London

12-year-old disappears with discharged Marine

A 12-year-old English girl has disappeared with a 31-year-old American she is believed to have met through the Internet, police said Monday.

Toby Studabaker, who was discharged from the U.S. Marines two weeks ago, had been traced as far as Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris. Police said he was with Shevaun Pennington.

In the United States, a sister-in-law of Studabaker said he flew Friday to Britain to meet a 19-year-old he had been e-mailing, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette in Michigan.

A U.S. Marine spokesman at Camp Lejeune, N.C., said Studabaker, of Constantine, Mich., had just completed a four-year enlistment during which he received a Good Conduct Medal.

He had been a lance corporal with an anti-terrorism unit in Afghanistan.

The police, in Manchester, northern England, said Shevaun’s parents reported her missing and that she had not been seen since Saturday.

Chicago

Study: Obesity boosts Alzheimer’s risk

A study published Monday found that overweight women may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s — the latest report to link the disease to vascular factors such as hypertension and diabetes.

Researchers found “a striking relationship” between being overweight at age 70 and developing the mind-robbing dementia 10 to 18 years later.

The researchers said their report supported others that suggested vascular factors played a role in the cause of Alzheimer’s.

The study, published in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at the relationship between dementia and body-mass index, or BMI — a height-to-weight ratio. It included 392 Swedish women and men who were followed from age 70 to 88 as part of a geriatric population study in Sweden.

The connection between large body size and dementia was found only in women.

Spain

American gored during final bull run

An American and a Spanish runner were gored and at least four other people were hospitalized Monday after the eighth and final running of the bulls at Pamplona’s San Fermin festival.

The American, identified as Robert Fluhr, 27, of Arkansas, was gored in the buttock. He was hospitalized in one of Pamplona’s main hospitals and underwent surgery. Jose Lorente Garcera, a 30-year-old from Valencia, was gored in the right leg. Both were in serious condition, according to hospital staff.

At least four other runners were hospitalized after being trampled by the bulls.

Phoenix

Wildfire drives hundreds to evacuate reservation

A rampaging 5,800-acre wildfire prompted the evacuation Monday of hundreds of people on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona, authorities said.

An Indian Health Service hospital was among the buildings evacuated. Only a crew of eight was left to staff an emergency room. Officials said as many as 5,000 evacuations were possible.

The evacuation was ordered Monday afternoon after the blaze crossed a trigger point near two subdivisions five miles north of Whiteriver, said Chadeen Palmer, a spokeswoman for the crew fighting the fire.

The fire was burning out of control Monday evening. It had been sparked by lightning Sunday in juniper and ponderosa pines east of an area burned by last summer’s huge Rodeo-Chediski fire.