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April 26, 2012 | | COMING OUT More openly gay candidates may be running for office this year than ever before. The Daily Beast’s Allison Yarrow talks to the organization behind a nationwide effort to mobilize gay candidates as a strategy for winning over voters on a personal level. PROTEST Tens of thousands of Norwegians converged on public squares Thursday during the trial of the right-wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik, charged with killing of 77 people in a bomb-and-shooting rampage. Over 40,000 people crowded into the central square of Oslo, singer Peter Seeger's “My Rainbow Race” in the rain as the trial took place inside. The left-wing protest song was chosen in response to Breivik's accusation that “cultural Marxists” were threatening Norwegian society. Protesters also marched on the courthouse in Oslo and lined walkways with red and white flowers. ONE YEAR LATER Federal authorities are warning local law enforcement officials to be on the alert for possible terror threats ahead of the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. In a statement on Wednesday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that the May 1 raid on bin Laden’s Pakistan compound last year resonates strongly with al Qaeda and other terror groups, and reiterated the danger of a “lone wolf” attack as well. President Obama discussed the possibility of attacks in a meeting with national security on Thursday. Afterwards, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that so far they had “no indication of a credible threat or plots against the U.S.” NOT AGAIN It appears as though Secret Service agents have misbehaved on more than one occasion. A day after U.S. lawmakers were told that the prostitution scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident, Seattle’s KIRO-TV says they have evidence that Secret Service members were also involved with prostitutes in El Salvador prior to President Obama’s trip there in March, 2011. A government contractor from El Salvador said he worked with the Secret Service before Obama’s arrival, alleging that roughly a dozen agents accompanied by military escorts went to a San Salvador strip club, with some paying for sexual favors in a VIP room. COSTLY Given Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad’s alleged shopaholic tendencies as revealed in the Assad email cache], it’s not too surprising that she demanded a high price to participate in a Vogue photo shoot with her children in its March 2011 issue. The fashion bible paid a PR firm $25,000 to arrange the shoot and profile of Asma al-Assad, titled “A Rose in the Desert,” which was so controversial that it has been completely scrubbed from the Web. In an interview with NPR last week, author Joan Juliet Buck said she was disturbed by Asma’s description of Syria’s ancient culture as its “hardware” and that it was “horrifying” to have been near the family. She also suggested that the children in the photos were probably not the Assads’ kids. | | 
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