Sergeant Gene Arden Vance was a newlywed preparing for his honeymoon when his National Guard unit was called up for duty after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A Canadian soldier was slightly injured in southern Afghanistan when the vehicle he was travelling in struck an anti-personnel mine, a US military spokesman said today.

A father-and-son swimming pair made it almost all the way across the Channel but ended the effort a few miles short of the coastline of France.