The Associated Press reports:

Colombia said its military rescued former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three U.S. military contractors and 11 other hostages from leftist rebels, who had been held for years, on Wednesday ...

Army commandos captured rebels manning a security ring around the hostages and got them to persuade their comrades to turn over the captives, without any loss of life ...

The other 11 hostages freed were Colombian soldiers and police.

The family of one hostage, Keith Stansell, lives in my hometown of Bradenton, Fla.

Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes have been held since February 13, 2003, when their single-engine plane crashed in mountains south of Bogota, according to CNN.

Betancourt had been held since 2002.

The freed hostages were taken to a military base.

This is, obviously, huge news. Unfortunately, neither the Bradenton Herald (a McClatchy paper) nor the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (a NY Times Co. product) has anything about it—reaction from families or even a note that it’s happened—on their respective web sites.

Also unfortunately, that’s not surprising.

I’d link you to their papers, but I don’t want to waste your time. Instead, you can read this story from the (Poynter Institute-owned) St. Petersburg Times . It was written last year when one hostage escaped from FARC and provided the first confirmation since 2003 that Stansell and the others were alive.