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EMBED More News Videos Chicago Police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller addresses the surge in shootings this weekend.

 EMBED More News Videos A shooting in the Lawndale neighborhood Sunday morning left a 17-year-old girl killed and five people, including an 11-year-old boy, wounded.

 EMBED More News Videos Jahnae Patterson, 17, was killed in a shooting Sunday morning.

 Dozens of people have been wounded in weekend shootings across Chicago police said.63 people have been shot, ten fatally, since 5 p.m. Friday. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police.During one two-and-a-half hour-hour period, 25 people were shot in five multi-injury shootings. One paramedic described Saturday evening into Sunday morning as "a war zone.""We know that some of these incidents were targeted and are related to gang conflicts in those areas," said Chicago Police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller at a press conference Sunday afternoon.CPD said the majority of the shootings took place in the six, tenth and 11th districts and that gunmen shot into large crowds.The most recent shooting took place near the 2600 block of South State Street just before 8 p.m. In that incident, three people were standing in front of a residence when a shooter exited a car and opened fire, according to officials. Two women and one man were hit.The assailant then got back into the car and drove north on State Street, police said.Very early Sunday morning, a pair of shootings in the Lawndale neighborhood left a teen girl killed and nine people wounded.Police said two gunman got out of a white Impala and shot four people at a block party in the 1600-block of South Avers Avenue at about 12:02 a.m. Later Sunday morning, Jahnae Patterson, 17, was killed and five other people wounded, including an 11-year-old boy in a shooting in the 1300-block of South Millard Avenue.Patterson's family held an impromptu vigil Sunday to remember the young woman who hoped to become a lawyer."They took my baby's life for no reason," said Patterson's mother, Tanika Humphries.It is unclear who the gunman intended to shoot. Police currently have no suspects.In a separate incident, police said a group of people, three teens and five adults, were standing in a courtyard in the 1300-block of West 76th Street at about 12:40 a.m. when several people approached on foot and opened fire at the group. The victims range in age from 14-years-old to 35 years-old.Several had multiple gunshot wounds. All of them were transported to area hospitals and all are expected to survive.No one is in custody in connection with the shooting."We have such a genocide in our community, it's driving me absolutely bonkers," said Pastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick of Stone Temple Baptist Church. "I don't want to do any marches. I just want people to cooperate and let kids live."In one shooting in the Gresham neighborhood, eight people were wounded, police said.Later Sunday morning, four people were shot, one fatally, in the North Austin neighborhood.The shooting took place at 4 a.m. in the 1600-block of North LeClaire Avenue. A 19-year-old was shot in the back of the head and pronounced dead at the scene.A 37-year-old man was shot in the right calf and hospitalized in stable condition, a 21-year-old man was shot in the upper thigh and hospitalized in stable condition and another male victim was shot and is hospitalized. The condition of the fourth victim was not immediately known.At 6:50 a.m. Sunday, one man was killed and four others wounded in a shooting in the first block of North Leclaire Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood, police said.A 32-year-old man was shot four times and was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital. A 30-year-old man was shot in the back of the head and is hospitalized in critical condition, a 27-year-old woman was shot in the arm and wrist and is hospitalized in stable condition, a 21-year-old woman was released from the hospital after suffering a graze wound and a 34-year-old man walked into Stroger Hospital with a wound to his lower leg and is in good condition.Police said there was a "trauma lockdown" at Stroger Hospital with only immediate family members of victims are being allowed in the emergency room. A spokeswoman for Stroger Hospital disputed the police account."Over the past 24 hours, Stroger's trauma unit received an unusually high volume of patients. At no time did Stroger go on bypass or 'lockdown' its trauma unit," the spokeswoman said. "We are asking the families of trauma patients to limit visitation at this time to immediate family members only so staff may focus on patient care."This comes just days after Superintendent Eddie Johnson visited ABC7 and talked about decreasing crime numbers and overall violence in Chicago."I think some of our more challenging, communities, it's just imperative that police and the community work together to reduce this gun violence," Superintendent Johnson said. "We just have too many guns on the streets of Chicago."After an event announcing an expansion of the Riverwalk, Mayor Rahm Emanuel voiced the need to create more jobs, not just in the central business district, but on the South and West Sides as well."Wednesday we announced a number of businesses that are going to be part of the neighborhood opportunity fund that create the most important part of our neighborhood economy," Emanuel said. "We together have to work as a city....we have a challenge and it requires all of us. Not just our police officers."CPD representatives said Sunday that they plan to focus their resources for the evening on neighborhoods where retaliation seems likely. ||||| Dozens shot over weekend, five dead

 A total of 34 people were shot — five of whom died — during a 24-hour stretch from Saturday morning into Sunday morning that was one of the most violent in recent city memory, according to Chicago police.

 The shootings, concentrated on the West and South sides, took place between 10 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday.

 The heaviest amount of violence took place between midnight and 3 a.m., when 30 people were shot. Five mass shootings, in which three or more people were shot, accounted for 25 of the shooting victims during the three-hour span.

 A single shooting in the Gresham neighborhood wounded eight people, including four teenage girls.

 “I promise this city that we won’t be defeated,” Chicago Police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller said during a news conference held Sunday afternoon at police headquarters. “We won’t be overrun by that small element that’s committing these reckless acts.”

 Waller said much of the violence is being traced back to gangs.

 “It’s one of our most violent weekends, there’s no question about that,” police spokesman Tom Ahern said.

 Waller said the uptick in violence cannot be attributed to police resources being diverted to the Lollapalooza music festival.

 Officers working Lollapalooza were on their regular days off and received overtime pay, he said. “So they’re not people who would have been on the street anyway, so we’re not losing any resources to Lollapalooza,” Waller said.

 Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was downtown Sunday to announce plans for improvements to the Riverwalk, was not at the news conference. Police Supt. Eddie Johnson also was not in attendance.

 The aftermath of many of the shootings played out inside and outside the emergency room at Stroger Hospital where extended members and friends were prevented from entering as the staff dealt with the influx of trauma patients.

 Visitation was limited to immediate family members, leaving dozens of people to mill about the parking lot outside the emergency room, where the sounds of crying, wailing and yelling could be heard every few minutes. Tempers occasionally flared. Nearly two dozen police officers huddled near the entrance to the hospital.

 “This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said one law enforcement officer stationed outside the hospital who’s seen similar scenes play out over two decades.

 “It’s hot right now. There’s a lot of tension,” said the officer, who asked not to be named. “And it might get worse because you can hear people talking about revenge, saying on their cellphones ‘I know know who did it. You get him.’ ”

 About a half hour later, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis showed up at the parking lot to offer comfort to people, many of whom are constituents.

 “We continue to try to develop enough resources to prevent these kind of incidents from happening,” Davis told reporters, expressing frustration with a lack of government funding for programs that could prevent street violence.

 “I’ll be willing to bet that many of the people who are here right now to express concern are also unemployed, don’t have jobs, are frustrated in terms of daily living,” he said. ||||| Tweet with a location

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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Starting about midnight Saturday, at least 41 people were shot citywide, five fatally, in a period of less than seven hours as gunmen targeted groups at a block party, after a funeral, on a front porch and in other gatherings, according to authorities. The bloody toll comes as tens of thousands of concertgoers converged downtown for Lollapalooza, which drew heightened security and a large police presence following the country’s deadliest mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival last year. In contrast to the joyous scene downtown, the brunt of the violence early Sunday was felt on the West Side, where 26 people were shot in separate attacks between midnight and 6:50 a.m., according to police figures. The largest shooting, which injured eight people, happened in the South Side’s Gresham neighborhood as a group, including a 14-year-old girl, was standing in a courtyard just before 12:40 a.m. The crowd had gathered after attending a funeral repass, said Fred Waller, Chicago police chief of patrol. During a Sunday news conference, Waller voiced frustration at gang members whom he blamed for taking advantage of large summer crowds to use as cover to take revenge. The gang members do not fear repercussions from the law, Waller said. “They take advantage of that opportunity and they shoot into a crowd, no matter who they hit,” Waller said. Even a block party was not safe from the violence. READ MORE: 17-year-old boy killed on bike among 6 shot since Sunday afternoon » At 16th Street and Avers Avenue, people in lime green T-shirts from an annual block party in the West Side’s Lawndale neighborhood gathered on sidewalks and in streets after a shooting there around midnight. Crime scene tape crossed 16th Street east of Springfield Avenue and stretched far down the block past Penn Elementary School on the south side of 16th. There, a 13-year-old boy was shot twice in the right arm. A car drove up to the gathering and two people got out and opened fire into the crowd, hitting two more teenagers and a 25-year-old man. “If they shoot you, they don’t even run,” said one man watching police work the scene. “They just walk away, they ain’t trying to run.” The youngest person hurt was an 11-year-old boy shot in the left leg on the West Side — also in the Lawndale neighborhood. He was on the sidewalk with five other people, including a 14-year-old boy, when two men came up to them and started shooting, police said. Although investigations were just getting underway, Waller said many of the shootings appeared to be targeted attacks. Police also noted that many of the shootings were in four police districts, including the West Side’s Harrison, Ogden and Austin police districts, that have struggled with violent crime this year. Waller said police were sticking with their strategy that targets illegal guns, and prior to this weekend’s surge, they credited it with declines in homicides and shootings from last year. More than 5,500 illegal guns have been confiscated on the street this year. Police are planning coordinated enforcement that will target gangs and individuals they believe are driving violence, while police also seek to thwart retaliatory attacks. “I promise this city, we won’t be defeated,” Waller said. “We won’t be overrun by that small element that’s committing these reckless acts.” The level of violence on Sunday made it difficult for police and hospitals to keep track. Resources at local hospitals were taxed as the wounded and their families poured in. Access to Stroger Hospital was tightened. At one point, more than 200 people had converged on the hospital. Mount Sinai Hospital had to stop accepting new emergency cases for a while. Earlier Sunday, police said there were 47 people shot, five killed between 9 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday. Later in the day, however, police counted 34 shooting victims and five homicides in the same 24-hour period About 15 of those shot were in their teens. In the attack in Gresham, seven of those shot were 21 or younger. During one 2½-hour early morning period, 25 people were shot in five multiple-injury shootings, police said. One of the dead was 17-year-old Jahnae Patterson, who was shot in the face. Sunday evening more than two dozen relatives of Patterson, a Manley Career Academy High School senior, sobbed outside her family’s brown brick two-flat in the city’s West Garfield Park neighborhood. Friends and family members hung five poster boards on a fence outside the home with photos of the young woman. Patterson’s family said she and a friend had gone to a block party and were walking to use a bathroom when they encountered two young men who engaged in a shootout. “My baby just left the house. Twenty minutes later, I get a call saying my baby got shot,” Patterson’s mother, Tanika Humphries, said. The fifth of nine children and the first girl in the family, Patterson had her entire life ahead of her, her mother said. “My baby did not deserve this,” she said. “My baby wasn’t the type to hang out. She was in school. She worked. She did everything she was supposed to do as a teenager. And then coward (expletive) took it all away from us.” Family and friends attend a vigil for Jahnae Patterson, 17, who was killed after being shot in the face earlier in the morning on Aug. 5, 2018, in the 4200 block of West Wilcox Street in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) Humphries said her daughter was born with health problems, but survived to be a beautiful and vital young woman, beloved by her young nieces and nephews, as well as her friends. “I’m trying to be strong, but I can’t,” Humphries said as she broke down and was surrounded by relatives. “I can’t.” Earlier Sunday, people congregated at Mount Sinai Hospital, leaning against cars and embracing on the sidewalk. Yellow crime scene tape encircled two cars outside the emergency room, a white sedan and a black one that had its front crumpled and windshield cracked. Dozens of others gathered outside Stroger Hospital, clustered in small groups in the parking lot. Only immediate family members of victims were allowed inside, according to police. Families walked up to the entrance, guarded by police. Octavia White said she went to Stroger to see her daughter, who she said was among those shot in the 4700 block of West Gladys Avenue in West Garfield Park. “I thank God it wasn’t her time,” White said as she walked to the bus stop. “I’ll be back here when she wakes up.”

 As the sun beat down during daytime Sunday, groups of family and friends remained stationed outside the hospital. Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, stopped by to speak with the families. Burnett said the shootings affect whole families and entire communities, as evidenced by the crowd outside Stroger. “You have young kids crying, older people crying, it’s just so heartbreaking,” Burnett said. “So we try to give them some comfort, pray for them, and also at the same time try to encourage the young adult men not to try to get revenge.” DATA: The Tribune crime team tracks shooting victims in Chicago » Burnett said it’s up to the neighborhoods to stop the violence. He talked about growing up in the former Cabrini-Green housing project. “It was the mothers, it was the preachers, it was people in the neighborhood who stopped the wars in Cabrini-Green,” he said. “It wasn’t the police.” Asked what Chicago police can expect as far as outside governmental help, Waller said: “I’m not a politician. All I know is the boots on the ground are trying as hard as they can to be accountable for what’s going on. We’re moving people to different places in these different (police) districts. Some of the areas that we had covered weren’t, we hadn’t had violence — now we have violence. “But as far as anybody coming to help us, this is something we’re going to have to do on our own,” he said. Activist Eric Russell, an organizer of the anti-violence protest Thursday that shut down Lake Shore Drive, also spoke outside of the hospital. “This is the reason why we march,” he said. Russell went on to harshly criticize Mayor Rahm Emanuel for not doing enough to address gun violence. “Our people are hurting over there,” Russell said. “Our people are left to languish in a vicious cycle of gun violence.” Among the shootings since 11 a.m. Saturday through about 7 a.m. Sunday, police have released the following information: Sunday In the most recent shooting, three men and two women were hit about 6:50 a.m. when a gunman came out of an alley and opened fire on the group in the first block of North LeClaire Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood. A 32-year-old with four gunshot wounds, including two to the left side of his neck, was taken to Stroger, where he was pronounced dead, according to a police spokeswoman. A 30-year-old man shot in the back of the head was taken to Stroger in critical condition. A 27-year-old woman was taken to Stroger for gunshot wounds to her left arm and wrist, while a 21-year-old woman was treated and released from West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park for a graze wound. A 34-year-old man showed up to Stroger with a gunshot wound in his lower left leg. He was in good condition. No arrests had been made in the case, police said. Just before 5:50 a.m. in West Pullman, a 33-year-old man was shot once in each of his legs in the 12100 block of South Bishop Street by someone last seen northbound on Bishop in a small silver Ford car, police said. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in fair condition. Around 4:15 a.m. in North Austin, four more people were shot in the 1600 block of North LeClaire Avenue, one fatally. A 19-year-old man, shot in the head, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. A 21-year-old man shot in the upper right thigh and a 37-year-old man hit in the right calf were taken to West Suburban and stabilized. An unknown male also shot went to Stroger Hospital, police said. Shortly before 3:40 a.m. in the West Side’s Lawndale neighborhood, a 29-year-old man was shot in the neck. Police officers found the man, later identified as Kenyate L. Sparks, in the 1100 block of South Springfield Avenue. He was transported to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:52 a.m. Around 2:50 a.m. in West Garfield Park, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the left leg in the 200 block of South Pulaski Road. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said. Around 2:35 a.m. Sunday in Lawndale, two shooters approached a group standing on the sidewalk in the 1300 block of South Millard Avenue and opened fire, hitting six people. A 17-year-old girl shot in the face was pronounced dead on scene. A 14-year-old boy shot in his left leg was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and stabilized, as was an 11-year-old boy also shot in the left leg. A 21-year-old woman shot in the right arm and back was also taken to Sinai, where she was in critical condition. A 17-year-old boy shot in the right leg was taken to Rush University Medical Center and was stabilized. A 17-year-old girl shot in the right arm was taken to Stroger and stabilized. About 10 minutes earlier in West Garfield Park, three women standing on a front porch were wounded when two groups of males started shooting at each other about 2:25 a.m. in the 4700 block of West Gladys Avenue, police said. A 29-year-old woman shot in the back and a 28-year-old woman shot in the left arm were taken to Stroger and stabilized. A 41-year-old woman shot in the right thigh was stabilized at Loretto Hospital. Around 1:30 a.m. in Little Village, a 26-year-old man standing on the sidewalk in the 3200 block of South Keeler Avenue was hit in the right leg when someone in a white sedan fires shots, police said. He got himself to University of Illinois Chicago Medical Center and was stable. Shortly before 1:05 a.m. in Back of the Yards, a 26-year-old man was killed in a shooting in the 4800 block of South Winchester Avenue. The man, identified by the medical examiner’s office as Kendall Brown, was walking on the sidewalk with another person when someone in a white Jeep shot him in the abdomen and right ankle, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai and later pronounced dead . The Jeep was found unoccupied and having been set on fire in the 4300 block of Paulina, police said. Around 12:50 a.m. in West Humboldt Park, four people were injured in a drive-by shootout the 900 block of North Karlov Avenue. Two people fired shots from inside a black Cadillac, and three of the people hit shot back, causing the car to crash. The two in the car ran from the scene. A 43-year-old man walking down the street was shot in the thigh during the crossfire, police said. The other three people shot were a 30-year-old man hit in the right ankle and left calf; a 43-year-old man shot in the thigh; and a 29-year-old man grazed in the chest. All were taken to Stroger in good condition. |||||
What is a summary?

– Chicago might have been making headlines this weekend for the thousands of people who packed downtown for Lollapalooza. Instead, most of the attention is focused on the shooting violence that occurred elsewhere in the city, leaving more than 60 injured and 10 dead between Friday evening and Monday morning, reports WLS-TV. The worst of it took place in a three-hour span starting around midnight Saturday when 30 people were shot, reports the Sun-Times. Of those victims, 25 were injured in five mass shootings. Police say gang violence is mostly to blame, with shooters taking advantage of large gatherings in the summer weather to inflict the most casualties. "If they shoot you, they don’t even run,” one man tells the Chicago Tribune. "They just walk away, they ain’t trying to run." A police spokesman says the extra police presence at the music festival did not play a role in the violence because officers working it were generally on their regular days off and on OT. The violence prompted Rudy Giuliani to enter the fray with a series of tweets backing Garry McCarthy, a former Chicago police chief who hopes to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel. "MAKE CHICAGO SAFE AGAIN!" tweeted Giuliani, who worked with McCarthy in New York when Giuliani was mayor. Giuliani called McCarthy a "policing genius" thanks to his work with the data-centric CompStat system, adding, "Chicago murders are direct result of one party Democratic rule for decades." The Washington Post can't resist pointing out that Giuliani misspelled McCarthy's first name as "Jerry" and the current mayor's last name as "Emmanuel," and that McCarthy is a Democrat himself.


– Another tidbit from Michele Bachmann’s media victory lap today: On Meet the Press, Gawker notes, Bachmann dodged (and dodged again… and again…) David Gregory’s repeated attempts to get her to address her 2004 comments that being gay is “personal enslavement.” Instead, she consistently said, “I am running for the presidency of the United States,” and insisted she doesn’t judge gay people. She also would not call a gay couple with adopted children a “family,” instead insisting that such questions “aren’t what people are concerned about right now.” Though, Gregory noted, she once called such issues “defining political issues.”

Expand this summary.

President Obama called for action in his inaugural address but how much of his agenda will get through a politically-charged Washington? How will the upcoming budget fights affect his second term? Plus, after a facing tough questions on Capitol Hill about what happened in Benghazi, what lies ahead for Hillary Clinton as she departs? Our roundtable weighs in: Incoming President of the Heritage Foundation, former Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC); President and CEO of the NAACP Ben Jealous; Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward; NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell; and NBC News Special Correspondent Ted Koppel. ||||| [There was a video here]

 What is Michele Bachmann running for, again? "I'm running for the presidency of the United States," the Iowa straw poll winner helpfully clarified to Meet the Press host David Gregory on Sunday morning. "I'm not running to be anyone's judge." Except for, apparently, gay couples with kids, whom the congresswoman refused to describe as "families." But stop asking Michele Bachmann about that! This isn't "what people are concerned about right now"! Even though it is, according to Michele Bachmann, "the defining political issue of our time." |||||


Here is a news article: By Jen Heger – Radar Legal Editor

 Whitney Houston had a deadly mixture of Valium, Xanax and alcohol in her system when she tragically died at the Beverly Hilton Hotel almost two weeks ago, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.

 As previously reported, Valium and Xanax were recovered from the pop icon’s hotel room following her death.

 PHOTOS: Last Pictures Taken Of Whitney Houston Alive

 “Whitney had taken Valium, Xanax, and alcohol, which led to her death. The coroner is waiting on final toxicology results to determine which one of the three was the major contributing factor of her demise,” a source close to the situation tells RadarOnline.com. “The coroner will be closely examining Whitney’s blood alcohol content at the time she died as well. The sedatives and alcohol will almost certainly be the cause of death, and not drowning. Her heart stopped beating because her respiratory system was suppressed because of the anti-anxiety meds, and combined with the booze it probably happened very quickly before she was found partially submerged in the bathtub.”

 PHOTOS: Whitney Houston Through The Years

 Houston’s final days were marred by scandal after she became involved in an altercation at a Hollywood nightclub with another woman, whom she thought was flirting with her boyfriend, Ray J. The 48-year-old was at Tru Hollywood nightclub to support her friend, Kelly Price, who was having a party to celebrate her Grammy nomination. When Price acknowledged her presence, Whitney joined the stage and began to sing Yes, Jesus Loves Me.

 The pop star emerged from the nightclub that evening looking disheveled, intoxicated, and had blood running down her leg. Eyewitnesses have said Whitney was drinking heavily and doing tequila shots in the VIP area.

 PHOTOS: Bobby Brown Leaves Whitney’s Funeral

 The final toxicology results for Houston should be released in the next several weeks.

 RELATED STORIES:

 Whitney Houston’s Daughter Bobbi Kristina Appeared ‘Wasted’ At Burial On Sunday

 Mariah Carey On Whitney’s Funeral: ‘I Was Very Moved’

 Bobby Brown ‘Worried’ About Bobbi Kristina; Wants Her To Go To Rehab

 REPORT: Bobbi Kristina Got High After Whitney Houston’s Funeral ||||| Four years ago, Whitney Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, planned to sell a tell-all book about his life with the superstar. And although that book was never published, some say Bobby is once again trying to make it happen.

 "Back in 2008, the interest in a book on Whitney Houston wasn't that great," a major publisher tells me. "Whitney had fallen off the radar back then ... but now, following her tragic death, the market has changed. Now is the time for a book that details an honest look into the life of Whitney."

 But standing in Bobby's way is the confidentiality agreement he signed when his divorce was finalized, plus the impact that a tell-all would have on his daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

 "Bobby loves all his children," his former attorney, Phaedra Parks told me days after Whitney died. "He would do anything to protect all his children."

 But friends of Whitney tell me they are not so sure.

 "This is a man who left his ex-wife's funeral because he didn't like his seats and went to a paying gig that night," a friend of the diva tells me. "He didn't get on stage that night because he needed to sing his greatest hits or because Whitney would have wanted him to entertain his fans, he did it to get a paycheck -- the same reason he now wants to write a tell-all book."

 FOLLOW NAUGHTY BUT NICE ROB ON TWITTER

 Photos from the scene at Whitney's funeral:

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 Earlier on HuffPost: |||||
A summary of this is?

– Whitney Houston was killed by a combination of Valium, Xanax, and alcohol, an insider tells Radar. All three were found in her system, but the coroner is still waiting for toxicology results before the "major contributing factor of her demise" can be determined, the source says, adding that drowning is almost certainly not to blame: "Her heart stopped beating because her respiratory system was suppressed because of the anti-anxiety meds, and combined with the booze it probably happened very quickly before she was found partially submerged in the bathtub." (In other Whitney news, sources say Bobby Brown is shopping a tell-all about their life together.)


Brittany, upon leaving a Mud Run on Monday with her fiancé, started experiencing severe pain and vision loss in her left eye. She was seen at the ER that night and told that she has several abrasions on her cornea and what looked like a chemical burn - that she had a very slim chance of ever seeing out of that eye again.

 Tuesday evening, things took a turn for the worse and Brittany was admitted into the hospital. Her cornea is deteriorating rapidly and although she has a team of specialists looking after her and deciding what steps should be taken next, it's still unsure whether or not they can save her eye.

 All of this is obviously going to cost the family quite a bit of money and any amount donated would help them out during this difficult time and make a world of difference.

 Help spread the word! Share Tweet 831 total shares total shares ||||| A young Texas mom went blind in her eye after flesh-eating bacteria seeped its way into a cut during a “Mud Run�? earlier this month in Dallas.

 Brittany Williams has no insurance and, after a week week in the hospital, now owes more than $100,000 in medical bills — even as she faces more treatment to prevent the debilitating bacteria from spreading through her body.

 “My eye started hurting, like maybe I’ve got mud or some debris in there,�? Brittany Williams told KTVT-TV of the symptoms she had hours after the race. “When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.�?

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 Doctors at the emergency room told Williams she had “several abrasions on her cornea and what looked like a chemical burn�? and eventually sent her home, according to a Go Fund Me page raising donations for the family.

 Some 24 hours later, “things took a turn for the worse�? and she was hospitalized. Her cornea “just completely melted off of my eye," she told KTVT of the flesh-eating bacteria.

 Williams is now blind in her left eye and likely needs more antibiotics to prevent the bacteria from spreading throughout her bloodstream.

 Brittany Williams said her eye started hurting badly just hours after competing in the Mud Run earlier this month in Dallas. (KTVT)

 Despite working two jobs, Williams chose to opt out of her insurance and will have to pay her medical bills out of pocket.

 “I’ve had health insurance before and I never used it. I never went to the doctor and I just spent lots of money for nothing. So I didn’t see the point at the time when we couldn’t afford it,�? she told the CBS affiliate. “You don’t think you’re going to go to the doctor and someone’s gonna say you owe $3,000 for eye drops.�?

 Bacteria is reportedly rampant at mud races like the one Williams ran and similar Tough Mudder-like events. A report last May from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 22 people contracted a diarrheal illness in October 2012, likely because they accidentally swallowed water contaminated with bacteria from animal feces during an extreme obstacle course in Nevada.

 Mud runs have previously been reported to be cesspools of bacteria, with reports of people being sickened by bacteria from feces in the water. (KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND/AFP/Getty Images)

 And in France, after a Mud Day race on Saturday, at least 30 runners of about 8,000 became “violently ill�? from gastroenteritis, according to French news site The Local. The sickness may stem from mud contaminated with bacteria.

 Williams, for her part, is trying to stay positive about the ordeal. There is a chance she could regain her sight, but several doctors have refused to treat her because she doesn’t have insurance.

 About 170 have donated nearly $10,000 to the stricken mom since her ordeal began two weeks ago.

 “Even though people go through horrible things, I make the best of it,�? Williams told KTVT. “Because there’s no point in sitting and sulking, because it’s just going to make the rest of my days miserable.�?

 ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE. ||||| Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter

 COLLIN COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) – A young woman went blind in one eye within 24 hours after catching a flesh-eating bacteria during a mud run in Dallas this month.

 “My eye started hurting, like maybe I’ve got mud or some debris in there,” said Brittany Williams, who finished her first mud run two weeks ago. “When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.”

 Williams said the debris cut her eye, allowing flesh-eating bacteria to destroy her cornea. “It just completely melted off of my eye.”

 A mother with two jobs, Williams spent a week in the hospital. Her medical bills are $100,000 and she doesn’t have health insurance.

 “I’ve had health insurance before and I never used it. I never went to the doctor and I just spent lots of money for nothing. So I didn’t see the point at the time when we couldn’t afford it,” said Williams.

 Her family is raising money through a GoFundMe account for treatment to prevent the bacteria from spreading throughout Williams’ body.

 “You don’t think you’re going to go to the doctor and someone’s gonna say you owe $3,000 for eye drops,” said Williams, who compared her experience to a horror movie.

 Despite her painful, gruesome ordeal, Williams has remained optimistic.

 “Even though people go through horrible things, I make the best of it. Because there’s no point in sitting and sulking, because it’s just going to make the rest of my days miserable,” she said.

 There’s a chance Williams’ will eventually regain her vision with surgery. Several local doctors however have denied her treatment since she lacks insurance.

 (©2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) |||||

Write a summary.

– A young mother in Texas who holds down two jobs but doesn't have health insurance is in the fight of her life—doing battle with not just the necrotizing fasciitis that has already claimed the vision in her left eye but also with her $100,000 medical bill. It all started a few hours after a mud run in Dallas earlier this month. "My eye started hurting, like maybe I've got mud or some debris in there," Brittany Williams tells CBS DFW. "When I opened my eye, it was just like white. The whole room was white.... [The bacteria] just completely melted off of my eye." She suspects that debris cut her eye, providing an entryway for the bacteria; CBS reports it has destroyed her cornea. And while some doctors have told her it's possible she'll someday regain vision in that eye with surgery, she needs antibiotics to prevent the bacteria from spreading to other parts of her body and several doctors are denying her treatment because she has no insurance. (Her GoFundMe page is currently at around $11,500. An updated posted there on Tuesday notes "we were asked to leave [an appointment] and told we could no longer be treated within their facility secondary to lack of insurance and full payment.") Williams' ordeal isn't exactly rare, reports the New York Daily News. Just last week, dozens of mud runners in France became violently ill from gastroenteritis, likely due to bacteria in the mud, while 22 people contracted a diarrheal illness in Nevada in 2012 thanks to bacteria in animal feces on an obstacle course. (In Florida, a "flesh-eating" water bacteria has killed two.)


Summarize this article:

A group of 18 House Republicans has formally nominated President Trump Donald John TrumpCrowley stunner tops huge night for left Trump congratulates Romney on primary win Judge orders Trump admin to begin reuniting immigrant families MORE for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 In a letter sent Wednesday to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the lawmakers tapped Trump for the highly coveted prize for his efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and end the 68-year-old war between North and South Korea.

 "Since taking office, President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region," the letter, led by Rep. Luke Messer Allen (Luke) Lucas MesserRepublicans top Dems at charity golf game Immigration overhaul on life support in the House GOP governors sign letter supporting Nobel Peace Prize for Trump MORE (R-Ind.), reads.

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 "His Administration successfully united the international community, including China, to impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history."

 Messer first announced last week that he planned to nominate Trump for the prize, after a landmark meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

 In that meeting, the leaders of the rival Koreas agreed to work toward eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, and said they would enter into talks with the U.S. to formally end the Korean War.

 Active fighting in the Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953. But a formal peace treaty was never signed, leaving the two countries in a perpetual state of war for decades.

 Trump is set to meet with Kim at the end of May or sometime in June, marking the first such encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader in history.

 North Korea has agreed to cease its tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles ahead of the meeting, and recently announced that it would shutter a nuclear site in the northern part of the country as a show of good faith. ||||| Sen. Corker: Administration has done a great job putting pressure on North Korea 8:21 AM ET Wed, 2 May 2018 | 03:42

 North Korea's claimed willingness to give up its nuclear ambitions is a "great opportunity" to defuse a major threat in the world, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told CNBC on Wednesday. But the U.S. needs to be skeptical, he added.

 President Donald Trump and members of his administration did a great job of "bringing people together," including Chinese President Xi Jinping, to put pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Corker said on "Squawk Box."

 The retiring Tennessee Republican, who has had an on-again-off-again relationship with the president, said Trump would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize "if this gets resolved. My gosh, yes."

 Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation," according to the Nobel committee.

 Another factor that's helped force Kim's hand after decades of North Korean defiance, according to Corker, was the "sort of left-leaning" South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who wanted to reach out, "instead of a more hawkish leader there."

 Friday's historic summit between Kim and Moon and their pledge for "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" set the stage for Trump's as-yet unscheduled meeting with Kim.

 However, even as things are appearing to line up, Corker warned that the world needs to be skeptical of Kim's overtures and whether he's just making empty promises to get relief from sanctions.

 "Over 25 years, this has happened a number of times. This does look more optimistic than those other times," said Corker, who decided against seeking a third Senate term. "This is a long process, but it's starting out on a very good note."

 Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former intelligence director, agreed with Corker, saying Trump and his foreign policy leaders were able to bring Kim to the negotiating table through a multipronged approach.

 "The president squeezing the [North] Koreans, the economic sanctions, the diplomatic isolation, the military demonstrations — check, check, check. My guys would have been in favor of all of that," Hayden told CNBC in a separate interview. He was CIA director during George W. Bush's presidency and NSA director spanning Bill Clinton's and Bush's administrations.

 However, Hayden said he did not view Trump's tweets calling Kim "Rocket Man" and comparing the size of their nuclear buttons as prudent.

 "The tweets last summer to a thirtysomething who has not lived a rich international life — you and I have trouble understanding those tweets — just think of Kim Jong Un. I think those were dangerous and I'm glad they are behind us," Hayden said. |||||

– Republican lawmakers have nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Eighteen House members penned a letter Wednesday to the Nobel Prize Committee praising the president’s efforts to broker peace in the Korean Peninsula, reports the Hill. "President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region," the letter says. The lawmakers credit the president for the recent historic meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which the leaders agreed to rid the Peninsula of nuclear weapons and bring a formal end to the countries’ 68-year-old war. Although the countries entered into an armistice in 1953, they never signed an official peace treaty. If the two countries can resolve their differences, Trump deserves the prize, Sen. Bob Corker told CNBC Wednesday, but the senator issued a caution. The Foreign Relations Committee chair said that North Korea has made several overtures in the last two decades, only to reverse course. In a separate interview with CNBC, retired Gen. Michael Hayden credited progress with North Korea to four things: "The president squeezing the [North] Koreans, the economic sanctions, the diplomatic isolation, the military demonstrations.” He added, though, that Trump's earlier tweets about Kim, in which he famously called him “Rocket Man,” were not helpful. Trump plans to meet with the North Korean leader in the next month or so. If the meeting takes place, it would be the first time a sitting US president has met with a North Korean leader. (South Korean President Moon Jae-in says Trump deserves the prize.)


Summarize this article:

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid who accused him of trying to rape her have reached an agreement to settle her lawsuit, likely ending a legal saga that forced the onetime French presidential contender's resignation and opened a floodgate of accusations against him, a person familiar with the case said Thursday.

 Details of the deal, which comes after prosecutors dropped related criminal charges last year, weren't immediately known and likely will be veiled by a confidentiality agreement. That could prevent the two from speaking publicly about a May 2011 encounter that she called a brutally sudden attack and he termed a consensual "moral failing."

 Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, made the as-yet-unsigned agreement within recent days, with Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon facilitating that and a separate agreement to end another lawsuit Diallo filed against the New York Post, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private agreement. A court date is expected next week, though the day wasn't set, the person said.

 Strauss-Kahn lawyer William W. Taylor III declined to comment. Lawyers for the housekeeper didn't immediately respond to phone and email messages.

 Diallo, 33, and Strauss-Kahn, 63, crossed paths when she arrived to clean his luxury Manhattan hotel suite. She told police he chased her down, tried to yank down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex.

 The allegation seemed to let loose a spiral of accusations about the sexual conduct of Strauss-Kahn, a married diplomat and economist who had long been dubbed the "great seducer." He now faces charges linking him to a suspected prostitution ring in his home country.

 With DNA evidence showing a sexual encounter and Diallo providing a gripping description of an attack, the Manhattan district attorney's office initially said it had a strong and compelling case. But within six weeks, prosecutors' confidence began to ebb as they said Diallo had lied about her past _ including a false account of a previous rape _ and her actions after leaving Strauss-Kahn's room.

 Diallo, who's from Guinea, said she told the truth about their encounter. But the district attorney's office dropped the charges in August 2011, saying prosecutors could no longer ask a jury to believe her.

 Diallo had sued Strauss-Kahn in the meantime, with her lawyers saying she would get her day in a different court. Strauss-Kahn called the lawsuit defamatory and countersued her for $1 million.

 Her lawsuit against the Post concerned a series of articles that called her a prostitute and said she sold sex at a hotel where the Manhattan DA's office had housed her during the criminal case. The News Corp. newspaper has said it stands by its reporting; a spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.

 In helping resolve the cases, McKeon averted what could have been an ugly court drama.

 Strauss-Kahn initially said he had diplomatic immunity, an argument the judge turned down in May. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers had since asked McKeon to throw out part of her claim for other legal reasons. Court records show the judge had yet to rule on that and several other legal issues, and it appeared that a high-stakes step _ depositions, or pretrial questioning under oath _ had not yet been taken. Depositions can give both sides information and a better picture of how strong the key parties and other witnesses might be in court.

 While the vast majority of civil cases end in settlements, some legal observers were surprised that the deal between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo came before the legal arguments were resolved.

 "I really expected it to go a little farther," said Matthew Galluzzo, a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator who has been following the Strauss-Kahn case closely.

 Still, the case likely had taken a toll on both Diallo, a single mother of a teenage daughter, and Strauss-Kahn, who has found himself plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct that further tarnished his reputation. The Socialist had been seen as a potential leading candidate for the French presidency before his New York arrest.

 In France, judges are to decide by Dec. 19 whether to annul charges linking him to a suspected prostitution ring run out of a luxury hotel in Lille. He acknowledges attending "libertine" gatherings but denies knowing that some women present were paid.

 In August, a separate case against Strauss-Kahn, centered on allegations of rape in a Washington, D.C., hotel, was dropped after French prosecutors said the accuser, an escort, changed her account to say she wasn't raped.

 Soon after Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York last year, French writer Tristane Banon accused him of attempting to rape her during an interview in 2003, a claim he called imaginary and slanderous. Prosecutors said they believed the encounter qualified as a sexual assault, but the legal timeframe to pursue her complaint had elapsed.

 Strauss-Kahn has separated from his wife, journalist and heiress Anne Sinclair, who stood by him through the allegations in New York. The two said they were filing a lawsuit this summer against a French magazine, citing invasion of privacy, for reporting they had split, but Sinclair later acknowledged it was true.

 The New York Times first reported the agreement between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo.

 ___

 Associated Press Writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

 ___

 Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz ||||| Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel housekeeper who accused him of sexually assaulting her last year have quietly reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit she brought against him stemming from the case, which made international headlines, people with knowledge of the matter said Thursday.

 French media reported on Friday that Mr. Straus-Kahn, 63, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, would pay $6 million to the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, who accused him of attacking her at a Midtown Manhattan hotel.

 Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, William W. Taylor III, said in a telephone interview on Friday morning that the French reports were “completely false” and that the $6 million figure “is off by orders of magnitude,” but he would not elaborate and details of the agreement could not immediately be determined. One of the people with knowledge of the matter had cautioned on Thursday that no settlement had yet been signed.

 Ms. Diallo’s lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, declined to comment on Friday morning.

 Photo

 The parties are scheduled to appear next week before Justice Douglas E. McKeon in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, the people said.

 Mr. Strauss-Kahn, once a leading candidate for the French presidency, was arrested in May 2011 after Ms. Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, told the police that he had sexually assaulted her when she came to clean his 28th-floor suite at the Sofitel hotel. Several days later, a grand jury indicted Mr. Strauss-Kahn on charges including attempted rape, sexual abuse, criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.

 He resigned his I.M.F. post in disgrace.

 But the case fell apart in the weeks after the indictment, as prosecutors began to have concerns about the housekeeper’s credibility.

 Photo

 In August 2011, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., moved to dismiss the seven-count indictment, and a judge dropped the charges. By then, her lawyers had already filed the civil case in the Bronx, where she lives. Mr. Strauss-Kahn later filed a countersuit, saying the housekeeper’s statements had damaged his political career.

 Ms. Diallo’s lawsuit sought unspecified damages for what court papers called a “violent and sadistic attack” that humiliated and degraded her, and robbed her “of her dignity as a woman.” Her lawyer indicated that he was prepared to introduce testimony from other women who say they were attacked by Mr. Strauss-Kahn in “hotel rooms around the world” and in apartments specifically used by him “for the purpose of covering up his crimes.”

 Mr. Strauss-Kahn has said the sex with Ms. Diallo was consensual, though in a French television interview after the charges were dismissed, he acknowledged that the encounter was “an error” and “a moral failure” he would regret his whole life.

 One person with knowledge of the matter said media reports about the agreement to settle Ms. Diallo’s lawsuit had raised concerns that they would disrupt the sensitive negotiations.

 Mr. Strauss-Kahn also has legal troubles in France, where he was charged in Lille in October 2011 with participating in an organized prostitution ring, a result of sex parties that he attended in northern France and at a deluxe hotel in Washington.

 Eight other men were also charged. French prosecutors said the ring organized sex parties with mostly Belgian prostitutes in Lille, Paris, Brussels and Washington. |||||

– The criminal charges were dropped last year; now, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo are settling her lawsuit over claims he tried to rape her, a source tells the AP. The settlement, whose terms are likely to be kept secret, is poised to mark the end of a long legal battle. A Bronx Supreme Court justice oversaw the settlement, as well as another deal centered on Diallo's lawsuit against the New York Post, which labeled her a prostitute. The parties will likely appear in court next week in the Bronx, insiders tell the New York Times. Meanwhile, charges remain against Strauss-Kahn for alleged involvement in a prostitution ring—but French judges are mulling whether to drop those charges, a decision that would come by Dec. 19. August saw a separate rape case against the former International Monetary Fund chief dropped.


Here is a news article: There was no running gunfight. And the SEALs did not have a kill order. Richard Miniter on the new book detailing the night al Qaeda’s chief died—and the headaches it could cause Obama.

 Osama bin Laden did not hear the SEALs’ stealthy helicopter until it hovered over the roof of his three-story home and the chopper’s spinning blades smashed his plastic patio chairs against his bedroom window.

 In less than 10 seconds, the SEALs had jumped onto the roof, crawled across the rain-stained tiles, and descended onto bin Laden’s patio. The bearded terror leader sleepily opened his bedroom door and then, spotting two armed men with night-vision gear coming down the hall toward him, quickly slammed it.

 They were right behind him.

 As the SEALs forced open the bedroom door, they heard bin Laden’s youngest wife screaming in Arabic while raising a blanket to block their view. Behind the rising blanket, they saw bin Laden scrambling for an AKSU machine pistol.

 As she tried to shield him, bin Laden shoved his wife into the line of fire. It was the last thing he did.

 The first round went into the mattress behind bin Laden. The other three rounds found their mark as the two SEALs fired as one.

 Bin Laden’s pistol now hangs on the wall of SEAL Team Six’s Virginia base, beside the photos of comrades killed in action.

 These are the kinds of inside details that emerge from Chuck Pfarrer’s new book SEAL Target Geronimo.

 Pfarrer certainly had access. A SEAL Team Six assault-element commander in the 1980s, he is known inside the intelligence community for his well-regarded first book, Warrior Soul, and inside Hollywood for writing and producing movies including Navy SEALs, Hard Target, and Virus. He clearly had detailed conversations with senior officers in the SEALs’ chain of command (especially Adm. William McRaven and then–SEAL Team Six commander Scott Kerr) and understands the vocabulary and the culture very well.

 But some details in his book could complicate the 2012 presidential race. Pfarrer reports that the White House overruled the Navy plan to have two F-18 Hornets provide air support for SEALs helicopters, which would have been easily shot down if found by Pakistan’s Air Force. Also scrubbed were the latest-generation stealth helicopters, known as “ghost hawks.” The SEALs would have to make do with the older Stealth Hawks, which had mechanical problems. Ultimately, one crash-landed due to faulty electronics and had to be demolished on the site. Each of these decisions—to deny fighter support and to use older helicopters—may have been sound. Putting fighters in Pakistani airspace or allowing the Pakistanis to see the latest technology might have complicated relations between America and its Janus-faced ally, Pakistan. Republicans may have been reluctant to attack the president over an achievement that even Dick Cheney applauded. Still, Pfarrer's findings could fuel critics of the president who think he was quick to take personal credit and play politics with the SEALs' successful mission.

 Obama may also have trouble explaining why he publicly announced bin Laden’s death just hours after it occurred. The SEALs captured 12 garbage bags worth of notebooks, hard drives, satellite phones, and other digital devices. The data could have been used to launch surprise raids on all the senior members of the al Qaeda network, while the leaders turned on each other and wondered who the traitor was. For the SEALs and other special operators I’ve spoken with, that was the natural next move. Al Qaeda could have been rolled up in six months. Pfarrer captures the SEALs’ resentment of the president, whom they see as publicity-seeking. He ignores the White House’s concerns: the nation had waited almost 10 years for bin Laden to be brought to justice, and that news might have leaked.

 Pfarrer also does his best to poke the CIA in the eye. He points out that the agency insisted on having one of its officers in on the raid. While we are repeatedly told that the CIA man had little experience “fast-roping” down for helicopters and doesn’t have the training that the SEALs do (who does?), only in an aside are we informed that he was the only one who could speak Arabic and other local languages. He was the only man who could interview the prisoners or quiet the women and children in the compound. Also, the CIA’s role in locating bin Laden is dismissed in a throwaway paragraph. That’s unfair. The CIA took a few clues from the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, and located bin Laden’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Then the agency persuaded a colonel in Pakistan’s feared intelligence agency, the ISI, to provide key documents, including the plans for bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. CIA officers rented apartments and surveilled the bin Laden compound for months, until they could persuade their superiors to deploy satellites. And so on. The CIA’s role in the operation remains an exciting, but untold, story.

 SEAL Target Geronimo explodes a number of media myths about the raid to kill bin Laden.

 It was not a “kill mission” from the start. The SEALs had no explicit orders to kill the archterrorist and would have captured him if possible.

 There was no “45-minute” running gun battle. The SEAL team fired only 12 bullets, and the whole operation lasted only 38 minutes. ||||| Chuck Pfarrer, a former commander of US Navy SEAL Team Six, whose members carried out the assault, claims bin Laden was shot dead almost instantly rather than killed in a 45-minute firefight.

 Claiming to have interviewed several men involved in the raid, Pfarrer also contradicted the official account of how the SEAL team landed and how one of their Black Hawk helicopters crashed.

 "The SEALs entered the building after being deposited on the roof by the lead helicopter, not from the ground," Pfarrer said in a statement about the book.

 "Only minutes after bin Laden was dead did the lead helicopter, heading for a landing spot, lose altitude and sink, tail-first, into the large walled enclosure east of the main house." Pfarrer explains that if the SEALs had been forced to climb stairs to reach bin Laden, as has been officially claimed, he would have had enough warning to arm and effectively defend himself.

 "Bin Laden was dead within 90 seconds of the beginning of the raid, not after an extended firefight," Pfrarrer said. "Four suppressed rounds were fired".

 Pfarrer adds that Amal bin Laden, the al-Qaeda chief's youngest wife, was wounded in the calf during the second round of fire, as she was shoved her in the way of the shooters. This chimes more with an account that was originally stated by US officials in the immediate aftermath of the attack, before later being withdrawn.

 Pfarrer describes his book as an "explosive story of unparallelled valour, clockwork military precision, and deadly accuracy". But it was dismissed as "plain wrong" by US officials.

 The book also argues that bin Laden's long-time deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, may have been ultimately responsible for leading the US to his boss because he repeatedly sent a courier, whose cover he must have known had already been blown, in and out of the compound.

 A trusted Kuwaiti courier, Abu Ahmad, is believed to have been followed by US officials for several months before the raid after his name emerged in interrogations of other al-Qaeda suspects and he was tracked down to Abbottabad.

 The book, which is due to be released later this month, is said to have been delayed for several weeks while being cleared by government officials.

 Its British edition is being revised due to concerns that individuals named may sue the author for libel. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Osama bin Laden didn’t die after a 45-minute gunfight, according to a new book—he died 90 seconds into the raid, according to SEAL Target Geronimo. The new book is by former SEAL Team Six leader Chuck Pfarrer, who says he interviewed the team that killed bin Laden. The book says SEALs landed on the roof, not the ground floor, bursting right into Osama’s bed chamber, according to advance looks from the Daily Beast and Telegraph. Only 12 bullets were fired in the entire raid. But team members confirm there was no kill order, and that they would have captured bin Laden if possible. Perhaps more damaging for the Obama administration is the assertion that the SEALs resent the president for announcing bin Laden’s death so quickly. If he hadn’t, they believe they could have used intelligence from the raid to launch surprise attacks on al-Qaeda leaders—potentially rolling up the organization in six months. US officials, however, have dismissed the book as “plain wrong.”


Article:

Just One More Thing...

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 Close ||||| MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — A police lieutenant in Georgia who was recorded on video during a traffic stop saying "we only shoot black people" is being fired, the police chief said Thursday.

 Dashcam video from July 2016 shows a car stopped on the side of a road and a woman can be heard telling Cobb County police Lt. Greg Abbott she was scared to move her hands in order to get her cellphone. Abbott, who is white, interrupts her and says, "But you're not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah. We only shoot black people, right?"

 Announcing his decision to fire Abbott, Police Chief Mike Register remarked that "there's really no place for these types of comments in law enforcement." Speaking at a news conference, Register added, "I feel that no matter what context you try to take those comments in, the statements were inexcusable and inappropriate. They're not indicative of the values that I'm trying to instill within the Cobb County police department and that I believe the county holds."

 Register said he learned of the comments after television station WSB-TV obtained the video through an open-records request and made the department aware of it. Abbott, who had been an officer for 28 years, was placed on administrative leave while the department investigated the video.

 Abbott's attorney, Lance LoRusso, did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment on the firing. He had earlier said in a statement that Abbott was cooperating with the investigation, and his comments were meant to "de-escalate a situation involving an uncooperative passenger."

 Register said he's worked hard since becoming chief in June to strengthen the relationship between the department and the community.

 "It's sad to think that several seconds of video has the potential of tearing that apart, and I hope that is not the case," he said, later adding, "This badge and this uniform should mean that there's justice and fairness for all."

 Register said he's known Abbott for many years and has known him to be an honorable man. The report from the internal review indicates that Abbott was trying to be sarcastic and to address the situation as he perceived it, Register said.

 "He made a mistake," Register said. "I don't know what's in his heart but I certainly know what came out of his mouth. It's inexcusable."

 Black community leaders applauded Register's quick action.

 "Although we applaud them for their transparency in this regard, the officer's interjection of race into the stop was particularly troubling and may be systematic, a deeper issue in the department," said Deane Bonner of the Cobb County chapter of the NAACP.

 "Police misconduct is not news," said Ben Williams, chairman of the Cobb County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "The real story here, in my opinion, is the behavior of this police chief in Cobb County, Georgia."

 "To be here today and to stand with Chief Register as he pulls the shades up and exposes the sunrise here in Cobb County as that pertains to the conduct of the Cobb County Police Department, that's the news," he added. |||||
What is a summary?

– A police lieutenant in Georgia who was recorded on video during a traffic stop saying "we only shoot black people" is being fired, the police chief said Thursday. Dashcam video from July 2016 shows a car stopped on the side of a road and a woman can be heard telling Cobb County police Lt. Greg Abbott she was scared to move her hands in order to get her cellphone. Abbott, who is white, interrupts her and says, "But you're not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah. We only shoot black people, right?" Announcing his decision to fire Abbott, Police Chief Mike Register remarked that "there's really no place for these types of comments in law enforcement," the AP reports. "No matter what context you try to take those comments in, the statements were inexcusable and inappropriate." Register said he learned of the comments after television station WSB-TV obtained the video through an open-records request and made the department aware of it. Abbott, who had been an officer for 28 years, was placed on administrative leave while the department investigated the video. The report from the internal review indicates that Abbott was trying to be sarcastic and to address the situation as he perceived it, Register said, continuing, "I don't know what's in his heart but I certainly know what came out of his mouth. It's inexcusable." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that as plans to fire Abbott were being announced, Abbott sent an email to the county saying he was retiring. Commission Chairman Mike Boyce told the paper he wasn't sure how the email would affect the department's plans.


Here is a news article: Attorneys representing the late American painter Thomas Kinkade's wife, Nanette, trustee and executor of the Kinkade Family Trust and the artist's estate, have filed a temporary restraining order against his live-in girlfriend, Amy Pinto-Walsh.

 In court documents obtained Friday afternoon by Los Gatos Patch at the Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, three attorneys with the Los Angeles-based law firm of Zuber & Taillieu LLP, said they are seeking the injunction to prevent Pinto-Walsh from disclosing information in breach of a confidentiality agreement she signed Feb. 25, 2011.

 Kinkade, 54, was reported to have died the morning of April 6 in his Monte Sereno estate on Ridgecrest Drive. On Saturday, April 7, Pinto-Walsh gave a phone interview to Los Gatos Patch and said she was with Kinkade when he died, had called 911 at 11:30 a.m. and identified herself as Amy Pinto.

 She also said she was Kinkade's live-in girlfriend, was with him for 18 months and that Kinkade had been separated from his wife Nanette for quite a while.

 As to the cause of death, she said she wasn't supposed to divulge the information and that the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office would have more details in the next few days. "He died in his sleep ... He had a heart condition," she said.

 The petition, to be heard by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia M. Lucas, seeks to prohibit Pinto-Walsh from making statements or engaging in conduct that has the effect of defaming, criticizing, disparaging or discrediting Kinkade, Nanette Kinkade, or any company owned by Kinkade "to appear in a negative light or false light."

 It also seeks to prevent Pinto-Walsh, who is living in the late painter's Monte Sereno mansion on Ridgecrest Drive, from publishing or assisting in the publishing of any book, article, review, notice, press release, advertisement, public or private communication or report concerning Kinkade, Nanette Kinkade or any company owned by Kinkade.

 The order also states it wants to stop Pinto-Walsh from selling, trading, publishing, disclosing, producing, permitting access to or otherwise revealing proprietary information to anyone by means of photocopy, reproduction or electronic media.

 Judge Lucas is set to hear the matter at 9 a.m., Tuesday, April 24, in department 2 of the Santa Clara County Superior Court Civil Division, 191 No. First St. in San Jose.

 According to court documents, the confidentiality agreement prevents Pinto-Walsh from revealing private confidential information about the Kinkade family and trade secrets held by the Kinkade family businesses, including Windermere Holdings LLC and Pacific Metro LLC, also known as The Thomas Kinkade Company, "which she learned in her role as a personal assistant and companion to Thomas Kinkade."

 Kinkade died the night of April 5, the documents further state, in contradiction to what's been reported by media all over the world, including Los Gatos Patch. They also state that the next morning, Pinto-Walsh breached the confidentiality agreement by speaking to Los Gatos Patch about his "non-public health condition."

 Furthermore, Pinto-Walsh "announced to a friend of the Kinkade family" that she intended to breach the agreement by publicizing confidential information about the Kinkade family and its businesses, including private photographs.

 "The release of these items would be personally devastating not only for Mrs. Kinkade, but also for the family's four daughters, who are grieving the sudden loss of their father," the attorneys wrote.

 Pinto-Walsh had access to trade secrets and commercially sensitive information of Windermere and other businesses owned by the Kinkade family and she has "threatened to release, it is very likely that she will misappropriate Windermere's trade secrets for her own purposes or disclose them to third parties."

 To back up their arguments, the attorneys included in their petition declarations made by family friends Linda Raasch, Denise Sanders, Robert Murray and Lisa M. Lawrence.

 Murray is the attorney representing Windermere Holdings and Pacific Metro.

 Murray writes in his declaration that he's been present in meetings which Pinto-Walsh also attended, during which aspects of Kinkade companies' business plans, strategies, financial information and other private sensitive information were mentioned.

 Based on Pinto-Walsh's relationship with Kinkade, she had access to information regarding Thomas Kinkade Studios' proprietary painting techniques, including paint type, brush techniques and the use of computer technology in painting, the records stated.

 On April 9, a medical examiner at the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office said an autopsy on the late American painter Thomas Kinkade had been performed but that the cause of death was pending further studies, which could take weeks to finish.

 The order to appear for the injunction request hearing was to be served on Pinto-Walsh on or before April 12. Opposition to it needed to be filed and served by personal delivery or email on or before Thursday, April 19, and any documents were to be delivered to the court by 10 a.m., Monday, April 23, the documents said. ||||| The death of Thomas Kinkade earlier this month at the age of 54 left behind many unanswered questions. Now comes a report of a brewing legal skirmish between the popular artist's wife and his girlfriend.

 The Los Gatos Patch in Santa Clara, Calif., recently reported that Kinkade's wife, Nanette, has filed a restraining order against the artist's live-in girlfriend, Amy Pinto-Walsh. Kinkade was separated from his wife at the time of his death and was apparently living with Pinto-Walsh.

 The documents filed by the Kinkade Family Trust, which were obtained by the website, attempt to prevent the girlfriend from making statements or engaging in conduct that would reflect negatively on Kinkade. They also prevent her from disclosing information on the Kinkade business. The artist's wife is a trustee and executor of the Kinkade Family Trust and the artist's estate, reported the newspaper website.

 Kinkade had come under fire in the past for what some claim to be unfair business practices. In a 2006 Times report, some former gallery owners depicted Kinkade as a ruthless businessman who drove them to financial ruin.

 The recent legal revelation adds a potential new twist to the circumstances around Kinkade's death. His family attributed his untimely death to natural causes, but results from an autopsy have not been released.

 Kinkade's brother said in a report earlier this month that the artist had relapsed into alcoholism in the weeks prior to his death.

 Kinkade was famous for his paintings depicting cottages, bucolic settings and scenes with Christian themes. Though he was immensely popular and apparently commercially successful, his work was often derided by critics as simplistic.

 The Los Gatos Patch reported that a judge is scheduled to hear the matter on Tuesday.

 RELATED:

 Thomas Kinkade -- loved by many, loathed by art critics

 Thomas Kinkade, 54, dies at his Bay Area home

 Thomas Kinkade: Autopsy planned after unexpected death |||||
A summary of this is?

– Thomas Kinkade's wife doesn't want his girlfriend dishing dirt on the recently deceased artist. Wife Nanette has filed a restraining order against live-in girlfriend Amy Pinto-Walsh, designed to stop her from saying or doing anything that would cast a negative light on Kinkade, the Los Angeles Times reports. This in the wake of Pinto showing a family friend personal documents of Kinkade's that would be damaging—and a report that she was "gathering evidence" to "tear down" his family and businesses. Whatever Pinto has on him "would be personally devastating not only for Mrs. Kinkade, but also for the family's four daughters, who are grieving the sudden loss of their father," wrote Nanette's attorneys, according to the Los Gatos Patch. Kinkade has already faced criticism for allegedly nasty business practices that drove former gallery owners to financial ruin. With all this meanness swirling around, the Times notes that Kinkade's family may have attributed his death to natural causes too hastily; autopsy results aren't out yet. Kinkade reportedly drank heavily the night before and was $9 million in debt at the time.


Article:

Add a location to your Tweets

 When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more |||||

 Twitter has promised to improve and expand its policies after Robin Williams' daughter is bullied off of the social network. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

 Internet trolls bullied Robin Williams' daughter off of Twitter and Instagram just days after her father's death. A handful of Twitter users sent Zelda Williams messages on Twitter that blamed her for Robin Williams' suicide by hanging, as well as pictures of the comedian altered to show bruises around his neck.

 As my Washington Post colleague Caitlin Dewey reported, Zelda Williams, 25, said she could not bear the messages and would stay off of Twitter and Instagram for a "good long time." She also asked her social network followers to petition the company to block two particular accounts that were responsible for the bulk of the abuse. Those accounts have since been removed by Twitter. In a statement, the company said that it will be updating its policies in light of the incident.

 “We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter," Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement. "We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one. This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users.”

 But the messages that forced Zelda Williams offline are just a sliver of the types of abuse many face on Twitter. Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst at the reproductive health publication RH Reality Check, wrote Tuesday about abuse she said she faces on the service every day -- in general and from one man, in particular, whom she has been unable to stop.

 This is more than a few mean comments, according to her account. She wrote that the abuse leveled at her has been constant because of her race, gender and even her medical condition -- she said she has a brain tumor which this man has accused her of faking.

 She's ignored him, and taken other steps as well. "I’ve blocked at least a thousand of his accounts over the past two years," she wrote. "I’ve reported him using Twitter’s 'Report Abuse' form. I briefly considered calling the police, but, really, what would be the point? I’ve seen how police treat stalking victims and victims of online harassment far more severe than mine."

 Gandy has also collected other instances of harassment similar to hers. In one case, she said, Twitter reviewed a tweet threatening to rape a woman and decided it did not violate its community rules against "abusive behavior."

 "Got that?" Gandy wrote. "It is not a violation of Twitter’s rules to threaten to rape another Twitter user."

 Twitter does have a system that lets users report abuse, document harassment and -- in some cases -- get bad accounts taken down. The company also last year introduced a "Report Abuse" button, after Caroline Criado-Perez, a British woman leading a campaign to put Jane Austen's image on the 10-pound note, was subjected to a flood of abuse. She said she faced at least one rape threat per minute.

 As even Twitter's own statement on Wednesday indicates, many still find its tools don't address the problem. For example, Twitter allows users to block accounts that target them. But sadly, these measures don't even begin to stop persistent attackers, who often create new accounts to continue their actions almost without pause.

 "While I am truly sorry for what the Williams family is experiencing during this time, I am concerned that it takes an event like this to bring heightened attention to a problem that so many face every day," said Soraya Chemaly, a media critic and feminist activist who has worked with Facebook to make more robust protections for those targeted by abuse online.

 Gandy, in her post, recommends that Twitter take a leaf from a third-party software called "Block Together." The program, which is free for download, lets users automatically block the accounts of new Twitter users who send them direct "@" replies, and share their list of blocked accounts with friends. It was created by Electronic Frontier Foundation technologist Jacob Hoffman-Andrews after he read a blog post by iOS developer Danilo Campos calling on Twitter to add many of those features.

 Chemaly said that Twitter's fierce commitment to free expression may be clouding its judgment on this issue. That attitude is "all well and good, except it seems to strongly suggest that they don't fundamentally care about the effects of harassment on certain members of their customer base - namely, the ones most likely to need additional protections built into the system," she said.

 But if Twitter doesn't take steps to protect the character of its community, Chemaly added, everyone loses. "As is often the case, it is Williams, the target of abuse, and not her abusers, who's left Twitter," she said.

 Have more to say about this topic? We take your questions every week in our weekly livechat, Switchback, Fridays at 11 a.m. ET. The comment box is open, so submit your questions now. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. |||||
What is a summary?

– Twitter has promised to take a look at its policies after some sickening abuse over her father's death forced Zelda Williams off the site. After she tweeted a touching tribute to her father, the grieving daughter received messages on Twitter and Instagram blaming her for her father's death, as well as images of her father Photoshopped to show bruises around his neck, Forbes reports. "We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter," a Twitter exec said in a statement. "We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one." Twitter says the changes will include "expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users." An activist who has worked with Facebook to help protect people facing online abuse says the site needs to do more to tackle persistent abusers. "While I am truly sorry for what the Williams family is experiencing during this time, I am concerned that it takes an event like this to bring heightened attention to a problem that so many face every day," she tells the Washington Post. "As is often the case, it is Williams, the target of abuse, and not her abusers, who's left Twitter," she adds.


HUNTINGTON BEACH – Two young men found dead from gunshot wounds in a Huntington Beach apartment on Sunday, Nov. 19 have been identified as brothers, with investigators not ruling out a murder-suicide or an accident-suicide, police said on Monday.

 Officers found Benjamin Ullestad, 25, and Brandon Ullestad, 22, dead in the apartment they shared just before 3 p.m., according to the Orange County Coroner’s Office.

 Investigators are trying to piece together what led to the deaths, said Officer Angela Bennett, an agency spokeswoman.

 “We don’t know,” she said. “We’re not ruling (murder-suicide) out. We’re not ruling out an accident-suicide. But we are not looking for any outstanding suspects.”

 Though police would not give many details about the investigation yet, they did say a handgun was found at the scene.

 It was unclear who made the distressed call from inside the home that led police to the apartment, which is close to Marina High School, the baseball fields of Marina Park and Helen Murphy Branch Library. ||||| A man who declined to give his name but identified himself as the owner of the building wore surgical gloves as he loaded full trash bags into the back of an SUV. ||||| HUNTINGTON BEACH (CBSLA) – The shooting deaths of two brothers inside a Huntington Beach apartment were being investigated Tuesday as the result of a possible murder-suicide, authorities said.

 Police received a call at 2:45 p.m. Sunday that sent officers to the 15700 block of Taft Lane, said Huntington Beach police Lt. David Dereszynski. They found the bodies of two men identified by the county coroner’s office as 25-year-old Benjamin Ullestad and 22-year-old Brandon Ullestad, he said. A handgun was recovered at the scene.

 Investigators were not ruling out that the double shooting could be a case of murder-suicide, police said.

 “We are not looking for outstanding suspects at this time,” Dereszynski said, adding that “there is no threat to the community.”

 (©2017 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.) |||||

Write a summary.

– Mystery surrounds the deaths of two brothers whose bodies were found in their Huntington Beach, Calif., apartment Sunday. Police got a call from the apartment that afternoon and arrived to find Benjamin Ullestad, 25, and Brandon Ullestad, 22, dead from gunshot wounds. A handgun was found at the scene, and police "do not believe there are any outstanding suspects," per a spokesperson, but the investigation is ongoing. Police say there is no threat to the community, CBS LA reports. Possibilities so far include a murder-suicide or an accident, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Orange County Register reports it's not clear who made the "distressed" 911 call from the apartment, and notes that an "accident-suicide" is a possibility. Neighbors say the area is typically quiet, making the incident particularly surprising. According to the brothers' Facebook pages, both attended Cal State Long Beach and Benjamin was a legal assistant at a Newport Beach law firm; both Facebook pages feature photos of the men shooting guns. Police found a June 28 receipt for a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun on a table by the door. Their mother also lives in the apartment where the brothers were found, but was in Tennessee when they died.