Army Colonel Slain at Beauty Pageant

Gunmen assassinated an off-duty Colombian army colonel as he watched a children’s beauty contest with his wife and 10-year-old daughter, officials said. Two men walked into the event Saturday night in Rivera, a small town in southern Huila state, shot Col. Oscar Trujillo twice in the head, then fled on a motorcycle. Huila has been the scene of fierce attacks in recent days by Colombia’s largest leftist insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Trujillo headed a battalion in a violent banana-growing region teeming with leftist rebels and rival rightist paramilitary groups.