Midday Roundup: Report claims Obama's bin Laden tale is bunk

Bin Laden embellishment? Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claims the Obama administration lied about the details surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death four years ago. In a piece published in the London Review of Books, Hersh said the U.S. government carried out the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in cooperation with the Pakistani government, not on its own as the administration asserted. The White House rejected Hersh’s report, which relies mostly on one anonymous source for its facts. But a former Pakistani intelligence official accepted the story, telling Hersh, “When your version comes out—if you do it—people in Pakistan will be tremendously grateful.”

In the line of duty. Four suspects are in custody today following Saturday’s murder of two police officers in Hattiesburg, Miss., following a traffic stop. The officers have been identified as Benjamin Deen, 45, and Liquori Tate, 25. Marvin Banks, 29, and Joanie Calloway, 22, have been charged with murder in the shootings. Two other suspects have been charged, one as an accessory after the fact and one with obstruction of justice. The murders came a day after the funeral for New York police officer Brian Moore who was gunned down last week.

The worst is over. The World Health Organization declared over the weekend that the worst Ebola outbreak in history is over. Ebola claimed the lives of 4,700 people there during the last 18 months. Meanwhile, the neighboring countries of Sierra Leone and Guinea continue to battle the disease.

On liberty. While delivering the commencement address at Liberty University over the weekend, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush warned First Amendment freedoms are under attack. He said Christians who live out their convictions are getting in the way of the progressive political agenda: “And you and I are supposed to just get with the program. So we find officials in a major city demanding that pastors turn over copies of their sermons … or federal judges mistaking themselves for federal legislators and imposing restrictions and rights that do not exist in the Constitution.” Bush said there is no more powerful or liberating influence on earth than the Christian conscience in action. And he challenged students to stand firm in their convictions: “Federal authorities are demanding obedience in complete disregard of religious conscience. And in a free society, the answer is no.”

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry contributed to this report.