A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was born in Latvia has died during combat in Iraq. Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, was based at Fort Campbell, Ky., military and media reports said.

Tarlavsky died Aug. 12 in Najaf, Iraq, when his unit came under small arms fire and grenade attack, the Department of Defense said in a press release. He served with the 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell.

Tarlavsky’s family emigrated from Latvia when he was five years old. In 1979 they settled in Clifton, N.J., the Bergen County Record reported, quoting family members.

Tarlavsky graduated from Rutgers University in 1996. He served in Korea and Hawaii before being assigned to Iraq. He was married two years ago and had a young son.

A plan for a monument to honor Latvian Displaced Persons who once lived in the Senatobia, Miss., area has been granted an initial approval by the board of aldermen, according to The Democrat, a local newspaper.

City officials Aug. 3 gave local resident Gale Cushman approval to research the cost of a marker to be erected in Bethesda Cemetery, where a number of Latvians are buried, the newspaper reported.

Senatobia is in northern Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tenn.

Although the Latvian community of Senatobia is all but forgotten today, it once was large enough to support a church and a local newsletter, according to historical records reviewed by Latvians Online.

The Senatobia Christian Church, once known as the Senatobia Latvian Lutheran Church, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The Latvian church published a newsletter, Ziņu biļetens, from 1949-1953, according to Benjamiņš Jēgers’ Latviešu trimdas izdevumu bibliografija, 1940-1960.

Latvian athlete and former University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Ineta Radēviča will appear in Playboy magazine’s “Women of the Olympics” feature. Radēviča will be one of eight athletes pictured nude in the September issue, which is to be published this week.

Playboy Senior Contributing Photographer Arny Freytag selected the models who appear in the layout, the magazine said in an Aug. 9 press release.

“This pictorial is different and fun and really shows natural and physical beauty,” Freytag said in a prepared statement.

The 23-year-old Radēviča, who is married to athlete Viktors Lācis, will represent Latvia in the long jump and triple jump.

Radēviča told the newspaper Neatkarīga Rīta Avīze that she was convinced the photographs would not be compromising.

“Their goal is to show that a female athlete can also be a woman,” she said. “…Even in track and field it is possible to maintain feminity, and I think these photographs will prove that.”

The photo session took place in a desert outside Las Vegas, Nevada.