Beijing

2 SARS cases confirmed

China confirmed two more cases of SARS on Saturday as millions of people hit the roads during the country’s peak travel season, risking a spread of the respiratory disease.

The pair, a 20-year-old waitress and 35-year-old businessman, had already been identified as suspected SARS patients. After extensive tests, the Chinese Health Ministry reported that it now believes they indeed suffer from severe acute respiratory syndrome, the virus that last year sickened more than 8,000 people around the world, killing 774 of them.

Both patients come from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where the disease first appeared last year. The waitress, whose last name is Zhang, works in a restaurant that serves wild game, which the World Health Organization now believes is a possible source of the infection.

San Diego

Suspect pleads guilty to false 9-11 claims

A 53-year-old unemployed man has pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud for bilking charities out of $135,500 by falsely claiming his wife was killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Terry James Smith is in federal prison in San Diego awaiting sentencing April 7 by District Court Judge Napoleon Jones.

Smith faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

“The defendant is paying a just price for having committed a despicable, opportunistic crime,” U.S. Atty. Carol Lam said Friday after Smith pleaded guilty.

In determining Smith’s sentence, Jones also will consider evidence that he bilked the Veterans Administration out of $19,034 for injuries allegedly incurred during Army service in Vietnam.

South Korea

U.S. to pull out of Seoul

In a deployment viewed by many South Koreans as an end to the symbolic occupation of their capital, the United States will move all but about 50 of its 7,000 military personnel out of Seoul by the end of 2007, U.S. and South Korean officials said Saturday.

The agreement was announced after talks on modernizing the U.S.-South Korean military alliance late Friday in Hawaii. The troops have been headquartered at the historic Yongsan garrison in the center of Seoul since the 1950s. Their new home will be in a less intrusive location in Pyeongtaek, 36 miles south of Seoul.

Jerusalem

U.S. warns Palestinians to find bombing suspects

U.S. officials are pressing the Palestinians to find those behind a deadly bomb attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy three months ago, and warn that lack of progress may harm American aid programs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a Palestinian Cabinet minister said Saturday.

A senior Palestinian security official involved in the investigation said no substantial leads have emerged.

Travel of U.S. officials to the West Bank and Gaza has been suspended since the bombing, an unprecedented attack on Americans in Palestinian areas since the outbreak of fighting more than three years ago.