Washington, D.C.

Pentagon releases ’72 Guard records

Newly discovered payroll records from President Bush’s 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard shed no new light on the future president’s activities during that summer.

A Pentagon official said Friday the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an inadvertent oversight.

Like records disclosed earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those months.

The records do not give any new information about Bush’s National Guard training during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend.

Salt Lake City

Missing jogger’s family withdrawing from media

The family of a missing pregnant woman said Sunday they were clinging to diminishing hopes of finding her alive and appointed a spokesman after a week of nearly constant media coverage.

“We are all exhausted, and we feel we need to concentrate our efforts and our energies on finding Lori,” said Thelma Soares, Lori Hacking’s mother.

The family had been having as many as two news conferences a day since the 27-year-old woman was reported missing a week ago. But they have been more reluctant to face reporters since questions arose about the credibility of Hacking’s husband, Mark.

A clump of brown hair was found Saturday in a trash bin at a gas station less than a block from the store where Mark Hacking bought a mattress before reporting his wife missing last Monday. But police say they don’t know whether the hair was Lori’s.

Cleveland

Hanging chads trial to begin today

Four years after Florida’s hanging chads captivated a nation and less than 100 days before what could be another tight presidential race, this swing state’s punch-card voting system is being challenged in court.

The trial, set to begin today, is the first in the nation, voting experts say. Lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against several other states have been settled with agreements that punch-card ballots will be replaced.

But even a victory by the ACLU in Ohio would be unlikely to bring change before this year’s presidential election because there would be too little time to make a conversion, experts said.

The ACLU wants all punch-card ballots in the state removed before November, saying the system was antiquated and caused errors that lead to undercounting of minority group votes.

Turkey

Train collision kills at least 15

A passenger train slammed into a minibus rushing to cross its tracks Sunday in western Turkey, killing at least 15 people and injuring four, just days after the deadly derailment of a Turkish express train.

The minibus, carrying 19 passengers returning from a wedding party, was trying to cross the lines before the barriers came down, a railroad official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. No injuries were reported among some 200 train passengers.

The crash further highlighted concerns about the safety of the country’s aging railway after the derailment Thursday of a new, high-speed train about halfway through its trip from Istanbul to Ankara. The crash killed 37 people.