In brief: Tillman memo said friendly fire possible
Just seven days after Pat Tillman’s death, a top general warned there were strong indications that it was friendly fire and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press.
It was not until a month afterward that the Pentagon told the public and grieving family members the truth – that Tillman was mistakenly killed in Afghanistan by his comrades.
The memo reinforces suspicions that the Pentagon was more concerned with sparing officials from embarrassment than with leveling with Tillman’s family.
In a memo sent to a four-star general a week after Tillman’s April 22, 2004, death, then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that it was “highly possible” the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire. McChrystal made it clear his warning should be conveyed to the president.
White House spokesman Blain Rethmeier said Friday that a review of records turned up no indication that the president had received McChrystal’s warning.
DALLAS
Girl who pushed aide free after year
A 15-year-old black girl whose yearlong incarceration for pushing a teacher’s aide roiled civil rights activists nationwide won her freedom Friday, a state lawmaker said.
Rep. Harold Dutton, a Democrat who chairs the House juvenile justice committee, said a Texas Youth Commission official told him Shaquanda Cotton was being freed after 12 months in a Brownwood facility.
Cotton was sentenced on a felony count of shoving the teacher’s aide before the morning bell at Paris High School in 2005. The aide was not seriously injured.
Activists say the fact that the same judge sentenced a white 14-year-old girl to probation for arson signaled evidence of racial bias in the East Texas town on the Oklahoma border.
WASHINGTON
Constipation drug taken off market
A widely prescribed drug for severe constipation is being taken off the market after it was linked to a risk of heart attacks and strokes, federal regulators said Friday.
Doctors said the voluntary withdrawal of Zelnorm by its manufacturer will leave few options for patients who suffer from a type of irritable bowel syndrome that affects about 12 million Americans – mostly women. The Food and Drug Administration asked for the withdrawal after an analysis of 29 studies involving more than 18,000 patients found that those who took the medication had significantly higher rates of cardiac problems than those who were given a sugar pill.
From wire reports