INFAMOUS MURDER CASE REOPENED: More than 60 years after Emmett Till's brutal murder helped inspire the civil rights movement, the U.S. Department of Justice has re-opened its investigation. The department told Congress in a March report that it had received "new information" about the 1955 case. The March report was issued following the publication last year of "The Blood of Emmett Till," a book that says a key figure in the case acknowledged lying about events preceding the slaying. Till was 14 when his body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River in Money, Mississippi, where he'd been visiting family. He'd been beaten and tortured. The youth's death came after he reportedly grabbed a white woman at a store, whistled and made sexual advances. The case was officially closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead.
» A death that resonates decades later
» An inhuman crime, a lie revealed, and decades later, rekindled pain
RESTAURANT VIOLENCE: An incident involving a waitress and her customers at a metro Atlanta restaurant caught people's attention. A waitress required 15 stitches after she brushed up against a woman's leg and was then attacked by that woman and three others she served Tuesday night at a Henry County Applebee's, police said. The women beat and punched the waitress and stabbed her in the forearm with a steak knife, McDonough Police Maj. Kyle Helgerson said. The customers also were accused of taking the injured woman's tip money before skipped out on their bill.
» The four suspects identified
TOM PRICE'S TRAVEL: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wasted at least $341,000 on travel by former secretary Tom Price, including thousands in "extravagant, careless, or needless" spending on trips to and from Georgia, an internal watchdog concluded Friday. The department's inspector general reviewed 21 trips taken by the ex-Georgia congressman during his seven-month tenure as health secretary last year. The officials that authorized the travel didn't comply with federal cost-efficiency regulations for 20 of those trips, including all 12 of Price's trips on private chartered flights, the IG said. Price resigned his post in September and apologized for his travel. He repaid taxpayers nearly $60,000, the watchdog report said. The IG calls on the department to recoup the full $341,000 and review its travel policies.
