American detained in North Korea

American detained in North Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea

North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week.

The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. News reports in the U.S. and South Korea said Pae is known in his home state of Washington as Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old tour operator of Korean descent.

An expert said he is likely to become a bargaining chip for the North, an attempt to draw the U.S. into talks. Five other Americans known to have been detained in North Korea since 2009 were all eventually released.

3 charged in deadly Indiana explosion

INDIANAPOLIS

Three people charged in a gas explosion that devastated an Indianapolis neighborhood deliberately set up the deadly blast to collect a big insurance payout, authorities said Friday.

The home’s owner, Monserrate Shirley; her boyfriend, Mark Leonard; and his brother, Bob Leonard, were arrested Friday and charged with murder, arson and other counts in the Nov. 10 blast that killed two people.

Shirley, 47, was facing mounting financial woes, including $63,000 in credit- card debt and worsening bankruptcy proceedings, court documents say. And a friend of Mark Leonard’s told investigators Leonard said he had “lost a ton of money” — about $10,000 — at a casino some three weeks before the explosion.

Court blocks Calif. gay-therapy ban

SAN FRANCISCO

A federal appeals court has put the brakes on a first-of-its-kind California law that bans therapy that aims to turn gay minors straight.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency order Friday putting the law on hold until it can hear full arguments on the issue. The law was set to take effect Jan. 1.

Licensed counselors who practice so-called “reparative therapy” and two families who say their teenage sons have benefited from it sought the injunction after a lower-court judge refused the request.

Obamas in Hawaii

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama and his family are spending the Christmas holidays in Hawaii, where the president was born and raised.

The first family left Washington aboard Air Force One on Friday night. They are to arrive in Honolulu early today.

White House officials say the president’s vacation itinerary doesn’t include any scheduled public events.

Obama and his family traditionally spend the end-of-year holidays in Hawaii.

UN personnel die in Darfur, S. Sudan

UNITED NATIONS

Four peacekeepers were killed and one injured in Darfur when one of the peacekeepers serving with the joint U.N.-African Union force opened fire at his fellow peacekeepers, the United Nations said Friday.

Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force, said the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, is investigating the shooting.

Also Friday, the UN said South Sudan’s armed forces shot down a U.N. helicopter killing all four Russian crew members on board, an attack South Sudan’s military spokesman blamed rebel fighters.

Associated Press