Riker Lynch and Allison Holker “Salsa” Dancing With The Stars Season 20 Week 3 (VIDEO)

Riker Lynch and Allison Holker performed the Salsa to the tune of “Limbo” by Daddy Yankee on Dancing with the Stars Season 20 week 3 ‘Latin Night‘ episode Monday, March 30, 2015.

Former feds charged with stealing Silk Road bitcoin

A Secret Service agent and a DEA agent with lead roles in the investigation to take down the Internet drug bazaar Silk Road allegedly stole proceeds from the underground site and hid their booty in offshore accounts.


Former DEA agent Carl Force, 46, of Baltimore, the task force agent charged with going undercover to communicate online with Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht, known as Dread Pirate Roberts, allegedly used several online aliases to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin from Ulbricht, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday. Force is charged with money laundering, wire fraud, theft and conflict of interest.
Prosecutors also charged Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Md., a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service, who allegedly accessed Silk Road accounts using password information from a Silk Road customer service representative arrested in a drug sting. Bridges, who joined the Secret Service in 2009, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering.
The FBI shut down Silk Road and arrested Ulbricht on Oct. 2, 2013. Silk Road, a dark Web black market that traded in illegal drugs, counterfeit IDs and computer hacking software, required its buyers and sellers to do business in bitcoin, an anonymous digital currency that is difficult to trace.
A federal jury in New York convicted Ulbricht last month on drug conspiracy charges. Ulbricht, who will be sentenced in May, was also the target of an investigation in Maryland. Force and Bridges worked on the Maryland investigation.
Prosecutors say Force, in addition to his official undercover identity as "Nob," created several unauthorized online aliases, so he could conduct complex bitcoin transactions to steal from the government and Ulbricht.
In one transaction, Force, using his second alias, allegedly demanded Ulbricht pay him $250,000 in bitcoin not to disclose information to the government. Posing as a woman named Carla under the alias "French Maid," Force allegedly offered to sell Ulbricht information about the government's investigation in exchange for $100,000 worth of bitcoin.
Ulbricht paid the money, and Force deposited it into a personal account, IRS Special Agent Tigran Gambaryan wrote in an affidavit. Force allegedly converted some bitcoin to dollars and wired the money to his personal overseas bank account in Panama, the affidavit said.
Force also worked for and invested $110,000 in the California-based digital currency exchange company CoinMKT while still working for the DEA. The company featured Force in its pitches to venture capital investors as CoinMKT's anti-money laundering and compliance officer.
E-mails between Force and CoinMKT's CEO indicated that Force planned to stay at the DEA until the bitcoin exchange "hits it 'big time.' "
"I have a lot of down time at DEA so I am confident that I can handle all that needs to be done regarding Legal and Compliance on a daily basis," Force wrote.
Prosecutors say Force used his position at the DEA to steal money from accounts at CoinMKT. In one instance, Force allegedly directed CoinMKT to freeze a customer account. He then seized 223 bitcoins worth about $297,000 and transferred them to his personal Bitstamp digital currency account. He then exchanged the bitcoins for dollars and put the money in his personal checking account, court papers say.

Force, who earned about $150,000 a year as a DEA agent, made $757,000 in deposits to his personal bank account from April 2013 to May 2014, court papers show. During that time, Force paid off his mortgage and a government thrift savings loan while investing in real estate and bitcoin businesses, court papers say.
Authorities arrested Force on Friday. Force, a 15-year veteran, resigned from the DEA in May. He is in jail and will appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing.
Bridges, the computer forensics expert on the Baltimore investigation, allegedly stole more than $800,000 worth of bitcoin that he controlled during the Silk Road investigation and placed it into an account with Mt. Gox, a digital currency exchange in Japan. Silk Road reported a massive bitcoin theft Jan. 25, 2013, the same day Bridges attended an interview with the Silk Road administrator caught in the sting.
Bridges allegedly wired the funds to a personal U.S. investment account through nine transfers from March 6, 2013, to May 7, 2013. The final transfer on May 7, 2013, came two days before he personally sought a $2.1 million seizure warrant for Mt. Gox's accounts, court papers say.
Bridges, who joined the Secret Service in 2009, resigned from the Secret Service on March 18. He surrendered to authorities Monday and was released under pretrial supervision.
Bridges intends to fight the charges, his attorney Steven H. Levin said. Bridges "had an unblemished career in law enforcement for several years. He maintains his innocence," Levin said.

Iran nuke talks enter critical phase this weekend

The United States and Iran entered a critical phase of negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program this weekend, as Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif meet in Switzerland to determine if they can bridge their differences.
The talks are reaching a climax as leaders from across the world, including Israel and the U.S. Congress, watch to see if a historic deal emerges to curb Iran's nuclear program in return for a lifting of U.S. and Western sanctions. Negotiators are trying to conclude a general agreement by a self-imposed March 31 deadline, with details to be filled in by June.
Israel and many in Congress have warned that the Obama administration may grant too many concessions to get a deal that would allow Iran to violate an agreement and develop nuclear weapons once the punitive sanctions that have crippled its economy are lifted.
Congressional leaders have threatened to vote on increased sanctions if they do not like the terms. Israel has threatened military action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons that could threaten the entire region.

In a sign of congressional skepticism about an agreement, the Senate voted 100-0 Thursday for a non-binding resolution that calls for new sanctions against Iran if it is caught cheating on any deal that is
reached.


Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful and that its technological quest to produce energy and medical isotopes is a sovereign right. The oil-rich nation wants the sanctions lifted so it can rejoin the global financial system and sell oil on the open market again

The United States has not changed its bottom line regarding a deal, and it is still committed to making sure Iran would need at least a year to produce enough highly enriched nuclear material for a bomb if it broke the agreement, a senior administration official told USA TODAY. The official, who was not authorized to comment on the sensitive negotiations, asked not to be identified.
On Friday, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Mehr News that "a mutual understanding" covering much of the deal has been reached.
"A couple of technical issues are still remaining unresolved which we are working on," Salehi said. "There are difficult issues to be resolved."
Although the U.S. has taken the lead in the Iran talks, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China also are participating.
In Washington, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the parties were "better than halfway" to a deal, according to the Associated Press.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in New York on Friday, "There has been some progress, but there are things which are not yet solved." Fabius arrived in Lausanne on Saturday. His British and Russian counterparts have said they will join the talks over the weekend as well.
Issues still to be resolved involve the number and types of centrifuges Iran can use to produce nuclear fuel, the ability of inspectors to gain access to all possible nuclear sites and Iran's willingness to discuss past efforts to produce nuclear weapons.

2 remain missing after deadly NYC blast

Rescue crews continued to search Saturday for two missing people in a blaze that injured 22 in Manhattan's East Village as investigators focused on possible "inappropriate accessing" of the gas line to one of three buildings destroyed by the disaster.
Using cranes, rakes, face masks and hard hats, officials scoured the area and dug through debris. No fatalities were reported, but police officials said two people who had been at a sushi restaurant in one of the buildings were missing. Mixed-use, commercial and residential buildings at 121, 123 and 119 Second Avenue were destroyed, and another adjoining building was badly damaged.
"We are still actively searching for two individuals," NYPD spokesman Sgt. Carlos Nieves said Saturday afternoon. "We have two canine, cadaver seeking dogs at the location assisting in the recovery efforts."
Meanwhile, four of the injured remained in critical condition Friday afternoon at local hospitals, 24 hours after a suspected gas explosion rocked the area and triggered a seven-alarm blaze that firefighters continued to mop up, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said during an afternoon City Hall news conference.

Authorities also were exploring whether a third person was unaccounted for, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said, according to the Associated Press.



With the fire still smoldering and the building debris dangerous, investigators have not yet been able to get into the basements of the devastated buildings, said de Blasio. However, he said preliminary investigation results showed "there may have been an inappropriate accessing" of the gas line that serves the building where the blast occurred.

"There's certainly a possibility of impropriety," added de Blasio, who also praised firefighters, police and other emergency responders, and said "our hearts go out to the families of all who are affected, and the people of the neighborhood."

The firefighting and cleanup work at the scene of the Second Avenue disaster scene near East 7th Street may continue for as long as a week, said city Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Once the site is declared safe, firefighters will sift the debris searching for potential victims and clues to the disaster's cause, he said.

The City Hall news briefing presented a clearer but still incomplete overview of the explosion, ensuing inferno and chaos that forced scores of residents, workers and visitors to scramble from the buildings.

A Consolidated Edison crew was in the basement at 121 Second Ave. at about 2 p.m. Thursday to meet with contractors about pipes that had been installed in preparation for a planned upgrade of the building's gas service, a police official and utility executive said.

The utility crew told the contractors additional work was needed and left at approximately 2:45 p.m. without noticing any signs of a gas leak, officials said. Con Edison President Craig Ivey said the gas utility crew's findings meant gas was not yet flowing to the new pipes on Thursday.

The owner of the Sushi Park restaurant located on the building's first floor smelled gas at approximately 3 p.m., officials said. He notified the building owner, who in turn contacted one of the contractors, Boyce said. The city fire department received the first emergency 911 alert about the blast roughly 17 minutes later.

No one called 911 or Con Edison before the explosion, said de Blasio. He urged New Yorkers to contact the emergency hotline or the utility immediately if they smell gas. The mayor is also now accepting donations to help those affected by the building collapse.

One of the building contractors and a relative of the five-story structure's owner were among those injured in the explosion and fire, officials said. Police had not yet issued official missing persons reports on the two people who haven't been located, di Blasio's office said earlier on Friday.

Firefighters poured gallons of water Friday over the wreckage, a giant wave of crumbled brick, twisted metal and splintered wood.

Tyler Figueroa told the Associated Press Thursday night that his 23-year-old brother, Nicholas, disappeared after going on a date at the Sushi Park restaurant.

Figueroa said that the couple was paying for their meal when the explosion rocked the building and surrounding area. Nicholas Figueroa's date, who has been hospitalized with injuries, remembers only stumbling outside before losing consciousness, the brother told the Associated Press.

"I just pray my brother shows up," he said. "We just hope my brother comes back."

Contributing: Yamiche Alcindor and Ashley Day. Marisol Bello reported from McLean, Va.

Clinton wipes server after handing over e-mails

 Former secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decided to "wipe her server clean" and permanently delete all e-mails from the personal server, according to the head of a House committee investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.


Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Clinton also has refused to turn over the server for an outside review as he and other Republicans have sought.
"Not only was the secretary the sole arbiter of what was a public record, she also summarily decided to delete all e-mails from her server ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest," Gowdy said in a statement issued Friday.
Clinton, who is likely to announce her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination soon, has faced intense scrutiny over her use of a private e-mail account, hdr22@clintonemail.com, and a personal server for official business during her time at the State Department.
Her lawyer David Kendall said there's nothing for the committee to see on the server from Clinton's time in office. Clinton had given the State Department all work-related e-mails covering her tenure at the department from Jan. 21, 2009, through Feb. 1, 2013, he said.
In a six-page letter released Friday, Kendall said it would serve no purpose for Clinton to relinquish her server because Clinton's IT advisers have confirmed "there are no hdr22@clinton.com e-mails from Secretary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized."
After Clinton's team determined which e-mails were to be turned over to the State Department last year, Clinton choose to delete her personal e-mails and asked her aides to change the settings on the account to retain e-mails for only 60 days, Kendall said. The account was no longer in active use at that point, he said.
Clinton has called on the State Department to release the more than 30,000 work-related e-mails her lawyers handed over to the agency on Dec. 5, 2014. It's up to the department to review them for sensitive information and decide what to share with the public.
Gowdy seems prepared to take further action, saying he would work with the GOP leadership in the House on "next steps." Earlier this month, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, demanded Clinton turn over her server to an independent arbiter but stopped short of saying the House would seek a subpoena for the server.
Gowdy said Clinton would have to answer questions from lawmakers — something her aides say she is prepared to do.
Clinton is "ready and willing to come and appear herself for a hearing open to the American public," her spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement.
He added that Clinton's representatives have been in touch with Gowdy's committee and the State Department to make it clear Clinton would like the State Department to publicly release her work-related e-mails "as soon as possible."

Co-pilot 'obsessed' with Alps; flew crash area as a boy

Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who authorities say flew a Germanwings plane with 150 people aboard into the French Alps, was "obsessed" and "passionate" about the mountainous region and had flown it several times as a child, French and German media report.
Lubitz and his family, along with other members of a gliding club in his hometown of Montabaur, Germany, would take trips with other members to a club in the town of Sisteron, France, about 30 miles from where the Airbus A320 went down Tuesday,

The area, with its numerous peaks and valleys and stunning panoramas, is popular with glider pilots. In the final moments of the Germanwings flight, Lubitz overflew the major turning points for gliders flying from one peak to another, according to local glider pilots, the Associated Press reported.
French investigators said the plane, with Lubitz at the controls and the locked-out pilot trying desperately to break through the cockpit door, flew for about 10 minutes after leaving its 38,000-feet cruising altitude, finally descending into the side of the mountains.

Francis Kefer, a member of the local French gliding club, told France's i-Tele television that the Lubitz family and other members of the Montabaur club came to the region regularly between 1996 and 2003.

Dieter Wagner, a member of the Montabaur club, said he recalls that Lubitz had participated in one of the gliding courses in the Alpine region with Wagner's niece, who was a good friend, Le Parisien reported.


"He was passionate about the Alps and even obsessed," Wagner said. "I'm sure he knew the crash area because he had flown it in a glider."

Ernst Müller, 70, and another member of the German club, said he is "certain that Andreas has participated in at least one or two internships with us in Sisteron," Le Parisien reported. Officials at the club would not comment Saturday, the AP reports.

Test Drive: 2016 Mazda6 is sexy outside, classy inside

Mazda was on the edge of new-wave styling when it unveiled the Mazda6 midsize sedan in 2014, hoping the sex appeal finally would swipe some Camry/Accord/Fusion buyers.
Despite its much-improved appeal, which generated much-improved sales, Mazda6 remains an afterthought among midsize sedans, outsold nearly eight-to-one by the Honda Accord, which seems most like the Mazda, and almost three-to-one by the oft-overlooked Subaru Legacy.
The freshened 2016 version now is upon us, and the model's sales jumped 28% in February, the month it went on sale.
Mazda wisely left the 2016's outsides almost untouched — modified grille area and that's it — while attending to the interior with richer materials, nicer dashboard and instruments.

Mazda was on the edge of new-wave styling when it unveiled the Mazda6 midsize sedan in 2014, hoping the sex appeal finally would swipe some Camry/Accord/Fusion buyers. The 2016 updates left the styling mostly untouched and focused on interior upgrades.  (Photo: Mazda)

 

But as part of the interior upgrades, Mazda included a navigation system that — for Test Drive, at least — worked poorly. A $200 aftermarket unit would work easier, better.
The only way we could enter a destination, using either the voice command or by manually selecting letters and numbers, was to go through the progression: State, city, street, number, waiting between each for the system to absorb and digest.
Mazda said it shouldn't work that way. In fact, it sent a video showing the system responding to a voice speaking the entire address conversationally, as a navi should work — leaving us puzzled about the alternative navi reality we found. Should a modern system even have a mode that requires the tedious entry that we faced?
Offering a manual mode makes sense. Requiring data entry in a strict manner doesn't.
Of course, if you don't use the navi to find destinations frequently, it's not a big deal.
Other gripes, none deal-breakers:
•Exterior door handles: They feel cheap, as if you're operating a fragile plastic piece, which undermines the car's upmarket persona. The door handle is something you touch every time you use the car, so the impression it gives reinforces itself through repetition.
•Back seat: Two outboard spots are comfy, but the big floor hump remains in the middle. We remember when the industry promised that front-wheel drive would eliminate the hump— makes that spot hardly useful.
On the other hand:
•Engine: Remarkably quick for its 184 hp rating, and fuel-efficient too. Our rather rather rambunctious suburban thrash-about returned roughly 22 mpg — which sounds bad against the 32 mpg city/highway combined rating. But the ratings are they're unbelievable in the first place. And we drive hard, in the second. At least we do if the car's any fun, which the 6 is.
Mazda takes the commendable approach of eschewing downsized and turbocharged powerplants that are nearly universal now. It Instead, continues to rely on a relatively large-displacement four-cylinder, but as part of its ballyhooed Skyactiv technology it builds that engine with an unusually high compression ratio. That means the pistons squeeze the air tightly in the cylinders, emulating the packing-in of air that turbos do. but without the additional turbo hardware and the chance you'll have to fix it later at great expense.
High compression ratios or turbos once mean premium fuel. Neither does nowadays.
The Mazda6 engine sounds a bit coarse due to the high compression, but only a minor detail, especially once it's warm.
•Fuel saving i-Eloop: It's optional rather than standard as we'd prefer. But it saves fuel without the ugliness of the stop-start mechanisms that can interrupt your driving pleasure.
Instead of shutting off the engine at stoplights and the like, as stop-start does, i-Eloop generates electricity when the car slows and brakes, as a hybrid does. Instead of a hybrid's But there's no massive battery; pack to store juice i-Eloop sends the electricity into a small storage device called a capacitor. It holds enough to run the lights or climate control briefly, taking that load off the engine and enabling it to use less fuel.
It's worth 2 mpg in government ratings. We didn't have a chance to directly compare Mazda6s cars with and without.
•Noise: Not much, which was Mazda's a goal in the freshening. But still we noticed what seemed like unusual amounts of tire nose on a variety of asphalt and concrete paving. Check where you usually drive before you sign the papers, to be sure you're not buying annoyance.
If you consider midsize four-door sedans to be simply family cars, you're probably not a Mazda6 buyer. If you see no reason why usefulness and family-friendliness need to conflict with good driving behavior, you're a candidate.
Mazda6 Highlights:
• Style: Very sexy.•
•Engine: Fun, fuel-efficient
•Interior: Nicer, as intended.
2016 Mazda6 Details:
•What? Updates — mainly inside — to a recently redesigned mid-size, four-door, front-drive sedan.
•When? 2016 went on sale in February.
•How much? Starts at $22,315 including $820 shipping for base Sport, manual transmission. Top model, Grand Touring with automatic, starts at $31,015.
Test car, Grand Touring automatic, with optional Technology Package ($2,180) and other, minor options was $33,395.
•Where? Made at How, Japan.
•What makes it go? 2.5-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine rated 184 horsepower at 5,700 rpm and 185 pounds-feet of torque at 3,250 rpm, available with manual or automatic six-speed transmission.
•How big? Very close to Honda Accord.
Weighs 3,179 lbs. (manual transmission), 3,250 lbs. (automatic)
Passenger compartment, 99.7 cubic feet.; trunk, 14.8 cu. ft.
Turning circle diameter 36.7 feet.
•How thirsty? Manual rated 25 mpg in city driving, 37 highway, 29 in combined city/highway.
Automatic rated 26/38/30, or 28/40/32 with i-Eloop fuel-saving option.
High-end, automatic-transmission test car with i-Eloop delivered 22.1 mpg (4.52 gallons per 100 miles) in broad mix of driving, much of it quite vigorous.
Burns regular. Tank holds 16.4 gal.