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ByEileenSullivan TheAssociatedPress WASHINGTON Secret Ser- vice Director Julia Pierson abruptly resigned Wednes- day in the face of multi- ple revelations of security breaches, bumbling in her agency and rapidly eroding confidence that the pres- ident and his family were being kept safe. President Barack Obama "concluded new leader- ship of that agency was re- quired," said spokesman Josh Earnest. High-ranking lawmak- ers from both parties had urged her to step down af- ter her poorly received tes- timony to Congress a day earlier — and revelation of yet another security prob- lem: Obama had shared an elevator in Atlanta last month with an armed guard who was not autho- rized to be around him. That appeared to be the last straw that crumbled trust in her leadership in the White House. Earnest said Obama and his staff did not learn about that breach until just before it was made public in news reports Tuesday. "Today Julia Pierson, the director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it," Homeland Security Sec- retary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. He announced that Joseph Clancy, retired head of the agency's Pres- idential Protective Divi- sion, would come out of re- tirement to lead the Secret Service temporarily. Taking further steps to restore trust in the belea- guered agency, Johnson also outlined an indepen- dent inquiry into the agen- cy's operations. That trust was shaken by a series of failures in the agency's critical job of pro- tecting the president, in- cluding a breach Sept. 19, when a knife-carrying man climbed over the White House fence on Pennsylva- nia Avenue and made it deep into the executive mansion before being stopped. Republicans quickly served notice that Pierson's resignation and the inquiry ordered by Johnson would not end their investigation. "The Oversight Commit- tee will continue to examine clear and serious agency fail- ures at the Secret Service," said the panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "Problems at the Secret Ser- vice pre-date Ms. Pierson's tenure as director, and her resignation certainly does not resolve them." Pierson's permanent re- placement will probably face a grueling confirmation pro- cess before Congress. In an interview with Bloomberg News after her resignation was an- nounced, Pierson said she recognized that "Congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency." She said she met John- son on Wednesday and "af- ter that discussion I felt this was the noble thing to do." Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R- Utah, a leader of the con- gressional inquiry, called her resignation "the right thing to do, it had to hap- pen, but there are some sys- temic challenges that must be addressed." Some revelations came from whistleblowers who contacted Chaffetz, and he suggested more damaging stories may emerge. "Un- fortunately there are more out there and we'll see how that goes," he said. After a congressional hearing Tuesday into the Sept. 19 breach and an ear- lier one, reports emerged of still another. Earlier in Sep- tember, Obama had shared an elevator in Atlanta with a private guard who was not authorized to be around him with a gun. That was the first known Secret Ser- vice failure to unfold in the presence of the president. The first family was not at the White House when the recent intruder entered. The White House learned about the Atlanta episode only about when lawmakers and the pub- lic did — when the Wash- ington Examiner and The Washington Post reported it, Earnest said. Obama had not been told about it previously, Earnest said. This, despite Pierson's statement to the committee that she briefs the president "100 percent of the time" about threats to his personal security and those at the White House. She said the only time she had briefed him this year was after the Sept. 19 White House intrusion. The man accused of run- ning into the White House on Sept. 19, Omar J. Gon- zalez, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a brief ap- pearance in federal court. He is accused of unlawfully entering a restricted build- ing while carrying a deadly weapon, which is a federal charge, and two violations of District of Columbia law. Wearing a standard prison-issue orange jump suit, Gonzalez sat atten- tively at the defense table but did not address the court as his lawyer entered the plea. As for Pierson, support for the Secret Service di- rector unraveled quickly after her defensive testi- mony Tuesday, which left key questions unanswered. WHITE HOUSE BREACH Secret Service chief resigns over multiple security lapses THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Secret Service Director Julia Pierson testifies Tuesday during a congressional hearing. LM OTERO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Dr. Edward Goodman, epidemiologist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, speaks about the nature and treatment of the Ebola virus Wednesday in Dallas. By Lauran Neergard The Associated Press DALLAS The airline pas- senger who brought Eb- ola into the U.S. initially went to a Dallas emergency room last week but was sent home, despite telling a nurse that he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa, the hospital said Wednesday in a disclosure that showed how easily an infection could be missed. The decision by Texas Health Presbyterian Hos- pital to release the patient could have put others at risk ofexposuretothediseasebe- fore he went back to the ER a couple of days later, when his condition worsened. A day after the man's di- agnosis was confirmed, a nine-member team of fed- eral health officials was tracking anyone who had close contact with him af- ter he fell ill on Sept. 24. The group of 12 to 18 peo- ple included three members of the ambulance crew that took the man to the hospi- tal and a handful of school- children. Those people will be checked every day for 21 days, the disease's incuba- tion period. "That's how we're going to break the chain of trans- mission, and that's where our focus has to be," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The As- sociated Press Wednesday. The CDC reminded the nation's health care pro- viders to ask patients with symptoms if they've trav- eled recently. The Ameri- can College of Emergency Physicians planned to alert its members as well. The patient explained to a nurse Thursday that he was visiting the U.S. from Africa, but that informa- tion was not widely shared, said Dr. Mark Lester, who works for the hospital's par- ent company. "Regretfully, that infor- mation was not fully com- municated" throughout the medical team, Lester said. Instead, the man was diag- nosed with a low-risk infec- tion and sent home. He was prescribed anti- biotics, according to his sis- ter, Mai Wureh, who iden- tified her brother, Thomas Eric Duncan, as the in- fected man in an interview with The Associated Press. Duncan has been kept in isolation at the hospital since Sunday. He was listed in serious but stable condi- tion. Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Edward Goodman said the patient had a fever and abdominal pain during his first ER visit, not the riskier symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. But the diagnosis, and the hospital's slip-up, high- lighted the wider threat of Ebola, even in places far from West Africa. "The scrutiny just needs to be higher now," said Dr. Rade Vukmir, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 7,100 people in West Africa, and killed more than 3,300, ac- cording to the World Health Organization. Liberia is one of the three hardest-hit countries in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea. Ebola patient case sh ow s ho w ea si ly it can be missed AIRLINE PASSENGER PLEASERECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. Thankyou! By Joanna Chiu The Associated Press HONG KONG Raising the stakes in their standoff with the authorities, student leaders of Hong Kong's pro- democracy protests warned they will step up their ac- tions if the territory's top official doesn't resign by Thursday, possibly occupy- ing several important gov- ernment buildings. Storming government buildings would risk in- viting another confron- tation with police. It also would put pressure on the Chinese government, which so far has said little beyond declaring the pro- tests illegal and backing Hong Kong Chief Execu- tive Leung Chun-ying's at- tempts to end them. Chinese state media in- dicated the government may be losing patience with the protests. An editorial solemnly read Wednesday on China's main TV broad- caster CCTV said all Hong Kong residents should sup- port authorities to "deploy police enforcement deci- sively" and "restore the so- cial order in Hong Kong as soon as possible." Students are leading the protests for wider elec- toral reforms, which pose the stiffest challenge to Bei- jing's authority since China took control of the former British colony in 1997. Lester Shum, vice secre- tary of the Hong Kong Fed- eration of Students, said the students would wel- come an opportunity to speak to a Chinese central government official. "However, we ask them to come to the square and speak to the masses," Shum told reporters. "This is a movement of Hong Kongers and not led by any specific group." Shum demanded that Leung resign by the end of Thursday. He said there was "no room for dialogue" with Leung because he had ordered police to fire tear gas at protesters over the weekend. "Leung Chun-ying must step down. If he doesn't re- sign by tomorrow we will step up our actions, such as by occupying several im- portant government build- ings," he said, adding that demonstrators would not interfere with "essential" government agencies, such as hospitals and social wel- fare offices. 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