisco project, Petty Officer 2nd Class Barry Bena told Reuters. An inspector with an unidentified California agency said he, too, had to sign such a document.

Bena told USA TODAY on Wednesday that he was later instructed by superiors to say nothing.

"Commercial confidentiality prohibits me from talking about this," said Bena, a spokesman with the Alameda district office. He added that he is not authorized to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Before the cone of silence fell on the Coast Guard's public affairs office, still another spokesman confirmed to the Portland Press Herald that Google "is involved or associated with the barge but there is a non-disclosure agreement in effect."

All the Coast Guard would say about its visit is that it was not for a fire or medical emergency, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

STORY: The mystery of Google's floating barges

The steel-hull barge belongs to By and Large LLC, of Wilmington, Del. Built in 2011 by C&C Marine in Belle Chasse, La., it is almost 250 feet long and 16 feet deep — significantly longer and deeper than a standard freight barge.

Its purpose remains shrouded in the fog of secrecy, however.

Tech site CNET has speculated that it might be a floating data center, while the local CBS TV affiliate points to a floating store for Google's wearable Glass computer.

The executive director of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission told the Mercury News that attorneys for the project said they planned on "using the vessel as a tool to teach about technology."

A Treasure Island worker offered the barest of details about what has been going on behind the shrouded scaffolding:
Bob Jessup, a construction company superintendent who works in a building across the street, said Google spent the past year working on the project. He said they fenced off a wide area and brought in at least 40 welders a day, who worked around the clock and refused to say a word.
"They wouldn't give up any of the information," Jessup said. "It was a phenomenal production. None of them would tell us anything."
He said they worked on the inside and the outside of the shipping containers, outfitting them with electronics — "very hush hush" — and then loaded them onto the barge with a crane. They put sides on the containers, with glass windows in some of them. They had to weld them very precisely so they could stack, Jessup recounted.

Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Joshua Dykman told the Mercury News that he had been ordered not to discuss the barges for "legal reasons." He said he had not signed a non-disclosure agreement.

"Once the project is completed, we will be releasing information," he said.

As for its Maine companion, work is not expected to begin until after the San Francisco job is finished, a local Coast Guard spokesman told the Portland newspaper.

Ensign Connan Ingham said that no non-disclosure agreements had been signed but that some local agency officials "have been asked by the owner not to talk about it."

"They are fully aware of what's on that barge," he said.


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How Government Security Clearances Are Granted

Listen

(Listen in a new tab)

Transcript


Thursday, September 19, 2013 - 10:06 a.m.



(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)


After the shooting spree at Washington's Navy Yard, President Barack Obama ordered a review of security clearance policies across the government. Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel reiterated the president's directive for a broad review. Hagel said in hindsight there were red flags in the background of Aaron Alexis, the man who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard. Critics say the tragedy might have been prevented if more stringent security clearance procedures had been in place. Others argue the procedures are sound, but not always followed as closely as they should be. Diane and her guests discuss new concerns about background checks and security clearances.

Guests

Michael Greenberger
founder and director at the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security and professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.

John Fitzpatrick
director, the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives Records Administration; from 2006-2011 he was the intelligence community's leader in the Bush and Obama administrations' efforts to transform security clearance processes across the U.S. government.

Carol Leonnig
national staff writer, The Washington Post.

Sheldon Cohen
security clearance attorney.


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What Does Human Brain Mapping Actually Tell Us?

Alice G. Walton, Contributor



PHARMA & HEALTHCARE

6/21/2013 @ 2:04PM



BigBrain, Courtesy of Amunts et al 2013

Google “brain” right now and you’ll find a mountain of news stories on a development known as the BigBrain project, which came out just yesterday: Researchers in Europe and Canada have just mapped the human brain with a precision that’s so strikingly detailed, that it’s unprecedented in humans – and it’s in 3D. The team has devised a way to cut the brain into 20 micrometer-thick sections – far slimmer than the chunky 1 mm sections that have been available with magnetic resonance – dye them, scan them, and reconstruct the slices into a 3D “atlas” of the human brain. But while the research is impressive by any count, and it will certainly gives us some clues into brain cell function and anatomy, there’s a limit to what it can tell us.

To accomplish the mission, the team used the donated brain of a 65-year old woman. It was preserved in formalin and then set in paraffin before slicing. The sections were mounted on glass slides and stained. Then came the scanning prep.

“After this we had over 7400 histological sections,” says author Katrin Amunts. “And a large number of wooden boxes in the lab to hold them!” She and her team used a flatbed scanner to scan the slices – a process, says Amunts, that took about 1,000 hours alone. Part of the process was the removal of all the artifacts of slicing – folds, ruptures, and other miscellaneous blips.

The 3D image of the brain was formed by reconstructing the slices, making what is essentially a cell-by-cell computer image or “atlas” of the brain. The data take up a mind-boggling terabyte of space.

So what information does brain mapping actually offer? It will certainly give us a better idea of where one region ends and the next begins, for a closer understanding of behavior-brain correspondence. It will also allow researchers to start making simulations, perhaps making it possible to “see” what happens in various disease states, say, in an Alzheimer’s- or Parkinson’s afflicted brain over time. “Researchers can take these images,” says Amunts, “and measure surfaces, thicknesses of cortical layers. It provides precise anatomical measures, and lets us make comparisons to in vivo imaging.”

She adds that this brain essentially becomes a new gold standard in the field. “We have a new reference brain,” says Amunts. “It can help us address questions and data coming from neuroscience about things like receptor distribution, microanatomy. Before this, the data were so scattered, we haven’t been able to compare it very effectively.” Plus, the resolution from MRI scans is much poorer – a clumsy 1-mm thickness, which is “not good enough to address questions about microstructure,” adds Amunts.

In terms of the person-to-person brain differences that are inevitable, Amunts says, “This is true. And we’ve actually started second brain, to account for some of these. We’re aware of intersubject variability. But the first brain has all the areas that you need.” She says her team probably won’t do more than a few brains in total, given the massive time commitment each requires.

And BigBrain will almost certainly have some major clinical implications, giving doctors a hand in neurosurgery and in placing electrodes during procedures like deep brain stimulation (DBS).

What the project doesn’t do is tell us a whole lot about anything else – those “deeper” questions that we’re all dying understand. In this way, the headlines touting BigBrain’s ability to work such magic as to “unlock the secrets of the mind” and that kind of thing may not to so accurate.

In fact, in a well-timed New York Times editorial this week, David Brooks makes the important point that the brain is not, after all, the mind, and as much as we’d like to think we’re getting closer to grasping human consciousness and thought with imaging studies, we’re just not. The “neurocentrism,” he says, that we’re so attached to is actually not serving us so well at all. In his words, “An important task these days is to harvest the exciting gains made by science and data while understanding the limits of science and data. The next time somebody tells you what a brain scan says, be a little skeptical. The brain is not the mind.”

When asked about the limits of the 3D brain atlas, Amunts says that though it doesn’t answer all questions, ultimately, basic neuroscience is critical for what it can offer us. “I’m a physician by training. I want to know why the region in the language area is involved in language. You have to understand brain first.” Her past work has mapped out the architecture of the brain, and, she says, the specificity can be dazzling. “And now we can look at everything in the same brain. If you only do small bit, you don’t have the full truth. But now we can analyze the whole brain.”

So this is on many levels a big accomplishment for Europe’s Human Brain Project, which has the not unlike our own BRAIN initiative. But there are limits to what it can tell us, and it only gives a peek at what’s actually going on in our heads. There’s much more work to be done, and a staggering number of questions that still need answers.

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Michael Hastings, the FBI, and WikiLeaks: Death of Journalist Sparks Conspiracy Theories

Today at 9:47 AM


By Joe Coscarelli




The death of reporter Michael Hastings, best remembered for taking on General Stanley McChrystal and other powerful people, has been met with shock and grief in the journalistic community, especially from those fortunate enough to work alongside him. But one layer below the fond remembrances are a host of vague questions and inferences about the circumstances surrounding the 33-year-old BuzzFeed reporter's fiery solo car crash early Tuesday in Los Angeles. Bringing those suspicions to the forefront last night was WikiLeaks, never reticent to insert itself into a story, which teased, "Michael Hastings death has a very serious non-public complication. We will have more details later." And after three hours tweeted: "Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."

"Yeah," BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith confirmed to Daily Intelligencer. "Before his death, Michael told a number of his friends and colleagues that he was concerned that he was under investigation."


But other, less reputable sources have taken the speculation much further. "Vince Foster-like murder plot emerging in Los Angeles? Did the Obama administration knock off a star reporter?" asked one blog early on Wednesday, adding to existing conspiratorial Twitter chatter. Another wrote, "Admit it, Michael Hastings’ Death is Weird and Scary." Hours before revelations about a potential FBI investigation, InfoWars, the Alex Jones website that serves as a catch-all conspiracy-theory clearing house, mentioned Hastings's death with an editor's note: "Journalists who mess with government and military power often die under mysterious circumstances." None had more than conjecture.


The circumstances are these: "Police said a vehicle was southbound on Highland about 4:20 a.m. when it lost control south of Melrose and smashed into a tree," the L.A. Times reported. Video purports to show Hastings's Mercedes-Benz running a red light at a high speed minutes before the crash. "It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night," a witness told the local news. "I couldn't have written a scene like this for a movie, where the engine flies from the car." Photos and video from the aftermath show extreme wreckage, and as of yesterday, the coroner had not officially identified the body because it was too badly burned.


But an automotive writer also fed the doubters:

I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their powertrains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah, zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category. Nor is the C-Class known for sudden veering out of control into trees and whatnot.


The crash is under investigation and there will be an official accident report (a toxicology report could take weeks). Whatever its findings, they can likely coexist with Hastings's mind-set at the time and a potential government investigation without representing something more sinister.


"He was incredibly tense and very worried and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," said Hastings's friend and Current TV host Cenk Uygur. "I don't know what his state of mind was at 4:30 in the morning, but I do know what his state of mind was in general, and it was a nervous wreck." But Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery put it plainly: "Ugh, the people posting Vince Foster style comments  do a disservice to his no BS truth telling." Let's wait for the facts.


Update: The L.A. Times reports that Hastings, prior to his death, "was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by the Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI." The paper also notes, "Since Hastings's death early Tuesday, wild conspiracy theories have bloomed on the Internet implying that he was murdered by powerful forces wanting to silence him."


Update II: The LAPD tells the Times "there appears to be no foul play in the one-vehicle accident that killed journalist Michael Hastings ... Officials are trying to determine whether there was a mechanical problem with the car." His body has been positively identified by the L.A. coroner.

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Brad Meltzer's Decoded - Vatican

NOTE: The volume of the audio on this video is very low!



Vatican Conspiracy - Pope John Paul I

coorsman1962


Uploaded on Dec 29, 2011


Thumbs up if you like this Documentary.
What if I told you that the Vatican--seat of the Catholic Church--may be responsible for the murder of one of its own popes? Pope John Paul the First was in office just thirty-three days before he was found dead of mysterious causes and whisked away by Vatican officials with no investigation. Investigator travels to Rome and learns that the fallen Pope was at the center of a banking scandal involving Freemasons and even Mafia members operating from within the walls of the Vatican. Some even say that the scandal and the murder were foretold in a prophecy delivered by the Virgin Mary that the Vatican conspired to withhold from its followers. Could Pope John Paul the First, who vowed to reform corruption in the Vatican, have been murdered by the criminals he vowed to expose?

)=(

211 (21) "Vatican" December 28, 2011

Brad's team goes to Rome to investigate rumors that the Vatican may have been involved in the death of one of their own, Pope John Paul I, who was in power for only 33 days before he was found dead of mysterious causes. They look into a possible cover up that he was about to expose a banking scandal involving the Freemasons and the Mafia operating inside the Vatican itself.
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State Department accused of covering up sex and prostitution investigation

Published June 11, 2013

FoxNews.com

FILE: Jan. 18, 2013: Then-Secretary of State HillaryClinton talks at the State Department, in Washington, D.C. (AP)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department’s ability to investigate wrongdoing by its staff is under question after a report that the agency tried to cover up several crimes committed has surfaced.

Some of the allegations are against then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail who allegedly hired prostitutes, a U.S. ambassador accused of trolling public parks for paid sex and a security official in Beirut committing sexual assaults on foreign nationals.

An internal memo from the State Department’s inspector general listed eight examples of wrongdoing by agency staff or contractors.

The memo also seems to indicate that the government agency tried to use its authority to stop the investigation and instead, opting to have the official, whose name has not been released, meet with Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy in Washington. The official was then allowed to return to his job overseas.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters during Monday’s daily briefing that the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security has requested a “review by outside, experienced law enforcement officers” who are working with the IG’s office to make “expert assessments about our current procedures.”

Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the allegations of misconduct appalling and said he would ask congressional staff members to start an investigation into all of the accusations.

However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stonewalled reporters Tuesday when asked about the alleged misconduct and possible cover up.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the Nevada Democrat said. "What are you talking about? ... I don't know what you're talking about."

According to the memo first obtained by CBS News, four members of Clinton’s security detail received one-day suspensions.

Allegations of misconduct are not new and have plagued the Obama administration for awhile.

In April 2012, members of the president’s Secret Service detail were caught in a prostitution scandal involving 12 women they picked up during an official trip to Colombia. The Secret Service was slow to disclose any information and issued only limited public statements in the weeks following the incident in Cartagena.

In the end, a dozen agents, officers, supervisors and 12 other U.S. military personnel were implicated in a night of heavy drinking and misconduct.

The Secret Service forced eight employees from their jobs. The military canceled the security clearances of all 12 enlisted personnel.

Fox News' James Rosen contributed to this report.


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Vegetarian diet tied to fewer deaths over time

By Andrew M. Seaman

NEW YORK | Mon Jun 3, 2013 4:35pm EDT

(Reuters Health) - People who limit how much meat they eat and stick to mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die over any particular period of time, according to a new study.

"I think this adds to the evidence showing the possible beneficial effect of vegetarian diets in the prevention of chronic diseases and the improvement of longevity," said Dr. Michael Orlich, the study's lead author from Loma Linda University in California.

In 2012, a Gallup poll found about 5 percent of Americans reported to be vegetarians.

Previous research has found that people who eat mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die of heart disease or any other cause over certain periods of time (see Reuters Health stories of March 14, 2012 and January 31, 2013 here :reut.rs/14opIgy and reut.rs/14opJBa.)

Another study from Europe, however, found British vegetarians were just as likely to die at any point as meat eaters, so it's still an "open question," Orlich said.

For the new study, he and his colleagues used data from 73,308 people recruited at U.S. and Canadian Seventh-day Adventist churches between 2002 and 2007.

At the start of the study, the participants were asked about their eating habits and were separated into categories based on how often they ate dairy, eggs, fish and meat.

Overall, 8 percent were vegans who didn't eat any animal products while 29 percent were lacto-ovo-vegetarians who didn't eat fish or meat but did eat dairy and egg products. Another 15 percent occasionally ate meat, including fish.

The researchers then used a national database to see how many of the participants died by December 31, 2009.

Overall, they found about seven people died of any cause per 1,000 meat eaters over a year. That compared to about five or six deaths per 1,000 vegetarians every year.

Men seemed to benefit the most from a plant-based diet.

Orlich cautioned, however, that they can't say the participants' plant-based diets prevented their deaths, because there may be other unmeasured differences between the groups.

For example, Alice Lichtenstein, director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, said the participants who were vegetarians were healthier overall.

"It's important to note that the vegetarians in this study were more highly educated, less likely to smoke, exercised more and were thinner," Lichtenstein, who was not involved with the new study, told Reuters Health.

Those traits have all been tied to better overall health in the past.

SHOULD YOU GO VEG?

Dr. Robert Baron, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in JAMA Internal Medicine, said the new evidence doesn't mean everyone should switch to a plant-based diet.

"I don't think everybody should be a vegetarian, but if they want to be, this article suggests it's associated with good health outcomes," said Baron, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Instead, he writes limiting added sugars, refined grains and saturated fats trumps whether or not to include a moderate amount of dairy, eggs, fish or meat.

Previous research has found that people who were on a mostly plant-based diet still had lower cholesterol while eating a small amount of lean beef (see Reuters Health article of January 2, 2012 here :reut.rs/14oPRMr.)

"It's like everything else, you have to think about it in terms of the whole package," Lichtenstein said.



SOURCE: bit.ly/MbBLb9 JAMA Internal Medicine, online June 3, 2013.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/03/us-health-vegetarian-idUSBRE95215220130603

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Navy Football Ends Pentagon's Month of Sexual Assault Woe — Will It Ever Stop?

AP


J.K. TROTTER

MAY 31, 2013


If Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel needed any more evidence for the military's sexual assault crisis, well, here it is. Three midshipmen in the Naval Academy's football program have been accused of sexually assaulting a female classmate, according to a Pentagon spokesman with knowledge of the allegations. A lawyer of the female midshipman provided a statement to The Washington Post, which described the ordeal of simply providing testimony to investigators at the Academy:

The alleged assault occurred in April 2012 at an off-campus house in Annapolis. The women woke up after a night of heavy drinking and later learned from friends and social media that three football players claimed to have had sex with her while she was intoxicated, her attorney Susan Burke said in a statement Friday. She said her client reported the allegations to Navy criminal investigators, but was disciplined instead for drinking.

The investigation remains ongoing, but the allegations in Annapolis throw even more light on the the military's ongoing difficulty with addressing sexual assault in its ranks — and at the Naval Academy in particular, where President Obama delivered a commencement address on May 24, during which he explicitly called upon the graduating officers to fight sexual assault in the military. ("Those who commit sexual assault are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong," he said.)

Indeed, this not the only recent case of sexual misconduct at the Maryland service academy. Friday's allegations surfaced three days after jury selection began for the trial of a 43-year-old Marine Corps Major named Mark A. Thompson, who was charged in September 2012 for aggravated sexual assault against a female midshipman, several counts of indecent exposure, and a slew of other charges pertaining to his prominent rank. Thompson, who is being tried in Washington, D.C., stands accused of assaulting the midshipman during a match of strip poker following a croquet match between the Academy and St. John's College staged in downtown Annapolis in 2011.

The timing of Obama's remarks, Friday's allegations, and Thompson's trial has not gone unnoticed. On Wednesday, Thompson's military-appointed chief defense counsel told The Military Times that he was concerned about the effect of Obama's commencement remarks on the jury pool, all of whom are military officers on active duty. "I wonder if that's going to affect the ability of the jury in this case to be fair and impartial," Marine Major Joseph Grimm said, referring to Obama's remarks. (The trial's judge, after polling potential jurors, openly disagreed with Grimm's theory.) The coincidence extends beyond the Naval Academy as well: within the past month, both a cadet and an enlisted instructor, both at West Point, have been accused, respectively, of assaulting and surreptitiously filming female cadets.

In the meantime, these allegations — and the reported reaction from military investigators — may furnish further rationale for far-reaching reform, part of which may include involving civilians in trials involving members of the military. Given Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's recent language on the issue (in recent speeches, he described sexual assault as a "scourge" and a "profound betrayal"), the picture of systemic injustice portrayed here could be enough to inspire even greater inquiry, and legitimate change, in the armed forces. President Obama has asked Hagel and Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to root out the problem, and the Senate is looking into protocol changes. But it's been a long May for the military: the Air Force's sexual assault prevention chief and his sexual assault arrest, the Army sexual assault prevention chief and his "abusive sexual contact," the Fort Campbell sexual harassment chief and his "stalking," and now more at the Navy. As Jack Nicholson once said in a fake military courtroom: "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline."

What happens when you become the punchline?

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