US trial begins over diaries of Chairman Mao's secretary

FILE - A combo photo shows Li Rui, a former secretary to communist China's founder Mao Zedong, talking about his former boss during an interview in Beijing, Sept. 5, 2006.

A trial got underway this week in Oakland, California, to decide the ownership of diaries written by Li Rui, a former secretary to communist China's founder Mao Zedong, who became a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party.