Kim Jong Il’s body to be displayed

Kim Jong Il’s body to be displayed

SEOUL, South Korea

North Korea says late leader Kim Jong Il’s body will be permanently laid in state in a memorial palace in the capital.

Kim’s body will be displayed at Pyongyang’s Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where his father and North Korea founder Kim Il Sung’s embalmed body has been lying since his death in 1994.

Kim Jong Il’s son and successor, Kim Jong Un, has been solidifying power since his father died of a heart attack Dec. 17.

The official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday that North Korea also will erect a statue of Kim Jong Il, set up portraits of a smiling Kim and build “towers to his immortality” across the country.

The North says Kim’s Feb. 16 birthday will be a “Day of the Shining Star” in an apparent reference to past rocket launches.

Man who took cruiser still gone

INDIANAPOLIS

A handcuffed drug suspect who stole and wrecked a police cruiser in northwest Indiana is still on the loose, but he did not take any loaded weapons from the car, authorities said Wednesday.

William Francis Blankenship stole the car Tuesday from a local officer in the Porter County town of Kouts.

Police found the town cruiser Wednesday morning “wrecked and submerged in water” in a drainage ditch in nearby LaPorte County, but Blankenship, 22, of Knox, was no longer with the vehicle, LaFlower said. Police say no other vehicles were involved and they are investigating how the cruiser got there.

LaFlower said loaded weapons — a handgun, shotgun and a rifle — that had been left in the vehicle were still there when the wreck was discovered.

Associated Press