Midday Roundup: Off-duty agents crash into White House barricades

Disorderly conduct. Two Secret Service agents are accused of driving into a security barrier at the White House after a night of partying. The incident happened March 4 but was just revealed Wednesday in The Washington Post. According to the Post, police who witnessed the accident wanted to conduct field sobriety tests and arrest the agents, but a supervisor told them to let the agents go home. One of the agents involved is the second-in-command on the president’s security detail. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the incident. The crash is the latest embarrassment for the agency tasked with protecting the president. In the last six months, several top agency officials, including former Director Julia Pierson, have been forced out amid revelations of multiple, serious presidential security breaches.

Offense taken. A photographer who took a picture of a soldier holding his baby in an American flag has received intense backlash on social media. Her critics started a Facebook page titled “You call yourself a photographer?” saying Vanessa Hicks desecrated the flag by using it as a prop. Hicks, herself a Navy veteran, told WTKR in Norfolk, Va., “That flag, the uniform, that baby—exactly what every service member is out there fighting [for].” She said she has reported the page as cyber-bullying, but Facebook has refused to take it down.

War powers debate. Several top officials faced lawmakers Wednesday at a Senate hearing on President Barack Obama’s war powers request. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned lawmakers that ISIS would likely evolve strategically and associate with other terror groups. Carterappeared with Secretary of State John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey said Iran’sinvolvement in the fight against ISIS is helpful at the moment, but he voiced concerns about the regime’s long-term influence in Iraq. And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suggested the United States is limiting its involvement on the ground in Iraq to avoid upsetting Iran amid nuclear negotiations. Obama’s war powers proposal would allow the use of military force against ISIS for three years, unbounded by national borders, but the president has ruled out any large-scale ground combat operations.

Poor visibility. More heavy fog, rain, and rough surf confounded today’s search for the bodies of seven Marines and four soldiers whose Black Hawk helicopter crashed off the Florida shore. The military has provided few details about the crash, but the weather was so bad another helicopter returned to land, said Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard. The names of the victims have not been released. Mourners held a vigil Wednesday night on a nearby pier surrounded by dense fog.

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