Midday Roundup: Hastert indicted for cover-up of still-secret scandal

Paid off. A federal grand jury has indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert for paying someone $3.5 million in hush money over “prior misconduct.” The indictment doesn’t say what the misconduct was. It notes Hastert, 73, was a high school teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981 in Yorkville, Ill., about 50 miles west of Chicago. It goes on to say the person who received the payment has been a resident of Yorkville and has known Hastert most of his or her life. Hastert retired from Congress in 2007, and the alleged payments started in 2010. He is an alum of Wheaton College, which named the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy after him in 2007.

Sharing the bee. The Scripps National Spelling Bee has ended in a tie for the second year in a row. Before last year, it had been 52 years since the national bee had co-champions. Neither of the two eighth-grade spellers missed one of the 25 championship words. The winners were Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kan., and Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield, Mo. “I think it’s time to consider that the bee may be entering a new era where the level of competition is so intense that we need to entertain [a tie] as a possibility every year,” Executive Director Paige Kimble said.

FIFA fallout. The U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into corruption at FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, could pose major problems for Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid. FIFA reportedly gave $150,000 dollars to the already scandal-plagued Clinton Foundation. The head of the organization, Sepp Blatter, called for “unity and team spirit” among FIFA members today but deflected personal responsibility for the alleged bribing of officials in exchange for votes on the location of the World Cup. “I am willing to accept [that] the president of FIFA is responsible for everything, but I would at least like to share that responsibility with everyone,” Blatter said. “We cannot constantly supervise everyone in football.”

Aggressive. Russia is once again massing troops, tanks, mobile rocket launchers, and artillery along its border with Ukraine. Reuters reported that Russian insignias have been removed from that equipment and soldiers’ uniforms. The build-up comes the same week U.S. President Barack Obama met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss, among other things, Russian aggression in the Ukraine. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Ukraine can’t be abandoned: “The conflict over Ukraine, I think, is a test for the West, a test for the EU, a test for NATO, a test for us.”The Obama administration has so far refused to send lethal aid to the Ukrainian military.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.