Coretta Scott King, London Police revealed to be lying, and other items

Coretta Scott King, the grande dame of the civil rights movement, was hospitalized Tuesday afternoon for an unspecified ailment and was listed in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Mrs. King, 78, has atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that carries a high risk of stroke. In recent months, she has slowed the pace of her civil rights and peace advocacy, canceling several appearances on what the family said were her doctor's orders after she was briefly hospitalized in April.
But Mrs. King's family has said in local news reports that rumors that her health was failing were untrue. Diana Lewis, a spokeswoman for Piedmont Hospital, said on Tuesday that Mrs. King was "resting comfortably" and would stay overnight for observation.

The above is from Shaila Dewan's "Coretta Scott King in Hospital for an Undisclosed Ailment" in this morning's New York Times.

Toby e-mails to note Alan Cowell's "London Inquiry Refutes Police in Their Killing of a Suspect:"

The man, Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, was shot several times in front of horrified passengers on July 22 on a subway train at Stockwell station, in South London. The killing came a day after four attackers failed to detonate bombs in what seemed to be a copy of the deadly bombings two weeks earlier, and it intensified an already emotional debate over the introduction of armed police units.
At the time, the police said Mr. Menezes wore a bulky jacket on a hot day, began running from officers despite commands to halt, vaulted the ticket turnstile and ran stumbling onto the subway train.
On Tuesday, however, a news report on British television said an inquiry led by the Independent Police Complaints Commission had contradicted every one of those points. The report said that the officers had misidentified Mr. Menezes as one of the failed July 21 attackers and that he was killed even though he walked into the subway station wearing a light denim jacket, did not vault the turnstile and was sitting on the train when the officers moved in.



Lori e-mails to note Carlotta Gall's "17 Killed in Crash of Spanish Military Copter in Afghanistan:"

A Spanish military helicopter crashed in the desert in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing all 17 on board, in what military officials said appeared to be an accident. A second helicopter made a forced landing in the same area, injuring 5 of the 17 Spanish soldiers on board, the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force said in a statement.
"ISAF believes that this is the result of an accident, but will not prejudge the results of the investigation," said Maj. Andrew Elmes, a spokesman for the force in Kabul.
News services reported that Afghan officials had speculated that the two helicopters had collided. And though western Afghanistan has been almost entirely free of insurgent or terrorist assaults, officials refused to rule out the possibility that the helicopter had been attacked.

Edward Wyatt breaks it to you gently that Woody's latest isn't selling. Offering a number of theories, the fact that no one thinks of it as a book on Deep Throat doesn't factor in highly. (Though Wyatt does note that five weeks "elapse" between the Van Fair outing of Mark Felt and the publication of the book.) It was seen as a slight book to begin with, Woody was seen as reacting to the story, not leading with it and the tacked on contribution from Carl Bernstein was the only thing that generated interest. On another note, for the second time of late, an article in the Times has felt the need to tell you the chart rankings of an upcoming book list. If they can spoil it ahead of time, they can do something to catch up their best seller list. (This was Joan's complaint.)

Zach e-mails to note Eric Lichtblau's "State Dept. Says It Warned About bin Laden in 1996:"

State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.
In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.
The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times, shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden's history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him.

There's an entry from last night that I'm still working and will probably go up tonight. I wasn't pleased with it and, in the shower this morning, I realized cowardice had been covered but calculated complicity hadn't been. (It'll go up tonight even if it remains in the scattered jottings category.) (That's in reply to e-mails asking if they'd missed an entry last night.)

Rod e-mails to note today's scheduled topic for Democracy Now!:

As Israel's disengagement from Gaza enters Day 3 we continueour coverage of the withdrawal.

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