Around the Nation

14-pound girl born in Kentucky

CORBIN, Ky. — A baby girl weighing a whopping 14 pounds, 3 ounces was born here, officials from the Baptist Regional Medical Center said.

The baby was born Tuesday by Caesarean section and appeared healthy, nursing supervisor Susan Whittymore said.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, less than 1 percent of babies weigh more than 11 pounds at birth.

The child went home Friday, Miss Whittymore said. No other details were available.

Last month, a 13-pound, 12-ounce girl was born in Wisconsin to Paul and Robin Buzzell. They dubbed their newborn “the Big Enchilada.”

Marine asks to be shot to avoid Iraq

CHICAGO — A young Marine who feared returning to Iraq persuaded his cousin to shoot him in the leg, then told police he was hit by random gang gunfire, authorities said.

The July 9 shooting was meant to keep 19-year-old Moises Hernandez from going back to Iraq, prosecutors said. He was charged with filing a false police report. His cousin, Juan Hernandez, 19, faces a felony weapons charge.

Moises Hernandez is back with his unit at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the Marines are investigating the incident. His unit had returned June 5 from a six-month deployment that included a month in Iraq.

The young man’s father, Ray Hernandez, said his son also had been sent to Indonesia after the devastating tsunami in December. The father said his son had seen death up close and was troubled by nightmares when he returned home.

“Whatever he experienced changed him totally,” the senior Hernandez said.

Soldier buried 55 years after his death

SCHERERVILLE, Ind. — Pfc. Lowell Wayne Bellar was just 19 when he died a half-century ago during a battle in North Korea. On Friday, nearly 200 people gathered to finally give him a proper burial on what would have been his 74th birthday.

Pfc. Bellar was killed on Dec. 1, 1950, when U.S. troops were surprised by a Chinese army assault near North Korea’s Chosin Reservoir. The troops were forced to withdraw under fire, leaving behind many who had been hurriedly buried in shallow graves.

In 2001, officials notified Pfc. Bellar’s family that a joint Korean-American team had found remains believed to be his. A DNA test proved it.

A horse-drawn caisson carried Pfc. Bellar’s flag-draped casket a half-mile to his final resting place, where bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.” A 21-gun salute followed, and three doves symbolizing peace were released in his honor.

Former Klan leader claims self-defense

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan took the stand at a public hearing yesterday and said those who fired on people at a “Death to the Klan” march more than 25 years ago did so in self-defense. Five persons were killed at the Nov. 3, 1979, rally.

“To tell the truth, if you look at the evidence and see what happened, it was all self-defense,” said Gorrell Pierce, who said he was Christmas shopping in Winston-Salem on the day of the shootings. “Everybody was participating in a riot.”

Mr. Pierce, a former grand dragon of the Federated Knights of the KKK, spoke at a public hearing held by the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an effort modeled on similar commissions in South Africa and Peru.

The commission is investigating the deaths at the march organized by the Communist Workers Party that ended when members of the Klan and the American Nazi Party opened fire. The commission is meeting without the support of city leaders in Greensboro, and it has no authority to pursue criminal or civil claims or grant immunity from them.

Several klansmen were acquitted of murder charges at a state trial in 1984. A civil trial did find the Klan, the American Nazi Party and the Greensboro Police Department jointly liable for the wrongful deaths of the five persons killed. The city paid $350,000.