AP - The plan was nothing if not audacious: A turncoat persuades rebels to bring together their most prized hostages and march them 90 miles through Colombia's wilderness. A month later, disguised commandos primed with acting lessons land in a helicopter and trick the rebels into handing them over.
AP - A meal was rice and beans. Bed was the ground under a patched plastic tarp. They bathed in rivers, and when they weren't chained by the neck to trees, they were forced on long marches to new hideouts under the jungle canopy.
Reuters - U.S. employers cut workers for a
sixth straight month in June for the longest such streak since
2002 and the country's vast service sector unexpectedly
contracted, underscoring the economy's frailty.
Reuters - Phillip Bennett, the former chief
executive of Refco, was sentenced to 16 years in prison on
Thursday for fleecing investors of more than $2.4 billion in a
fraud that destroyed the world's largest independent
commodities broker.
AP - Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.
