Bush talks trade with Vietnam PM
Washington President Bush on Tuesday met the highest-ranking Vietnamese official to visit since the end of the war that claimed the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. troops.
Bush said he would visit Vietnam next year. He and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai talked about the continuing search for U.S. soldiers’ remains. But they focused on Vietnam’s desire to join the World Trade Organi- zation and its human-rights record, which some say is tainted.
Bush also noted the Vietnam Religious Freedom Agreement, an accord Bush said will make it easier for people to worship freely.
Later Tuesday, a Vietnam veteran rushed the head table at a gala dinner celebrating friendship between the countries.
Korean War deserter sorry for leaving Army
Weldon, N.C. U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins left his boyhood home for Japan early Tuesday, a day after apologizing for his more than 40-year-old decision to abandon his post for life in North Korea.
On Monday, Jenkins, 65, said his decision to defect in 1965 was wrong.
Jenkins was a 24-year-old sergeant with the U.S. Army’s 1st Calvary Division when he left the squad he was leading in the Demilitarized Zone and walked into North Korea on July 5, 1965.
Informant pleads guilty to lying to FBI
Detroit A former FBI informant pleaded guilty Tuesday to nine felony charges after lying to the agency for more than three years about a fictitious international drug-trafficking ring, according to the Justice Department.
Myron Strong, 34, a convicted felon who first became a local police informant in 1986, had worked for the FBI as a confidential informant since 1997.
He and two other men were charged with trying to frame Willie T. Hulon, former head of the FBI’s field office in Detroit, by claiming he leaked sensitive law-enforcement data to the drug ring.
Runaway bride says self-doubt to blame
Lawrenceville, Ga. Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks wanted to vanish because she feared she couldn’t be a perfect wife. She picked Austin, Texas, as her original destination after seeing actor Matthew McConaughey talk about his hometown on TV. And she funded her odyssey by cashing a cell phone rebate check and emptying an old bank account.
DNA tests don’t show bones are war hero’s
Savannah, Ga. DNA tests on bones exhumed from a monument to Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski failed to prove they are those of the Revolutionary War hero killed in a 1779 battle to retake Savannah from the British.
But a report on the probe into Pulaski’s burial says records and skeletal injuries make a case that the remains are the nobleman’s.
The Chatham County coroner hoped DNA testing would tell if Pulaski was buried at sea or placed in an unmarked grave. The debate has divided historians since the bones were moved in 1854 to Savannah’s Monterey Square, where the 54-foot Pulaski monument was erected.