Free Republic

Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said. Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office said Saturday. He left a note, but officials would not disclose its contents.

Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office....

MN staff vocabulary depth sadly lacking Your staff took me to task (Page 3B, Nov. 18) for misusing the word "climacteric" when I recently wrote, "I remain convinced that California is moving toward a climacteric in which an awakened electorate will soon call for a fundamental restructuring and downsizing of state government." "Climacteric," they snickered, means "menopause." If they would broaden their dictionary searches beyond Wikipedia, they would discover that the word is also defined as "constituting an important epoch or crisis" (Oxford English Dictionary). I suppose I could have written that "events are moving toward a climax," but I...