Embattled mayor’s mom may face election fallout

Embattled mayor’s mom may face election fallout

WASHINGTON — Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s name will not appear on primary ballots Tuesday in Michigan, but voters could decide whether his mother should bear any of the fallout from a scandal that has galvanized city hall.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., faces a serious challenge in a three-way congressional primary that has centered on the mayor’s conduct and on tough talk about who could best represent the struggling Detroit district.

The 38-year-old mayor and his former top aide are charged with perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice, all connected to their testimony in a civil trial last year. They denied having a romantic relationship, but those claims have been contradicted by text messages in a scandal that has dominated news coverage in Detroit for months.

Panel: U.S. killed refugees indiscriminately in Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.

A half-century later, the Seoul government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens’ petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.

Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.

“Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It’s the U.S. military’s fault,” said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned and shot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.

Actress Applegate hospitalized for cancer

LOS ANGELES — Christina Applegate is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, but the disease was caught early and the actress is expected to fully recover, her publicist said.

The Emmy winner’s cancer was detected through an MRI ordered by a doctor and is not life-threatening, publicist Ame Van Iden said in a statement Saturday.

Applegate is scheduled to appear on a one-hour television special, “Stand Up To Cancer,” to be aired on ABC, CBS and NBC on Sept. 5 to raise funds for cancer research.

The 36-year-old actress has been nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the show “Samantha Who?”, in which she plays a woman who wakes from a coma with no memory of who she is.

The show, which debuted last October, marked a return to series television for Applegate, who helped establish the Fox network in 1987 as ditzy teenager Kelly Bundy on “Married ... With Children.” The raunchy comedy ran 11 seasons and has been airing in syndication since.

Nature calls, tons of dirt fall

SNOHOMISH, Wash. — Authorities say a truck driver who spilled tons of dirt along a Seattle highway and backed up traffic for hours just really had to go to the bathroom.

Police say the driver was trying to ease the rig to the side of U.S. Highway 2 on Friday morning. The wheels of the truck slipped down an embankment and dumped its contents — 49 tons of river sediment.

State Trooper Keith A. Leary says the driver apparently was unfamiliar with the area. Filling stations and other businesses with restrooms were a few miles away.

The 27-year-old was cited for driving with wheels off the road. Leary says the trucking company will be billed for the cleanup.

Man thought dead 32 years found alive in Oklahoma

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A man believed to have died in a Colorado flood in 1976 has been found living in Oklahoma.

Sixty-three-year-old Darrell Johnson told the Fort Collins Coloradoan for a story Friday that he didn’t know he had been counted among the 144 victims of the Big Thompson Canyon flood until a resident called him last year.

Barb Anderson said residents didn’t want his name on a memorial plaque without proof he was dead.

Johnson and his family had decided to leave their shabby cabin the morning of the flood after just one night. A few hours later, the resort was washed away.

Associated Press

How Johnson ended up on the victims list remains a mystery.

He now directs funerals in Oklahoma City and acknowledges he was lucky to get the bad cabin.