Actress Estelle Getty dies at home at 84

Actress Estelle Getty dies at home at 84

LOS ANGELES — Estelle Getty, whose acting career bloomed late in life with her Emmy-winning performance as Sophia Petrillo, the wisecracking mother of Bea Arthur on the popular NBC sitcom “The Golden Girls,” died Tuesday. She was 84.

Getty, who also won notice for her performance on Broadway as Harvey Fierstein’s mother in “Torch Song Trilogy,” died at her home in Hollywood, said her friend and caretaker, Paul Chapdelaine.

Getty had been battling Lewy body dementia for the last eight or nine years, he said.

Her husband of 57 years, businessman Arthur Gettleman, died in 2004. She is survived by her sons, Barry Gettleman and Carl Gettleman; her brother, David Scher; and her sister, Roslyn Howard.

More charges for mayor

DETROIT — Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is now charged with exchanging romantic text messages with additional women in the scandal that has him fighting allegations that he lied under oath about an intimate relationship with his former chief of staff.

An investigator’s report says the Wayne County prosecutor’s office has determined that Kilpatrick sent and received text messages with “intimate or romantic content” to several women who were not his wife or former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty.

The report says the office was able to locate and identify the women, but it does not list their names.

Search for state contracts

HARRISBURG — The state Treasury Department says that a free, searchable online database for state contracts is up and running.

An expansion of Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law that was signed in February by Gov. Ed Rendell required the creation of the database as a way to improve government transparency.

Contract information is required from 118 state agencies, as well as regional authorities, colleges and universities.

The law applies to contracts and purchase orders valued at $5,000 or more that are executed after July 1.

Remains found in house

MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — Authorities have recovered what are believed to be charred remains from the rubble of a burned suburban St. Louis house that was the site of an ambush on emergency workers.

St. Louis County medical examiner, Dr. Mary Case, said investigators on Tuesday recovered what appear to be human remains.

St. Louis County police spokeswoman Tracy Panus said investigators also found a long barrel that came from a rifle or shotgun.

A gunman shot at emergency workers responding to a report of a burning pickup truck in Maplewood early Monday.

A firefighter was killed and two police officers were wounded.

Bin Laden’s driver on trial

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A former driver for Osama bin Laden knew the target of the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11, a prosecutor said Tuesday as he sought to undercut defense arguments that the Guantanamo prisoner was a low-level employee of the terrorist leader.

Salim Hamdan, the first prisoner to face a U.S. war-crimes trial since World War II, heard bin Laden say the plane was heading for “the dome,” an apparent reference to the U.S. Capitol, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone.

The plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers overcame the hijackers.

Taliban leader surrenders; airstrike kills another

KABUL, Afghanistan — A senior Taliban leader has surrendered to Pakistani authorities, and another insurgent commander was killed by a British airstrike in southern Afghanistan, British officials announced Tuesday.

A suicide bomber blew himself up earlier in the day in the Afghan capital, wounding three civilians, while clashes in the country’s west prompted U.S.-led forces to use airstrikes on Taliban militants, officials said.

Lt. Col. Robin Matthews, a spokesman at the British Defense Ministry in London, said Mullah Rahim, the most senior Taliban leader in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, gave himself up to Pakistani officials Saturday and a precision missile strike by British aircraft just after midnight Sunday killed Abdul Rasaq, a Taliban leader.

Combined dispatches