Family mourns soldier killed in Afghanistan

Family mourns soldierkilled in Afghanistan
ELIZABETH, N.J. -- The family of a U.S. soldier killed during a firefight in Afghanistan mourned privately Sunday, with a note taped to their front door saying, "Please respect our privacy."
Neighbors described Sgt. Steven Checo as a good son.
The 22-year-old paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division was shot Saturday during a gunbattle in the eastern Afghanistan town of Shkhin.
Checo died during surgery at a field hospital, according to an Army statement from Fort Bragg, N.C., the home of the 82nd Airborne.
Checo was the first U.S. combat death in Afghanistan since August, and the 17th American killed in a hostile situation there since the war on terror began late last year.
Checo's uncle, Gilbert Checo, said relatives were devastated by the death of the young man, who was living his dream of serving in the armed forces.
"The family is just trying to keep it together," he said.
Gilbert Checo said Checo moved to Elizabeth from New York with his mother and sister about three years ago to "make a better life."
A Mass was performed for Checo on Sunday morning, said the Rev. Ronald Newland of St. Mary's of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church, where the family attends services.
As people streamed to the family's home to pay their respects Sunday, someone displayed an American flag at an upstairs window.
Report: Evidence pointsto Malvo as triggerman
CENTREVILLE, Va. -- Evidence in the Washington-area sniper shootings case points to teenager John Lee Malvo as the triggerman in most if not all of the shootings, according to a published report Sunday.
That could complicate prosecutors' efforts to get a death sentence for the older suspect, John Muhammad.
"There is not much pointing to Muhammad, and that is going to make it really hard to show that he was the triggerman," one senior law enforcement official involved in the case told The New York Times. "There are other ways to attempt to obtain a death sentence, but this lack of evidence has been one of the most perplexing things about the case."
Muhammad, 41, and Malvo, 17, are charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors say they are responsible for 13 shootings over a three-week period in October that left 10 dead and three wounded in Maryland, Virginia and Washington. They also are suspected in attacks in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Washington state.
Venezuela oppositionvows to continue strike
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Leaders of a strike aimed at forcing Hugo Chavez from office said they were not intimidated by the president's threats to fire striking managers of the state oil monopoly and vowed the protest would continue through Christmas if necessary.
"Cost what it may, we will continue with this strike," Carlos Ortega, the president of Venezuela's largest trade union confederation, said Sunday. "The authoritarianism and violence of the Chavez regime will not force us to retreat."
Ortega insisted citizens were "resolved to spend Christmas in the streets" protesting Chavez's rule.
Chavez, who has already sacked four executives at state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, vowed more dismissals and said strikers would be prosecuted. The stoppage, which entered its 22nd day today, has paralyzed an industry that provides more than 70 percent of the country's export revenue and is the fifth largest supplier to the world.
Chaperone in dragregrets creating a stir
O'FALLON, Mo. -- A father who chaperoned a fourth-grade field trip while dressed as a woman has told the school district he regrets creating a stir.
"He went on the trip because his daughter asked him to go," said Superintendent Dan O'Donnell of the Francis Howell district, which includes Castlio Elementary School fourth-graders who took the Oct. 18 trip. "If he had known it would have caused this much of an uproar, he wouldn't have gone."
The father's identity has not been revealed, and he has not spoken publicly.
Parents complained to the school board after the man, during a class outing to Jefferson City, apparently wore a woman's hairstyle, makeup and apparel, including jeans and shoes.
During a board meeting earlier this month, a man whose wife teaches at Castlio said in defense of the father that the man had been volunteering at school and attending parent-teacher conferences for at least eight years while dressed as a woman.
"No one has said a word. No one has had a problem with him until now," said Marty Hodits, 54.
Associated Press