WASHINGTON: A 23-year-old woman armed with a handgun was arrested outside the White House late on Thursday, US Secret Service officials said.
In a statement released yesterday, the Secret Service identified the woman as April Lenhart of Mount Morris, Michigan.
“Lenhart was participating in a demonstration along the north fence line of the White House complex when Secret Service personnel monitoring the demonstration observed a holstered handgun on Lenhart’s front hip,” said the agency, which is tasked with protecting the president, visiting dignitaries and top US officials.
Lenhart was arrested and charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, possession of unregistered ammunition and carrying a pistol without a license, the Secret Service said.
Her arrest came just one day after Secret Service officers arrested a 41-year-old man at the White House who had a rifle and ammunition in a car parked nearby.
The Secret Service has beefed up its operations after a string of security lapses, including one involving an armed intruder who scaled the White House fence and managed to get well within the presidential mansion.
Phone-hacking editor Coulson freed from prison
LONDON: Andy Coulson, the former British newspaper editor and one-time communications chief of Prime Minister David Cameron, was released from prison yesterday after serving his sentence for phone-hacking, the justice ministry said.
Coulson served less than five months of the 18-month sentence handed down at the Old Bailey in July after he was found guilty of conspiring to intercept voice-mails at the now-defunct Sunday News of the World tabloid.
Owner Rupert Murdoch closed the paper in July 2011 amid public outrage after it emerged that Britain’s biggest selling paper had illegally accessed the voice-mails of a murdered schoolgirl.
Coulson was editor of the News of the World from 2003 to 2007, and resigned after private detective Glenn Mulcaire and former royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed in the first ever phone-hacking prosecutions.
Inmates in Britain can be released under home detention arrangements before they have served half of their term, the justice ministry said ahead of his release.
Agencies
