Janet Reno, first female US attorney general, dies at 78

Janet Reno, the first woman to ever become attorney general of the United States, died today at age 78.

Reno died at her Miami-Dade County, Florida, home from complications of Parkinson’s disease. The disease was diagnosed while she was still in office in November 1995.

Nominted for the job by President Bill Clinton, Reno's tenure was marked by two famous events: a deadly federal raid on the compound of a religious cult in Waco, Texas, in 1993 and the seizing in 2000 by federal agents of Elian Gonzalez, a young Cuban refugee who was at the center of an international custody battle and a political tug of war.

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