Short Takes

Pat Ryan, New York Times: "In Damon Runyon’s short stories of New York in the Great Depression, times are tough on the street, banks are busted and there is very little scratch anywhere."

Previous: Damon Runyon

Clandestine Relationship

Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times: "Serbian spy's trial lifts cloak on his CIA alliance."

Mexico's Drug War

Marc Lacey, New York Times: "Drug traffickers recently forced the police chief of Ciudad Juárez out of office by force, illustrating how the Juárez police are no match for the outlaws."

Barter

From RIA Novosti: "Guatemala's vice president has said the Central American country is interested in buying Russian military hardware in exchange for food."

Bank Heist

Robert Mackey of the New York Times: "Irish police have made seven arrests and recovered 4 million euros (about $5 million) a day after the biggest bank robbery in Ireland's history, according to Ireland's state broadcaster, RTÉ."

Book Review

The Lost City of Z

Grim Sleeper

NPR: "Twenty-two years ago, Los Angeles police received a call from a man who may have seen a serial killer. Now they've released that recording in the hopes of finding the killer."

Murder on the High Seas

From the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): "When a 47-foot charter boat set sail from Miami one warm September day, it turned out to be no ordinary cruise."

Benin

IRIN:

In northern Benin a baby born with a tooth, in silence or feet first is likely to be killed out of fear that the infant is cursed, according to local NGOs. Despite efforts to stamp out sorcery-linked infanticides, the practice persists.

Poachers

Derek Kilner, Voice of America: "Conservationist groups are warning of a recent increase in the poaching of elephants in Kenya."

Nile Hippopotamus

Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP

Smithsonian's National Zoo: "Remarkably, more humans are killed in Africa by the hippo than any other wild mammal."

Fact Sheet: Nile hippo

Forest

This morning a leopard took the life of a 50-year-old woman in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir.

"The woman went into a forest to fetch firewood," a trader said in an email to me. "Police found her mutilated body."

Aquarium

Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times: "An octopus today managed to pry loose a water-control valve at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, flooding the facility with more than 200 gallons of saltwater."

Baja California Sur

Fishermen survived a collision with a whale off Cabo San Lucas.

Magnets

"Magnets are being attached to crocodiles in Florida to disrupt their sense of direction and so make them less of a threat to humans," the BBC reports.

Old Footprints

BBC: "The earliest footprints showing evidence of modern human foot anatomy and gait have been unearthed in Kenya."

Gulf

"Ships from two navies in the Gulf of Aden have thwarted separate pirate attacks on two merchant vessels," the BBC says.

North of the Border

New York Times: "The case against the owner of a Phoenix gun store offers a glimpse of how weapons delivered to American gun dealers are being moved into Mexico and wielded in horrific crimes."

Reproduction

London's Natural History Museum:

A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a study published today in the journal Nature by an international team including museum scientists.

Lake Titicaca

Christian Science Monitor: "On the shores of famed Lake Titicaca, Demetrio Limachi and a handful of others toil to preserve the ancient art of creating crescent-shaped craft out of bundles of dried reeds."

Russian Arms

RIA Novosti:

A group of Russian Navy officials are suspected of attempting to smuggle 30 antisubmarine missiles and 200 airplane bombs worth a total of $18 million to Tajikistan for sale to China.

Russia's chief military prosecutor, Sergei Fridinsky, said a criminal case had been opened and an investigation was ongoing, adding that the smugglers included a number of businessmen.

A Navy spokesman confirmed the statement, adding that the consignment had been listed in a customs declaration as "de-commissioned, recycled ammunition."

Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said the smuggling operation was prevented by "the Navy, in conjunction with the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Security Service (FSB)."

According to some media reports, high-ranking Navy officials, including vice admirals and rear admirals, may have been involved in the scheme.

Estonia

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times:

An Estonian court convicted a former high-ranking security official of treason on Wednesday for passing on sensitive information from the Estonian government and NATO to Russia, in a case that has heightened fears of a continued security threat by Russian intelligence networks in Europe.

Previous: Spy Scandal

Asian Business

Bettina Wassener of the New York Times: "Japan’s exports fell by 46 percent in January, and Hong Kong’s economy contracted 2.5 percent in the last three months of 2008, data showed."

Edible Frogs

A scientist advised Belarusian entrepreneurs to breed edible frogs.

Roald Amundsen

Christoph Seidler at Spiegel Online:

The famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen was last seen 81 years ago flying off to search for colleagues stranded in the Arctic Ocean. Now the Norwegian navy is hoping a high-tech underwater robot will help solve the riddle of Amundsen's disappearance.

Colorado

CU-Boulder:

A biochemical analysis of a rare Clovis-era stone tool cache recently unearthed in the city limits of Boulder, Colo., indicates some of the implements were used to butcher ice-age camels and horses that roamed North America until their extinction about 13,000 years ago, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder study.

Music

Berlin — "Take My Breath Away"

Japan

Kyodo News, via the Japan Times: "Wildlife is posing an obstacle to rural night trains, particularly in Mie Prefecture, where drivers are forced to slow down to avoid hitting deer, boar and even monkeys."

Smithsonian Magazine

The March issue of Smithsonian magazine is up!

Hopalong Fish

Sandra Hines at the University of Washington: "Psychedelica seems the perfect name for a species of fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and behaves in ways contrary to its brethren."

Clouded Leopard

Neofelis nebulosa nebulosa

Smithsonian's National Zoo: "Large paws with long, sharp claws help clouded leopards climb trees. Their grip is so firm that the leopards can even hang upside down from tree branches."

Fact Sheet: Clouded leopard

(Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP)

Disease

Mark Dummett, BBC News: "Scientists have warned of the possibility of an outbreak of bubonic plague in southeast Bangladesh because of the growing population of rats."

Russian Tanker

RIA Novosti: "A Russian oil tanker was attacked by pirates off the Nigerian coast but managed to escape with no casualties or damage, a source at a Russian shipping company said on Tuesday."

Takeover

Susanne Koelbl of Der Spiegel put together a report about the Taliban victory in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Book Review

The Bloody White Baron

Hyena Attack

Via IOL, South Africa: "A 39-year-old game reserve employee was attacked and killed by a hyena while watching television at a lodge in Mpumalanga, police said on Sunday."

Virginia

Rex Bowman, Time magazine: "Virginia's scenic, rolling Piedmont is rich in presidential history — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe all made their homes there. The land is also rich in uranium."

Siamese Crocodiles

Guy De Launey of BBC News reports from Cambodia:

The Siamese crocodile is one of the world's rarest creatures.

Judging by its week-day morning performance at the Phnom Tamao wildlife sanctuary, it might also be one of the grumpiest.

Continue reading "Rescue plan for rare Siamese crocs."

Archaeology

From the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "Royal seal impressions were discovered in excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority at Umm Tuba, in the southern hills of Jerusalem."

Southeast Asian Box Turtles

TRAFFIC:

Unregulated trade — at 10 to 100 times legal levels — has caused Southeast Asian box turtles almost to vanish from parts of Indonesia, where once they were common, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Loggers

A Sumatran tiger killed two illegal loggers in Indonesia.

"The tiger attacked the sleeping men near a pile of stolen wood in a protected forest," a conservationist said.

Greater Flamingo

Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP

Leopard

On Saturday a leopard killed a 9-year-old boy near a house in India's state of Uttarakhand. Villagers found pieces of the boy's body in the nearby jungle.

Finger Food

ABC Online, Australia: "A fisherman has had his finger bitten off by a shark at a reef near Cairns in far north Queensland."

Pirates

BBC News: "Pirates in the Gulf of Aden have seized a Greek-owned cargo ship."

Russian Weapons

RIA Novosti: "Russia is beginning to capture new arms markets of Arab countries that were earlier oriented to the West, the head of the Russian Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said."

Expelled Official

ABC Online, Australia: "The President of Ecuador says he expelled a U.S. government official from the country because he was a spy."

Business Heritage

U.S. Census Bureau:

Many movies from the 1930s are all but forgotten, but one that was released 75 years ago today is still enjoyed and rated highly by critics. The movie was It Happened One Night, a screwball romantic comedy directed by Frank Capra, starring Claudette Colbert as a runaway heiress and Clark Gable as a cocky reporter on to a good story. The film was the first to sweep the Academy Awards, winning best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. One scene, in which Clark Gable leans on a fence while munching a carrot, inspired the creators of Bugs Bunny.

Gabon

Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times: "As the oil in Gabon is running out, the future of the lush Edenic landscapes at Ivindo National Park is at risk."

French Connection

A mobster made an offer on the French Connection case.

Religious Police

In Saudi Arabia some folks are angry about the heavy-handed tactics of the religious police.

History

Did women duel topless?

The Women of Action Network has the answer.

Tajik Village

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

An attack by a wild boar in Tajikistan's mountainous Tajikabad district has injured at least five people, including a young man who is in serious condition after intervening to protect children from the rampaging beast.

Borderland Jaguar

Employees of the Arizona Game and Fish Department collared a wild jaguar southwest of Tucson.

Sino-Russian Relations

Edward Wong, New York Times:

A senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said Friday that Russia had an unacceptable response after one of its warships sank a Chinese cargo vessel last Saturday.

The warship fired 500 rounds at the vessel, sinking it in stormy Russian waters near the eastern port city of Vladivostok.

West Africa

Frank Gardner of BBC News:

World attention on piracy off Somalia has diverted attention from the growing threat of attacks off West Africa, according to shipping experts.

The International Maritime Bureau says it knows of more than 100 pirate attacks off west Africa last year — yet only 40 were reported.

Whooping Cranes

Jon Mooallem, New York Times Magazine:

In a bid to save the endangered whooping crane, biologists and self-taught conservationists are donning hooded costumes and taking to the skies to lead the birds on their annual migration. Is the only remaining way of saving the natural world to stage-manage it?

Dark Days in Monkey City

Grace Suriel works with Animal Planet's interactive team. She wrote me about a new Animal Planet TV series, Dark Days in Monkey City.

Naval Warfare

BBC News:

The English navy at around the time of the Armada was evolving revolutionary new tactics, according to new research.

Tests on cannon recovered from an Elizabethan warship suggest she carried powerful cast iron guns, of uniform size, firing standard ammunition.

"This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanization of war," says naval historian Professor Eric Grove of Salford University.

Uttarakhand

A leopard killed a 62-year-old woman at a cowshed in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Lawless Coast

VOA News: "NATO officials say they are planning to send more ships to the Gulf of Aden off Somalia as part of the international effort to fight piracy."

Nuclear Bombshells

From Spiegel Online: "Female employees from Russia's nuclear energy industry are competing for the Miss Atom 2009 title this month."

French Battleship

Jonathan Amos at BBC News: "A French battleship sunk in 1917 by a German submarine has been discovered in remarkable condition on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea."

Female Bullfighter

Conchita Cintrón passed away.

Middle East

Robert F. Worth of the New York Times: "Lebanese investigators say that Ali al-Jarrah has confessed to a career of espionage for Israel spectacular in its scope and longevity."

Music

Glenn Frey — "Smuggler's Blues"

Boa Constrictor

Two 7-year-old boys found a boa constrictor in the living-room sofa of a Brooklyn home.

Geronimo

Nora Caplan-Bricker at the Yale Daily News: "The descendants of the Apache Geronimo, a warrior chieftain whose remains are rumored to be held inside Yale’s oldest secret society, filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the return of their ancestor’s skull."

Wedding Ceremony

RIA Novosti:

Villagers in eastern India have organized a wedding ceremony for a stray dog and an 18-month-old boy to prevent a predicted tiger attack on the child, the United News of India said on Wednesday.

The boy, named Sangula, had his first tooth rooted to his upper gum. According to local beliefs, it was a bad omen, indicating that the child would be killed in a tiger attack. A local council of elders advised the boy's parents to marry his son to a dog to ward off the curse.

The wedding ceremony, attended by crowds of villagers, was conducted at a local Hindu temple in accordance with all Indian traditions. The dog wore a silver chain and two silver rings, and even had a dowry — a clay pot.

The groom's father said the boy would be free to marry a woman once he comes of age and he did not need to divorce the dog.

Marriages between humans and other creatures are fairly frequent in Indian villages, and are usually intended to ward off spells and curses.

In 2007, a 34-year-old man in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu married a dog in order to try to rid himself of a curse he believed had been placed upon him for killing two dogs.

Student Supper

A crocodile ate a 15-year-old boy at Lake Malawi.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles Times: "Major cache of fossils unearthed in L.A."

Snake Charmers in Kolkata

ABC Online, Australia: "Nearly 1,000 Indian snake charmers have marched through the streets of the northeastern city of Kolkata in protest against a law that has made their profession illegal."

Violent Chimpanzee

Andy Newman and Anahad O'Connor of the New York Times:

A 55-year-old woman who was mauled by a 200-pound pet chimpanzee in Connecticut remained listed in "extremely critical" condition on Tuesday, as police officers investigated whether illness might have changed the animal's behavior.

Yesterday: Connecticut

Osama bin Laden

Meg Sullivan at UCLA:

While U.S. intelligence officials have spent more than seven years searching fruitlessly for Osama bin Laden, UCLA geographers say they have a good idea of where the terrorist leader was at the end of 2001 — and perhaps where he has been in the years since.

In a new study published online today by the MIT International Review, the geographers report that simple facts, publicly available satellite imagery and fundamental principles of geography place the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. in one of three buildings in the northwest Pakistan town of Parachinar, in the Kurram tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

Chinese Tycoon

RIA Novosti:

A bizarre best-mistress competition held by a local tycoon in eastern China ended with one of the women driving him and her four rivals off a cliff, the Shanghai Daily said on Tuesday.

The woman was killed, while her four rivals and the businessman were injured in the incident, which took place in the Shandong Province on December 6.

The details behind the crash came to light after the parents of the 29-year-old dead woman, only identified as Yu, handed over to police a letter that she had written.

In her letter she said she had been one of five mistresses kept by a married Chinese businessman, identified only by his surname, Fan, since 2000. All the five knew about each other, but chose not to break up the relationship as they received a monthly allowance of 5,000 yuan ($733) and a rent-free apartment.

"The businessman was going to lay off four of his five mistresses due to financial troubles," the paper said. "The women were allowed to vie for the remaining position by competing on their looks, their singing and speaking and their ability to drink alcohol."

The man decided to organize a closed pageant to select the best of the five and even invited an instructor from a modeling agency to help him with his choice. Yu was knocked out of the first round of the competition.

"When Fan told Yu she had lost her position and he was selling her apartment, she decided to take revenge," the newspaper said.

She invited the businessman and the four other mistresses on a mountain trip and drove the car off a cliff, killing herself.

As a result of the scandal, the tycoon's wife demanded a divorce after learning about his affairs, while the four mistresses left him after he shut down his business. He also had to pay 580,000 yuan ($85,000) compensation to the parents of the dead woman.

Dragnet

RIA Novosti: "Moscow police are searching for the murderer of an Asian man after a severed head and headless body were found in the capital's southern district, a police spokesman told RIA Novosti on Tuesday."

Japanese Suppliers

Kyodo News: "Japanese companies played a key role in supplying equipment used for Pakistan's nuclear arms program, investigations by Kyodo News in Islamabad and Tokyo have revealed in recent days."

The Japan Times has the story.

Connecticut

A chimpanzee went nuts in the Nutmeg State.

Detroit

"In a stunning sign of ecological recovery, beavers have returned to Detroit for the first time in perhaps a century," says John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press.

Nuclear Subs

A French submarine collided with a British submarine.

Bicycle Rider

In the Indian state of Assam, a rhino attacked a 45-year-old bicyclist. The man died at a hospital.

Night Prowler

A leopard tried to drag a 7-year-old boy from a hut in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Lauren Bacall

Bacall, 1946

Ten years ago, the American Film Institute included Lauren Bacall on its list of the 50 greatest American screen legends.

Music

Bertie Higgins — "Key Largo"

Small Boat

At Lake Victoria a hippo rammed a small boat.

"Two men fell into the water," a trader told me. "One man drowned."

French Resistance

Via ABC Online, Australia: "Joseph Brocard, the last survivor of a French resistance network that kept the Allies informed about the German V1 flying bombs, has died aged 88, his family says."

Entangled in Afghanistan

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

Two decades after the Red Army left Afghanistan, another superpower is embroiled in a complicated conflict in the land known as the "graveyard of empires." With unrest on the rise and the U.S. mulling a major troop increase, are there troubling parallels?

Abubakar Siddique wrote the article.

Teachers

From BBC News: "A regional official in Tanzania has been sacked for ordering police to whip primary school teachers as a punishment for arriving at school late."

Music

Eurythmics — "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"

Suits

Stephanie Rosenbloom of the New York Times: "Saks Fifth Avenue is about to find out if there’s a market in the midst of a recession for $7,000 off-the-rack suits."

Web site: Kiton

Riches of King Croesus

A Turkish court sentenced a museum director to nearly 13 years in prison for stealing two items from the fabled ancient treasures of King Croesus. The court sentenced nine other people to shorter prison terms in the case.

Seagull

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta Post, Indonesia, May 26, 2006:

Composed by pianist Aryono Huboyo Djati, "Burung Camar" is indeed an attractive song. It relates a story of a seagull, and has been ever popular here since it was sung for the first time by pop star Vina Panduwinata.

Since 1985 I have heard the song hundreds of times in Indonesia.

Organized Crime

Read about FBI efforts to combat Asian and Eurasian crime groups.

Pirate Vessels

The Russian Navy captured three pirate vessels.

Rhino Attacks

This month rhinos killed three people in southern Nepal.

New Zealand

From ABC Online, Australia: "An octopus will be released from a New Zealand aquarium after escaping from a tank and surviving five days on the run."

Two Villagers

Two young men suffered injuries during a fight with a leopard near a village in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Songbirds

Toronto's York University:

A York University researcher has tracked the migration of songbirds by outfitting them with tiny geolocator backpacks — a world first — revealing that scientists have underestimated their flight performance dramatically.

Nine Men

Earlier today the United States Navy detained nine suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Yesterday: Navy Log

Arms Freighter

New York Times: " The Ukrainian arms freighter held by pirates for more than four months docked at port in Mombasa, Kenya."

Flying Saucers

Spiegel Online: "Did Hitler develop top-secret flying saucers?"

Neanderthal News

BBC News: "Scientists studying the DNA of Neanderthals say they can find no evidence that this ancient species ever interbred with modern humans."

Australia

ABC Online, Australia: "A surfer is in a critical condition in a Sydney hospital after being bitten by a shark off Bondi Beach, in the second shark attack in Sydney two days."

Yesterday: Diver

Russia

RIA Novosti:

Murder charges have been laid against a woman in the Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals for killing her 3-year-old son by biting and beating him, local prosecutors said.

Investigation revealed that 31-year-old Svetlana, whose second name has not been released, bit her son around 50 times and struck him with over 80 blows to the head and neck. The boy died of his injuries.

Terrorizer

ABC Online, Australia: "An adult tiger that is believed to have killed three people has been captured on Indonesia's Sumatra island, officials said."

Speedy

BBC News: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy 'proposed' to Carla Bruni within two hours of meeting the former model, it has been claimed."

Dubai

"With Dubai’s economy in free fall, debt-ridden foreign workers are fleeing, leaving parts of the once booming city looking like a ghost town," reports Robert F. Worth of the New York Times.

Diver

A shark attacked an Australian Navy diver.

Navy Log

The U.S. Navy apprehended seven suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Brad

General of the Army Omar N. Bradley (1893-1981)

Tomorrow is General of the Army Omar N. Bradley's 116th birthday.

I spent an afternoon with Bradley shortly before his 80th birthday. He was a helluva nice guy.

Background: "The Five-Star G.I.'s General" - Time magazine, 20 Apr 1981

Aztec Holdouts

Via News24, South Africa: "Mass grave may be Aztec fighters."

Richest Russians

RIA Novosti: "The global financial crisis has slashed the total wealth of Russia's top ten billionaires by 66% to $75.9 billion in the last 12 months, a leading Russian financial magazine said on Wednesday."

Grave Punishment

RIA Novosti:

A judge in Saudi Arabia has offered a prisoner the chance to gain an early release by digging graves, national media said on Wednesday.

The Okaz newspaper said a prisoner who had been sentenced to eight months in jail and 400 lashes for shooting at his uncle, without hitting him, had been offered the chance to dig graves at a local public cemetery.

The judge said the prisoner's sentence would be reduced by a month for every 10 graves he was able to dig. The newspaper quoted the judge as saying it would give the man, and prisoners in general, "a chance to think about the value of life."

The prisoner has however rejected the judge's offer and filed an appeal with the court.

Music

Murray Head — "One Night In Bangkok"

Shanghai

Louisa Lim at NPR: "In the 1930s, Shanghai was the only place in the world to offer visa-free sanctuary to Jews fleeing Nazism — 20,000 ended up in Shanghai."

Spy Plane

BBC News: "RAF's new spy plane takes to the Afghan skies."

Pirate Attacks

BBC News: "Compared with last autumn, pirate attacks off Somalia are down this year, but that may be about to change."

Organ Eaters

Australian Broadcasting Corp. has a story about cannibals in Brazil.

Murder in Uganda

BBC News: "Police in Uganda have arrested seven suspected witch doctors after the headless body of a woman was found in a bush in the capital Kampala."

Cat Woman

RIA Novosti:

A court in southern Russia's Saratov Region has sentenced a woman to 4 1/2 years in jail for stabbing her partner over mistreatment of her cat, local prosecutors said on Tuesday.

In late November 2008, the 42-year-old woman from the town of Balakovo "decided to punish her partner for treating her cat badly" and stabbed him in the stomach, causing a serious injury, a spokesman said.

The woman had been given a suspended sentence in 2007 for attacking the same partner after an argument over the same cat, he said.

Sad Farewell

Via News24, South Africa: "Tourists watched in tears as an elephant bull bade farewell to its 'friend,' the deceased bull Alexander."

Pigeons

An airline passenger attached four pigeons to his leg.

Nefertiti

Spiegel Online:

The Egyptian Museum in Berlin is concerned that it may face fresh demands from Egypt that it return the world-famous bust of Queen Nefertiti following the emergence of new information on how Germany got the priceless ancient artwork.

Incarceration

In Papua New Guinea a judge sentenced a man to 50 years in prison for murder.

"The sentenced man said he did not know it was against the law to kill another human being," Steve Marshall writes.

Marshall is a correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Zebras in Germany

"Four zebras escaped from a circus in Augsburg on Monday," Spiegel Online reports. "The ensuing chase made the police look like clowns."

Kemerovo

From RIA Novosti: "Eight snakes, most of them poisonous, and their dead owner have been found in a hostel in the southwest Siberian city of Kemerovo, a local emergencies service spokeswoman said on Monday."

Egyptian Mummies

Archaeologists unearthed more mummies in Egypt.

Missing Child

Liam Fox at ABC Online, Australia: "The parents of a 5-year-old boy feared taken by a crocodile in far north Queensland say they do not want any retribution against the reptiles."

Update: "Missing child's remains found in croc."

Pirates

Somali pirates released a Chinese fishing vessel.

Running Bear

A bear injured two men in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Responding to screams from the men, villagers rushed to the scene of the attack. The wild animal fled into a forest.

Trek

BBC News:

When Japan invaded Hong Kong in 1941 a team working for Britain's wartime secret services led an escape party across 80 miles of occupied territory to safety. Colin McEwan was one of the team and his son-in-law Tim Luard returned to China to walk the same route.

Identical Twins

BBC News: "Malaysian identical twin brothers have escaped hanging for drug trafficking as a court failed to decide which brother was the criminal, and cleared both."

Man of God

Here is the first installment of a three-part series about a gun-toting priest in Kenya.

Update: Part 2, Part 3

Masked Intruders

CNN: "In the ongoing battle between a pack of particularly ambitious raccoons and the White House groundskeepers, the raccoons appear to be winning."

Unique Collection

BBC News: "A university has apologized to a graduate student who lost his unique collection of rare lizard excrement when it was thrown away by mistake."

Stranded

Spiegel Online has an article about the real Robinson Crusoe.

Guinea Pigs

RIA Novosti: "A teenage girl from southern Russia recently found herself at the center of a row involving guinea pigs and the official Web site of the Russian president, the country's media reported."

Berlin Wall

Spiegel Online: "Chris Gueffroy died in February, 1989, while trying to flee across the Berlin Wall. He was the last East German citizen to fall victim to the state's policy of shooting escapees in the divided city."

More on Dr. Death

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times:

German investigators said Thursday that they had independent information corroborating reports that the most-wanted Nazi fugitive in the world, the concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim, had died in Egypt in 1992.

Yesterday: Dr. Death

Out of the Darkness

In India's state of Karnataka, a leopard attacked three people outside a house last night. The victims escaped with minor injuries.

Champ

Via IOL: "A poor farmer from northern Bangladesh was crowned the country's rat-killing champion on Thursday with a final score of 39,650 dead rodents after a year-long hunt."

Business Heritage

U.S. Census Bureau:

Many homes have a hide-a-bed to accommodate extra visitors. Those guests have Sarah Goode to thank for their comfort. Goode lived in Chicago, where she started a furniture store. Noting that many apartment dwellers had little space for beds, she invented a bed that folded up into a cabinet, which then served as a desk. The idea was so popular that she applied for a patent — and in 1885, Sarah Goode received the first patent ever granted to an African-American woman.

Ukrainian Ship

Voice of America: "Somali pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship and its military cargo in September have reportedly received a $3.2 million ransom ahead of the vessel's release."

Update: The pirates released the ship.

Animal Life

UC Riverside: "An international team of scientists from UC Riverside, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions has found the oldest evidence for animals in the fossil record."

Dr. Death

"Aribert Ferdinand Heim, wanted for committing medical atrocities at three Nazi concentration camps, lived in Cairo for three decades until his death in 1992," the New York Times says. "His hiding place was unknown until now."

World's Biggest Snake

News release from the University of Toronto:

Skeletal remains from an enormous snake that would dwarf Hollywood's anacondas have been discovered near the equator, shedding new light on the climate and environment that housed the monstrous reptile 60 million years ago.

"This colossal, boa constrictor-like creature stretched longer than a city bus and weighed more than a car. It's the biggest snake the world has ever known," says University of Toronto Mississauga paleontologist Jason Head, part of an international team that analyzed the remains. Their findings are published in the Feb. 5 edition of Nature.

The snake's giant vertebrate, found in Colombia, show it was far larger than any previously discovered, says Head, lead author on the paper. The giant reptile weighed more than 1.25 tons, was more than 13 metres long and had a body so wide it would have to squeeze through a doorway to enter a room. The snake ate giant turtles and crocodiles, whose skeletons were also uncovered.

Jonathan Bloch, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History, who co-led the expedition that discovered the snake with Carlos Jaramillo from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, says the find provides scientists with a rare window into the past equatorial environment.

"Until now, tropical South America's dense forest prevented discovery of fossil vertebrates found between 55 and 65 million years ago, so this discovery gives us a very unique and important glimpse into the past," he says.

Since the body size of snakes and other cold-blooded animals is determined by the temperature where they live, researchers used the snake's huge dimensions to paint a picture of what the equatorial climate was like 60 million years ago. Based on its size, scientists found the mean annual temperature at equatorial South America during that time would have been nearly 33 Celsius, about six degrees warmer than today.

"The key thing about this discovery is that we can use it as a launching point to develop very precise climatic reconstructions," says Head. "It will help us to look at how ecosystems respond to climate change and specifically, what happens when temperatures increase or decrease. Obviously, this type of knowledge is very relevant in today's changing climate."

Early Whales

Maiacetus inuus

National Science Foundation: "Early Whales Gave Birth on Land."

(Art credit: John Klausmeyer, University of Michigan)

Clay Jars

Michael Haederle of the New York Times:

For years Patricia Crown puzzled over the cylindrical clay jars found in the ruins at Chaco Canyon, the great complex of multistory masonry dwellings set amid the arid mesas of northwestern New Mexico.

Continue reading "Mystery of Ancient Puebloan Jars Solved."

Russian Cannibals

RIA Novosti:

The severed head of a schoolgirl, who went missing on January 19, was discovered by residents in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, according to a local investigative committee report.

An earlier investigations report on Saturday said that two young men, who were members of an informal youth union called the Emo and Goths, had been detained in connection with her murder.

The case has been nicknamed the Florist and Butcher Case in line with the two young men's occupations. Yuri Mozhnov is employed as a florist and Maxim Golovatskikh — a butcher in St. Petersburg's open-air meat market. According to the investigations report, both have criminal backgrounds.

The investigations report states that on the night of January 19 the two young men drowned the girl, an 11th grader in school, in the bathtub, cut her body into pieces and used part of her internal organs in their food preparations. The remaining body parts were put in bags and thrown in garbage dumpsters and waterways.

Decimated

Tom Gjelten at NPR:

CIA-directed airstrikes against al-Qaida leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior U.S. officials, that it is now possible to foresee a "complete al-Qaida defeat" in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan.

Jewel Thief

BBC News: "A jewel thief dressed as a wealthy Muslim woman has stolen rings worth hundreds of thousands of euros from dealers across Europe, police say."

UXO

Rory Byrne at Voice of America: "More than three decades after the end of the Indochina conflict, millions of unexploded bombs, shells and mines remain scattered throughout Laos."

Chimpanzees

University of Minnesota:

With most mammals, the biggest and most aggressive male claims the alpha male role and gets his choice of food and females. But a new study from the University of Minnesota suggests that at least among chimpanzees, smaller, more mild-mannered males can also use political behavior to secure the top position.

The finding was gleaned from 10 years of observing dominant male chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, looking at behaviors they used to compete for alpha male status relative to their size. Analysis showed that larger males relied more on physical attacks to dominate while smaller, gentler males groomed other chimpanzees, both male and female, to gain broad support.

Lithium

Bolivia controls nearly half of the world’s lithium supply.

Obama Faces a Test

"President Barack Obama is facing an early decision on trade policy, one that could anger key members of his Democratic Party, or spark a trade war with some of America's closest allies," Michael Bowman reports at Voice of America.

What's my position on the matter? I agree with Douglas A. Irwin's Op-Ed piece in the New York Times.

Stupid Dogs

Los Angeles Times: "Are dogs getting dumber?"

British Warship

From BBC News (updated): "The wreck of a ship which has been found off the Channel Islands has been confirmed as the legendary warship HMS Victory which sank in 1744."

Fearsome Falcons

John Lauringer, New York Daily News: "Airports try lots of things in the endless battle to keep birds from the runway, but nothing beats a fast-moving falcon — with its razor-sharp talons, experts say."