Ferguson erupts after police chief resigns. Homeland Security investigates Secret Service agents. And Iraqi forces advance in Tikrit.
It’s Thursday, and here are the 5 things to know for your New Day
FERGUSON VIOLENCE
Shots fired: Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in violence overnight. Two St. Louis County police officers were shot outside the Ferguson Police Department shortly after midnight.
Protests became violent in the hours after embattled Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson resigned. He stepped down a week after a Justice Department report slammed his department in the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting. Jackson’s resignation will go into effect March 19. But even though he’s about to be out of a job, Jackson will still collect a paycheck. Jackson will receive a severance pay and health insurance for one year, the city said. Jackson’s resignation did little to calm tensions. Protests erupted overnight. Shortly after, two officers were shot.
SECRET SERVICE AGENTS
Crash test: Are U.S. Secret Service agents behaving badly again? The Department of Homeland Security is investigating. Two senior Secret Service agents crashed a car into a White House barricade following a late-night party and it’s suspected they had been drinking, sources told CNN. One of them was a top member of President Barack Obama’s protective detail, The officers were allowed to go home after a supervisor overruled on-duty law enforcement who wanted to arrest the agents and conduct sobriety tests. The two agents have been reassigned.
IRAQ ISIS BATTLES
Fighting for territory: About three-quarters of the besieged Iraqi city of Tikrit is now back in government control, the head of a key paramilitary force taking part in the attack told CNN. The other 25% is in the hands of about 150 ISIS fighters who continue to hold out. While Iraqi forces piled the pressure on ISIS in Tikrit, the extremist group continued to flex its muscles in Iraq’s western Anbar province. ISIS launched a new offensive on the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, yesterday morning. Officials believe “this is an ISIS response to the Tikrit operation.”
BIN LADEN IMAGES
Rare glimpse: We’re getting a rare peek at Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Afghanistan. The photographs were quietly introduced last month in Manhattan federal court as evidence in the terrorism conspiracy trial of bin Laden lieutenant Khaled al-Fawwaz. The pictures offer a rare look inside Osama bin Laden’s lair — years before al Qaeda flew hijacked planes into buildings or bombed U.S. embassies in Africa and even before the FBI placed bin Laden on its Most Wanted List. The date-stamped photographs from 1996 show a healthy, relaxed, sometimes smiling bin Laden, not yet 40, conversing, hiking, videotaping.
HELICOPTER SEARCH
Black Hawk down: The search is expected to resume today for seven Marines and four Army aircrew, feared dead after their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the waters off the Florida Panhandle. Some debris has already been found near Eglin Air Force Base, base spokesman Andy Bourland said. Human remains have also washed ashore. No one is saying what caused the accident, but there’s no indication of anything suspicious. Heavy fog has hindered the search.