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An intruder carrying a “suspicious package” climbed the White House fence on Sunday night, but was quickly arrested, the U.S. Secret Service said. According to the Washington Post, the incident occurred about 10:25 p.m. on the south side of the White House complex , which faces the Washington Monument. The newspaper quotes Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary as saying that the suspect, whose name and gender has not been released, was immediately apprehended by Secret Service officers. CNN reported that the package he was carrying was “examined and later deemed to be harmless.” There is no word yet on why he jumped the fence. White House security has come under increased scrutiny in recent months after a man managed to jump the perimeter fence before making it all the way through the North Portico doors of the White House . Just last week, it was reported that the White House was considering adding steel spikes to the fence to make it harder to climb. -- This feed and its contents ar...

The Failure to Launch Edition If you've glanced at the recent 2016 presidential election coverage -- a herd of reporters chasing a van ; pundits penning potent, penetrating pieces on the providence of a visit to Chipotle -- the horrifying thought has likely occurred to you that there are many hundreds of days to go until Election Day. "Sweet fancy Moses," you probably thought, "it is way too early for this nonsense." We can, and do, empathize. So you'll surely forgive us if this week we turn our attention away from how early it is in the season, and focus on a few people for whom it might actually be too late . The trickle of declared presidential ambitions has become a flood. First, two anti-establishment tea party-ish freshman senators, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), got into the race. Then, America lived through the anticlimax of the decade when Democrat Hillary Clinton released a brief announcement of her candidacy last week. Following th...

The following story was reported by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting , an independent, nonprofit news center based at Boston University and WGBH News, and published here in collaboration with The Huffington Post. Sign up here for email updates from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The predawn rumble of pesticide-spraying trucks is a rite of spring in almost 200 Massachusetts communities. Some $11 million is spent in the state each year controlling and counting the pests and educating residents about how to avoid contracting mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus. Yet no state funds are dedicated to tick-borne diseases, one of which, Lyme, infects at least 5,500 residents a year in Massachusetts and likely many more. Residents may notice that gap even more this spring: The winter’s deep snow probably insulated ticks from low temperatures and heavy winter mortality, say some entomologists. Ticks and Lyme have spread across Massachusetts in...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — The Republican Party's most ambitious stormed into New Hampshire on Friday for an early state showdown that highlighted the diversity, political challenges and sheer size of the GOP's 2016 presidential class. Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for a weekend conference hosted by the state GOP, the year's first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Speakers ranged from the party's elite to its longshots: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivered a standing-room-only speech while lesser-known South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced himself to voters one at a time in the hallway. Each contender offered prescriptions for a party that hasn't won a presidential election in more than a decade. Bush made a passionate plea for bipartisanship on a day when his moderate brand of politics was on display. He broke with many conservatives on the environment by declaring that "the climate is changing...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — The Republican Party's most ambitious stormed into New Hampshire on Friday for an early state showdown that highlighted the diversity, political challenges and sheer size of the GOP's 2016 presidential class. Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for a weekend conference hosted by the state GOP, the year's first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Speakers ranged from the party's elite to its longshots: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivered a standing-room-only speech while lesser-known South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced himself to voters one at a time in the hallway. Each contender offered prescriptions for a party that hasn't won a presidential election in more than a decade. Bush made a passionate plea for bipartisanship on a day when his moderate brand of politics was on display. He broke with many conservatives on the environment by declaring that "the climate is changing...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — The Republican Party's most ambitious stormed into New Hampshire on Friday for an early state showdown that highlighted the diversity, political challenges and sheer size of the GOP's 2016 presidential class. Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for a weekend conference hosted by the state GOP, the year's first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Speakers ranged from the party's elite to its longshots: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivered a standing-room-only speech while lesser-known South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham introduced himself to voters one at a time in the hallway. Each contender offered prescriptions for a party that hasn't won a presidential election in more than a decade. Bush made a passionate plea for bipartisanship on a day when his moderate brand of politics was on display. He broke with many conservatives on the environment by declaring that "the climate is changing...

While some Hillary Clinton haters are already taking shots at her looks and age, the presidential hopeful still has Issa Rae in her corner. Rae, the creative mind behind "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl," sat down with "The HuffPost Show" hosts Roy Sekoff and Marc Lamont Hill on Friday and praised Clinton for running despite her age. "I applaud her for just being old as fuck and being out there, because I want to be old as fuck and not have to alter my face or body in any way, shape or form," Rae said. Rae also commented on the beauty expectations that have been hurled Clinton's way since she announced her presidential bid. "I'm just more horrified that there is an expectation that she would need and would get plastic surgery. And the fact that she didn't -- we're celebrating that, and I think that that's just a travesty at the end of the day," she said. Watch more from "The HuffPost Show" here. -- This...

African American and other civil rights leaders infuriated over the stalled confirmation vote on Loretta E. Lynch, the first black woman to be nominated for attorney general, are casting the delay as an issue with racial overtones. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. from Politics News on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1FTXZXQ via IFTTT

This article was originally published by the Yale Daily News , and a portion is being reposted here with permission. The pledges of Yale University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, or SAE, are required to wear a uniform of a blazer, button-down and tie — conspicuous garb for teenagers on a college campus, though they wear it proudly. The night of Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, was no exception. Twenty-two men clamored into the fraternity’s off-campus house at 35 High St. The inside was dark. The pledges were greeted by the boisterous shouts of roughly 30 older members sitting on couches lined against the walls, decorated with framed photo composites of past fraternity classes dating back decades. Soon, the new pledge class’s yearbook-worthy smiles would hang beside them. But first, they had to undergo initiation, their inaugural act as SAE brothers. Traditionally, the SAE president recounts fraternity lore. Pledges recite an oath. Two senior “chaplains,” elected by their brothers for their...

The University of Notre Dame, which the documentary "The Hunting Ground " prominently accuses of botching rape cases, is the subject of a U.S. Department of Education civil rights investigation into complaints that sexual harassment victims were tormented by the school's bewildering system for handling sex cases. The Catholic university, which on Friday plans to screen the documentary on its campus in South Bend, Indiana, has been under investigation by the department's Office of Civil Rights for nearly two years, and hasn't publicly disclosed the probes. Two 2013 filings, obtained by The Huffington Post, portray the school's complaint process as a confusing mire of inaccurate information and dodged responsibility, bouncing victims along for months without explanation. Notre Dame has called "The Hunting Ground" inaccurate and says the film fails to acknowledge the school's efforts to combat sexual violence. The film highlights the case of Lizzy S...

This is the first full-color image ever taken of Pluto: The image -- which shows the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon (lower left) -- was snapped on April 9 by NASA’s New Horizons, a space probe which is fast nearing Pluto. Taken from a distance of about 71 million miles, the image reveals " tantalizing glimpses of [the Pluto] system ," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, per Space.com. The first spacecraft in history to visit Pluto, New Horizons was launched in January 2006 . As Reuters notes, it’s currently about three months away from a “close encounter” with the celestial body. The probe, said to be the fastest spacecraft ever launched , will pass about 7,750 miles from Pluto’s surface on July 14. It will not put itself into orbit around the dwarf planet, but will instead make observations as it flies by. "Scientific literature is filled with papers on the characteristics of Pluto and its moons from ground based and Earth orb...

A Tea Party conservative may be about to do what many in his movement consider unthinkable: vote for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. "I asked myself, ‘Which party has helped me out the most in the last, I don’t know, 15 years, 20?’ And it was the Democrats ," James Webb, a 51-year-old charter member of his local Tea Party Patriots said in a video blog posted on YouTube. "If it wasn’t for Obama and that Obamacare, I would still be working.” Webb said the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, has allowed him to stop working without having to worry about paying high premiums for health insurance. "I don’t trust the Republicans anymore because they’re wanting to repeal the Obamacare," Webb said in the clip. "And I don’t want them to do that, man, because then I’ll have to go to work again. My life’s already planned out.” On the other hand, Webb may be "exhibit A" of why some Tea Partiers dislike the Affordable Care Act because in other video...

Hillary Clinton sounded like a woman on a mission after her long drive into the heartland: “There’s something wrong,” she told Iowans on Tuesday, when “hedge fund managers pay lower taxes than nurses or the truckers I saw on I-80 when I was driving here over the last two days.” -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. from Politics News on The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/1EJB99p via IFTTT

CONCORD, N.H. -- The annual meeting of the New Hampshire Young Republicans Federation is not the kind of event that typically generates much interest outside the group’s membership. This year, however, it is the site of a brewing conflict between young conservative activists on one side and the New Hampshire Republican Party and a top hire for Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign on the other. In the backdrop is the state party's first major 2016 cattle call, a two-day event featuring over a dozen declared and prospective candidates set to take place this weekend. The controversy began on April 4 -- the last day that anyone hoping to become a new voting member of the New Hampshire Young Republicans could pay the $25 dues to the group’s treasurer. Only dues-paying members are allowed to vote in the group’s biennial elections, set for this coming Saturday, in which two candidates will vie for the position of chairman. Traditionally, the Young Republicans group has not exercised muc...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) raised more than $4 million in the first week of his presidential campaign, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday. Cruz announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on March 23. He is the first declared presidential candidate to file a campaign finance report. The one-week haul came from a relatively even distribution of donors making the maximum contribution and those giving small amounts. Cruz raised $1.8 million from donors giving less than $200, and $1.5 million from those giving $2,700 or more. The first term Texas senator transferred $250,000 from his Senate campaign account to his presidential campaign. The maximum a single donor can give is $2,700 per election, or $5,400 for both the primary and general election. Those contributions exceeding the $2,700 designated for the primary election can only be used if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. He has raised $566,000 in funds that only...

Two Transportation Security Administration agents at Denver International Airport have been fired for allegedly conspiring to grope male passengers in an elaborate plot that involved hand signals and the manipulation of the settings on a full-body scanner so that more thorough pat-downs could be conducted on men found attractive. One agent, a man, would allegedly signal to a female coworker when a male passenger he found attractive was coming through the scanner, according to The Denver Post, which cited a police report. The female agent would then allegedly press a button on the touchscreen that would change the gender of the passenger to female, thus triggering an alert for an anomaly detected in the passenger's crotch. That would lead to a physical pat-down of the groin, conducted by the male TSA agent. The agency received an anonymous tip about the alleged gropings from an employee in November, according to KUSA-TV in Denver. However, the agency reportedly did not look into ...

A female CEO in Texas has come under fire this week for saying a woman “shouldn’t be president” because of “different hormones” and “biblical sound reasoning.” Cheryl Rios, CEO of Dallas marketing and public relations firm Go Ape Marketing, wrote on Facebook that she’d move “to Canada” if Hillary Clinton became head of state . “With the hormones we have, there is no way [a woman] should be able to start a war,” she wrote in her post, per KTVT. “Yes I run my own business and I love it and I am great at it BUT that is not the same as being the President, that should be left to a man, a good, strong, honorable man.” Rios said she supports “equal rights,” but stressed that “there’s an old biblical sound reasoning why a woman shouldn’t be president,” according to the station. Rios, however, did not cite a particular biblical verse to support her view. After drawing criticism for her comments on social media, Rios took to Twitter Tuesday to defend her beliefs. “In this great country we are...

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Education brought by four of its contracted student loan debt collectors after the department decided not award them additional business. Judge Francis Allegra of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims tossed the lawsuits in a sealed order, court filings show. Most of the documents in the case are either secret or heavily redacted. The Huffington Post was unable to obtain a copy of the court order on Tuesday. Coast Professional, Enterprise Recovery Systems, National Recoveries, and Pioneer Credit Recovery sued in March after the Education Department said it wouldn’t send them any more accounts under their current contracts. The Education Department said Feb. 27 that the four firms and West Asset Management had misled distressed borrowers “at unacceptably high rates.” The Education Department contract is one of the more lucrative in the debt collection industry. Some 7 million Americans collectively owe more than $1...

Heald College, the jewel of a once-thriving chain of for-profit colleges owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., misled students and accreditation agencies about graduates’ employment rates and showed a “blatant disregard” for the federal student loan program, the U.S. Department of Education alleged Tuesday . The Education Department said it had found 946 false job placement rates dating back to at least 2010, and slapped Heald with a $29.7 million fine and a ban on enrolling new students. Heald must prepare plans for its thousands of students -- enrolled in health care, business, technology and legal programs across its online school and 12 campuses in California, Hawaii and Oregon -- to either graduate or transfer to a new school. The finding, an effective death knell for Heald, bolsters claims by current and former students to get their federal student loans forgiven on the grounds that the false job placement rates led them to enroll. A spate of lawsuits last year by several state atto...