For six years, NickMerow was known in courtroom documents as John Dow. He was living a doublelife, suing the US Government over some of its National Security Policies.

Almost a decadelater, I am married and I have a small child, and I'm still not at liberty todiscuss the facts of this case with my wife today.

Welcome to CNNRadio News day. I'm Tony Andreas. Coming up later in the show, we sit down withNick to learn more about his heroin story and find out what it means in thewake of the NSA leak scandal.

But first, let'sbring in CNN's Jonathan Bender who brings us today's top stories. Welcome Jon.

Hey, Tommy.

So you've gotanother big scandal out of Washington on our hands, right?

Yes, so the storyis that State Department and diplomatic officials may have covered up or evenstopped investigations of inappropriate or possibly criminal misconduct by itsstaff. This brewing scandal comes from, of course, an internal memo. Thealleged incidents include soliciting sexual favors from prostitutes, in somecases, children, also allowing a drug ring to operate near the U.S. embassy inIraq, and even buying drugs from it.

Now RepresentativeEd Royce, who is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, just askedhis staff to begin an investigation. What's troubling to him is that a properinvestigation not only hasn¡¯t happened but wasn¡¯t allowed to happen.

It appears theinvestigators themselves were influenced, were leaned on, they had theirinvestigations called off and as a result on eight separate occasions, the willof the political pointees trumped the ability of the compound to be here to dotheir job, to investigate.

For now the StateDepartment has denied covering up or stopping any investigations and hasn¡¯t competedon individual cases.

Onto the nextscandal where the director of the National Security Agency was on Capitol Hilltoday, General Keith Alexander testified before a Senate hearing, that phonerecords the government obtained through the formerly secretive surveillanceprogram disclosed last week, helped prevent, quote, ¡°dozens of terroristevents.¡±

Alexander alsorejected the claim that the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden couldtap into American's phone calls or computers, telling lawmakers that, quote, ¡°Iknow of no way to do that.¡±

Now to Rome. Insome of his surprising statement Pope Francis says a, quote, ¡°gay lobby¡± existsin the Vatican. The comments came from a meeting Francis had with the Latin Americanand Caribbean Religious Group on Sunday. However hints that the Holiestcontained a network of gay clergy surfaced last year in a report about a seriesof embarrassing leaks to Italian journalists.

Now to the U.S.where two major wild fires continue to blaze across Colorado. Today a statecorrectional facility had to transport more than 900 prisoners to anotherfacility as a precaution. And unfortunately because of the combination of lowhumanity, hot temperatures and wind, the fires are spreading quickly.

And finally anupdate from Ohio this morning while wearing a bright bronze jumpsuit ArielCastro pleaded not guilty. Castro is the man assured of holding three womenagainst their will for almost a decade. Along with more than 300 other chargesagainst him. However there are signals that the defense may seek a, quote,¡°resolution¡± to avoid a trial.