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A former senior Peace Corps official agreed to cooperate with any law enforcement investigations surrounding a scheme that funneled millions of Department of State dollars to a nonprofit founded and run by former Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter, recently published court documents show. Warren “Buck” Buckingham agreed to cooperate as a condition of an agreement with the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s Office that would keep him from facing prosecution for a related illegal lobbying charge, court documents filed Thursday and made public Tuesday show. (RELATED: Former Peace Corps Official Who Steered Contracts To John Kerry’s Daughter May Avoid Prosecution)...

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment." In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause...

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment." In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause...

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment." . . . snip For the rest of my life, I enjoyed the greatest gift of the Peace Corps: I love and treasure America more than ever. I take seriously my responsibility to defend our culture and our country and pass on the American heritage to the next generation.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen called on the United States on Friday to withdraw Peace Corps volunteers in an escalating row over accusations that U.S. agents conspired with an opposition leader to plot treason. Hun Sen was responding after the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh issued a travel warning that urged citizens to show caution amid "anti-American rhetoric by officials". "Are you scaring Cambodians?" Hun Sen said of the United States in an address to garment workers at factories which export much of their production to the United States. "Are you prepared to invade Cambodia and that's why you told...

The White House is batting down reports that the Trump administration had planned to scuttle one of Michelle Obama’s signature initiatives. Hours after CNN reported on an internal Peace Corps email that announced a plan to stop supporting the former first lady’s “Let Girls Learn” program, a White House spokesman said there had been no changes to the initiative. The cable network’s CNN Films division, which celebrated Obama’s work to improve educational opportunities for girls in developing countries in a documentary last year, reported that Sheila Crowley, acting director of the Peace Corps, sent an email to employees this week...

Hillary Clinton announced Friday that she wants to enlist 5 million new volunteers into a “national service reserve” aimed at 18- to 30-year-olds. “What if we strengthen the culture of service in America? So it wasn’t just something we did one day a year, but it became a regular part of our lives,” she asked in a Florida rally on the topic of national service Friday. The former secretary of state argued that her volunteer plan would help combat growing self-segregation in America, where people surround themselves with people who think, talk, look and read the same news as them....

More than $9 million of Department of State money has been funneled through the Peace Corps to a nonprofit foundation started and run by Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter, documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation show. The Department of State funded a Peace Corps program created by Dr. Vanessa Kerry and officials from both agencies, records show. The Peace Corps then awarded the money without competition to a nonprofit Kerry created for the program. Initially, the Peace Corps awarded Kerry’s group — now called Seed Global Health — with a three-year contract worth $2 million of State...

More than $9 million of Department of State money has been funneled through the Peace Corps to a nonprofit foundation started and run by Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter.

KAKATA, Liberia (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama landed in Africa on Monday with her daughters and her mother for an overseas trip promoting education for girls, starting with a country still recovering from the recent Ebola epidemic that left thousands dead. The Obamas were welcomed in Liberia's capital with a red carpet and traditional dancers wearing the red, white and blue colors of both the American and Liberian flags. After meeting Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Obamas traveled a heavily potholed road to the town of Kakata, where they visited a Peace Corps-sponsored leadership camp for girls. "I...

Anita Datar, 41, perished in the Mali hotel siege on Friday. She's the only American known to have died in the attack. A former Peace Corp worker in Senegal, Datar was in Mali on an international development project. The casualty hit home for Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner and senator from New York for eight years. "I knew Anita as the loving mother of a wonderful seven-year old boy and the former partner of David Garten, one of my senior policy advisors in the Senate," Clinton said in a statement ... Datar is among the at least 19 victims of...

Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby have long rallied for U.S. Peace Corps members to have abortion coverage footed by federal tax funding. According to The Hill, efforts by Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) have granted their wish through the Appropriations bill: Though it was best known for preventing a government shutdown, the Appropriations bill also contained provisions that will ensure for the first time that Peace Corps volunteers have access to abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the woman. Planned Parenthood has also lavished Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) with kudos for his...

How far left was I? So far left my beloved uncle was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in a Communist country. When I returned to his Slovak village to buy him a mass card, the priest refused to sell me one. So far left that a self-identified terrorist proposed marriage to me. So far left I was a two-time Peace Corps volunteer and I have a degree from UC Berkeley. So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a...

Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf has had to pull a campaign ad after it emerged that the actor vouching for his stint in the Peace Corps also appeared in a cannibal fetish film.Democrat Tom Wolf's advertisement featured Alan Benyak, 50, sitting on the hood of a Jeep and talking about Wolf's time in India.Benyak has many strings in his bow - he's an attorney who was a Democratic candidate for judge in Washington County, he served in the U.S. Army - and he's something of an actor.

The largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history has led the U.S. Peace Corps to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected West African countries, and a State Department official on Wednesday said two volunteers were under isolation after having contact with a person who later died of the virus. Meanwhile, Liberia's president ordered the nation's schools to shut down and most civil servants to stay home as fears deepened over the virus that already has killed more than 670 people in West Africa. The Peace Corps said it was evacuating 340 volunteers from Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea and...

Two Americans volunteering in the Peace Corps are now isolated after being exposed to the Ebola virus, but are not showing symptoms yet. Their names have not been released. "We can confirm that two Peace Corps volunteers have had contact with an individual who later died of the Ebola virus," a Peace Corps representative told the News. "These volunteers are not symptomatic and are currently isolated and under observation. When they receive medical clearance for return to the U.S., we will work with them to travel safely back." On Wednesday, the Peace Corps announced that it would temporarily remove its...

The Huffington Post reports that the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved by voice vote an amendment that will extend abortion coverage to Peace Corps volunteers.From the report: The GOP-controlled committee blocked the abortion coverage provision last year after the Senate tried to include it in the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. But no Republicans spoke out against the measure on Tuesday at a committee mark-up of the FY 2015 version of the bill, and the provision passed quickly by a voice vote. (emphasis mine) This is the first time both the House and Senate committees have approved of...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/06/bob-bergdahl-good-father.html

Candidates lob shots during convention Open season on Scott Brown officially kicked off yesterday with five of the six Democratic candidates seeking to reclaim the “people’s seat” training their sights and barbs squarely on the freshman U.S. senator during speeches at their party’s state convention in Lowell. “When Ted Kennedy went behind closed doors with lawmakers and lobbyists, he always fought for us,” Bob Massie, the nonprofit executive who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994, told some 3,000 Democratic delegates gathered on the floor of Tsongas Center. “When Scott Brown goes behind closed door with lawmakers and lobbyists and...

Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and “helping the world.” She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang. When she returned to the United States, the reception she received from Peace Corps officials was as devastating, she said, as the rape itself. In Bangladesh, she had been given scant medical care; in Washington, a counselor implied that she was to blame for the attack. For years she kept quiet, feeling “ashamed and embarrassed and guilty.” (snip) But from...