The email account that appears to belong to David Petraeus’ alleged mistress Paula Broadwell may have been broken into by hacking group Anonymous.
The email address that allegedly belongs to Paula Broadwell, the biographer who is at the center of the cheating scandal that forced the acclaimed former CIA director’s resignation, is listed as one of the accounts that was broken into by the “hacktivist” group.
Buzzfeed reports that the email is one of those obtained when the hackers targeted commercial intelligence company STRATFOR.
Anonymous claimed responsibility for the December 24, 2011 hack and they used the email and credit card information that they obtained from the site to make more than $1 million to a variety of charities.
Buzzfeed points out that it is unclear what information- if any- was stolen by the group.
The email account that appears to belong to David Petraeus’ alleged mistress Paula Broadwell may have been broken into by hacking group Anonymous
Paula Broadwell’s email is a major point of contention in the ongoing federal investigation into David Petraeus’ extra marital affair that led to his resignation.
Her email that was hacked by the group was a derivation of her name, and it is not one that she has kept quiet since she posted the address on Twitter, inviting fans to email her for tickets to The Daily Show when she was doing a publicity visit to promote her David Petraeus biography.
Paula Broadwell is at the center of the storm surrounding David Petraeus’ downfall as she allegedly sent harassing emails to a woman that Petraeus worked with.
That woman, who has since been identified as Jill Kelley, contacted the FBI because she felt threatened and feared for her safety.
Jill Kelley is the woman who complained to the FBI about harassing emails from Paula Broadwell, the mistress of General David Petraeus.
Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, Florida, is a State Department military liaison officer who appears to have a longstanding friendship with Petraeus, who quit as CIA director in disgrace last week.
He lives with her husband Scott Kelley, a surgeon, and their three children.
An online picture album posted by the family talks about meeting David Petraeus at the couple’s home.
Jill Kelley works in the Joint Special Operations Command, a section of the U.S. Armed Forces that deals mostly with counter-terrorism.
The Joint Special Ops Command was directly involved in the mission that took out Osama bin Laden and the drone strike that killed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Details of the affair between David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell reportedly came to light during a FBI probe of the emails that she allegedly sent to Jill Kelley.
The new revelation raises the possibility that Paula Broadwell was growing increasingly jealous of a government employee whose job it was to keep in contact with David Petraeus.
Jill Kelley is the woman who complained to the FBI about harassing emails from Paula Broadwell, the mistress of General David Petraeus
Jill Kelley, a mother of three who feared for her safety, contacted the FBI.
A government official told the New York Post that the emails contained such language as: “I know what you did”, “back off” and “stay away from my guy”.
The official added: “[Paula Broadwell] clearly thought something was going on and thought she was in a <<lovers triangle>>.”
A person who knows both Jill Kelley and David Petraeus confirmed their friendship and said she saw him often.
David Petraeus broke off the steamy affair with Paula Broadwell before it was exposed by the FBI probe, according to friends of the retired general.
David Petraeus quit his post as CIA director in disgrace on Friday while offering an apology over the affair, allegedly with his biographer, Paula Broadwell – who allegedly sent a threatening email to another woman whom she felt was getting to close to him.
His apology came as reports show that the affair blew up in David Petraeus’ face after Paula Broadwell allegedly sent e-mails threatening Jill Kelley whom she accused of getting too close to him.
David Petraeus told friends that he had begun the affair with Paula Broadwell shortly after he had left the Army to begin his work with the CIA, according to ABC News.
Those close to Paula Broadwell are casting doubt over what she has been accused of.
David Bixler, a wounded soldier who met Paula Broadwell through a charity in 2010, told ABC: “I have some serious questions about who is connecting these dots… Paula Broadwell is not the type… she isn’t.”
Ed Williams, a neighbor who lives two houses down from the Broadwell family in Charlotte, North Carolina, neighborhood, told Reuters: “Everyone is surprised and shocked.”
Earlier in the week, Ed Williams, a retired editor, saw Paula Broadwell with her two children when she was voting in last week’s U.S. presidential election.
He told Reuters that Paula Broadwell appeared chatty and cheerful. Neighbors were working on putting together a belated party to celebrate the release of her book.
“She gave no indication all this was going on,” Ed Williams said.
Paula Broadwell is married to Dr. Scott Broadwell and has two young sons.
She had planned to celebrate her 40th birthday in Washington this weekend, with many reporters invited. Her husband Scott emailed guests to cancel the party.
It is also claimed that Paula Broadwell used David Petraeus’ own Gmail account to send the emails, and when the FBI began to investigate an obvious national security issue instead uncovered explicit messages between the two sent from the decorated war hero’s own account – indicating an affair.
Three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case told the Washington Post that when David Petraeus’ name was raised in connection with the threatening emails, the FBI thought that security had been breached.
CIA officers long had expressed concern about Paula Broadwell’s unprecedented access to the director.
She frequently visited the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to meet David Petraeus in his office, accompanied him on morning runs around the CIA grounds and often attended public functions as his guest, according to two ex-intelligence officials.
Investigating the threatening messages, FBI agents uncovered evidence that he and 40-year-old Paula Broadwell were involved in an extramarital affair.
FBI investigators first interviewed David Petraeus about what they had found two weeks ago and informed him that no criminal charges would be brought and no-one is thought to have discussed the possibility of his resignation.
How Michael Jackson’s family preyed on his wealth and took it by the vanload after his death.
In the late summer of 2001, Michael Jackson’s family were after him again. It was two days before his scheduled departure for New York, where his 30th Anniversary concerts were to be staged at Madison Square Garden.
Performers would include Destiny’s Child, Ray Charles and Whitney Houston, and friends Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando had been recruited to deliver televised speeches.
Michael Jackson wanted his family in New York as well; his brothers to perform a medley of hits from their days as the Jackson 5, while his parents sat in special box seats. The Jacksons insisted that they should receive appearance fees and it was agreed that family members would get honorariums of $250,000, even those who would just be there to watch the show.
Just days before the first concert, though, Jermaine Jackson read an article that said his brother would be making as much as $10 million from the two shows and convinced his parents that Michael should pay the three of them another $500,000 apiece.
Jermaine Jackson and his father Joe drew up a contract and, with mother Katherine in tow, chased Michael around California to try to get him to sign.
Michael Jackson took refuge for several days at the house of his friend Marc Schaffel, co-producer of the event, then made a dash north to Neverland Ranch. He and his two young children, 4-year-old Prince and 3-year-old Paris, had barely set foot inside the house when Joe, Katherine and Jermaine Jackson appeared at the gate.
Michael told the security guards to tell his family he wasn’t there. Joe Jackson, though, refused to budge.
“I’m his father,” Joe Jackson told the guards.
“I need to use the bathroom. His mother needs to use the bathroom. Let us in.”
Frantic, Michael Jackson phoned Marc Schaffel. If they got through the gate, his family would hound him to sign this contract, he explained. But he couldn’t keep his mother locked outside when she was pleading just to use the bathroom.
He told Marc Schaffel he would instruct the guards to tell his family again that Michael Jackson was not on the premises, but to admit them so that they could use the facilities.
But as soon as Joe and Jermaine Jackson were through the gate, they drove to the main house and pushed their way inside.
“They literally ransacked the place,” Marc Schaffel remembered.
Michael Jackson retreated with Prince and Paris to a hiding place concealed behind a secret door at the back of his bedroom closet and phoned Marc Schaffel from there. He was in tears, literally whimpering into the phone.
“You see what they do to me? Do you understand now why I don’t want anything to do with my brothers, why I hide from them and refuse to answer their phone calls?
“I’ve supported my brothers, supported them all,” Michael Jackson cried.
“I’ve put their kids through school. But they still come after me, still wanting more. It never ends. And my father’s worse than they are.”
Michael Jackson choked up, Marc Schaffel recalled, and then sobbed: “The worst part, the part that kills me, is that I have to lie to my own mother. Do you understand, Marc?” he asked.
“Do you understand now why I am the way I am? How else could I be?”
For someone who so often professed his loneliness, Michael Jackson spent a remarkable amount of time avoiding people. He wore disguises, broke off relationships, and changed telephone numbers, but still paparazzi, delusional women, and desperate men pursued him. The saddest part, though, was that the people Michael took the greatest pains to elude were the members of his own family.
Until the time he found a way to live off his sons’ talent, his father Joe had worked the four-to-midnight shift as a crane operator amid the blast-furnace heat of the Inland Steel Mill, in Gary, Indiana. He earned barely enough to sustain the family home – a tiny aluminum-sided cube in which 11 people shared a bathroom.
Michael Jackson’s memories of early rehearsals all centred on the father/manager who bellowed at them constantly, smacking his sons or throwing them into walls if they made a mistake.
When the band signed to Motown, Michael Jackson was quickly singled out as the star. Jackie and Tito possessed only modest musical talent and Marlon had none at all. Jermaine had an adequate singing voice.
Such was Michael Jackson’s talent that just one year after signing with the label, the group delivered a debut record, I Want You Back, that shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
In February 1970, the Jackson 5 released their second single, ABC. And with The Love You Save and I’ll Be There, they became the first group ever to send their first four releases to the top of the charts.
Between tours, Joe Jackson and his sons returned home to a five-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion in the Los Angeles enclave of Encino. There was an Olympic-size swimming pool, sports facilities, luxury cars and servants’ quarters.
By the mid-Seventies, the Jackson 5 were in professional decline – in sharp contrast with Michael, the true star of the group.
His brothers had wanted to work on the Off The Wall album with him, but Michael refused, even when his mother attempted to convince him that he owed them. Released in 1979, it sold nearly seven million copies worldwide.
Then came the release of Thriller in December 1982, which turned him into, as Rolling Stone put it, “quite simply, the biggest star in the pop music universe”. Off The Wall had already made him wealthier than the rest of his family put together, now he would earn more than $200 million from sales of the Thriller album.
No longer his manager, his father was as calculating as ever. He knew that playing the boys against one another was a winning strategy. What a great idea it would be, he suggested to Jackie, Tito, Marlon, and Randy, to capitalize on the success of Thriller by including Michael Jackson in a “reunion tour”.
Michael Jackson resisted. He was tired of touring, he said, tired of all the attention, tired of travel and hotel rooms. Tired of his family, period.
The brothers first tried using guilt to sway him. Marlon was going through a divorce and couldn’t even make his mortgage payments. Maybe he should sell up and buy a smaller house, Michael suggested. The brothers then called a meeting at which they showed up with a life-size poster of Michael and told him they were going to put it onstage in his place. Michael wouldn’t relent. It was time to play their ace in the hole.
During a private meeting Katherine requested with Michael, she implored him to join his brothers on the tour. They needed the money, she told her son. Finally, when all else failed, she pulled out the big gun: “For me, Michael, please?”
It was a choice between the only two things Michael Jackson had, his mother’s love and his career. He chose his mother’s love, of course.
At the first stop in Kansas City, Jermaine told a reporter: “Even though Michael is very talented, a lot of his success has been due to timing and a little bit of luck. It could have been him, or it could just as easily have been me.”
Michael Jackson distanced himself from his brothers as the tour progressed, refusing to stay on the same hotel floor with them. He insisted his attorneys be present at the business meetings that, within the first few dates, became the only conversations he had with his siblings. The other Jacksons insisted upon collecting their payments immediately after each show.
No one in his family, though, was prepared for the shout-out Michael Jackson gave on December 9, 1984: “This is our last and final show. It’s been a long 20 years and we love you all.”
Michael Jackson looked at the shocked expressions on his brothers’ faces and couldn’t suppress his smile.
Now established as one of the most famous families on the planet, life among the Jacksons was becoming a soap opera, and a sordid one at that. Michael Jackson was determined to distance himself.
The public humiliations seemed endless. In 1983, Jackie’s affair with Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader and future television talent-show judge Paula Abdul blew up his marriage. In March 1987, Jermaine showed up for Marlon’s birthday party carrying his three-month-old son by a woman named Margaret Maldonado, while his wife looked on with an expression of bewilderment.
During their divorce, Jermaine’s wife Hazel would allege that her husband had attempted to rape her.
Untouchable The Strange Life And Tragic Death of Michael Jackson by Randall Sullivan
By 1990, Michael Jackson had moved to Neverland, his personal amusement park in Santa Barbara County, California.
He made no comment when newspapers reported that Randy’s wife Eliza was accusing her husband of beating her throughout her pregnancy. The Jackson brothers were all just like Joe, Eliza told a reporter, except for Michael.
Though they depended on his money, usually dispensed through their mother Katherine, his siblings weren’t averse to criticizing their brother in public.
Michael’s relationship with his sister La Toya was shattered in December 1993, when she responded to the Jordan Chandler scandal by holding a press conference in Tel Aviv, at which she declared her belief that the accusations against her brother were true.
“I can’t remain silent,” she squeaked into a bank of microphones.
“I will not be a silent collaborator in his crimes against small, innocent children.”
[Jordan was a 13-year-old boy whom Michael Jackson has been accused of sexually molesting. The claims, which Jackson always denied, resulted in a payment of more than $18 million to the boy’s family. He would later describe the decision to make a deal with the Chandlers, his lawyer said, as “the worst mistake of his life”.]
In 2003, when Michael Jackson’s world was collapsing all around him, amid his arrest on further child molestation charges, of which he would be acquitted two years later, Jermaine had gone to New York publishers with a “tell-all” book proposal.
The Jacksons viewed youngest brother Randy as the most conniving among them. He was a chip off the old block, far more like Joe than any of his brothers, visitors said – and that wasn’t intended as a compliment.
Joe Jackson had been hiding from creditors since 1987. He was living mostly on hand-outs from Katherine (who divvied up the $25,000 cheque Michael sent to her each month among needy family members) and was incessantly looking for opportunities to draw his most famous son into business deals.
“They all looked to Michael as an ATM machine,” observed the Los Angeles attorney and radio host Leo Terrell.
Within hours of Michael Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009, the battle over the estate began. The King of Pop was going to be worth a billion dollars, maybe two billion, maybe more. The women of the clan initiated what became a week-long occupation and search of the Carolwood Drive chateau in Los Angeles where he died.
The first night, La Toya Jackson and her boyfriend Jeffre Phillips demanded to be admitted to the house. Three hours later, Katherine went inside after them.
It was mid-morning in London when Michael Jackson’s children’s former nanny Grace Rwaramba received a call from Katherine.
According to Grace Rwaramba, Katherine began the conversation: “Grace, the children are crying. They are asking about you. They can’t believe that their father died. Grace, you remember Michael used to hide cash at the house? I’m here. Where can it be?”
But security guards said it was La Toya, along with her boyfriend, who loaded black rubbish bags filled with cash into duffel bags and placed them in the garage. La Toya would later insist that nearly all of Michael Jackson’s money was gone by the time she arrived at the house.
It did not become obvious that the Jacksons intended to remove whatever valuables were inside the house until the next morning, when Janet Jackson arrived at the front gate and demanded that it be opened to admit the moving van behind her.
A couple of hours later the van left with La Toya’s boyfriend Phillips at the wheel.
Katherine and her daughters made it clear they wouldn’t be leaving any time soon.
“They camped out for most of a week,” the head of the security firm recalled, coming and going “whenever they felt like it”.
Michael Jackson’s will came to light about a week after his death; its executors were to be a lawyer, an accountant and a former record company executive named by Michael Jackson. It stipulated that 40% of his estate was to be held in trust for Prince, Paris, and his third child Blanket. Another 20% would be assigned to various charities; the remaining 40% would be used to support Katherine, who would be guardian of Michael Jackson’s children. After Katherine’s death, her share would revert to the children.
In the meantime, the executors had “absolute discretion” to decide how the money from the Katherine Jackson Trust would be distributed. There was no provision for Michael Jackson’s father or siblings.
Over the next two years, the clamor among Katherine’s children to collect their mother’s share of the estate grew ever more threatening. For some time, almost nothing was left over for Katherine’s children; according to the executors, Michael Jackson had made it clear that he did not intend to provide for his siblings.
Even when Katherine’s monthly stipend was increased to $8,000, several of her children demanded that she challenge the estate’s administration.
The opening act of the craziest Jackson family drama since Michael’s death began on July 14, when Katherine, 82, was flown to a spa resort in Tucson, Arizona, without the knowledge of her grandchildren, but accompanied by a group of her children.
Within a few days, the media were reporting on a letter that had been signed by five of Michael Jackson’s siblings – Randy, Janet, Jermaine, Rebbie, and Tito – demanding that the executors of Michael’s will resign and stating that the will itself was “fake, flawed, and fraudulent”.
[The American courts have upheld the will. Yet the allegations, dismissed by the executors as wrong and defamatory, surfaced again last month when David Gest, a longtime friend of Michael, spoke out in support of the siblings’ claim.]
The adults responsible for Michael Jackson’s children, including his nephew TJ Jackson, became convinced that Michael’s brothers and sisters intended to gain a conservatorship [a legal form of control in America] over Katherine, possibly by demonstrating her incompetence to serve as the guardian of the children. The money, as everyone knew, would follow those three children.
Still more outlandish, though, were the events of Monday, July 23. Shortly after 1:00 p.m., Prince and Paris were in an SUV returning home to the Calabasas estate through the double gates when another SUV, loaded with passengers, pulled right up to its bumper.
Randy Jackson was at the wheel of the tailing vehicle, which made it to the inner gate just as the barrier was coming down.
“He just drove through and broke the arm off,” recalled Sandra Ribera, an associate of Katherine’s lawyer, who was watching from the pool house.
“All of a sudden the doors open and there’s this swarm of people pointing cameras all around.”
Sandra Ribera said the people in the driveway were Randy Jackson, Janet Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, and several of Prince, Paris, and Blanket’s cousins. It was friendly at first, with hugs all round.
But Katherine’s security team, who were guarding the house, quickly realized that the other Jacksons were there to take Michael’s children. Janet went for her niece Paris, while Randy approached Prince and Jermaine engaged the guards, all three of them still using their cell phones as video cameras. When Janet and Randy told Paris and Prince they were coming with them, both teenagers flatly refused to go.
Prince turned his back on Randy, but Jermaine pulled the boy aside and told him this was something that had been in the planning for three years and that it was important for him to join in with the rest of the family.
Prince shrugged off Jermaine and continued walking toward the house. Paris, meanwhile, made it clear to Janet that she wouldn’t be leaving.
The TMZ entertainment website would initially report, based on anonymous sources, that Janet Jackson told Paris she was a “spoiled little bitch” and that Paris answered: “This is our house, not the Jackson family house. Get the f*** out!”
When security guards blocked his way, Randy, who had been smiling up until then, began to snarl warnings about not interfering in a family matter.
One of the guards suggested perhaps he should leave the property and Randy became enraged, cursing in the man’s face, which was when Trent Jackson, a cousin and a member of the security team, grabbed him. The two grappled, then the bull-strong Trent put Randy in a headlock.
The scuffle ended when Trent withdrew with Prince and Paris into the house. Those who were staying at Calabasas would say later that the saddest thing about the entire scene was the way Jermaine had used his sons.
“Jermaine is cursing as bad as you can curse in front of these kids and fighting and doing all this stuff, and he’s telling his kids to videotape it,” Ribera recalled.
“And Jermajesty [Jermaine’s son] . . . is just sobbing. His face is covered in tears. He’s taping, but he’s sobbing.”
A sheriff’s car answering an emergency call arrived at the front gate and everyone froze. The sheriff’s deputies persuaded Randy, Janet, and Jermaine and their group to leave.
“Gotta love fam,” Paris tweeted to her followers shortly after they were gone.
On July 26, Katherine was finally brought home. That series of clumsily plotted scenes left her brood more divided than ever. But it was a comfort to her to know that, in the end, they would all be together again.
Katherine’s deal with Forest Lawn Cemetery to acquire Michael’s crypt in the Sanctuary of Ascension had included the purchase of 11 other burial spots. In death, Michael Jackson would be surrounded by the family he had tried to keep at a distance for most of his life.
Moaz al-Khatib, a leading Damascus cleric who fled Syria, has been chosen at a meeting in Qatar to head a new coalition to oppose President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Cleric Moaz al-Khatib, former Sunni Muslim imam of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, is seen as a moderate.
Earlier, Syrian opposition groups agreed a deal to bring together their disparate factions.
The fractious opposition has been under pressure from the US and other backers in the region to clinch a deal.
Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib, 52, left Damascus for Cairo in July after several periods of detention by the Syrian authorities.
He had earlier attempted to bring the conflict to an end and in an interview with Reuters news agency in July said: “I want the Syrian people to remain as one hand.”
In a speech in Doha last month Moaz al-Khatib called for a political solution to save Syria from further destruction, arguing that negotiation would not “rescue the regime” but enable its departure with the least harm possible.
More than 36,000 people have been killed in the long-running uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Many thousands more have fled the country since the unrest began last year.
Earlier on Saturday the Israeli military said it had fired warning shots into Syria, after a mortar round from Syria hit an Israeli outpost in the occupied Golan Heights.
It was the first time the two sides have exchanged fire since the 1973 Middle East war.
Moaz al-Khatib has been chosen at a meeting in Qatar to head a new coalition to oppose Bashar al-Assad’s government
Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, a Muslim Brotherhood delegate at the Qatar talks, said the new body would be called the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and the Syrian Revolution.
The group, formed after a week of talks in Doha, will have two vice-presidents – prominent dissident Riad Seif and leading secular activist Suhair al-Atassi.
The coalition’s leadership was set to become the face and voice of the Syrian opposition in the coming phase.
The Syrian National Council (SNC), which was formerly recognized as the main opposition, had been concerned it might be sidelined by the new opposition body.
One source at the meeting told Reuters that the SNC had agreed only under pressure and that it had been given a deadline of 10:00 a.m. to sign up or risk being left out.
The new body had been proposed by Riad Seif with the backing of the US, which had signaled its frustration with the SNC.
He confirmed on Sunday that a “12-point agreement to establish a coalition” had been sealed.
Proposals for the new body include an assembly of some 55-60 members, with a leadership that will seek international recognition as the voice of the Syrian people.
Delegates said the body would carry representation for ethnic Kurds, Christians, Alawites and women.
Bassem Said Ishak, of the SNC, said the Kurds required 48 hours to get the approval of their leadership.
The new body will also have a military council that will include the Free Syrian Army.
The backers of the new body hope it will boost the mainstream of the Syrian opposition and sideline any extremist elements.
Violence continued inside Syria on Sunday.
Opposition activists said government forces had attacked an area along the border with Turkey, after rebels had captured a crossing point.
The activists said helicopters and artillery units had bombarded the Ras al-Ain border area.
Clashes were also reported in Damascus, Albu Kamal near the Iraqi border, Irbin and in Deir Ezzor in the east.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said the shell from Syria that hit a military post in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was stray fire from fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel was “ready for any development” on the border with Syria.
Israel and Syria are still technically at war, and a UN force patrols the buffer zone.
Moaz al-Khatib
Born 1960
Son of long-standing imam of Damascus’s Grand Umayyad mosque
Judy Garland’s dress worn in the Wizard of Oz has sold for $480,000 at auction in Beverly Hills.
The price for the blue and white gingham pinafore dress was in line with expectations, Julien’s Auctions said.
A similar dress worn during tests for the classic 1939 film fetched $910,000 in 2011, Reuters reports.
Auctioneer Darren Julien said the difference in price was due to the fact that fewer versions of the test dress were made.
Neither dresses fetched anywhere near the $4.6 million spent last year on Marilyn Monroe’s white “subway dress” from the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, and the $3.7 million taken for Audrey Hepburn’s Ascot dress from My Fair Lady.
The Wizard of Oz dress was made by the famous MGM costume designer Adrian Greenberg, who was commonly known simply as Adrian.
The buyer has not been identified.
Judy Garland’s dress worn in the Wizard of Oz has sold for $480,000 at auction in Beverly Hills
However, Judy Garland’s dress was not the only highlight of the two-day Hollywood Icons auction.
A green floral dress worn by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music fetched $38,400; a racing jacket belonging to Steve McQueen sold for $50,000 and a purple wool skirt worn by Marilyn Monroe during the making of the 1954 film River of No Return went for the same amount.
Meanwhile, $1,375 was paid each for a slice of wedding cake from both Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding and the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
A child-trafficking ring that sold 300 babies over three years has been broken up in Cairo, Egyptian police say.
Two nurses and a doctor at a Cairo hospital are among five people arrested and police say they are still searching for the hospital manager.
The babies were reportedly sold to childless couples after Caesarean sections were performed on women carrying unwanted children.
Babies were said to have been sold for up to 3,500 Egyptian pounds ($570).
According to Egyptian media reports, women who had come forward too late for an abortion were offered a Caesarean section and their babies were then sold on, apparently at a profit.
Abortions are lawful in Egypt if the mother’s health is at risk.
Only a limited form of adoption is allowed, to the extent that children cannot take the name of their adoptive families.
Trade in such a black market in babies would have enabled couples to avoid Egypt’s legal restrictions.
Although the details of the case provided by police are sketchy, it appears they have disrupted an extensive child-trafficking ring.
Clashes broke out in Warsaw between riot police and right-wing nationalists during a Polish Independence Day march.
Some of an estimated 20,000 marchers threw fireworks and bricks at police who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
A police spokesman said two officers were injured and several protesters were detained.
Thousands of police had been deployed to prevent the march turning violent.
Last year, at least 200 people were arrested after clashes broke out when anti-fascist groups tried to blockade the nationalists’ march.
Diverse groups including Polish patriots, nationalists and groups of football hooligans took part in Sunday’s march. Many of the young men wore scarves or balaclavas over their faces.
Nationalist marches have been growing in size on the national holiday, with leftists turning out to oppose them.
Last year’s march dwarfed its predecessors, with numbers swollen by football supporters outraged by a government clampdown on violent fans.
However, two other marches marking the day in 1918 when Poland regained its sovereignty after years of foreign rule passed without incident.
To prevent clashes this year the marches took different routes.
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski also organized his own Independence Day march with military veterans in an attempt to reclaim the day from what he called “extremists and hooligans”.
Ahead of the march he appealed for a less polarized society.
“Today public life is poisoned by excessive rows,” Bronislaw Komorowski said.
“We should be critical, but criticism should not mean mutual destruction.”
The 11 November celebration marks the day when Poland regained its independence, 123 years after it was divided between Russia, Prussia and the Austrian Empire.
List of Veterans Day free meals and other Veterans Day freebies.
There are plenty of Veterans Day free meals to be had this year as well as some other additional discounts on items other than food. You’ll be able to stop into any of the restaurants below on or around Veterans Day this year to get your free meal.
Tip: Pay close attention to the date listed and what you need to bring so you qualify for the free meal. They don’t all take place on Veterans Day (Sunday, November 11, 2012 but observed on Monday, November 12, 2012) and some require different forms of identification.
Tip: Some of these Veterans Day free meals are nationwide but some are only at participating locations. Please call the restaurant before you leave home to make sure they are taking part. This list is 6 pages long! Look through them all so you don’t miss out on a favorite.
There are plenty of other military freebies that are available all year round. You can also get free meals on your birthday at many restaurants around the country.
Check here the full list of restaurants offering free meals on Veterans Day
List of Veterans Day free meals and other Veterans Day freebies
New York Times editor Hugo Lindgren has denied that an anonymous letter sent to paper’s magazine advice column The Ethicist over the summer is from Dr. Scott Broadwell, the spurned husband of Paula Broadwell, David Petraeus’ alleged mistress.
The possibility was raised after observers dug out the July 13 edition of Chuck Klosterman’s The Ethicist and pointed to extraordinary parallels between the letter and the now scandalous love tryst that led David Petraeus to hand in his resignation as details of the affair came to light.
But yesterday, the editor of the New York Times magazine denied that the column and the Petraeus scandal are related.
Hugo Lindgren tweeted: “This @theethicist column… is NOT about the Petraeus affair, based on our fact checking. Strange, I know.”
Dr. Scott Broadwell is the spurned husband of Paula Broadwell, David Petraeus’ alleged mistress
Writing about a deepening relationship he knew his wife was having with a “government executive” whose job “is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership” the anonymous man offers up what could be considered in hindsight as striking information.
The letter writer explains that “exposing the affair will create a major distraction that would adversely impact the success of an important effort”, and asks The Ethicist whether it is OK for him to “suffer in silence for the next year or two for a project”.
Indeed, he seems pained to make it clear he believes the mission “must succeed” and wants to know if he should confront his wife in some way and ”finally force closure” or if he should “suffer in silence for the next year or two”.
Paula Broadwell, the woman at the center of the CIA Director David Petraeus cheating scandal, warned another woman to “back off” and “stay away” from the retired general in threatening emails uncovered by the FBI.
David Petraeus quit his post as director of the CIA on Friday while offering an apology over the affair, allegedly with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
His apology came as reports show that the affair blew up in David Petraeus’ face after Paula Broadwell allegedly sent the e-mails to another woman whom she accused of getting too close to him.
The recipient of those emails, fearing for her safety, contacted the FBI – which found that Paula Broadwell had sent them.
A government official told the New York Post that the emails contained such language as: “I know what you did”, “back off” and “stay away from my guy”.
The official added: “[Paula Broadwell] clearly thought something was going on’ and thought she was in a <<lovers triangle>>.”
Little is known about the recipient of those emails, including her identity, but the paper reported that she was not David Petraeus’ wife, Holly.
Paula Broadwell, the woman at the center of David Petraeus cheating scandal, warned another woman to stay away from the retired general
Paula Broadwell, who is married to Dr. Scott Broadwell and has two young sons, has not responded to multiple emails and phone messages.
She had planned to celebrate her 40th birthday in Washington this weekend, with many reporters invited. Her husband, Scott Broadwell emailed guests to cancel the party.
It is also claimed that Paula Broadwell used David Petraeus’ own Gmail account to send the emails, and when the FBI began to investigate an obvious national security issue instead uncovered explicit messages between the two sent from the decorated war hero’s own account – indicating an affair.
Three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case told the Washington Post that when David Petraeus’ name was raised in connection with the threatening emails, the FBI thought that security had been breached.
CIA officers long had expressed concern about Paula Broadwell’s unprecedented access to the director.
Paula Broadwell frequently visited the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to meet David Petraeus in his office, accompanied him on morning runs around the CIA grounds and often attended public functions as his guest, according to two ex-intelligence officials.
Beginning their investigation into how the Director of the CIA’s personal email had been hacked, the FBI agents instead uncovered evidence that he and 40-year-old Paul Broadwell were involved in an extramarital affair.
FBI investigators first interviewed David Petraeus about what they had found two weeks ago and informed him that no criminal charges would be brought and no-one is thought to have discussed the possibility of his resignation.
But, according to the Washington Post, after an investigation Justice Department officials were unclear what to do next, because no crime had occurred nor breach of security.
They contacted James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence and told him they had compromising material about David Petraeus.
James Clapper in turn spoke to David Petraeus and advised him to resign.
Mohammed al-Dahabi, Jordan’s former intelligence chief, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption.
Mohammed al-Dahabi, who was head of the intelligence service from 2005 to 2008, was accused of embezzling public funds, money laundering and abuse of office.
The court in Amman ordered him to repay nearly $30 million to the state.
Jordan’s leaders have come under pressure in recent months from street protesters demanding that corruption be tackled.
The lengthy sentence for such a high-profile figure is meant to show Jordanians that the authorities are serious about tackling the issue, observers say.
“You deserve the harshest punishment for being a traitor to the people who trusted you with a government position and state funds,” judge Nashaat Akhras told Mohammed al-Dahabi.
Mohammed al-Dahabi, Jordan’s former intelligence chief, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption
The former spy chief was arrested in February after the Central Bank of Jordan became suspicious of the large transactions going through his account, the AP reports.
Mohammed al-Dahabi is the brother of former Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi.
King Abdullah dissolved parliament last month in order to pave the way for early elections in response to growing calls for political reform and the end to corruption.
The king has said he is serious about reform, but one of his key opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood, is calling for the monarch’s powers to be curtailed.
Mick Jagger’s handwritten love letters to his former lover Marsha Hunt will go on the auction in London next month.
Marsha Hunt is an American-born singer who was the inspiration for Rolling Stones’ 1971 classic Brown Sugar and bore Mick Jagger’s first child, Karis.
Sotheby’s said Saturday that Marsha Hunt has tasked the auction house with selling 10 letters written from the set of Tony Richardson’s film Ned Kelly starring Mick Jagger, which was shooting in Australia.
Marsha Hunt, 66, said she decided to put the private correspondence under the hammer because she is “broke” and unable to pay her bills or make repairs to her home, according to ABC News.
“Someone, I hope, will buy those letters, as our generation is dying,” she said.
“And with us will go the reality of who we were and what life was.”
The singer, who lives in France, went on to say that the letters chronicling their “delicate love affair” that was kept secret until 1972 touch on subjects such as the first moon landing and John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
“When a serious historian finally examines how and why Britain’s boy bands affected international culture and politics, this well-preserved collection of Mick Jagger’s hand written letters will be a revelation,” Marsha Hunt said in a statement distributed by the auction house.
Marsha Hunt is an American-born singer who was the inspiration for Rolling Stones’ 1971 classic Brown Sugar and bore Mick Jagger’s first child, Karis
When asked by reporters if Mick Jagger agreed to having his letters sold off, Marsha Hunt said she didn’t think so, but added that the correspondence did not belong to him.
“This is Mick in his own words…This is part of English history, it is part of rock history, part of cultural history and it corrects all the misinformation,” she said, according to Rolling Stone.
Sotheby’s books specialist Gabriel Heaton said the letters sent in the summer of 1969 show a “poetic and self-aware” 25-year-old Mick Jagger, who wrote about the works of Emily Dickinson and meeting the author Christopher Isherwood.
In his letters, the rock star also touches upon the unraveling of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones.
“They provide a rare glimpse of Jagger that is very different from his public persona: passionate but self-contained, lyrical but with a strong sense of irony,” Gabriel Heaton said.
Sotheby’s said the collection, which includes song lyrics and a Rolling Stones playlist, is expected to fetch between $111,300 and $159,000 and will go under the hammer on December 12.
Saturday Night Live began their weekly show with the defeated Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney drowning his sorrows – with milk.
Jason Sudeikis reprised his role as Mitt Romney during the cold open, sneaking dairy products on the back of his expansive balcony.
“Darn it all to heck,” he began.
Numerous members of his family – including Kate McKinnon as his wife Ann and Taran Killam as his sons Tag, Matt, and Josh – came outside to try and comfort him, to no avail. Taran Killam as Tag said that his father’s loss made him want to “punch America in the face”.
SNL took it aim on the Republican presidential candidate, after he lost the Electoral College vote tally 332 to 206 in Tuesday’s election. In the skit, Mitt Romney’s family was throwing a dignified post-election soiree, but Jason Sudeikis had retired to the balcony to chug Vitamin D milk.
Mitt Romney himself was pictured with a gallon of chocolate milk following the disappointing loss.
Jason Sudeikis’ son, Taran Killam as Tag Romney, came out to ask what more he wanted to accomplish.
“I have so much I want to do,” Jason Sudeikis said.
“I want to find out how mayonnaise is made.”
After “cracking open” another carton of milk, Taran Killam as Matt comes out, begging his father to come into the house.
“Paul Ryan is doing feats of strength in the living room,” he said.
Saturday Night Live began their weekly show with the defeated Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney drowning his sorrows with milk
Jason Sudeikis responded with vitriol.
“I would’ve liked to see him carry Wisconsin.”
A concerned Taran Killam then asked: “Have you been drinking? You smell like a dairy.”
Jason Sudeikis offers his son a drink, but Taran Killam sounds horrified.
“I’m only 38!” he said.
A third son, Josh, tries to entice his father into the party.
“Donald Trump is doing a very amusing thing where he’s racist,” Taran Killam said.
But it’s not until Kate McKinnon comes out again that Jason Sudeikis really gets fired up. He kisses her on the lips, causing Kate McKinnon to say in shock: “My, oh my, what has gotten into you?”
Jason Sudeikis responds: “Oh, I don’t know, about 10 gallons of milk.”
On Weekend Update, Seth Meyers celebrated “four…more…years…of gridlock”, showing pictures of Republicans Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner.
Noting how the president won many unemployed and student voters, Seth Meyers noted: “Basically, Obama became president the same way Budweiser became the king of beer.”
Seth Meyers also commented on the David Petraeus scandal, noting the name of biographer Paula Broadwell’s biography on him, entitled All In.
“When they first started working on the book, it was called <<Just The Tip>>.”
Seth Meyers was joined by Jay Pharoah, playing the newly re-elected President Obama. Asked if he was surprised by the result, Jay Pharoah responded: “A little. Come on Republicans, what happened? This was yours to win!
“Five-dollar gas, eight percent unemployment, I even gave you a first-debate head start! and on top of that, I’m Black.”
But Jay Pharoah said that as a second-term president, he wasn’t going to concede to those who were against him.
“Look out!” he said.
“From here on out, we do it my way! Republicans don’t want to talk of immigration? Fine. Meanwhile, a gay Hispanic woman is born every 15 seconds.”
Speaking of what has traditionally been a bipartisan dead end between him and Boehner, he said: “Fine, you wanna be unreasonable, fine let’s be unreasonable. The military? Gone! If you want to go to war with Iran, you have to send in Ted Nugent.”
The “president” seemed to be energized, and kept bouncing his shoulders. When Meyers commented, Jay Pharoah responded: “Seth, I’m in a good place.
“I want to thank Mitt Romney. Governor, I admire your tenacity, even though watching you run for president was like watching someone in roller skates trying to climb stairs.”
Though he said he was glad for four more years in office, Jay Pharoah’s closing remarks were over how awful his job is.
“Mainly, this is a terrible job and I hate it,” he said.
Also appearing on Weekend Update were a gay couple from Maine, which just passed a gay marriage law, and a drunk uncle to talk about the election recount.
Anne Hathaway, who plays Fantine in the upcoming movie version of Les Miserables, hosted for a third time, and Rhiannon was the musical guest.
President Barack Obama faced allegations of a major political cover-up last night over the resignation of CIA Director General David Petraeus, who had an affair with married Paula Broadwell.
The US Congress is expected to investigate claims that the affair was hushed up to protect Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
It is believed the affair was discovered by the FBI months ago, but not made public until after the election.
The FBI began an investigation in February after discovering the 60-year-old’s computer had been accessed by someone else – believed to be his 40-year-old mistress Paula Broadwell – prompting fears of a major security breach.
This led to the discovery of hundreds of explicit emails including one referring to “sex under a desk”.
A source said last night: “The real question is, what did the President know, and when?”
Frances Townsend, a former senior US government security official and now a member of the CIA Advisory Committee, said: “Whenever the FBI opens an investigation of a senior official they have to make notification of that, especially if there is an intelligence concern. It is hard to believe the White House did not know about this prior to the election.”
White House officials insist Barack Obama did not know of the affair until last Wednesday, the day after the election. He accepted David Petraeus’ resignation on Thursday, and the announcement was made on Friday.
Barack Obama faced allegations of a major political cover-up over the resignation of David Petraeus, who had an affair with Paula Broadwell
Some have alleged the scandal is a smokescreen to stop David Petraeus testifying before a Senate committee this week into the deaths of the US ambassador and three staff members in September in Benghazi, Libya. The White House has been accused of ignoring repeated warnings of an Al Qaeda terrorist attack on the embassy.
A senior Congressional staffer said last night: “What would he have told us? The resignation is incredibly convenient for the administration. Would he have revealed the CIA knew the Benghazi compound was under threat and Washington did nothing to secure it?”
Members of the House Intelligence Committee may still vote to subpoena David Petraeus and force him to testify.
The source added: “This could be another Watergate situation where it is not the event that brings down the president but the cover-up.”
Paula Broadwell began an affair with David Petraeus, married to his wife Holly for 37 years, when she was with him in Afghanistan in 2010 doing research for her biography, All In: The Education Of General David Petraeus.
She says they “bonded” over push-ups and five-mile runs in the deserts of Afghanistan.
“That was the foundation of our relationship. He goes all in to what he does,” Paula Broadwell said.
David Petraeus led American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq before taking charge of the CIA.
President Barack Obama laid a wreath of flowers at Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday in a traditional gesture as Americans marked three days of Veterans Day commemorations.
Barack Obama was joined by the First Lady, as well as Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
The President said the wreath-laying is a gesture to “remember every service member who has ever worn our nation’s uniform”.
He said in a speech at the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater that America will never forget the sacrifice made by its veterans and their families.
Barack Obama also says that “no ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service”. He says the country must commit every day “to serving you as well as you’ve served us”.
Earlier, the Obamas and Bidens held a breakfast with veterans at the White House.
This year, Veterans Day falls on a Sunday, and the federal observance is on Monday.
President Barack Obama laid a wreath of flowers at Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday in a traditional gesture as Americans marked three days of Veterans Day commemorations
It’s the first such day honoring the men and women who served in uniform since the last U.S. troops left Iraq in December 2011.
It’s also a chance to thank those who stormed the beaches during World War II – a population that is rapidly shrinking with most of those former troops now in their 80s and 90s.
At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, a steady stream of visitors arrived Saturday morning as the names of the 58,000 people on the wall were being read over a loudspeaker.
Some visitors took pictures, others made rubbings of names, and some left mementos: a leather jacket, a flag made out of construction paper, pictures of young soldiers and even several snow globes with an American eagle inside.
A half-dozen women of various ages knitted intently near a pile of hand-made scarves while frail, silver-haired men sat waiting for a chance to tell their war stories Saturday as tourists and veterans filed into the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
The museum planned a series of events to celebrate the Veterans Day weekend.
The knitters had gathered to commemorate 1940s homefront efforts to supply World War II troops with warm socks and sweaters.
At the National Cemetery in Bourne, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, about 1,000 people including Cub Scouts and Gold Star Mothers gathered on a crisp fall day for a short ceremony.
A strong earthquake has rocked central Burma, and there are unconfirmed reports of casualties.
The 6.8-magnitude quake hit some 120 km (70 miles) north of the second-largest city of Mandalay, at a depth of just 10 km, the US Geological Survey said.
Burma’s local media say a bridge under construction collapsed in the town of Shwebo, closest to the epicentre.
In Mandalay, terrified residents dashed out of their homes for safety, fearing more tremors.
The earthquake hit at 07:42 local time, the US Geological Survey said.
An unnamed government official in the capital Naypidaw told Agence France-Presse that so far two people were known to have died, three have been injured and five people are still missing.
A police officer in Shwebo said five construction workers who had been working on the Radana Thinga bridge near the town were missing after “a huge steel beam fell into the river”.
He told Reuters that one woman had died and 10 people had been injured in the nearby town of Kyauk Myaung after a house collapsed.
“This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life,” 52-year-old Shwebo resident Soe Soe told Associated Press.
Residents in Mandalay described panic in the streets as they fled the shaking buildings.
“I ran from my bed carrying my daughter out to the street. There were many people in the road. Some were shouting and others felt dizzy,” San Yu Kyaw said.
“People are now scared of more earthquakes,” he added.
The earthquake – which was felt as far away as Bangkok in neighboring Thailand – was followed by two strong aftershocks.
The US Geological Survey issued a yellow alert, indicating that “some casualties and damage are possible”.
Earthquakes are relatively common in Burma.
In March 2011, at least 75 people died when a powerful earthquake hit Burma near the borders with Laos and Thailand.
The driveway of biographer Paula Broadwell’s upmarket North Carolina home shows power-washed writing, which reads in a flourishing font: “Dad loves Mom”.
Behind the faded message, two silver cars are parked in the brick garage. A FedEx slip remains attached to the forest-green door.
But none of the Broadwells appear to be home a day after her alleged affair with CIA Director David Petraeus was sensationally revealed, forcing the shamed government official to resign.
The scholar, biographer, and West Point graduate who allegedly brought down former CIA director did not answer the door of her Charlotte-area home. It did not appear that her husband, radiologist Dr. Scott Broadwell, was home, either.
Reporters who were outside the couple’s $800,000 two-story brick home on Saturday got no response. According to the Associated Press, Paula Broadwell was planning on celebrating her 40th birthday this weekend in Washington, D.C.
Neighbor Ed Williams told the Charlotte Observer that he emailed Paula Broadwell on Friday following the news, asking if there was anything he could do to help. He told the paper that Paula Broadwell responded, saying that her family was alright, and to look after their house.
Ed Williams told the New York Daily News that he is “proud to have her as a neighbor”, adding: “She is a very smart and accomplished woman.”
Of her alleged indiscretion, the 70-year-old Dilworth resident said: “Life will go on. Sometimes people make mistakes that pain their lives.”
Reporters who were outside Paula Broadwell’s $800,000 two-story brick home in Charlotte on Saturday got no response
Other members of the Charlotte community were hurt by the news of David Petraeus. At a Veteran’s Day parade, military service member Andy Wallace told Charlotte 14 News: “That’s a tough pill to swallow, not only for the military, but for America.”
Indiscretions aside, Paula Broadwell has a series of accomplishments under her belt. A graduate of West Point Academy, she went on to travel to Afghanistan and conduct research at Harvard.
The FBI discovered the relationship by monitoring David Petraeus’ emails, after investigators were alerted that Paula Broadwell may have had access to his personal email account, two of the officials said.
Paula Broadwell wrote in the preface to All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, published by Penguin in January, that while at Harvard, Petraeus passed along his card and offered to help her academic work on leadership.
The book’s ranking on Amazon.com jumped from 76,792 on Friday to 111 by midday Saturday.
“I later discovered that he was famous for this type of mentoring and networking, especially with aspiring soldier-scholars,” Paula Broadwell wrote.
She added: “I took full advantage of his open-door policy to seek insight and share perspectives.”
Paula Broadwell is a research associate at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, according to her biography on Penguin’s website.
According to The Bismarck Tribune, she grew up in North Dakota and moved to Charlotte, more than three years ago with her husband and their two young sons.
Saturday morning tattoo artist Kat Von D was announcing her split from boyfriend, DJ Deadmau5, on Twitter.
They were spotted out arm and arm in Los Angeles just days ago.
“Man, I sure was wrong. But at least he made it a no brainer to break that off. #lessonlearned,” Kat Von D wrote.
“Man..I can’t say I didn’t give it my best,” the 30-year-old reality star added.
And in case anyone missed it, she also posted: “Clarification: Deadmau5 and I are no longer together.”
The couple was first spotted out together in September after meeting at a party earlier and immediately announced their relationship to the world via social media sites.
Deadmau5, real name Joel Zimmerman, tweeted: ”Yeah, im love… inb4 I find a f*** to give over the Internet implodes over it 😉 at least I’m happy! Lol” and posted 43 photos of himself on his Facebook page.
Saturday morning tattoo artist Kat Von D was announcing her split from boyfriend, DJ Deadmau5, on Twitter
Kat Von D, real name Katherine von Drachenberg, declared her love for the music producer by giving him a star tattoo below his eye to match her own.
But it seems as though the writing was on the wall for the couple as the sometime model said: “Now, we can get all of the <<I told you so’s>> outta the way…And move on.”
And while it is not clear what caused the break-up, the electro-house DJ is taking full responsibility for the break up on his Facebook page.
“Going to spend a little while screwing my head back on,” he wrote.
“i guess I’m not cut out for relationships right now. and that’s all i really want to dwell on it right now. ill figure it out. no hard feelings.”
Kat Von D was previously engaged to Sandra Bullock’s cheating ex, grease monkey Jesse James, and dated Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx before that.
Former CIA Director David Petraeus has offered an apology over his affair in an email to a friend, saying Friday night that he was “deeply sorry” for the pain he’s cause the nation and his own family, it was revealed today.
David Petraeus’ long-time friend told the Washington Post that the retired general was extremely sorry over his extramarital affair, allegedly with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
His apology comes as reports show that David Petraeus’ career could have imploded Paula Broadwell allegedly sent threatening e-mails to another woman she suspected of being too close to him.
In fact, the as-yet unidentified woman could be the key to the entire scandal unfolding after it was claimed she contacted the FBI for protection after receiving frightening emails. Agents traced the threats to Paula Broadwell.
However, it is claimed that Paula Broadwell was using David Petraeus’ own Gmail account to send the emails and when the FBI began to investigate an obvious national security issue instead uncovered explicit messages between the two sent from the decorated war hero’s own account – indicating an affair.
Three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case told the Washington Post that when David Petraeus’s name was raised in connection with the threatening emails the FBI thought that security had been breached.
Beginning their investigation into how the Director of the CIA’s personal email had been hacked, the FBI agents instead uncovered evidence that he and 40-year-old Paula Broadwell were involved in an extramarital affair.
FBI investigators first interviewed David Petraeus about what they had found two weeks ago and informed him that no criminal charges would be brought and no-one is thought to have discussed the possibility of his resignation.
But, according to the Washington Post, after an investigation Justice Department officials were unclear what to do next, because no crime had occurred nor breach of security.
Paula Broadwell allegedly sent threatening e-mails to another woman she suspected of being too close to David Petraeus
They contacted James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence and told him they had compromising material about David Petraeus.
James Clapper in turn spoke to David Petraeus and advised him to resign.
“Director Clapper learned of the situation from the FBI on Tuesday evening around 5 p.m.,” the intelligence official said to the Washington Post.
“In subsequent conversations with Director Petraeus, Director Clapper advised Director Petraeus to resign.”
Director James Clapper also added that he did not see the need for an internal investigation by the CIA, citing it as “a very personal matter, not a matter of intelligence”.
On Wednesday evening, Director James Clapper went to the White House and on Thursday morning President Barack Obama was informed.
Later on Thursday, David Petraeus arrived to see the President and offered his resignation, which was accepted on Friday.
The Washington Post has also reported that in an email message to a friend, David Petraeus apologized for his actions.
“He was deeply sorry for the pain he has caused his family,” the friend said.
“He also noted how much he loved his job at the agency. He said he really relished the intellectual challenge there.”
Paula Broadwell’s biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, was written with Vernon Loeb, a Washington Post editor, and published in January.
The resignation comes at a sensitive time. The administration and the CIA have struggled to defend security and intelligence lapses before the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others. It was an issue during the presidential campaign that ended with Barack Obama’s re-election Tuesday.
The CIA has come under intense scrutiny for providing the White House and other administration officials with talking points that led them to say the Benghazi attack was a result of a film protest, not a militant terror attack.
It has become clear that the CIA was aware the attack was distinct from the film protests roiling across other parts of the Muslim world.
Michael Morell rather than David Petraeus now is expected to testify at closed congressional briefings next week on the assault on the consulate in Benghazi, which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
David Petraeus, who turned 60 on Wednesday, has been married for 38 years to Holly Petraeus, whom he met when he was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. She was the daughter of the academy superintendent. They have two children, and their son led an infantry platoon in Afghanistan.
Selena Gomez was said to have ended her relationship with Justin Bieber over “trust issues” after he was seen with model Barbara Palvin at a Broadway show.
A source confirmed to People magazine that Selena Gomez, 20, was the one who ended the couple’s high-profile romance about a week ago after nearly two years together.
News of the pair’s split comes as Justin Bieber, 18, and Hungarian model Barbara Palvin, 19, were both spotted at the Broadway production of The Lion King musical on Thursday – just 24 hours after they shared the stage at the Victoria’s Secret show.
A source told People: “She broke up with him about a week ago.
“With them being apart so much it got complicated. She had some trust issues. It’s not easy, but the relationship needed to end.”
Selena Gomez was said to have ended her relationship with Justin Bieber over “trust issues”
Although news of their split didn’t break until Friday night, a few hours earlier Selena Gomez hinted there was trouble in paradise with a cryptic tweet as she posted a photo of Justin Bieber with Barbara Palvin in the background.
Selena Gomez captioned it: “….”
News of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez’s break-up was first reported by E! Online: “Because of their crazy schedules, it was getting harder and harder to maintain a relationship.”
The pair have spent a lot of their relationship apart, with Selena Gomez spending most of the time in the U.S. filming and Justin Bieber touring the world.
The past few weeks, Selena Gomez has been filming a Wizard Of Waverly Place reunion in Hollywood.
Perhaps in a bid to make her ex jealous, Selena Gomez posted a photo of herself and handsome Wizards Of Waverly Place on-screen love interest Gregg Sulkin hanging out on set late on Thursday night.
Selena Gomez wrote: “Shooting at 2am and this is where me and Gregg end up…”
New studies show that, contrary to popular belief, hitting the gym for a half hour or more can decrease your appetite.
One recently published study found that perceived fullness was higher among participants after 12 weeks of aerobic training.
Another study showed that women appeared less hungry on mornings when they walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes compared with mornings they didn’t, Men’s Health reports.
“Exercise can definitely suppress hunger,” Barry Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told Men’s Health.
Similar links between exercise and lack of appetite were found in studies from 2010, according to Scientific American.
Those findings raise an important question: If workouts make people want to eat less, then why do so many people who repeatedly exercise still have trouble losing weight?
“In most studies, there is a poor correspondence between appetite and actual food intake,” Barry Braun said. Translation: just because you might not feel as hungry as usual after a workout, that doesn’t mean you won’t eat too much after a workout nonetheless.
So, how should exercise fanatics avoid the pitfalls of hitting the gym and gaining unwanted weight still?
By cutting back on food rewards after a workout and keeping a food log for at least a week.
Studies show that simply logging your meals can help you cut down on overeating.
Holly Petraeus, the now humiliated wife of former CIA chief David Petraeus, sit just feet away from his mistress Paula Broadwell in June of last year, it was revealed today.
At the time of the photograph it is thought that the affair between the 60-year-old four-star general and his 40-year-old biographer was still continuing despite both being married with children.
And in a massive irony, both women are watching David Petraeus sit before the Senate Select Committee that confirmed his position as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency – the job he resigned from yesterday as a direct result of his affair.
But despite the public shaming of David Petraeus, one senior military source who worked with the former CIA Director leaves little room for doubt where those loyal to the general stand.
Blaming David Petraeus’ biographer and reported mistress, Paula Broadwell, for his downfall, the unnamed individual said that the 40-year-old author and West Point graduate went out of her way to “get her claws in him”.
Depicting Paula Broadwell as obsessed with using David Petraeus to further her own career, the unidentified source describes the married mother of two as a “shamless self-promoting prom queen”.
According to an interview the figure gave to businessinsider.com, Paula Broadwell latched onto David Petraeus soon after they met at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2006 as she was wrapping up her Master’s degree.
Holly Petraeus, the now humiliated wife of former CIA chief David Petraeus, sit just feet away from his mistress Paula Broadwell in June of last year
Claiming that Paula Broadwell used their shared backgrounds as West Point graduates and counterinsurgency experts to become close to David Petraeus, the source known as “James Downing” says that when news of the affair broke he realized immediately who it was with.
“It’s one of those things that, as soon as the announcement was made, I knew in an instant who it was,” said James Downing.
“Everything made sense. Who had exclusive access to him? Who wrote the hagiography on his life? Who framed their entire existence around his persona?”
Unflatteringly comparing her to Paula Jones the former Arkansas state employee who sued President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994, the source claims to have known Paula Broadwell for six years.
“When she started work on the bio she called me for background on one of the general’s previous deployments,” said James Downing.
“I probably gave her four hours or so, and we stayed in touch after that by email and an occasional phone call.”
However, over the course of those years and through her unfettered access to David Petraeus, James Downing claims that she underwent a dramatic shift in her personality.
“Over that time, she went from someone very likeable to a shameless self-promoting prom queen,” he said.
“A very disturbing shift in how she carried herself.
“If she knew P4 [Petraeus] was going to make an appearance at an event, she’d crash it without an invitation (she actually did this at the wedding of some close friends of mine) and photo bomb[ed] sic everyone there.”
The senior source who claims to know both parties, even made allowances for the retired four-star general whose policies allowed the U.S. to make a measured withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.
Even despite the Washington Post reporting that current and former U.S. military officials long had suspicions of David Petraeus being involved in infidelities.
“You’re a 60 year-old man and an attractive woman almost half your age makes herself available to you – that would be a test for anyone,” said James Downing.
Nate Silver, a New York Times blogger and celebrity numbers wiz, is set to make millions for his spot-on election prediction.
Nate Silver, the 34-year-old statistician who developed his own formula for predicting presidential outcomes, bet MSNB morning host Joe Scarborough $2,000 that Barack Obama would win the election on November 6.
Both men agreed to donate their winnings to charity.
Nate Silver won and is now poised to take in far more than his initial bet, Business Insider reports.
Nate Silver, who started his career analyzing baseball players’ performances, earned $700,000 for a two book deal with Penguin after calling the 2008 presidential election, according to the New York Observer.
Nate Silver, the 34-year-old statistician who developed his own formula for predicting presidential outcomes
On Election Day Business Insider proposed that Nate Silver could potentially double those earnings in 2012 with more book deals and high-paid speaking gigs if he were to successfully call the election again.
In addition to blogging for the New York Times, Nate Silver is the founder of his own much-read blog FiveThirtyEight.com.
Nate Silver was the topic of a Today show segment on Friday after successfully predicting Barack Obama’s win.
“He’s becoming a bit of a celebrity,”Today show host Andrea Canning told viewers.
“President Obama may have been the big winner this week, but coming in a close second: New York Times blogger, statistician and self-described geek, Nate Silver.”
Barack Obama has won the presidential vote in Florida – widening his electoral victory margin over Republican rival, Mitt Romney.
The vote count in the only state which had not declared a result from Tuesday’s election gave Barack Obama 50% to Mitt Romney’s 49.1%, according to Florida state department figures.
Barack Obama has now won 332 electoral college votes – Mitt Romney has 206.
The slow count brought back memories of the bitterly contested recount in 2000.
The Sunshine State’s famous “hanging chads” sparked a crisis in that year’s Bush-Gore election, eventually leading to a Supreme Court ruling that installed George W. Bush in the White House.
The figures released by the Florida state department suggest Barack Obama won 4,236,032 votes out of a total of 8,471,095 cast – 73,858 more than Mitt Romney and well above the 0.5% difference which would have triggered an automatic recount.
The result will not come as a surprise to either President Barack Obama or Governor Mitt Romney – it has been assumed that the president would win since late on Tuesday.
But it is significant nonetheless as it further strengthens President Barack Obama’s negotiating position when it comes to doing deals with Republicans in Congress.
And because there are so many Latino voters in the state, the result will also reinforce the message that Republicans need to do more to win the Hispanic vote.
Barack Obama has won the presidential vote in Florida, widening his electoral victory margin over Mitt Romney
Exit polls suggest that Florida’s Cuban Americans voted for the Democratic Party in record numbers.
The newly re-elected Barack Obama has said the wealthy must pay more taxes under any political settlement to avert a looming budget crisis.
He has urged Congress to act against the so-called fiscal cliff, a package of tax rises and spending cuts due early next year.
But in a dueling news conference on Friday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said tax rises would not be acceptable.
Budget analysts warn the US will tip into recession unless a deal is struck.
Barack Obama has repeatedly called for the affluent to pay more, but such a plan is anathema to Republicans.
The fiscal cliff would see the expiry of George W. Bush-era tax cuts at the end of 2012, combined with automatic, across-the-board reductions to military and domestic spending.
Florida’s problems began even before Election Day, with lengthy queues reported during the early-voting period.
Democrats launched a legal challenge against a Republican-backed measure to limit the period during which voters could cast ballots before the election, from 14 days to eight.
They said it was a blatant attempt to suppress Democratic turnout – Florida’s African-American voters have tended to cast ballots early in previous elections.
But Governor Rick Scott said the measure, passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2011, aimed to limit voter fraud.
The early-voting period officially ended last Saturday. Election supervisors in Miami-Dade and other counties did open up voting for several hours on Sunday.
But after being swamped by voters, one polling office in Miami-Dade County temporarily shut its doors. Some in line began to shout: “Let us vote!”
There was also a technical error with an automated phone system that told more than 12,500 voters in another county that the election was on Wednesday.
Florida was not alone in reports of lengthy Election Day queues. Voters waited for hours in states such as Virginia, New York and Washington DC.
Four-star general David Petraeus was a star on the battlefield, commanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but his impeccable judgement failed him when he engaged in an extramarital affair with biographer Paula Broadwell that led to his downfall as CIA Director.
Celebrated as a scholar and a warrior, the 60-year-old Princeton graduate is admired as much for his intellect as he was his tactical ability and charisma on the battlefield.
Seen as one of the top American leaders of his generation, David Petraeus became known as an “A list” celebrity, is credited with pulling Iraq back from the brink of all-out civil war and had a career so stellar he once seemed on course for the US presidency.
After his revolutionary counter-insurgency tactics saved Iraq, David Petraeus oversaw battlefield success in Afghanistan commanding a surge of 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama in late 2009.
“I don’t think he was professionally overrated. His were genuine accomplishments,” said James Carafano, a war historian with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
Senator John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate and the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Friday that David Petraeus is one of “America’s greatest military heroes”.
“His inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible – after years of failure – for the success of the surge in Iraq,” John McCain said.
Indeed, as the U.S presidential campaign heated up in 2011, there was genuine talk of the war-hero running as part of a Republican ticket, potentially as vice-president.
The rumors continued up until August of this year, when the White House was forced to deny a report that President Barack Obama feared Mitt Romney stumping for the then CIA chief as his running mate.
In fact, at the time of his nomination to the CIA post, some Washington insiders had said the White House wanted to find a high-profile position for David Petraeus to ensure he would not be recruited by Republicans as a challenger to the 2012 Obama-Biden ticket.
However, ever the loyal soldier, David Petraeus repeatedly distanced himself from ambitions of elected office.
“I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction,” David Petraeus said on NBC’s Meet the Press in August 2010.
When he was nominated to lead the CIA there were some concerns in intelligence circles that the high-profile four-star Army general might not be able to lead from the shadows as appropriate for a spy chief.
But once he took over the head office at the U.S. spy agency, David Petraeus kept a decidedly low public profile.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, expressed regret about the resignation of “one of America’s best and brightest” and said it was an “enormous loss” for the country.
“At CIA, Director Petraeus gave the agency leadership, stature, prestige and credibility both at home and abroad. On a personal level, I found his command of intelligence issues second to none,” Dianne Feinstein said.
After accepting his resignation about a year-and-a-half after nominating David Petraeus to the CIA post, Barack Obama said: “By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end.”
David Petraeus was sworn in as CIA chief in September 2011 by Joe Biden with his wife Holly at his side
In 2010, David Petraeus stepped into the breach as the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal who was fired by Obama in a scandal over an article in which McChrystal and his aides made mocking comments about the president and some of his top advisers.
In 2009, David Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment. The media-friendly general joked at that time at a Washington event that reporters were only gathered “to see if the guy is still alive”.
David Petraeus, born in Cornwall, New York, lives in Virginia with his wife Holly. They have two grown children, a son who was an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, and a daughter.
Known for his intensely competitive nature, David Petraeus graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1974, was the top of his 1983 class at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and went on to earn a doctorate in International Relations at Princeton in 1987.
His commands included the legendary 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and during that campaign he quickly secured the north of the country around Mosul.
The soldier headed up the American efforts to train Iraqi security forces and eventually returned to the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to write his counterinsurgency manual – which is now required reading.
From that point onwards he became the logical choice for President George W. Bush to lead his “surge” in January 2007 which allowed the United States to completely withdraw from Iraq four-years later.
David Petraeus’s wife, Holly, is an activist and volunteer who champions military families, and she continued that work after her husband retired from the military and moved to the CIA.
Holly Petraeus currently is assistant director of the office of service member affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she tries to keep unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of military personnel.
The bureau was championed by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, who was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts this week.
Holly Petraeus is the daughter of four-star General William Knowlton, who was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when Petraeus was a cadet.
She briefed the press at the Pentagon on her efforts recently and was introduced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called her “a true friend of the Department of Defense and a dedicated member of our military family”.
David Petraeus has four Defense Distinguished Service Medal awards, three Distinguished Service Medal awards, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the State Department Distinguished Service Award.
