WASHINGTON

FBI chief’s aide knew about Petraeus earlier, official says

FBI Director Robert Mueller’s top aide was told former CIA chief David Petraeus was having an extramarital affair that might have compromised national security a week before the Nov. 6 elections, a congressional official said Monday.

The disclosure raises fresh questions about why the FBI leadership withheld the information from the nation’s top intelligence official and the congressional committees that oversee the U.S. intelligence community until after President Obama won re-election.

Had the affair that forced Petraeus’ startling resignation Friday become public earlier, it might have stoked a political outcry already flaring over the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, two CIA contractors and a State Department staffer in a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by suspected Islamist extremists.

Petraeus, 60, and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, 40, began their affair about two months after he became CIA director in September 2011, and they had agreed to end it about four months ago, said retired Army Col. Steve Boylan, a former Petraeus aide who is acting as his unofficial spokesman.

INDIANAPOLIS

Search for explosion’s cause focuses on natural gas lines

The search for what caused a massive, deadly explosion that rocked an Indianapolis neighborhood turned to natural gas Monday, with officials checking gas lines and a homeowner saying a problem furnace could be to blame.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to check gas main and other lines serving the neighborhood where two people were killed and seven injured in the weekend blast. Local gas supplier Citizens Energy said it also was checking gas lines and a meter at the home that exploded.

But officials cautioned that it was too soon to rule out other causes.

TOLEDO, Ohio

Carbon monoxide suspected in deaths of 2 adults, 3 children

The bodies of three children and two adults were found inside a garage Monday, and authorities said they believe the deaths — apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning — weren’t accidental.

Toledo police spokesman Joe Heffernan said firefighters broke into the garage of the Toledo home and discovered the bodies Monday afternoon. Heffernan said officers were called to check on those inside the house after getting a call from a concerned family member.

Investigators think all five might have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Police released no further details.

The victims are a 56-year-old woman, her grandchildren, ages 10, 7 and 5, and a 32-year-old man, who is an uncle of one of the children, Lucas County coroner, Dr. James Patrick, told The (Toledo) Blade.

Neighbors said an older couple and their adult son lived at the house and three children were there often but did not live with them.

 

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