(Continued from page 28)

recognize himself in the prosecutors' reconstruction of his interrogation.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- When conspiracists suggested Friday that the Obama administration had engineered a sharp drop in unemployment to aid President Barack Obama's re-election, the response was swift.
• Career government officials, economists and even some Mitt Romney supporters issued a collective sigh.
• The staffers who compute the U.S. unemployment rate work in an agency of the Labor Department. Officials who have overseen the work say it's prepared under tight security with no White House input or supervision.
• "To think that these numbers could be manipulated. ... It's impossible to do it and get away with it," said Keith Hall, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that calculates the unemployment rate.
• "These numbers are very trustworthy," said Hall, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and whose four-year term ended in January.
• ___

• SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A North Korean soldier killed two of his officers Saturday and defected to South Korea across the countries' heavily armed border in a rare crossing that prompted South Korean troops to immediately beef up their border patrol, officials said.
• The soldier shot his platoon and company commanders before crossing the western side of the Demilitarized Zone at around noon, a Defense Ministry official said, citing the soldier's statement after he was taken into custody by South Korean border guards.
• The official declined to be named because questioning by authorities was ongoing. He said the soldier used a loudspeaker to let South Korean border guards know his intention to defect after the killings. The official said the motive behind the defection was unclear.
• No unusual military movement was detected from the North Korean side of the border after the crossing, but South Korea immediately instructed its border troops

(Continued on page 30)