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MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana newlywed pleaded guilty Thursday to killing her husband of eight days by pushing him from a cliff in Glacier National Park while they argued about her second thoughts about the marriage.

The surprise plea agreement with prosecutors came just before closing arguments were set to begin in the trial of Jordan Graham, 22.

In exchange for the guilty plea to second-degree murder, prosecutors agreed to drop a first-degree murder charge and a count of making a false statement to authorities.

Graham could face a maximum sentence of life in prison when she is sentenced on March 27.

In accepting the plea, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy told Graham to recount exactly what happened the night of July 7 when her husband Cody Johnson, 25, fell to his death in the park.

Graham said she decided to confront Johnson about her doubts and she did not know how he would take it. They climbed down a treacherous slope below a popular spot in the park called The Loop and spoke on a narrow ledge hundreds of feet above a ravine.

She told Johnson that she wasn't happy and wasn't feeling like she should after getting married. They argued, and at one point, she said, he grabbed her by the arm and she thought he was going to pull her.

She told the judge she got angry at Johnson, brushed his hand away then pushed him, with one hand on his arm and one on his back.

"I wasn't thinking about where we were. ... I just pushed," Graham told the judge.

She said she then drove back to her home in Kalispell without calling for help because she was so afraid she did not know what to do.

Graham's mother, Lindy Rutledge, buried her head in her husband's jacket sleeve as the judge questioned her daughter.

U.S. marshals then led away Graham in handcuffs.

Afterward, federal public defender Michael Donahoe said prosecutors had proposed the plea agreement.

It was Graham's choice to accept it, he said.

Prosecutors referred questions to U.S. Attorney Mike Cotter, who declined to comment before Graham's sentencing.

Johnson was reported missing on July 8 when he failed to show up for work.

Graham initially told investigators that Johnson left their house late July 7 with unidentified friends in a dark-colored car with Washington state license plates. Friends of Johnson testified they were suspicious of the story and suspected Graham played a role in his disappearance.

Graham showed police a fabricated email purportedly from a friend of Johnson that said Johnson was dead and to call off the search. The next day, she told Glacier park rangers she found Johnson's body near The Loop because it was a place he wanted to see before he died.

She finally acknowledged that she was with Johnson on the cliff after investigators confronted her with a security camera photo of the couple entering the park.

Prosecutors presented jurors with dozens of text messages between Graham and her friend from church, Kimberly Martinez, that documented how Graham's nervous excitement at the prospect of the wedding turned into despair over the week that followed.

Graham's attorneys said her doubts about her marriage did not mean that she would intentionally harm him.

They attempted to chip away at the prosecution's image of Graham as a cold, dispassionate woman who didn't want to marry Johnson, and their contention that she led him to a dangerous precipice in the Montana park and deliberately pushed him to his death.

They showed the jurors pictures and videos of Graham smiling as she had her hair done and tried on her borrowed wedding dress, then videos of the June 29 wedding and the couple's first dance.

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — French troops backed by a helicopter traded fire with suspected rebels in a tense Bangui neighborhood on Friday, as France's military chief arrived in Central African Republic to see how his troops are doing trying to stabilize the lawless country.

The violence that has left the country verging on anarchy showed few signs of abating Friday in the capital's Miskine neighborhood, where about a dozen Muslim men with machetes faced off against a group of Christian youths.

Anger boiled over in the neighborhood after the overnight death of a Christian taxi driver at the hands of the mostly Muslim former rebels.

Violence outside the capital included a massacre Thursday of 27 Muslims in the village of Bohong in the western part of the country, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. In a statement, Ravina Shamdasani said the situation is also tense in the towns of Bouca, Bossangoa and Bozoum.

The impoverished country has descended into chaos since March, when rebel groups overthrew the Christian-led government. Some 1,600 French forces are trying to disarm Bangui, but face a backlash from residents too terrified to give up the weapons they fear they need to defend themselves.

"They are looting our shops and homes. We have the right to intervene and protect ourselves," said Hassan Annour, a 36-year-old Muslim wielding a machete.

People on both sides have carried out retaliatory violence across Central African Republic, an overwhelmingly Christian country that until March had seen little sectarian strife.

More than 500 people have been killed in the last week, and the U.N. has warned that toll is expected to rise as teams venture out further into hard-hit neighborhoods.

Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye issued a new warning about the rising violence, urging a rapid disarming of all sides.

"Religious communities that have always lived together in perfect harmony are now massacring each other. The situation must be stopped as soon as possible," Tiangaye said.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived Friday to meet with troops and commanders who are bolstering regional African peacekeepers in the country, the French military said.

Even as the French worked to secure the city of 700,000, the U.N. said more than 160,000 people had fled their homes in Bangui alone. At least 30,000 of them are living around the airport guarded by French troops, afraid of returning to homes where former Muslim rebels have attacked civilians each night.

On Friday, officials from the U.N. World Food Program began a chaotic distribution of rice, oil and split peas to several thousand people. Aid workers used megaphones to call out names of displaced people who had registered, but the names could hardly be heard over the shouts of frustration.

"We've been here for seven days and have not been able to find food," said Sophie Matias, 45, who was sleeping at the airport with her 10 children. "The kids are so hungry — they keep asking for food but we have nothing. "

A UNICEF cargo plane was expected to bring 77 metric tons of humanitarian supplies later Friday, including blankets and plastic sheeting for nearly 38,000 people.

The charity group Doctors Without Borders has criticized the U.N. response to the growing humanitarian crisis here. In an open letter, the aid group said it "deplores the appalling performance of U.N. humanitarian agencies."

"Repeated evaluations in the face of glaring needs and numerous coordination meetings have not led to any concrete action around the main hotspots," the group said.

At Bangui's airport, tens of thousands are sleeping without shelter, although some have sought refuge inside the shells of abandoned bush planes and airport hangars. Some women laid out laundry to dry on the wings of rusty planes Friday while others waited in long lines for water.

Soon the morning commotion was interrupted by screams of grief. A 27-year-old mother of two, Prudence Seresona, had succumbed to malaria. As she lay wrapped in a white cloth on a woven mat, her little girls began sobbing over her body.

Ten-year-old Loika looked down at her little sister Adora and wiped the tears running down her face.

Then Prudence's sister came in and threw herself over the body in grief.

"Wake up! Wake up!" she sobbed. "Who is going to raise your children? How can you leave us?"

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Associated Press writers Lori Hinnant and Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.

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Follow Krista Larson at: https://twitter.com/klarsonafrica