Official: Cocaine use was factor in Billy Mays’ death

Official: Cocaine use was factor in Billy Mays’ death

TAMPA, Fla. — An autopsy report shows that cocaine use contributed to the heart disease that suddenly killed TV pitchman Billy Mays in June, officials announced Friday.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner’s office previously determined that the bearded, boisterous TV spokesman had a heart attack in his sleep. His wife found him unresponsive in bed in their Tampa condo June 28.

Mays, a native of McKees Rocks, Pa., was a pop-culture fixture with his energetic commercials pitching gadgets and cleaning products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean.

Though heart disease was the primary cause of death, a report released Friday by the medical examiner listed cocaine as a “contributory cause of death.”

The medical examiner “concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and thereby contributed to his death,” the office said in a press release.

Ethics panel clears two

WASHINGTON — The Senate ethics panel cleared Sens. Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad on Friday of breaking rules by getting mortgages through a VIP program, but it scolded them for not being more careful to avoid the appearance of sweetheart deals.

The Select Committee on Ethics told Dodd, of Connecticut, and Conrad, of North Dakota, in separate letters that it found “no substantial credible evidence” after a yearlong investigation that their mortgages from Countrywide Financial Corp. broke Senate gift rules. The two influential Democrats got their mortgages through a VIP program for those designated as “friends” of then-Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Shiites die in attacks

BAGHDAD — A suicide truck bomber flattened a Shiite mosque Friday in northern Iraq, and roadside bombs struck Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, as at least 51 people were killed and scores wounded nationwide.

It was the second-deadliest day since U.S. forces turned over urban security to the Iraqis more than a month ago, raising fears that Sunni insurgents are intensifying a campaign to reignite sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

The blast in a northern suburb of Mosul reduced the mosque and several nearby houses to rubble, leaving scores of worshippers and neighbors trapped underneath.

At least 38 people were killed and some 200 wounded, according to police.

Obama health-care plan is ‘evil,’ Palin says

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says President Obama’s plan to overhaul health care is evil.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate posted her thoughts Friday on Facebook.

Palin says in the America she knows, people won’t have to “stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

She says such a system is “downright evil.”

An e-mail sent to Palin’s spokeswoman confirming authorship was not immediately returned.

Taliban death confirmed

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Taliban chief was killed by a CIA missile strike, a militant commander confirmed Friday — a severe blow to extremists threatening the stability of this nuclear-armed nation and a possible boost to U.S.-Pakistani cooperation in fighting insurgents who wreak havoc along the Afghan border.

Pakistani officials vowed to dismantle the rest of the network run by Baitullah Mehsud regardless of who takes over, a move seen as essential to crippling the violent Islamists behind dozens of suicide attacks and beheadings in the country.

Governor’s wife moves out

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford moved out of the official governor’s residence with their four sons Friday, a little more than a month after he admitted to a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman he called his “soul mate.”

First lady Jenny Sanford and several other women moved bags of clothes, a suitcase and armloads of suits and dresses on hangers from the governor’s mansion in Columbia before departing in a caravan of sport-utility vehicles. Three of the four boys were present, carrying tote and duffel bags.

In a statement, Jenny Sanford said she was heading to the family residence on Sullivans Island, some 120 miles southeast, for the upcoming school year.

Associated Press