Apple announced Wednesday that Steve Jobs has died..

The board of directors named Tim Cook, previously Apple's Chief Operating Officer, as the company's new CEO.

Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the board, effective immediately.

Here is Jobs' letter to the Apple board of directors:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple''s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

Magen David Adom (MDA) has declared a mass casualty event and the State of Israel has moved to its highest security alert nationwide as hospitals report that five are dead following terror attacks that struck the country's southern region midday Thursday.

Authorities are calling for Israeli to donate blood at local MDA stations across the country. The area has been declared a closed military area and the IDF spokesman has asked people to keep away.

At Yoseftal Medical Center, 29 casualties were admitted with a range of injuries, including severe trauma. Seven of the most critically wounded were sent by medical helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

A fifth person has died following a stage accident at the Indiana State Fair Saturday night.

Reports indicate that the deceased person was a spotlight worker who was somewhere on the stage when it came down before the band Sugarland were due to play.

The Indiana State Fair is closed Sunday. All activities have been canceled.

Police identified those killed in the accident: Tammy Vandam, Glenn Goodrich, Alina Bigjohny, Christina Santiago, Nathan Byrd. Their families have been notified.

A spokesman for Don Imus says that the controversial radio personality's brother, Fred Imus, has died in his Tucson home. He was 69.

Fred Imus co-hosted his own satellite radio show on Sirius XM called "Fred's Trailer Park Bash" and wrote country songs.

Matthew Hiltzik, a spokesman for Don Imus, said Tuesday that Fred Imus was found dead inside his trailer in Tucson, Ariz., on Saturday. He says it's believed that he died in his sleep.

Hiltzik says the Imus brothers were "very close" and that Fred Imus often was a guest on his brother's own radio show, ending each call with, "I love you."

Fred Imus, who was twice divorced, is survived by three sons.

Records show nearly 60,000 of California’s more than 2 million disabled parking placards issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles may have been sent to dead people.

The DMV checks state death records every two years and the Los Angeles Times says this year’s cross-check uncovered about 56,000 deceased placard holders.

The DMV misses many deceased people because of mismatched birth dates.

The DMV says fraudulent use of disabled parking placards, which allow motorists to park for free or in special designated spaces, is on the rise. More than a third of the placards displayed in vehicles are used illegally.

The DMV says it is studying ways to make the process more efficient.

Few artists summed up their own career in a single song - a single line - as well as Amy Winehouse.

"They tried to make me go to rehab," she sang on her world-conquering 2006 single, "Rehab." "I said 'No, no no.'"

Occasionally, she said yes, but to no avail: repeated stints in hospitals and clinics couldn't stop alcohol and drugs scuttling the career of a singer whose distinctive voice, rich mix of influences and heart-on-her sleeve sensibility seemed to promise great things.

In her short lifetime, Winehouse too often made headlines because of drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, destructive relationships and abortive performances. But it's her small but powerful body of recorded music that will be her legacy.

The singer was found dead Saturday by ambulance crews called to her home in north London's Camden area, a youth-culture mecca known for its music scene, its pubs - and the availability of illegal drugs.

A Norwegian who dressed as a police officer to gun down summer campers killed at least 80 people at an island retreat, horrified police said early Saturday. It took investigators several hours to begin to realize the full scope of Friday's massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven and that police say was set off by the same suspect.

The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister's office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.

Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island of Utoya, but some survivors said they thought the toll was much higher. Police director Oystein Maeland told reporters early Saturday they had discovered many more victims.

A Florida pain doctor could be charged in the death of many of his patients.

Dr. Joseph Hernandez was suspended July 6 by the Florida Department of Health for overprescribing opiate painkillers, addictive drugs that can be lethal in high doses.

Of the 761 patients Hernandez saw at his Lake City clinic between January and April 2011, 34 are dead, according to a Florida Department of Health report.

"I mean, people are going to abuse drugs," Gilbert Schaffnit, Hernandez's defense attorney, told ABC affiliate WCJB. "The question is, How is any doctor, Dr. Hernandez or any health care provider, going to be able to control against that?"

Former first lady Betty Ford has died at age 93, the director of the Ford Museum and Library says.

Ford died Friday at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California.

Betty Ford was the wife of former president Gerald Ford. She married Mr. Ford two weeks before he was elected to his first term in Congress. Gerald Ford died in December 2006, after undergoing surgery for an undisclosed ailment in April 2007.

Betty Ford served as First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. During her time in the White House, Ford was an outspoken advocate of women's rights -- encouraging the appointment of more women to senior government posts, supporting the U.N. International Women's Year in 1975, and supporting passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

A pleasant Thursday afternoon turned deadly in Grand Rapids when a gunman killed seven people before fleeing through the city, taking three people hostage in a home for hours, then fatally shooting himself.

Around 11 p.m., the hostages were free after the suspect, 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, shot himself in the head, Police Chief Kevin Belk said.

Belk said officers were in the house, talking to Dantzler, who had been threatening to shoot the two hostages who remained and had asked officers to shoot him -- before suddenly committing suicide.

Peter Falk, the American actor most famous for his role as TV's scruffy detective, Columbo, has died at the age of 83.

The actor died peacefully at home in Beverly Hills on Thursday night, his family said in a statement.

He had been suffering from dementia for a number of years.

Peter Falk won four Emmys for his cigar-chomping role in Columbo, which ended in 1977, and was nominated for Oscars in 1960 and 1961.

But for most fans, his best-supporting actor nominations in Murder Inc and Pocketful of Miracles were eclipsed by his six years playing a deceptively bumbling sleuth with a shabby mac and the killer catch-phrase: "One more thing..."

Wally Boag, who played Pecos Bill in nearly 40,000 live performances of the Golden Horseshoe Revue at Disneyland, passed away Friday at the age of 91.

Boag, a Disney legend, originated the role for Walt Disney in the stage show that is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records.
Boag was also the voice of Jose in The Enchanted Tiki Room at the theme park.
“The world’s stage has experienced a great loss in the passing of Disney Legend Wally Boag. Wally was instrumental in the development of live entertainment during the early years of both Disneyland Park and Walt Disney World Resort. His characters will continue to live in the hearts of our guests, while his larger than life personality will forever make him the true “Clown Prince of Disneyland,” said George Kalogridis, president of the Disneyland Resort.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian — embraced as a compassionate crusader and reviled as a murderous crank — died early this morning.

Known as Dr. Death even before launching his fierce advocacy and practice of assisted suicides, Kevorkian, 83, died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where he had been hospitalized with kidney and heart problems.

His attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said it appears Kevorkian suffered a pulmonary thrombosis when a blood clot from his leg broke free and lodged in his heart. With Kevorkian was his niece Ava Janus and Morganroth.

Tornadoes on Tuesday left five people dead in Oklahoma and two in Kansas, officials said.

The storms plowed through small communities, including El Reno, a town of 15,000 in Canadian County west of Oklahoma City, leaving cars overturned and ripping roofs off houses and the steeple off a church.

Four of the confirmed deaths in Oklahoma were in Canadian County, said Michaelann Ooten, Deputy Director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

A fifth was in a mobile home in Chickasha southwest of Oklahoma City, according to Captain Chris Calhoun of the Chickasha fire department.

Statewide, there were 60 injuries, and 58,000 were without power, Ooten said.

Nearly six years ago, Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba.

Her mother, Beth Holloway, has been relentless in her pursuit of the truth in her daughter's case, which is still unsolved.

But on "The Early Show" Tuesday, when speaking about her new Lifetime TV series, Beth Holloway admitted she doesn't think her daughter is alive today.

Arizonans recognize the official Phoenix PD photo of Officer Nick Erfle, taken when he was awarded their Medal of Valor for protecting children from an AK47-wielding gunman. After his brutal murder by illegal alien Erik “Droopy” Martinez, they've had

Legendary KTLA Anchorman Hal Fishman, the longest-running anchor in television history, and a presence in Los Angeles broadcasting for nearly five decades that many in the city grew up knowing and trusting, has died at the age of 75. Hal's strong connecti