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November 21, 2011 | | DAMAGE CONTROL Embattled Penn State University has tapped former FBI director Louis Freeh to lead an independent investigation into the sex-abuse scandal that's rocked college sports. Freeh said the probe will be "leaving no stone unturned." Meanwhile, the boy who first came forward to accuse former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky of sexual assault recently left high school in the middle of his senior year because of intense harassment. Former head coach Joe Paterno’s attorney told Good Morning America that the coach strongly condemns bullying. That might be little comfort for the victim—his mother told ABC that students are blaming her son for the firing of Paterno. WHOOPS What were investors expecting? The Dow Jones industrial average took a big hit in early trading on Monday, sliding 300 points, or about 2.5 percent, on news that Congress’s supercommittee on deficit reduction was preparing to announce its failure to reach a deal. If the deficit panel does not reach some sort of agreement, an automatic round of cuts is to kick in by 2013. But Congress may try to get around the automatic measures, a move that could create more uncertainty for investors. Committee chairs Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jeb Hensarling are expected to issue a joint statement on Monday announcing they have not struck a deal. CLOSE CALL The suspected “lone wolf” jihadist who was arrested on terrorism charges in New York was reportedly just an hour away from finishing constructing a bomb, investigators said. Police say Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old Al Qaeda sympathizer from Washington Heights, meant to use the bomb to assassinate U.S. soldiers returning from war. Authorities built a duplicate of the device that he was allegedly building, and the detonation blew apart a car, police said. Pimentel, though inspired by the likes of the late cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, only infrequently attended Muslim services, drank, and smoked marijuana. PUNISHMENT Another shoe dropped at UC Davis, where the university has put its police chief on administrative leave over a viral video in which police officers are shown pepper-spraying peaceful student protesters on campus. The two officers who used the pepper spray have also been put on leave. In a statement, the president of the University of California network said he was “appalled” by the video, and also ordered a review of campus law-enforcement policy across the system's 10 locations. Students were participating in a sit-in to show their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. HATE Since President Obama’s election, the number of right-wing extremist groups has ballooned from 140 to 824. In this week’s Newsweek, Ross Schneiderman profiles John Matthews, an undercover FBI informant in white-supremacist groups for almost a decade. “These people think that if they overthrew the government they’d make a better world,” Matthews tells Schneiderman. BLUNDER What Was J. Lo Thinking? Jennifer Lopez’s too-sexy bodysuit at the American Music Awards cried out for attention in all the wrong ways. | | 
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