[Illustration by mark_hue]
LOS ANGELES TIMES: As the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama says he practices compassion to such an extent that he tries to avoid swatting mosquitoes “when my mood is good and there is no danger of malaria,” sometimes watching with interest as they swell with his blood. Yet, in an appearance Tuesday at USC, he appeared to suggest that the United States was justified in killing Osama bin Laden. As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.” It was, perhaps, an example of the Dalai Lama confounding expectations, something he appears to relish doing. The 75-year-old leader spoke on the first day of what was to have been a four-day trip to Southern California. MORE
RELATED: Osama bin Laden’s young daughter has told Pakistani officials that she saw her father shot and killed by armed Americans when they raided a house here early Monday, an official with Pakistan’s spy agency said Tuesday. The official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the daughter, whom he described as being 12 or 13 years old, was one of eight or nine children in the house when a team of U.S. Navy SEALs stormed the 
complex by helicopter. “We have no independent confirmation of Osama bin Laden being there or dying there except what we got from the daughter,” said the official, a member of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. MORE
RELATED: President Obama has decided not to release photographs of Osama bin Laden’s body, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Mr. Obama apparently concluded that images of Bin Laden bloodied by gunshots would do little to reassure skeptics but could inflame tensions in the Muslim world. He disclosed his decision in an interview for the CBS program “60 Minutes,” part of which will be broadcast on the network’s evening news programs Wednesday. The debate over whether to release photos of Bin Laden had consumed the White House over the last two days. Some senior officials said the release of photos was inevitable. On Tuesday, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, said he did not think “there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.” But officials at the Pentagon and State Department expressed qualms about releasing gruesome photos of Bin Laden’s bloodied corpse, with some arguing that the photos would not silence those who doubt that he was killed. Some lawmakers also opposed releasing the photos, arguing that doing so would serve little purpose and could endanger American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. MORE
RELATED: Pro Publica’s Bin Laden Reading Guide: How to Cut Through the Coverage