Washington, D.C.

McClellan to become White House spokesman

Scott McClellan, the No. 2 spokesman at the White House and a longtime loyalist to President Bush, will succeed Ari Fleischer as White House press secretary, administration officials said.

McClellan, 35, will oversee a communications team of about a dozen people and will move into the spacious West Wing office of Fleischer, who is leaving to spend more time with his wife after two decades in public life.

The next press secretary dates back about a decade with Bush, whom he first met while working on campaigns for his mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn.

Tennessee

Man faked abduction in Great Smokies

An elderly man who feigned amnesia when hikers found him in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park fabricated his story to cover his tracks in a child custody scheme, authorities said Friday.

Jack Bowles, 76, of Princeton, W.Va., had not been charged Friday and was not in custody, but the park’s Chief Ranger Jim Northup said authorities expected to charge him with providing false information.

The federal charge carries penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Hikers spotted Bowles on June 12 crawling up an embankment off a trail about 35 miles south of Knoxville. He was dragging a sleeping bag, a pillow and a few personal belongings. He had no food or water. The hikers called rangers for help.

Fatigued and dehydrated, Bowles told authorities he did not know his name or where he lived. He said he thought he had been abducted, driven in a vehicle for three or four hours, and left at the trail.

Vermont

Candidate’s son involved in burglary

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Friday that his 17-year-old son and four other teenagers were cited in a burglary for attempting to steal liquor from a Vermont country club.

Dean, who canceled several campaign appearances, said his son, Paul, and teammates on the high school hockey team apparently were discovered early Friday at the Burlington Country Club by a police officer on routine patrol. Dean said it was his understanding that his son would be charged as an accessory.

“Children do stupid things and this is one of them,” Dean said in a telephone interview from a Minnesota airport where he was awaiting a flight back to Vermont.

Art Cyr, a detective in Burlington, said the incident occurred between 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m. Friday.

St. Louis

Group offers forum for priests’ victims

The first national assembly of an organization devoted to victims of abusive Roman Catholic priests opened Friday as the nation’s bishops met across town to discuss a dramatic proposal to deal with problems in the church.

David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told 185 members that the meeting would “give the strength and the skills to go out and keep doing what we’ve been doing for years, which is to save lives.”

Meanwhile, bishops met in closed-door sessions to discuss calling a special nationwide church council, the first since 1884. But no decision will be made until next year.