Before the corruption charges began to overtake him, Mr Teele was well known for championing the poorest neighbourhoods of Miami and leading efforts for urban rehabilitation. And you thought you’d heard it all about Art Teele.”Shock has been expressed by executives at both the newspapers. “It was the first thing that crossed my mind, that this was a response to our story, and it filled me with dread,” said the New Times’ editor, Jim Mullin. “Who knows? It’s all speculation.” A statement of condolence was released by The Miami Herald, which said that Mr DeFede had been sacked.The newspaper said Mr DeFede had earlier tape-recorded an interview with Mr Teele without telling him it would be kept on tape. It had the headline: “Tales of Teele: Sleaze Stories.”The Times story was available on its website on Wednesday, the day Mr Teele died. A sub-headline read: “Male prostitutes and multiple mistresses, drug money in Gucci shopping bags, bribery and extortion conspiracies.

He was stripped of his seat on the city commission and given two years’ probation.Police wanted to know why Mr Teele chose The Miami Herald’s lobby as a place to die. He had long been friends with a political columnist at the paper, Jim DeFede.Through the security guard he told Mr DeFede he was leaving a package for him in the lobby.There was speculation that by taking his life in the lobby of Florida’s most important paper, Mr Teele may have been sending a message about the torment of his disgrace and how it had been made worse by the city’s media. It seemed hardly a coincidence that the city’s main alternative newspaper, the Miami New Times, published a front-page expos?esterday detailing the new charges against him. He was charged this month with multiple counts of fraud and money-laundering.

Prosecutors said he had taken bribes of $59,000 (£34,000) in exchange for securing contracts for a company to work at Miami international airport.In addition to facing state and federal corruption charges, Mr Teele was convicted earlier this year of threatening a police officer who was trailing him in connection with another corruption investigation. More recently he served as both a city and county commissioner in the Miami area of southern Florida and also ran once for mayor.But his reputation appeared ruined as legal challenges mounted. Police were interviewing family members and trying to retrace the last hours of Arthur Teele, 60, before he entered the building shortly after 6pm on Wednesday. He asked a security guard to relay a message to one of the paper’s columnists and fired two bullets from the gun.
The political career of Mr Teele, who was African-American, took off when President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Department of Transport.

One of Miami’s best-known political figures, who was recently beset by allegations of corruption and sleaze that drew increasingly garish headlines in the city’s media, walked into the lobby of the Miami Herald newspaper, raised a pistol to his head and shot himself dead. The Bush administration is keen to see Turkey becomea fully fledged member. However, the CDU is adamant that Ankara be given only “privileged partnership” status. Her party has made opposition to Turkey’s membership one of the main issues in its election manifesto.German commentators have also rejected suggestions that a Merkel-led government would alter Germany’s stance towards its main European ally, France, in favour of an improved relationship with the US.”One has to remember that Mrs Merkel’s conservatives regard themselves as the architects of the Franco-German alliance.

There is no question of the party giving this up,” a spokeswoman for Germany’s Konrad Adenauer conservative think-tank told The Independent.White House officials were reluctant yesterday to concede that Mr Bush’s meeting with Mr Sch?le heralded the start of a new German-US alliance.A spokesman said: “We are moving forward since our difficulties of the past and will continue to do so regardless of who wins the German elections.”. Several German commentators have said television footage of Mrs Merkel and President Bush smiling and shaking hands would inevitably result in Mrs Merkel being dubbed “Bush’s poodle” in the German media.Mr Sch?el was at pains to insist that, despite the prospect of better relations, no German troops would be dispatched to Iraq under the CDU.Despite its willingness to please Washington, Mrs Merkel’s party has differences with the White House over Turkey’s proposed membership of the European Union. The CDU has outlined its policy towards the US in an election manifesto which insists that under a conservative administration, Germany will embark on a “new start” in relations with the White House.However, the strength of German public opposition to the US’s continued presence in Iraq prevented Mrs Merkel from going to Washington herself. “It is not a question of building a counterweight to America,” he said.