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World in brief

U.S. teen missing in Brazil

By wire services
Published November 10, 2005

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 17-year-old American exchange student missing in Brazil was seen trying to hitchhike to the capital the day she disappeared, Brazilian authorities said Wednesday.

Mykensie Martin, a senior at Summit High School in Bend, Ore., was reported missing Sunday, said Kreg and Judy Roth of the Rotary Youth Exchange Program in Bend.

A witness saw the girl Sunday evening on the side of a highway leading to Brasilia from the town of Unai, about 80 miles from the capital, said Unai police Detective Celso Avila Prado.

Martin told the witness she was on her way to an event sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brasilia and did not have enough money for a bus ticket, Prado said.

The Roths said Martin left her host city of Carmo do Paranaiba early Sunday to travel 38 miles by bus to Patos de Minas, where she attends a Mormon church.

The FBI is working with its office in Brazil, as well as family members and the sheriff's office in Oregon, said FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele in Portland.

The teen left Oregon in July for a yearlong stay in Brazil.

HONG KONG - A Boeing Co. jet took off Wednesday from Hong Kong to try breaking the record for the longest nonstop flight by a commercial jet - a trip that involves flying over the Pacific Ocean and North America before landing in London.

"We plan to smash the current record," said Captain Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, one of the four pilots of the 777-200LR Worldliner, one of Boeing's newest planes.

The flight was expected to take about 23 hours and cover more than 12,586 miles, a Boeing statement said.

MONROVIA, Liberia - Liberia's top female politician took a strong early lead Wednesday in a presidential runoff as her millionaire soccer star opponent charged the vote was fraudulent, clouding elections that had raised hopes for peace in the war-ravaged country.

Harvard-educated Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf had 56.4 percent of Tuesday's vote with results in from 59 percent of polling stations across the country, the head of the National Election Commission said. George Weah had 43.6 percent.

[Last modified November 10, 2005, 01:22:04]