Bush promises to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan

Bush promises to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — Grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, President Bush promised Wednesday to send more U.S. troops into Afghanistan by year’s end. He conceded that June was a “tough month,” in fact, the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began.

Bush said it was a tough month too for the Taliban. But the once-toppled Islamist regime in Afghanistan has now rebounded with deadly force.

More U.S. and NATO troops have died in the past two months in Afghanistan than in Iraq, a place with triple the number of U.S. and coalition forces.

In June, 28 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan. That was the highest monthly total of the entire war, which began in October 2001.

Girl’s body found

BETHEL, Vt. — The body of a missing 12-year-old Vermont girl was found Wednesday, hours after documents surfaced that accused her uncle of planning to initiate her into a child sex ring, authorities said.

Brooke Bennett’s body was found about 4:45 p.m., not far from her uncle’s home, said State Police Director Col. James Baker.

The girl’s uncle, Michael Jacques, who has been in custody since Sunday on sexual assault charges involving another underage girl, is to be charged in federal court with kidnapping, police Sgt. Tara Thomas said.

Earlier Wednesday, in an affidavit unsealed in U.S. District Court in Burlington, the FBI said an unidentified 14-year-old girl told investigators she was present on June 25 when Jacques, 42, tricked Bennett into thinking she was going to a party and took her to his Randolph home to be initiated into a sex ring.

No hatchet found

WASHINGTON — The archaeologists were delighted to at last find the remains of George Washington’s boyhood home but got stumped when they looked for evidence of the cherry tree and rusty hatchet.

“This was the setting for many important events in Washington’s life,” David Muraca, director of archaeology for The George Washington Foundation, announced Wednesday.

Most biographies offer little detail of the first president’s youth, so the discovery may provide insight into Washington’s childhood, he said. The site is located at Ferry Farm, just across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, Va., about 50 miles south of Washington.

Tons of spuds crush car

BERLIN — A farmer in Germany has learned a harsh lesson about the dangers of smoking.

While he ducked into a convenience store to buy cigarettes, his parked tractor and its load of 25 tons of potatoes went rolling down a hill — and over a parked car.

Police say the emergency brake came loose while the farmer was in the store, and the tractor and its two trailers barreled 30 yards downhill before slamming into the parked car and crushing it against a wall.

Suspect in 8 slayings

CHICAGO — On Wednesday, a day after Nicholas T. Sheley was arrested outside a bar in southwestern Illinois after a multistate manhunt, he appeared via a video feed from jail in Madison County Court. He’s charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery and vehicular hijacking he faces in Knox County in the beating death of 65-year-old Ronald Randall. Randall’s body was found Monday behind a grocery store in Galesburg.

Authorities believe Sheley, 28, killed seven other people in the past week, including a 93-year-old man from Sheley’s hometown, Sterling, whose body was found stuffed in the trunk of a car last Thursday; two men, a woman and 2-year-old child, whose remains were discovered Monday in an apartment in nearby Rock Falls; and a couple whose bodies were found Monday behind a gas station in a Missouri suburb of St. Louis.

Guilty of wife’s murder

WOBURN, Mass. — A former Missouri radio reporter was convicted Wednesday of killing his wife by poisoning her Gatorade with antifreeze and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A Middlesex Superior Court jury deliberated for less than two days before convicting James Keown of first-degree murder in the death of his 31-year-old wife, Julie.

Prosecutors said Keown slowly poisoned his wife over several months and gave her a fatal dose on Sept. 4, 2004, because he was deeply in debt and wanted to cash in her $250,000 life insurance policy. Julie Keown slipped into a coma and died four days later.

Associated Press