WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is investigating 10 U.S. military members in a widening probe into whether an advance team of Secret Service and military personnel hired local prostitutes or engaged in other misconduct before President Barack Obama visited Colombia for a summit last week, U.S. officials said.
The Pentagon investigation is focusing on five Special Forces Army soldiers, two Marines, two Navy personnel and one member of the Air Force, a U.S. military official said. The Navy and Air Force personnel are members of explosive detection unit, the official said.
Authorities originally said only five service members were under investigation but later widened the inquiry after a preliminary probe by a military officer from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota found that more people may have been involved, officials said.
At least five of the 10 military personnel are on their way back to the United States, and a U.S. military colonel is en route to Cartagena to supervise the Pentagon portion of the investigation.
Senior officials admitted Monday that the scandal has embarrassed the White House, the Secret Service and the Pentagon.
Fewer children die in accidents; drug overdoses up
ATLANTA — Accidents are killing far fewer children and teenagers than in the past, according to a new government report released Monday.
The death rate for youths ages 19 and younger dropped about 30 percent from 2000 to 2009. The number of deaths dropped too, from about 12,400 to about 9,100, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Accidental injuries remain the leading cause of death for youths ages 1 to 19. On average, one child dies every hour from fires, falls and other accidents.
A 41 percent drop in traffic fatalities had a huge impact on the numbers; crashes annually account for half or more of kids’ deaths from accidents. The CDC didn’t analyze exactly what caused that decline, but officials believe it was helped by measures like graduated driver’s licenses and use of child safety and booster seats.
Childhood deaths from drownings, fires and falls also plummeted.
Meanwhile, the CDC saw an alarming jump in deaths from prescription drug overdoses, a trend seen in adults but also reaching into the ranks of older teenagers.
Accidental poisonings for all kids and teens rose by 80 percent, to 824 in 2009, according to the report. About half of the most recent poisoning deaths were adolescents ages 15 to 19 who overdosed on prescription drugs.
The toll from suffocations also rose, to 1,160 deaths in 2009. Roughly 1,000 of those were infants ages 1 and younger, a group for which the suffocation rate climbed 54 percent.
CDC officials repeated their call for parents to put babies to bed on their backs, remove loose bedding materials and take other steps to make cribs and sleeping places safer.
Ga. to require drug tests for welfare benefits
ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed legislation that would require thousands of people applying for welfare to pass a drug test before they could receive benefits.
The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law over the opposition of Democrats.
Backers say it will ensure that welfare benefits are used for their intended purpose and not to subsidize drug use and criminal activity. Democrats said the measure places an unfair burden on the poor.
The law takes effect July 1.
A similar law in Florida took effect last July but was blocked in October by a federal judge, who cited constitutional concerns.
At least two dozen states have proposed measures this year that would require drug tests for benefits.
Lawmakers of both parties blast GSA for lavish spending
WASHINGTON — House Republicans and Democrats blasted the General Services Administration on Monday for an “indefensible and intolerable pattern of misconduct,” typified by a lavish 2010 conference in Las Vegas in which the agency spent more than $800,000 on food, drink, entertainment and videos that mocked lawmakers charged with overseeing the agency.
Lawmakers vented their disdain for the GSA during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing that was as much about election-year politics as it was about an agency’s seemingly out-of-control spending. Republicans on the committee sought to equate the GSA’s freewheeling spending at the Las Vegas conference to the Obama administration’s approach to all federal spending.
Former GSA head Martha Johnson apologized for agency behavior and the Las Vegas conference that she called a “raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self-congratulatory event.”
“I personally apologize to the American people for the entire situation,” said Johnson.
Johnson resigned earlier this month and two of her deputies were fired in the wake of a report by the GSA’s inspector general on the $823,000 conference for 300 West Coast-based employees at Las Vegas’ M Resort casino, where government funds went to renting a clown, a mind-reader, commemorative coins, and $7,000 worth of sushi.
Confessed mass killer goes on trial in Norway
LONDON — Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to killing 77 people in a rampage last July, went on trial Monday in Oslo for Norway’s worst criminal episode since World War II.
The 33-year-old right-wing extremist has admitted to slaying 69 young people gathered for an annual Labor Party political camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya on July 22 after killing eight other people by detonating a homemade bomb that destroyed a government building in the center of the Norwegian capital.
Breivik appeared calm and defiant as he entered the courtroom dressed in a dark suit and wearing handcuffs. He surveyed the ranks of media and public packed inside the courtroom and smiled. Family members and survivors of the attacks were in the public sector, separated from the defendant by thick glass partitions.
After his handcuffs were removed he gave a raised-fist fascist style salute before sitting down and giving a brief statement, saying: “I do not recognize the Norwegian courts. … You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism.” He went on to say he acknowledged the acts but claimed he carried them out “in self defense.”
Breivik’s antagonism to Islam, Muslim immigrants and multiculturalism has been aired in documents and statements since the killings. Through his lawyer, Geir Lippestad, he has said he was sorry he “didn’t go further” to kill more than the 77 victims.