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in front of the issue and portray Republicans as foot-draggers on it. The week began with Romney saying he favored keeping loan rates low, remarks he hopes will prevent Obama from making the matter a campaign fight but may have helped prod congressional Republicans into action.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Expanding the prostitution investigation, the Secret Service acknowledged Thursday it is checking whether its employees hired strippers and prostitutes in advance of President Barack Obama's visit last year to El Salvador.
• The disclosure came not long after the Homeland Security secretary assured skeptical senators that the recent prostitution scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident.
• A spokesman for the Secret Service, Edwin Donovan, said the agency was investigating allegations raised in news reports about unprofessional behavior that have emerged in the aftermath of the Colombia incident. The latest, by Seattle television station KIRO-TV (http://bit.ly/IeN6bv), quoted anonymous sources as saying that Secret Service employees received sexual favors from strippers at a club in San Salvador and took prostitutes to their hotel rooms ahead of Obama's visit to the city in March 2011.
• Prostitution is legal in both Colombia and El Salvador.
• Separately, The Washington Post this week cited unnamed "confidants" of the Secret Service officers implicated in Colombia saying senior managers had tolerated similar behavior during previous official trips. The Post described a visit to Buenos Aires in 2009 by former President Bill Clinton, whose protective detail it said included agents and uniformed officers. During that trip, the Post said, members of the detail went out for a late night of partying at strip clubs.
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• SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The California dairy cow found to have mad cow disease had been euthanized after it became lame and started lying down, federal officials revealed in their latest update on the discovery.

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