HANOI, Vietnam -- It's a nice time to be in Hanoi. The climate is warm, but not oppressively hot. For the most part the heavy rains have passed. The city still sparkles from its recent 1000th anniversary celebrations. The commemorative lights and banners still hang along main thoroughfares around the city.

HANOI, Vietnam - I met Nick Ut for the first time after emerging from Customs at the Hanoi Airport. Nick had arrived a couple of hours earlier from Los Angeles and stuck around with our driver Minh from the Vietnam Veterans Association Foundation, until I arrived.

My former San Francisco Examiner colleague, photographer Kim Komenich, made news from a different angle yesterday - in front of the camera, a bank camera.

From the Chronicle:

On Monday, as Komenich was at a Wells Fargo Bank in downtown San Jose, he saw a teller being robbed and the suspect reaching for his pockets. Komenich walked up behind the suspect and held him in a bear hug until police arrived.

"Between classes, I go out there and do what I can do to make the world a little better for people," Komenich, 53, of Mill Valley quipped.

Kim and I worked together on a young people's book, Success of Gordon H. Chong + Associates, years ago. He is now an assistant professor of new media at San Jose State University. He was awarded the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography for photographs of the Philippine Revolution he made while on assignment for the Examiner.

(photo from San Jose Police Department via SF Chronicle)

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