Washington, D.C.: National Geographic finds Afghan ‘cover’ girl

Nearly 18 years ago, an Afghan girl orphaned and living in a refugee camp appeared on the cover of National Geographic, her eyes big and green, a red scarf draped loosely over her hair.

Now, the magazine says it has tracked down the subject of that famous photo, a wife and mother living in a remote part of Afghanistan, and will once again feature her in its April issue focusing on the plight of refugees.

The girl, whose parents had been killed by bombing during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, was photographed in 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan by Steve McCurry.

Sharbat Gula married shortly after the picture was taken and has had four girls, one of whom died as an infant. A Pashtun, she had never seen her famous photo, the magazine said.

The original photograph also was on the cover of a best-selling special edition that National Geographic published last fall of its 100 best photographs over the years.

Georgia: Britain’s pleas ignored; rapist, killer executed

Ignoring pleas from Great Britain, Georgia executed a dual British-American citizen Tuesday night for raping and murdering a woman 17 years ago.

Tracy Lee Housel was executed by lethal injection in Jackson.

Housel, who was born in the British territory of Bermuda, admitted picking up Jean Drew, 46, at a suburban Atlanta truck stop in 1985, then raping her and bashing her head.

During his sentencing hearing, Housel also admitted beating a Texas truck driver to death with a hammer and stabbing an Iowa man.

The execution drew intense media interest in Great Britain, which abandoned capital punishment 40 years ago.

Prime Minister Tony Blair had asked Georgia’s parole board to commute Housel’s sentence to life in prison. The Law Society, representing lawyers in England and Wales, also wrote to the parole board, and members of the British Parliament signed a motion calling for Housel’s sentence to be commuted.

Ohio: Hole discovered in nuclear reactor

An acid leak inside a nuclear power plant ate a hole 6 inches deep into a steel cap that covers the plant’s reactor vessel, federal inspectors said.

The hole, which was stopped by a layer impervious to the acid, does not pose a safety threat, said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Jan Strasma.

If the acid had penetrated the massive cap and allowed steam to escape, safety systems would have immediately cooled the reactor, he said. And while the steam would contain some radioactive material, it would have been confined by the reactor containment building. Even if steam had escaped from the building, there would have been no danger to the public, Strasma said.

“There was no hazard,” Strasma said Tuesday. “It’s certainly very unusual. It’s a deterioration of a very important safety feature.”