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A key North Korean military official arrived in Beijing on Wednesday as a “special envoy” of leader Kim Jong Un, state-run media reported. The trip comes amid new signs of strain between the traditional allies.
Choe Ryong Hae, who holds several top Workers’ Party positions and serves as vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army, met with Wang Jiarui, a senior official of the Chinese Communist Party, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang provided details of the meeting or indicated the length Choe’s stay.Choe’s visit marks the first trip to China by a high-level North Korean since last August and could signal an attempted detente after the North spent months stoking tensions in the region — and frustrating China.

The North ignored China’s warnings not to carry out a February nuclear test. More recently, it seized the crew of a Chinese fishing boat, holding them for more than two weeks while trying to extract a ransom.

A key North Korean military official arrived in Beijing on Wednesday as a “special envoy” of leader Kim Jong Un, state-run media reported. The trip comes amid new signs of strain between the traditional allies.

Choe Ryong Hae, who holds several top Workers’ Party positions and serves as vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army, met with Wang Jiarui, a senior official of the Chinese Communist Party, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang provided details of the meeting or indicated the length Choe’s stay.

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Armed North Koreans are holding a Chinese fishing boat and its crew ransom despite the protestation of Chinese officials, the boat’s owner said Monday.

The boat’s seizure — which occurred in early May, but was only revealed by Chinese officials Sunday night — is the latest dust-up between North Korea and China, which Pyongyang has long relied on to prop up its economy and defend it from international censure efforts by the United States and others.The vessel’s owner, Yu Xuejun, was not on board when the boat was seized. He has posted increasingly desperate messages about the situation on his microblog in the past two days. In the latest post Monday morning, Yu described a call he received from North Koreans, who demanded ransom and then handed the phone to his boat’s captain.

“His voice was trembling. I could feel he was very afraid,” Yu wrote about his captain. “I suspected that my crew has been mistreated. I can’t imagine what North Korea side could do.”

Chinese officials at the embassy in Pyongyang have asked North Korea to release the vessel and crew and ensure their safety, China said in a statement posted late Sunday on the Foreign Ministry’s official microblog. The statement was the first public acknowledgment by China that the boat had been taken.

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Veterans of the World War II-era aircraft carrier USS Franklin held their final planned reunion Friday in South Carolina.
The gathering, held at the USS Yorktown at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant brought together about two dozen of the remaining crew members.
The Franklin was badly damaged in a Japanese attack on March 19, 1945. During the bomb attack, more than 800 sailors were killed and almost 500 were wounded.
Most of the survivors in attendance at Friday's reunion said they never saw the single Japanese plane come in and had no choice but to jump blindly into the sea, The Post and Courier reported.
"I was gasping for breath because of the fumes," David Baruch, 86, a gunner's mate on the carrier, told the newspaper. "I don’t know how much longer I could continue breathing. So I jumped."
Bill Schauer, 86, who was on the third deck on the morning of the attack survived because he was below the worst of the fire that engulfed the deck above him, according to The Post and Courier report.
"We were thrown all over," Schauer told the paper, recounting his escape through air vents and tunnels. Hundreds of other crew members were trapped on lower decks.
One of the members of the crew was Lt. Cmdr. Joseph O' Callahan, who later received the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He was the only chaplain to receive the Medal of Honor during the war.
After the war, the Franklin was decommissioned and later sold for scrap.

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A 75-year-old resident of a New Jersey senior citizen housing complex is suspected of running a prostitution ring that employed some elderly residents as sex workers, NBC 4 New York has learned.
The suspect, James Parham, 75, was also accused, along with Cheryl Chaney, 66, of allowing residents and visitors to use crack in their apartments, police said.

Both are charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a nuisance, and Chaney is also charged with possession of crack cocaine.

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A behavioral specialist for Harford County Public Schools has been indicted.According to [COLOR=#009900 !important]court records and photographic evidence, a grand jury indicted Stephanie Mikles with “unnatural or perverted sexual practice.”[/COLOR]
The indictment goes on to state that Mikles had “sexual intercourse with a dog,”according to ABC2News.
The incident happened in August 2008, say police, but in the state of Maryland there is no statute of limitations for these types of charges.
The animal reportedly still lives with the family at their residence in the Jarrettsville area.
Mikles has been placed on administrative leave without pay while the investigation wears on.
Investigators say a separate investigation by the child advocacy center helped them make this stunning discovery.

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Victory Day^[1] or 9 May marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War (also known as theGreat Patriotic War in the Soviet Union). It was first inaugurated in the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, following the signing of the surrender document late in the evening on 8 May 1945 (after midnight, thus on 9 May, by Moscow Time). The Soviet government announced the victory early on 9 May after the signing ceremony in Berlin.^[2] Though the official inauguration happened in 1945 (which means it has been celebrated since 1946), the holiday became a non-labour day only in 1965 and only in some of the countries.
In the former Soviet Union this festival was celebrated to commemorate the Red Army's victory over the Nazi forces.

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