Vietnam flag honors Saigon fall

May 1, 2006

To commemorate the 31st anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese American Community of Massachusetts raised the Vietnamese flag yesterday at several locations throughout Boston, including City Hall and the Dorchester Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Morrissey Boulevard. Veterans and Vietnamese residents gathered at the granite memorial on the campus of UMass Boston, where several individuals were dressed in yellow and red, the colors of the Vietnamese flag. The ceremony also marked the 20th anniversary for the organization.

Police are trying to identify a dead body found early yesterday at 170 Morton St. in Jamaica Plain. About 6:24 a.m., police received a 911 call about the body. Officer John Boyle, spokesman for the Boston Police Department, said he did not know the body's gender or how long the corpse had been there. ''A found body is naturally suspicious," he said. ''An autopsy will reveal the cause of death." The location, a wooded area near a small body of water around Franklin Park, was cordoned off yesterday afternoon with yellow police tape.

DOVER, N.H.

In another letter from jail, Sheila LaBarre said she felt ''badgered, intimidated and terrified" by police searching her property for the remains of a Massachusetts man she's accused of killing and incinerating. Police who searched LaBarre's isolated Epping ranch on March 25 say that when they asked about Kenneth Countie, she pointed to a Wal-Mart bag near a burn pile. ''He's in that bag," she said, according to court documents. In an April 9 letter from Strafford County Jail to an Eagle-Tribune reporter, she complained that police didn't produce a warrant to be on her property and said investigators were not portraying her correctly in the media. LaBarre's letter, written a week after she was arrested in Revere, Mass., on a charge of first-degree murder in Countie's death, doesn't directly mention Countie, 24. LaBarre plans to plead not guilty when her case reaches superior court. (AP)

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.

A Middlebury College student is being investigated on allegations of sexual assault. The male student is accused of sexually assaulting two female students on separate occasions the night of March 31, police said. The student has not been charged. The alleged assaults took place at a social house on South Main Street, police said. ''On hearing reports of unacceptable and potentially unlawful behavior at a social house party, the college launched an immediate and intensive investigation, which is ongoing," Middlebury College President Ronald D. Liebowitz said in statement. (AP)

MASSACHUSETTS

Dry conditions were blamed for brush fires that broke out all over the state this weekend, the National Weather Service in Taunton said. Today will mark the sixth day without rain. On Saturday, fire crews in Attleboro worked to contain a 36-acre brush fire.

AYER

A Marine sergeant from Braintree was awarded the Silver Star Saturday for heroism in Iraq, the US Marine Corps reported. Timothy J. Connors, 23, earned the medal for recovering the body of a fallen Marine, Travis Desiato of Bedford, after his platoon came under attack in Fallujah in November 2004. The Silver Star is the country's third-highest award for valor in combat. Connors was awarded the medal during a ceremony at Devens Saturday, the US Marine Corps reported.