The White House retreated Tuesday from its most provocative assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al-Qaeda leader was neither armed nor hiding behind a female "human shield" when U.S. commandos fatally shot him during a predawn raid.

The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had exaggerated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.

Obama administration officials here and in Islamabad demanded Tuesday that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about Osama bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installations.

In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound — who owned and built the structure and its security system — Pakistani officials were asked in meetings with U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound.

The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy.

Administration officials think it could now be easier for the reclusive leader of the largest Taliban faction, Mohammad Omar, to break his group's alliance with al-Qaeda, a key U.S. requirement for any peace deal. They also think that bin Laden's death could make peace talks a more palatable outcome for Americans and insulate President Obama from criticism that his administration would be negotiating with terrorists.

The White House says it has photos of the dead Osama bin Laden and they're "gruesome." That raises a question in America's newsrooms: To publish or not to publish when the pictures are released?

Short answer: It all depends on your definition of "gruesome."

The potential release of photographs documenting the U.S. raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout presents the news media — at least the so-called mainstream media — with a historic dilemma. The images are the very definition of news, but they're also likely to be horrifyingly graphic, the sort of thing that American newspapers and television networks avoid showing their readers and viewers.

The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy.

Administration officials think it could now be easier for the reclusive leader of the largest Taliban faction, Mohammad Omar, to break his group's alliance with al-Qaeda, a key U.S. requirement for any peace deal. They also think that bin Laden's death could make peace talks a more palatable outcome for Americans and insulate President Obama from criticism that his administration would be negotiating with terrorists.

The White House retreated Tuesday from its most provocative assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al-Qaeda leader was neither armed nor hiding behind a female "human shield" when U.S. commandos fatally shot him during a predawn raid.

The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had exaggerated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.

Obama administration officials here and in Islamabad demanded Tuesday that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about Osama bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installations.

In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound — who owned and built the structure and its security system — Pakistani officials were asked in meetings with U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound.

The number of Americans who see success ahead in Afghanistan has spiked since Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday in Pakistan, but few see the news as an end to the threat of terrorism facing the United States, according to a new poll by The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center.

Nearly seven in 10 see the U.S. killing of bin Laden as a boost to the long-term security of the country, but barely one in five sees it as a big help. Just five percent say bin Laden's death ends the terrorism threat in general; 85 percent see further military action as necessary.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday evening that he believes the Obama administration will ultimately release to the public photographs of Osama bin Laden taken after the al-Qaeda leader was killed by U.S. forces at his compound in Pakistan, but that "the White House makes that final decision."

"I mean, I think it will be," Panetta said when asked whether he thought the photos would eventually be released.

He added, however, that "I don't think you have to convince the world because of the DNA and all of the other proof that we have."

As nearly every college and university in the country tries to convince students to stop binge drinking, the president of Dartmouth College has a new strategy: Let's treat this like any other public health problem.

To do that, President Jim Yong Kim says colleges need to test new strategies, scientifically measure the results and share their findings. This week Kim, a doctor and humanitarian who has led Dartmouth since 2009, announced the formation of the national Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking.

The White House retreated Tuesday from its most provocative assertions about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, acknowledging that the al-Qaeda leader was neither armed nor hiding behind a female "human shield" when U.S. commandos fatally shot him during a predawn raid.

The disclosures put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether it had exaggerated elements of earlier accounts for propaganda gain. At the same time, additional details surfaced Tuesday that depict a mission launched amid far greater political and operational uncertainty than had been revealed.

The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy.

Administration officials think it could now be easier for the reclusive leader of the largest Taliban faction, Mohammad Omar, to break his group's alliance with al-Qaeda, a key U.S. requirement for any peace deal. They also think that bin Laden's death could make peace talks a more palatable outcome for Americans and insulate President Obama from criticism that his administration would be negotiating with terrorists.

Obama administration officials here and in Islamabad demanded Tuesday that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about Osama bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installations.

In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound — who owned and built the structure and its security system — Pakistani officials were asked in meetings with U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound.

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan — It is easy to imagine how Osama bin Laden lived a peaceful, if sequestered, life in this city.

Outside the high walls of his compound, chickens meander across neat fields of potatoes and mint. Forested hills line the horizon. And the neighbors, by their own admission, kept to themselves, figuring that the two brothers in the large house were simply rich men.

The third man, neighbors said, never came outside.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Even as protests spread across Syria, the capital has mostly remained quiet.

Anti-government demonstrations have erupted in all corners of the country in the past six weeks, meeting a fierce government crackdown along the way. But though people in Damascus watch the events with concern, most doubt that the scenes being broadcast on television from across the country will be repeated here.

About 500 people marched in the Midan area of the capital Friday and reportedly shouted pro-freedom slogans. But for the most part in Damascus, the heart of the Sunni business class, residents say they have too much to lose to join in.

NEWARK, N.J. — Days after missing a chance to become the youngest winner in LPGA history, Alexis Thompson sounded like your ordinary teenager.

She giggled between questions, and she called having a share of the lead entering the final round of the Avnet LPGA Classic in Mobile, Ala., a great experience.

And like most 16-year-olds, she was well past shooting a waterlogged, final-round 6-over-par 78 that dropped her from the top of the leaderboard into a tie for 19th in a span of four, frustrating hours.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Geoff Ogilvy has withdrawn from the Wells Fargo Championship because of a sore left shoulder.

Ogilvy says his shoulder was bothering him slightly toward the end of the Masters and at the Texas Open. He figured it would be fine when he got to Quail Hollow in Charlotte, but says he wants another week of rest to make sure it doesn't become a problem.

He is expected to play next week at The Players Championship and in Texas, the home state of his wife.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Sean O'Hair not only is looking for his game, he's now looking for a new swing coach.

O'Hair, who has missed his past five cuts and has not finished among the top 20 all year, has decided to split with Sean Foley after a relationship that began nearly three years ago in the Canadian Open.

During their time together, O'Hair won the Quail Hollow Championship and played in the Presidents Cup. But whatever had been going right started going very wrong this year, and it was time for a change.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Dean Wilson always believed he was a good putter, whether he was in Japan or on the PGA Tour. The trick was finding proof of that in the statistics.

He finished no higher than 31st in putts per round over the last five years, but Wilson never put much stock in that because it doesn't account for how often a player is putting for birdie or getting up-and-down from just off the green. He once was 13th in average putts per greens in regulation, although that didn't account for proximity to the hole.

Derrick Rose will replace Bullets legend and Hall of Famer Wes Unseld as the youngest MVP in NBA history this afternoon when the Chicago Bulls third-year point guard accepts the honor at a news conference in suburban Chicago. In his third season, the 22-year-old Rose helped lead the Bulls to the league's best record and became just the seventh player in NBA history to average at least 25 points, 7.5 assists and 4.0 rebounds in a season.

Unseld turned 23 only nine days before he won the award in 1968-69, after leading the Baltimore Bullets to their first winning season in franchise history and inspiring a 21-game improvement as a rookie. When contacted by phone on Tuesday, Unseld said he wasn't aware that he had previously held the title as youngest MVP.

When the Atlanta Hawks came to Washington near the end of the regular season and got clowned by 32 points at Verizon Center, upstaged by the likes of Othyus Jeffers and Larry Owens, it was very difficult to take them seriously as a playoff team. But nearly four weeks later, the Hawks continue to show how they can be incredibly talented yet infuriatingly fickle.

After losing 15 of their final 23 regular season games, the Hawks are suddenly 5-2 in the postseason, as they followed up a series win over the Orlando Magic by stepping into the United Center — where only five visiting teams have won all year — and claiming Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal against the top seeded Chicago Bulls, 103-85.

PHILADELPHIA — The first boos cascaded from the Citizens Bank Ballpark stands as Jayson Werth stepped out of the on-deck circle, not knowing what to expect, ready for his first at-bat here as a Washington National. They continued, louder and louder, coming from Philadelphia Phillies fans who held aloft signs that read "$tiff" and "Welcome Back Loser" and "I only came to boo Jayson."

By late Tuesday night, when Werth's old team had again asserted its superiority over his new one, this time with a 4-1 victory, Werth and, surprisingly, Phillies fans had shown their appreciation for one another.

There are 133 games left in the year, which is good for the Nationals, because no team is this bad on offense for a full season. They have to improve, at least somewhat, because the alternative would test the bounds of recent baseball history. It would pretty much be impossible.

The Nationals after last night, as a team, are hitting .225, getting on base at .301 and slugging .347. Collectively, the Nationals have an offensive WAR, according to Baseball-Reference.com, of 1.0. Wilson Ramos is 0.8 of that. Next are Ryan Zimmerman – who hasn't played in 21 games – and Ian Desmond at 0.5. Four Nationals regulars have produced a negative WAR thus far. Basically, a Class AAA team lineup could have been standing in for the Nationals' offense to this point, and the difference would barely register in the standings.

Jayson Werth entered through the doors at the back of Citizens Bank Ballpark and strolled through the gray-cement corridor, the same walk he made hundreds of times over the past four years. This walk was different, of course. The walk to the visitors clubhouse required him to pass to the Phillies clubhouse.

The circumstances of a baseball road trip allow for little reflection – you play a game, hop on a bus, board a plane, find your hotel room, sleep late, wake up and grab a cab or another bus and walk into another park. When Werth saw his old clubhouse, it struck him.

Tonight, the Nationals are playing the 1,000th game since baseball returned, coincidentally, in the same place they played their first game. On opening day 2005, Livan Hernandez threw the first pitch in Nationals history to Brian Schneider. Tonight, Hernandez will start for the Nationals, and Schneider is behind the plate for the Phillies. Funny how that works.

The Nationals, by the way, are 426-573 in their history, which includes an 18-37 record at Citizens Bank Ballpark. The Nationals are tying to get back above .500 and win for the fifth time in six games as Jayson Werth returns to his old home. Talk about the game right here.

Jayson Werth will will return to Philadelphia for the first time as a National, a topic he had no interest in over the weekend. He'll surely get booed, which makes sense since the Nationals only offered $78 million more guaranteed than the Phillies.

Ian Desmond is batting second for the Nationals because Rick Ankiel is out of the lineup. Ankiel could be sitting because of lefty starter Cole Hamels, but he also may have hurt his hand while making a diving attempt last night. Jerry Hairston is in center, with Brian Bixler back in at third.

Genre fiction is a literary ghetto. Anything tarred with the labels mystery, western, sci-fi or fantasy goes on its own separate shelf, far away from the high culture of literary fiction. But there are annual prizes in genre fiction that catch everyone's attention, and two were given out last week: The Edgar Award for the best mystery novel went to Steve Hamilton's The Lock Artist , and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science-fiction novel went to Lauren Beukes's Zoo City .

Before it is a science-fiction novel, "Zoo City" is a detective story, the tale of a woman thrust into the middle of a mystery. In this alternate-universe version of South Africa, murderers (called "zoos") carry their guilt with them in the form of a spirit animal that's bound to them and gives them magical powers. The animal stands between the guilty and the Undertow, a force that swallows up any zoos whose animals are killed. Zinzi is a zoo with a blackmail problem who gets drawn into investigating the disappearance of a teenage pop star and winds up uncovering a much more sinister plot.

HOORAY FOR AMANDA

& HER ALLIGATOR

By Mo Willems

THE EMERALD ATLAS

By John Stephens

Knopf. $17.99. Ages 8-12

THE WATCHER

Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps

By Jeanette Winter

If I had a six-shooter (and didn't work in the District), I'd be firing it off in celebration of "Doc," Mary Doria Russell's fantastic new novel about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Since winning top honors for her science fiction 15 years ago, Russell has blasted her way into one genre after another, and now she's picked up the old conventions of the Wild West and brought these dusty myths back to life in a deeply sympathetic, aggressively researched and wonderfully entertaining story.

"Doc" is no colorized daguerreotype; it's a bold act of historical reclamation that scrapes off the bull and allows those American legends to walk and talk and love and grieve in the dynamic 19th-century world that existed before Hollywood shellacked it into cliches. (Stay tuned: Next year Val Kilmer will star in "The First Ride of Wyatt Earp.") With open disdain for those low-down, stinkin' writers who prefer "well-dressed drama to bare-naked fact," Russell can evoke plenty of grandeur and hell-raising without squaring every lawman's jaw and waxing every villain's mustache to a deadly point. And just to prove it, she mentions that famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral several times in these 400 pages but then draws her story of Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers to a perfect close before they ever get to Tombstone. Take that, dime novels.   

Like most Americans, Mark Boal was overwhelmed with emotion Sunday night when he heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

It wasn't until a reporter e-mailed him an hour later that he realized he now had a new third act.

For the past decade, Boal — a former journalist who became a screenwriter and won an Oscar last year for "The Hurt Locker" — has been working on a screenplay about the hunt for bin Laden. He has partnered with "Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow.

About 57 million TV viewers watched President Obama announce Sunday that U.S. military forces had killed Osama bin Laden in a targeted attack.

Although that audience is dwarfed by the 82 million who watched then-President George W. Bush address the nation in the immediate aftermath of the bin Laden-orchestrated Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil, Sunday's viewership is thought to be the largest TV audience of Obama's presidency.

"Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world, the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama announced about 11:35 p.m. Sunday, speaking from the East Room of the White House.

When the asteroid Kardashian crashed into the planet, the notion of pure celebrity became extinct. Since then, there's been no quick-and-dirty way to measure true renown, true longevity, true fabulosity in the hierarchy of female fame. No way except for one: the ability to reach and retain first-name-only status.

Cher, for example. Also, Madonna. And Oprah, Hillary, Bjork and Beyonce. Lindsay (Lohan) is trying, and failing.

It is the realm of few, and rarely these days is Regine classified among them — even though, in 1953, she chucked the jukebox in her tiny subterranean Parisian club and replaced it with two turntables, thereby inventing the first discotheque and starting an evolution that enabled Studio 54 and spawned temples to disco, house and hip-hop.

The White House says it has photos of the dead Osama bin Laden and they're "gruesome." That raises a question in America's newsrooms: To publish or not to publish when the pictures are released?

Short answer: It all depends on your definition of "gruesome."

The potential release of photographs documenting the U.S. raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout presents the news media — at least the so-called mainstream media — with a historic dilemma. The images are the very definition of news, but they're also likely to be horrifyingly graphic, the sort of thing that American newspapers and television networks avoid showing their readers and viewers.

Lo, have we found him? Here, on the east coast of Norway, on the west side of Oslo, in a butter-yellow apartment building across from a day care called Urmafaba? Here, on this chilled spring morning, which the locals insist, with typically polite standoffishness, is unseasonable? Have we journeyed so long and so patiently to at last spot the rare and precious specimen that publishers speak of in hushed and desperate tones? Have we found . . . the next Stieg Larsson?

A man opens the door. A slender man, with pale hair, crinkly eyes and weather-beaten skin, pulled tight across his face. His artfully ripped jeans settle low on his hips. His voice has a lilt: His S's become "Sh's," Oslo is Oshlo.

About 57 million TV viewers watched President Obama announce Sunday that U.S. military forces had killed Osama bin Laden in a targeted attack.

Although that audience is dwarfed by the 82 million who watched then-President George W. Bush address the nation in the immediate aftermath of the bin Laden-orchestrated Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil, Sunday's viewership is thought to be the largest TV audience of Obama's presidency.

"Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world, the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama announced about 11:35 p.m. Sunday, speaking from the East Room of the White House.

Lo, have we found him? Here, on the east coast of Norway, on the west side of Oslo, in a butter-yellow apartment building across from a day care called Urmafaba? Here, on this chilled spring morning, which the locals insist, with typically polite standoffishness, is unseasonable? Have we journeyed so long and so patiently to at last spot the rare and precious specimen that publishers speak of in hushed and desperate tones? Have we found . . . the next Stieg Larsson?

A man opens the door. A slender man, with pale hair, crinkly eyes and weather-beaten skin, pulled tight across his face. His artfully ripped jeans settle low on his hips. His voice has a lilt: His S's become "Sh's," Oslo is Oshlo.

The White House says it has photos of the dead Osama bin Laden and they're "gruesome." That raises a question in America's newsrooms: To publish or not to publish when the pictures are released?

Short answer: It all depends on your definition of "gruesome."

The potential release of photographs documenting the U.S. raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout presents the news media — at least the so-called mainstream media — with a historic dilemma. The images are the very definition of news, but they're also likely to be horrifyingly graphic, the sort of thing that American newspapers and television networks avoid showing their readers and viewers.

Genre fiction is a literary ghetto. Anything tarred with the labels mystery, western, sci-fi or fantasy goes on its own separate shelf, far away from the high culture of literary fiction. But there are annual prizes in genre fiction that catch everyone's attention, and two were given out last week: The Edgar Award for the best mystery novel went to Steve Hamilton's The Lock Artist , and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science-fiction novel went to Lauren Beukes's Zoo City .

Before it is a science-fiction novel, "Zoo City" is a detective story, the tale of a woman thrust into the middle of a mystery. In this alternate-universe version of South Africa, murderers (called "zoos") carry their guilt with them in the form of a spirit animal that's bound to them and gives them magical powers. The animal stands between the guilty and the Undertow, a force that swallows up any zoos whose animals are killed. Zinzi is a zoo with a blackmail problem who gets drawn into investigating the disappearance of a teenage pop star and winds up uncovering a much more sinister plot.

HOORAY FOR AMANDA

& HER ALLIGATOR

By Mo Willems

THE EMERALD ATLAS

By John Stephens

Knopf. $17.99. Ages 8-12