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The House Select Committee on Benghazi announced plans to call Hillary Clinton to testify next month, right around the time her campaign was reportedly going to shift into high gear with a mid-May campaign kickoff speech.

At the same time, a new book about the Clinton foundation is generating the kind of headlines and news coverage no presidential candidate wants to see.

"Bill Clinton Cashed in When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State," was how ABC News put it, referring to the former president's speaking fees shooting up after his wife joined the Obama administration.

"Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company," was from The New York Times.

The story also dominated cable news.

"She's now saying that they won't take foreign donations if she becomes president," said Jo Becker, the co-author of The New York Times piece, on NPR's All Things Considered Thursday. "But what the story really underscores are the special challenges when you have a foundation that's raising money from foreign interests, that couldn't contribute to an American political campaign, by the way, but can contribute to these kinds of foundations."

The Clinton campaign declined to comment, but a campaign spokesman published a five-point rebuttal to the Times article, which was based, in part, on the forthcoming book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, which is due out May 5. The spokesman, Brian Fallon, charges that the facts in the Times' own reporting undermine the innuendo in the piece.

"Ironically, buried within the story is original reporting that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale," Fallon writes, adding, "The facts drawn from the Times' own reporting undermine the innuendo in the Times story about Hillary Clinton's role in this matter."

Earlier this week, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta offered a own pre-buttal to the book in an interview with Al Hunt on PBS's Charlie Rose show.

"It's a book that's written by a former Bush operative, who's a reporter for that august news institution Breitbart.com — or has been in the past," Podesta said of the book's author, Peter Schweizer, who worked for former President George W. Bush and was a foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin in 2011.

That is classic political rapid response — question the source, blame the opposition.

Schweizer also wrote the book on Congress and insider trading that helped lead to the STOCK Act of 2012, "Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison."

Schweizer also tells Bloomberg's Josh Green he is coming out with a similar book on Jeb Bush's finances to be published this summer.

Podesta, though, not only questions the author's motives, but, more importantly, his conclusions.

"He's cherry picked information that's been disclosed and woven a bunch of conspiracy theories about it," Podesta said on PBS. "The facts, there's nothing new about. The conspiracy theories, I guess we'll get to judge when we read the book."

For Clinton, this is hardly a new experience. She and her husband have been at the middle of so many political firestorms over the years it's almost hard to keep track. On the Today Show in 1998, Clinton famously dismissed the attacks and accusations.

"The great story here for anybody willing to find it, and write about it and explain it is this vast right wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day that he announced for president," she said.

As for the Benghazi committee, Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who heads it, seems to be trying hard to avoid having his effort portrayed as a partisan witch hunt. He insisted Wednesday that he wasn't slow-walking the investigation to overlap with the presidential campaign season.

"I want it done before 2016," he said on Fox, adding, "We're trying to accelerate it, but I've got to have the documents."

In a letter to Clinton's lawyer, Gowdy said he wants the former secretary of state to testify the week of May 18th, which happens to be right around the time when Clinton's campaign has said she is going to make that bigger "kickoff" speech for her campaign.

That Benghazi committee hearing will deal mostly with her use of a private e-mail server for public business. Gowdy released 136 likely questions; eight of them are about Benghazi.

Once Gowdy is satisfied he has all the documents, he plans to call a second hearing where the committee can ask Clinton about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

That means while Clinton tries to campaign for one job on Pennsylvania Avenue, she is going to be facing questions from the other side for quite some time.

2016 Presidential Race

Benghazi

Congress

Hillary Clinton

The list of official and likely candidates for president in 2016 includes some prominent Republicans who are currently governors. Three of them — Scott Walker, Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal — all tout executive experience as qualification for the White House. They also share something else — slumping poll numbers back home.

They've been working to make themselves familiar and friendly faces to the party faithful in early voting states, including at a big event hosted last week by the New Hampshire GOP.

Jindal, the sitting governor of Louisiana, was there. Also, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, greeting the audience in Nashua with some regular-guy, Midwestern small talk.

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit in New Hampshire. Darren McCollester/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit in New Hampshire.

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

"We're honored to be back here, New Hampshire," he said. "I wore a suit tonight. I didn't wear a $1 sweater like I did last time from Kohl's. Although I think this shirt is from Kohl's."

Kohl's, of course, is a reference to the Wisconsin-based department store.

And there's New Jersey's Chris Christie, who mentioned a text he'd just gotten from his 14-year-old son.

"He's at school, and he said to me 'where are you?' And i said 'I'm on my way to New Hampshire.' And he's a bit of a wise guy — I don't know where that comes from — and he said 'your new home state,'" Christie said to laughs.

It's all part of the "getting to know you" phase of an early presidential campaign. And for a sitting governor, it's a time to tell the world — especially voters in New Hampshire and Iowa — just what you've accomplished back home.

That's something Walker tried to do: "We took $3.6 billion budget deficit and turned it into a surplus. In fact we've done it in each of the last four years," he said.

But as these three governors eye the White House, each is also dealing with low public approval at home.

Walker has long been a polarizing figure due to his epic battles with public employee unions. But a new poll this week shows a new and sizable drop in his approval rating. Charles Franklin of Marquette University noted that Walker has shifted his rhetoric to the right on issues including immigration and abortion. That has likely fueled some of the drop. And, Franklin said, being out of the state so much doesn't help.

"He has had a style in which he governs by traveling around the state in presenting his case. Three, four, five events a day around the state arguing for his positions," Franklin said. "Now he isn't able to do as many of those."

Christie's popularity in New Jersey reached an all-time low this week. There was the so-called "bridgegate" scandal early last year, but more recently there's deep discontent over his handling of the economy and changes to retirement benefits for state workers.

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"I didn't run for governor of New Jersey to be elected prom king," Christie said recently. "I'm not looking to be the most popular guy in the world, I'm looking to be the most respected one." Darren McCollester/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Darren McCollester/Getty Images

"I didn't run for governor of New Jersey to be elected prom king," Christie said recently. "I'm not looking to be the most popular guy in the world, I'm looking to be the most respected one."

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Jindal's approval is very low as well — fueled by his handling of the budget and education, among other things.

Governing is messy. And it's something a candidate not currently running a state doesn't have to worry about.

But political strategists like Rich Galen say that falling support at home — as long as it doesn't become a huge story on a hot button issue nationally — is not likely to have much impact on the presidential contest "as long as the dip is manageable."

"As long as the candidate doesn't feel that he or she has to race home to fix it. Then it's something that you let slide by and hope for the best as you move down the field," he said.

Now, there are other sitting governors who could still jump into the race. Like, say, say Ohio's John Kasich whose ratings have held up pretty well, so far.

But others wear their low approval ratings like a badge of honor. A sign of toughness. As Christie put it last weekend — he's not looking to be elected prom king.

If you're into "slow food" — the ethical response to "fast food" — you probably want to know how the animals were treated or whether pesticides were used on your vegetables. Now, the "slow fashion" movement is in the same spirit.

"It's about understanding the process or the origins of how things are made," says Soraya Darabi, co-founder of the clothing line Zady. "Where our products come from, how they're constructed and by whom. Slow fashion is really indicative of a movement of people who want to literally slow down."

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The Tragic Number That Got Us All Talking About Our Clothing

Asia

After Bangladesh Factory Disaster, Efforts Show Mixed Progress

This idea of slow fashion has been around for a long time. But over the last two years it has surged into a small-but-dedicated movement, partly inspired by the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. In 2013 some 2,000 people were making clothes — mostly for large, western brands — when the building they were working in collapsed. More than 1,100 people were killed.

Pietra Rivoli, a professor at Georgetown University, says tragedies like the one in Bangladesh are a result of fast fashion: Consumers in the West buying lots of cheap clothes that are made in countries with little or no oversight of fire safety and fair labor.

"We talk about a race to the bottom in apparel production with production chasing the lowest costs," Rivoli says. "I think the bottom right now is in Bangladesh."

Rivoli is the author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy. She traced the origins of a T-shirt from Walgreens that cost $5.99.

PLANET MONEY MAKES A T-SHIRT: The world behind a simple shirt, in five chapters NPR hide caption

itoggle caption NPR

"A lot of times there are demand surges from the West," Rivoli explains. "You know, 'We need more of those pink T-shirts by next week,' and these brands had never really thought about the fact that they might need to be monitoring for actual structural integrity of the buildings. That wasn't something that was really on their radar screen."

Supply chain integrity is important to Soraya Darabi and Maxine Bdat, the co-founders of Zady. They've come out with a new T-shirt that's an example of "slow fashion." It was made entirely in the U.S. by companies that Bdat says try to be eco- and labor-friendly. The cotton is grown by the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative.

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Worker-owner Alfonso Gonzalez pieces together Zady's T-shirts at the Opportunity Threads cooperative in Morganton, N.C. Zady hide caption

itoggle caption Zady

Worker-owner Alfonso Gonzalez pieces together Zady's T-shirts at the Opportunity Threads cooperative in Morganton, N.C.

Zady

"The fact that it's USDA. Organic is very meaningful to us because what that means is there is a government representative that's actually visiting these farms on an annual basis and they're checking to make sure these organic standards are being met," Bdat says.

Then the cotton goes to North Carolina where it's spun by a multi-generational family cooperative. "The actual sewers own part of the company," Bdat explains.

The T-shirts are also dyed in North Carolina by TS Designs.

"What we're doing is piecing together what is left of an industry that has totally been decimated," Bdat says.

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Zady's "slow fashion" T-shirt costs $36. Zady hide caption

itoggle caption Zady

Zady's "slow fashion" T-shirt costs $36.

Zady

Zady's T-shirt costs $36.

"It is a little bit of an upfront investment, but it's also, we believe, the way of the future — to own fewer but better things," says Darabi.

Like the Zady founders, Linda Greer likes the idea of slow fashion, but her definition is different. Greer is a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's intentional manufacturing with 'mindfulness' — to use current terms," she says.

Greer thinks the slow fashion movement should hold large retailers accountable for its manufacturing abroad. The NRDC. has a program called Clean by Design which works with retailers and designers to "green the fashion supply chain."

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For some shoppers, like Angelique Noire (left) and Jenny Rieu, "ethical fashion" means lining up for a massive vintage clothing sale. Nina Gregory/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Nina Gregory/NPR

For some shoppers, like Angelique Noire (left) and Jenny Rieu, "ethical fashion" means lining up for a massive vintage clothing sale.

Nina Gregory/NPR

Greer says 33 textile mills in China have adopted efficiency standards that have reduced pollution. These are mills that make clothes for Target, H&M and The Gap among others. But she says the apparel industry still has a very long way to go.

"The conundrum consumers face into trying to know where their clothing comes from is that even companies don't know where that clothing has come from," Greer says.

On a recent weekend, a huge line snaked around the Goodwill in Los Angeles for a massive vintage clothing sale. For these consumers slow fashion is recycling hats, dresses and purses that have some history.

"It was owned by someone living somewhere at some point and it already had a life and I'm here to give it maybe a second or third life," says shopper Jenny Rieu. Her Goodwill finds are unique and cheaper — not to mention friendlier to the environment.

Read an excerpt of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

Passwords get hacked — a lot. In an effort to move beyond passwords, big companies are embracing biometric technology: the use of fingerprints, iris scans or voice recognition for user identification.

To heighten security, smartphones are being outfitted with biometric features. But, ditching passwords for biometrics may not make the hackers go away.

Selfie Security

At a big security conference called RSA, thousands of people gather in San Francisco's Moscone Center, selling products to make life online more secure.

Conor White, an executive at a biometrics company called Daon, begins to demonstrate how he logs into his bank account.

"I've just launched our mobile app and you can see here, I'm straight into the app," he says. "Watch how it authenticates me."

He doesn't type in a password. He holds his iPhone up to his face, like he's going to take a selfie.

He blinks — on purpose. What follows is a camera click sound.

USAA uses biometrics to authenticate its account holders. Courtesy of USAA hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of USAA

"I blink because photographs don't blink," White says. "It's a basic test to make sure it's not someone holding up a photograph of me on the Internet."

And if selfie security doesn't work — say you're in a dark room — you can use your fingerprint instead, or your voice. White reads this sentence to get into the app: "My identity is secure because my voice is my passport."

His company recently landed a big contract with USAA to do biometric identification for the financial services firm's account holders. White says bankers are calling him regularly now because the old system has failed.

Biometrics are a great alternative, he says, because they're super-personal.

"I wear my face every day," White says. It's the only face I have. As they say, a face only my mother could love."

And if it feels too personal, don't do it, he says.

"At the end of the day, it's down to choice," White says. "If people feel uncomfortable, they don't have to do it. They can continue to go with the password-based model. They may not get the level of service that they want, but it's their choice."

A Race To Patent

It's a choice for now. But given the pace at which companies are putting biometrics into their hardware, it could become the new normal soon.

Patent attorney Yuri Eliezer, with the firm SmartUp, says a decade ago, there were just 46 patent applications for biometrics. Last year, he counted at least 567.

"It's a definitely a growing number and we anticipate that's going to continue to grow," he says.

Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and Intel are all filing. Eliezer says biometrics is part of the blueprint for the newest lines of smartphones and fitness trackers.

"This is something we're always holding in our hand or having in our pockets, always so close to our bodies," he says. "And now, the fact that we could integrate these sensing devices into our mobile devices, it makes it all the more useful to aggregate and collect data on us."

It could provide something useful, too.

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You Might Want To Take Another Pass At Your Passwords

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The Risky Boom In Carefree Social Payment Apps

According to patent filings: Apple wants to use biometrics to lock and unlock messages [keep that text for your irises only]; Microsoft is interested in entertainment value, and is working on a device that monitors your heart rate or blood oxygen levels — maybe to adjust the music while you play Xbox.

"If your heart rate's increasing, the music might speed up or slow down based on the environment the gaming providers are trying to create," Eliezer says.

Increasing Risk

The biometric boom raises some well-known privacy concerns. It also raises some less-known security concerns.

David Cowan with Bessemer Venture Partners is an investor. He's put over $100 million into digital security companies, but he refuses to invest in biometrics.

"Either a password or a biometric can be stolen," he says. "But only the password can be changed. Once your fingerprint is stolen, it's stolen forever, and you're stuck."

Hackers have already made dummy fingerprints — using pictures of people's hands available online — to swipe into the iPhone 6 scanner.

Cowan says in a world where just about anything can be hacked, the cost of biometrics is just too high.

biometrics

security

smartphone