ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703100077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
Rap singer shot, killed in drive-by
LOS ANGELES - The Notorious B.I.G. made his name as a gangsta rapper barking hip-hop rhymes about his real-life past dealing crack on the tough streets of Brooklyn. On Sunday, he died in a drive-by shooting.
The rapper also known as Biggie Smalls was the second major rapper to die in a drive-by shooting in six months. Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas last fall.
The 24-year-old rap star, whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was killed outside a party while sitting in his parked all-purpose vehicle in a gang-style attack just after midnight Saturday.
Wallace was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. No arrests had been made late Sunday.
He was attending a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in celebration of the 11th annual Soul Train Music Awards, according to Kevin Kim, who witnessed the shooting.
His debut album ``Ready to Die'' went platinum, selling more than 1 million copies. His upcoming album, due out March 25, is titled ``Life After Death ... 'Til Death Do Us Part.''
Wallace was considered a rival of Shakur, who had accused him of involvement in a 1994 robbery when Shakur was shot several times and lost $40,000 in jewelry. Wallace denied any involvement.
He was conspicuously absent from a high-profile ``rap summit'' in New York City last fall called to ease tensions between West Coast and East Coast rappers after Shakur's slaying.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Woman's death blamed on flesh-eating bacteria
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - State health investigators are headed to a Rochester hospital to probe the death of a woman who died of a flesh-eating bacteria infection a month after giving birth.
The unidentified woman, who died Friday, had been ill since giving birth to a healthy child by Caesarean section.
Authorities did not release the cause of her death, but the woman's relatives told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle she died of necrotizing fasciitis, the so-called flesh-eating disease caused by a strain of Group A streptococcus.
The flesh-eating disease, which killed 11 people in England in a 1994 outbreak, responds to antibiotics if treated quickly but is fatal in about 30 percent of cases.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Microsoft offers fix for browser problem
SEATTLE - Microsoft has posted a single patch, or program repair kit, to fix all three security bugs found over the past week in its Internet Explorer Web browser.
Without the patch, an unscrupulous Web site operator could take advantage of the flaws to wreak havoc in someone else's computer, sending instructions to run programs secretly, send electronic mail under the other operator's name, or damage software stored on a hard drive.
The patch was posted late Saturday at the Microsoft Corp. official Web site and can be downloaded for free. The flaw affects Internet Explorer versions 3.0 and 3.01 for the Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems.
The World Wide Web site with information on the flaws is:
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/security/update.htm
- ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB