Utah

Kirk Johnson, New York Times: "Everett Ruess, a poet and painter, rode off into the Southwestern desert in 1934. Now researchers say remains found in Utah last year are his."

Firebase Vimoto

C.J. Chivers of the New York Times: "A firebase, where two Marines train Afghan soldiers, offers a fine-grained glimpse inside the Afghan war, and the remarkably young men often at the front of it."

Elephants

Wild elephants killed a mother and her two-year-old son at a home in the Indian state of Assam. The pachyderms injured the child's father.

Saudi Arabia

Via Australian Broadcasting Corp.: "An eight-year-old Saudi girl who was sold into marriage by her father has been given a divorce after an international outcry over the case, Saudi media has reported."

Dance Fever

Cell Press:

People aren't the only ones who've got rhythm. Two reports published online on April 30th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that birds — and parrots in particular — can also bob their heads, tap their feet, and sway their bodies along to a musical beat. The findings show that a very basic aspect of the human response to music is shared with other species, according to the researchers.

Gold Fingers

William J. Gorta of the New York Post: "A long-time employee of a major Queens jewelry manufacturer walked off with a staggering $12 million worth of gold over the course of six years, prosecutors said."

Business Heritage

Dwight Garner:

T. J. Stiles’s whacking new biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt moves with force and conviction and imperious wit through the noisy life and times of the man who inspired the term “robber baron.”

Party Dolls

RIA Novosti:

The wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, criticized on Wednesday her husband's intention to bring young women from the world of entertainment into parliament, according to regional media.

Berlusconi wants to bring young women with a background in the entertainment industry into his People of Freedom party in a bid to refresh its image ahead of European Parliament elections in June.

In a letter cited by Italian media, Veronica Lario, a former actress, described her husband's plan as "shameless rubbish."

"Me and my children... are victims, not accomplices in this situation," Italy's Corriere quoted Lario as saying.

Berlusconi, who was forced to apologize to his wife in 2007 for addressing a young woman with the words: "If I wasn't married, I would marry you straight away," has not commented on his wife's criticism.

Poppies

Dexter Filkins in Afghanistan: "Commanders are planning to cut off the Taliban’s main source of money, the country’s multimillion-dollar opium crop, by doubling the number of troops in three provinces."

India's Orissa State

More than 200 villagers have fled their homes to escape the curse of an enraged witch.

Russian Warship

Radio New Zealand: "Russian news agencies report a Russian warship has captured a suspected pirate vessel with 29 people on board off the coast of Somalia."

Selenium

Katie Thomas of the New York Times:

An overdose of selenium most likely caused the death last week of 21 polo horses at the United States Open Polo Championship, Florida's state veterinarian announced Tuesday.

Previous: Dead Horses

Italian Cruise Ship

"Passengers Fought Pirates with Tables and Deck Chairs"

Jim Rogers

Tim Morrison of Time interviewed investment guru Jim Rogers.

Dead in Bed

New York Daily News: "Detectives are investigating the mysterious death of a young NYPD criminalist who was found tied to her bed with a knife stuck in her neck."

Swine Flu

"Swine Flu Container Explodes on Train"

Tanker

The crew of a tanker repelled a pirate attack near Somalia.

Vigilantes

Somali vigilantes captured 12 armed pirates.

San Juan Basin

Palaeontological Association:

The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's account of an isolated community of dinosaurs that survived the catastrophic extinction event 65 million years ago, has no less appeal now than it did when it was written a century ago. Various Hollywood versions have tried to recreate the lost world of dinosaurs, but today the fiction seems just a little closer to reality. New scientific evidence suggests that dinosaur bones from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone in the San Juan Basin, USA, date from after the extinction, and that dinosaurs may have survived in a remote area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado for up to half a million years.

Nazi Extermination Camp

BBC News: "Builders working near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp have found a message in a bottle written by prisoners, museum officials say."

Karachi

Adam B. Ellick, New York Times: "Two brothers have taken extreme measures to conceal a business that in a conservative Muslim country is as risky as it is risqué."

Human Sacrifice

In India a farmer cut off his 10-year-old granddaughter's head to mix her blood with seeds for a better crop.

Pirates

Voice of America: "Yemen's military has freed an oil tanker and its crew from Somali pirates, killing three of the hijackers."

BBC News: "Spanish forces have arrested nine Somalis suspected of being the pirates who attacked an Italian cruise ship."

Arms Business

Cindy Saine at Voice of America:

New data shows that arms transfers to the Middle East have increased by 38 percent during the past five years, compared to the previous five. The data show the United States, Russia and Germany remain the world's largest arms exporters.

Stephanie Ho at Voice of America:

A newly released report says China has been importing a smaller volume of conventional arms in recent years. The trend comes as concerns grow that Beijing is working on further developing its own indigenous weapons industry and capabilities.

Medieval Coins

Diggers in the Republic of Macedonia unearthed 4,300 coins from the 12th and 13th centuries.

"The coins were in two ceramic bowls," a trader told me.

Ivory

"Two men caught with dozens of elephant tusks have pleaded guilty in a Kenyan court to illegal possession of ivory," the BBC reports.

Hack

Barry Paddock of the New York Daily News: "A beautiful Brooklyn woman was found dismembered inside the home of a cab driver who had a crush on her, friends and police said."

Hands

RIA Novosti:

A doctor from the northern Indian state of Punjab cut off a hand of a relative and one of his wife's hands in a fit of jealousy, the national CNN-IBN channel reported on Monday.

The incident occurred on Sunday when the young doctor was drinking with the relative, who he suspected of having an affair with his wife. The doctor attacked him, cutting off the hand and taking it home. He then chopped off one of his wife's hands, and went into hiding.

Demise of the Dinosaurs

"New Blow for Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Theory" - NSF

Junk

BBC News: "A replica 16th-Century junk has sunk off Taiwan, one day short of completing an epic voyage to the U.S. and back."

Hungary

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times: "Over past the year, at least seven Roma — widely known as Gypsies and long among Europe’s most oppressed minority groups — have been killed in Hungary."

Florida

Dusky seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus nigrescens)

Conservation status: Extinct (1987)

Photographer: P.W. Sykes

Amy Tan

"Ten years ago, I clearly saw a ghost, and she talked to me," author Amy Tan says.

Careless

A British agent accidentally left top-secret info on a bus in Colombia. London's Sunday Times has a few details.

Sea Rovers

Voice of America (updated):

Yemeni officials say Somali pirates have seized an empty Yemeni oil tanker in a deadly clash with coast guards.

The officials said two pirates were killed in the confrontation in the Gulf of Aden Sunday. Three other pirates and two coast guards also were wounded.

Earlier Sunday, Kenyan maritime groups said Somali pirates had released another Yemeni freighter and its 15 crew members. The ship was seized in January with a cargo of petroleum products.

Yemen is across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, where ship hijackings are rampant.

Separately Sunday, the captain of an Italian cruise ship said his security staff fought off a pirate attack in the region Saturday with pistols and a water hose.

Commander Ciro Pinto told Italian media the ensuing gunfight damaged the ship, but the 1,500 passengers were unhurt.

He said six armed pirates attacked the ship from a small speedboat in the Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast. After the attack, the ship continued toward its destination, the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Somali pirates have hijacked dozens of ships over the past year despite increased maritime security by international naval patrols.

They are currently holding at least 16 vessels, including a German-owned cargo ship seized Saturday in the Gulf of Aden.

Elevation of Evil

In an obit on May 2, 1945, the New York Times detailed Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

Somalia

Somali pirates released a Greek ship.

Costa Rica

Golden toad (Bufo periglenes)

Conservation status: Extinct (last seen in 1989)

Photographer: Charles H. Smith

Spacious Skies

Matthew L. Wald writes about birds in the U.S.: "Twenty times a day, pilots nationwide report that birds have hit their airplanes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration."

Fuel

James Glanz of the New York Times: "A ring of Americans posing as contractors and their Nepalese drivers stole at least $40 million of fuel from an Army depot in Baghdad, according to an indictment."

Pakistan's Nukes

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

Islamic militants are challenging government authority in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, and fresh advances are bringing the insurgency closer to major cities. How confident should we be that Pakistan's nuclear weapons won't fall into the wrong hands?

Read more.

Six-Hour Battle

American Forces Press Service:

Coalition and Afghan forces killed 14 insurgents in a six-hour battle in the Sangin district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province yesterday.

Forces were patrolling in an area known for heavy insurgent activity when they were attacked. The insurgents fired at the forces with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coalition forces called in close-air support on two enemy fighting positions, killing 14 fighters and injuring one, who later surrendered. Two others also were detained.

No coalition or Afghan forces were injured in the attack.

Leopard

A leopard tore apart a 10-year-old girl at a village in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir. After the attack, the cat ran into a forest.

Bad Omen

Kenyan rangers saw an albino African buffalo at Hell's Gate National Park.

Death Before Dawn

Two wild elephants killed five villagers in India.

Bronx Zoo

Layoffs in New York City include animals at the Bronx Zoo.

Mombasa

Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times:

In the shadow of Fort Jesus, a 16th-century Portuguese stronghold that truly belongs to the era of slave raiders and pirate ships, is the office of Kenya's premier pirate lawyer.

And these days, the lawyer, Francis Kadima, is very busy.

Keep reading.

Asia

"The Best of Asia 2009" - Time

Other Years: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

Dead Horses

A pharmacy error may have killed 21 polo ponies before a tournament in Florida last Sunday.

Previous: Polo Ponies

Appeasement

Meredith Buel at Voice of America:

U.S. officials and South Asian analysts are expressing concern over military and political gains being made by the Taliban in Pakistan. They say a recent agreement between the militants and the government in Islamabad is a dangerous policy of appeasement that could undermine efforts to fight terrorism and threaten the nation's stability.

Jaguar

Photo credit: Colin M.L. Burnett

Spiders

Rory Byrne at Voice of America:

Giant spiders might not look appetizing, but in Cambodia they are considered a delicacy. First eaten by starving refugees during the Khmer Rouge era in the late 1970s, they are now a popular snack in Cambodia. They are so popular their numbers are now in decline.

Sam Maloof

To woodworkers, Sam Maloof is an icon.

Zimbabwe

"Marauding wild animals in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland North Province are adding anguish to the pain of hunger as they destroy scarce crops," the humanitarian news and analysis service IRIN says.

Strait of Malacca

"How to Defeat Pirates: Success in the Strait of Malacca"

Business Heritage

Ann Murray at NPR: "Sixty years ago, an environmental disaster in southwestern Pennsylvania shocked the country. It forever changed the way Americans think about industrial pollution and their health."

Iraq

"Pacifying Iraq with the Weapons of Capitalism"

Quest for Firewood

Wild elephants killed a man and two children in Bangladesh.

According to a local newspaper, the victims died when they went into the hills near a village to collect firewood.

Hobbit Debate

"The Hobbit: Out of Africa"

A Mighty Wind

Time magazine, October 25, 1943: "In Elberton, Ga., a windstorm hit a church that had been leaning badly for years, set it back straight again."

Colombia

Simon Romero of the New York Times:

The gumen arrived as Jhonny Caisamo was harvesting plantains in the jungle. More than 100 strong, the men beat him with the flat part of their machetes, then threatened to drown him in the brown waters of the Cedro River.

Read more.

Ocean Breeze

Iraq intends to use Saddam Hussein's luxury yacht as a cruise boat for tourists.

United States

FBI: "Animal rights and environmental extremism pose a significant domestic terror threat."

Russia

WWF: "Police are investigating the killing of an Amur leopard — one of the rarest animals on earth with only a few dozen left in the wild — after officers discovered the skin of an adult leopard in a private car."

Macaw

Blue-and-gold macaw

Photo credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

Private Lucky

Via ABC Online, Australia: "A British soldier in Afghanistan has been dubbed the luckiest man in the military after a Taliban bullet pierced his helmet — and he lived to tell the tale."

Smithsonian Magazine

The May issue of Smithsonian magazine is up!

Polo Ponies

In Florida 21 polo ponies died under mysterious circumstances.

Pirates Inc.

Magazine articles:

"Why the Somali Pirates Keep Getting Their Ransoms" - Time

"Somali Pirates Form Unholy Alliance with Islamists" - Der Spiegel

Circus Bears

Two bears ran away from a circus in Germany.

Frog

Australian green tree frog, aka White's tree frog

Kill Zone

C.J. Chivers: "Pinned down by Taliban fighters, American soldiers fought their way out of a riverbed, and then grieved the loss of one of their own."

Overdose

Nicholas Kulish, New York Times: "A racehorse bought for a pittance has turned into a national hero in crisis-stricken Hungary."

Mass Murder

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times:

In the Ukrainian town of Berdichev, Jewish women were forced to swim across a wide river until they drowned. In Telsiai, Lithuania, children were thrown alive into pits filled with their murdered parents.

Read more.

Pirates

VOA News: "NATO forces have foiled an attack by Somali pirates on a Norwegian tanker in the Gulf of Aden."

South America

Elegant crested tinamou

Chile and Argentina

Photo credit: Jesssie Cohen, NZP

Baja California

L.A. Times: "Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica is held up as a model in the army effort to stem drug violence and take on the cartels."

North Korean Freighter

Kyodo News, via the Japan Times:

Japanese precision tools and steel were found in missile-making equipment taken from a North Korean freighter detained at an Indian port in June 1999 while en route to Pakistan, a former senior Indian official said Saturday.

Sea Gangs

Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service:

Military force is only part of the solution to the recent wave of piracy in the waters off Somalia, the Pentagon’s top military and civilian officials said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said fighting piracy will require an international effort that includes a whole-of-government approach in addition to military force.

“It’s not just a military solution here,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said in a National Public Radio interview today.

Pirates have attacked at least three ships recently in the waters off Somalia and Yemen, and Dutch marines rescued 20 Yemeni fishermen after their boat was hijacked and used as a mother ship for Somalis operating against an oil tanker.

More than 80 attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and waters adjoining Somalia have taken place this year. Though war ships from 16 nations are in the region, Mullen said, it is impossible to have ships everywhere in a 1.1-million-square-mile area.

“There are an awful lot of ships, and the number of Navy ships we have out there cannot cover the water,” Mullen said. “Nor would increasing that number dramatically cover the water.”

At the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., yesterday, Gates said shipping companies have a responsibility in helping to combat piracy off Somalia, noting that some companies are prepared to pay ransoms to pirates as part of the cost of doing business.

“Clearly, if they didn't pay the ransoms, we would be in a stronger position,” the secretary said.

Somali pirates currently hold 15 ships and about 280 hostages. Piracy has become a business for Somalis, who live in a failed state.

“The impact of the dollars that these pirates get in their villages and for the individuals involved is staggering, because their home villages are unspeakably poor,” Gates said in Newport. “And the infusion of millions of dollars into them, and the corruption and everything else makes it a very attractive career field for a lot of poor young men who have no prospects.” And desperation on the ground will continue to make piracy attractive, Gates added.

“It’s a complex problem, and I think it involves both a maritime aspect that involves enforcement and a kinetic aspect,” he said. “But I think until we can do something to provide some kind of stability on land and some prospects for these people, it's going to be a tough problem.”

On NPR today, Mullen said more needs to be done to punish piracy. “In the end, this is a crime, and it needs to be prosecuted in a court,” he said. “The only country the United States has an agreement with is Kenya, where we have transferred pirates that we’ve captured. That part of the system has to be more robust than it is right now.”

Africa

Grey crowned crane

Egypt's Tomb Raider

Michael Slackman, New York Times: "In the seven years since he was named head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass has been in perpetual motion, promoting Egyptian antiquities — and, of course, himself."

Antony and Cleopatra

Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times: "Archaeologists think they may be close to locating the graves of the doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony in a temple on the Mediterranean Sea just west of Alexandria, Egypt."

Strategy Review

"U.S. officials began an inter-agency process Friday to try to find new ways to fight the piracy off the coast of Somalia," Al Pessin reports.

Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

From Time magazine, January 10, 1944: "In Hollywood, a skeptical judge imposed a $30 fine on autoist Josephine Lee, who had said that she drove at great speed in order to keep sailors from getting into her car."

Lyrics: "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"

Vandalism

RIA Novosti:

The authorities in Russia's Rostov Region have started work restoring a "hand on boob" statue in the southern town of Bataysk, which was daubed with red paint by vandals, the local administration said on Friday.

The monument depicts a man's hand resting on a female's left breast.

Syria

Ulrike Putz at Spiegel Online:

Maid's costumes, musicial negligee and remote-controlled underpants: You'd be surprised what you can find in a Damascus market. Syrian underwear is now so famous that it is exported throughout the Middle East — and Palestinian women, reportedly, have the wildest taste.

Previous: Lingerie

Kenya

Hungry for a piece of tail

Brown Pelican

Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP

Ambush in Afghanistan

C.J. Chivers: "The infantryman’s war in Afghanistan is often waged on the Taliban’s terms, but a patrol from the First Infantry Division reversed the routine."

Sex Slave

Carl Schreck of the Moscow Times:

In what is either the weirdest Russian crime story of the year so far or a new low in yellow crime journalism, a female hair stylist in the Kaluga region is suspected of holding an armed robber in captivity as a sex slave for two days after he unsuccessfully tried to knock over her beauty salon.

CWCID: TigerHawk

Regional Coast Guard

Via Spiegel Online:

The Danish Institute for Military Studies (DIMS) has concluded in a new report that the best way to stop piracy off the coast of Somalia would be to introduce a regional coast guard that would operate from Egypt in the north to Tanzania in the south.

Bus Driver

Spiegel Online: "A bus driver in the German city of Regensburg has lost her job after she stopped her vehicle to save a toad in the road and a passenger complained to her boss about the delay."

Africa

Lilac-breasted roller

Smithsonian's National Zoo:

This colorful bird ranges throughout eastern and southern Africa. It is named for its courtship flight, which involves flying up high then plummeting, while screaming and “rolling”— rocking its body and wings from side to side.

(Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP)

Pepper

"Cambodia's Kampot Pepper Makes a Comeback"

Strunk and White

NPR:

The Elements of Style, the definitive writing guide by E.B. White and William Strunk Jr., turns 50 on Thursday. To mark the anniversary, its publisher has released an elegantly bound, gold-embossed hardcover edition containing notes about the book's history.

Business Heritage

African adventures of Kazimierz Nowak

Qantas Airways

"Qantas had to take a plane out of service because of escaped snakes earlier this week," Australian Broadcasting Corp. says.

Damietta

Christian Fraser of the BBC:

It sounds too good to be true in these depressing economic times — a town with zero unemployment in the Arab world's most populous country.

Welcome to Damietta, a thriving Egyptian port, where handcrafted furniture is turning heads not just in the capital, Cairo, but also far beyond the country's borders.

Read more.

Pirates

CNN: "The French Navy captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya Wednesday, the French Ministry of Defense announced."

Python

BBC News: "A Kenyan man bit a python who wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC."

Another Attack

Via ABC Online, Australia: "Pirates have attacked a US-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Somalia with rockets and automatic weapons, but failed to board the craft, the ship's owner says."

Red Mercury

Michael Winter at USA Today:

Hundreds of Saudis have been duped into paying as much as $50,000 for old sewing machines that were claimed to contain valuable — but non-existent — "red mercury," according to Saudi Arabian newspaper reports picked up by Reuters.

Sonora

Mexican cops seized an anti-aircraft machine gun and other weapons near the U.S. border.

Medicinal Remedies

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology:

Hippocrates (ca. 460-370 BCE), the most famous of ancient physicians, once noted: "Wine is fit for man in a wonderful way provided that it is taken with good sense by the sick as well as the healthy." Now new archaeochemical evidence, backed up by increasingly sophisticated scientific testing techniques, are pointing to a long history of medicinal remedies tried, tested, and sometimes lost, throughout millennia of human history — herbs, tree resins, and other organic materials dispensed by ancient fermented beverages like wine and beer.

Somali Pirates

Somali pirates renewed their hijacking spree, capturing four vessels.

Dolphins

RIA Novosti:

A pod of dolphins has hampered an attempted Somali pirate attack on a convoy of Chinese commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden, Chinese media reported on Tuesday.

International Radio China reported that more than 1,000 dolphins had encircled several Chinese ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden on Monday, creating a live barrier between the commercial vessels and the Somali pirates.

The China Daily reported that the dolphins "suddenly leaped out of water between the pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the Chinese vessels." The pirates were unable to approach the Chinese commercial vessels and had to retreat.

To Hell and Not Quite Back

After the Second World War, Audie Murphy slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow.

Santa Muerte

Saint Death

Related: "Santa Muerte: The New God in Town" (Time, October 2007)

Norway

BBC News: "A man faces a hefty fine and a driving ban after being caught having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a motorway in Norway, police have said."

Death Ship

"Defending a Floating Arsenal Against Pirates"

Tree

RIA Novosti: "Surgeons in Russia's Urals Region were staggered to find a 5-centimeter-high spruce growing inside a man's lung, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported on Monday.

Yalta

RIA Novosti: "More than 10 animals in a zoo in the Crimean resort city of Yalta have died in a suspected case of deliberate poisoning, the zoo owner said on Monday."

Elephant

Asian elephant uprooting a tree
Artist: Wladyslaw T. Benda, Polish-American, 1873-1948

Crews

Keith Bradsher, New York Times: "A spate of attacks on ships off Somalia and the rescue Sunday of an American captain held hostage by pirates have reinvigorated a long-simmering debate over whether the crews of commercial vessels should be armed."

Snipers

John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service:

The captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia was in “imminent danger” when U.S. military snipers shot and killed his three pirate captors, a U.S. Navy commander said today.

Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, provided preliminary details of the rescue mission that freed Capt. Richard Phillips today during a news conference.

Off the Somali coast, U.S. special operations snipers held positions at the rear of the USS Bainbridge, which was towing an 18-foot lifeboat that held Phillips and three pirates some 25-30 meters away.

“The snipers positioned on the fantail of the Bainbridge observed one of the pirates in the pilot house — and two pirates with their head and shoulders exposed — and one of the pirates had the AK47 (assault rifle) leveled at the captain’s back,” Gortney said.

Gortney said the White House had given military operators "very clear guidance and authority" if Phillips' life was in danger.

“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision (to shoot), and he had the authorities to make that decision, and he had seconds to make that decision,” he said.

On the marksmanship of the snipers Gortney said, “We pay a lot for their training and we got a good return on our investment.”

Naval forces rescued Phillips on a rigid-inflatable boat and transferred him to the USS Bainbridge before being flown to the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, where he contacted his family, received a routine medical evaluation, and is resting comfortably, ccording to a U.S. Navy statement.

Gortney said Phillips was in good health and suffered no apparent injuries, despite being “tied up inside the lifeboat” for at least part of his five days as a hostage. He noted that a fourth pirate surrendered and is being held in U.S. forces’ custody.

The admiral praised the military servicemembers involved in the rescue.

“I could not be more proud to represent all the men and women in uniform who worked tirelessly to make this rescue possible,” he said.

Uttarakhand

In the Indian state of Uttarakhand, the forest department deputized hunters to shoot a man-eating leopard.

"The cat killed at least two childen since March 30," a trader said.

Borneo

Scientists found a previously unknown population of orangutans in a remote, mountainous corner of Indonesia.

Howdah

Elephant with howdah

Artist: Wladyslaw T. Benda, Polish-American, 1873-1948

Capybara

Will Grant, BBC News: "While in many countries the Easter dish may be lamb, in Venezuela a traditional delicacy around this time of the year is the capybara, the world's biggest rodent."

Chhattisgarh

A wild elephant killed a 55-year-old woman outside a mud hut in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

Croc Attack

In Australia a crocodile killed a 20-year-old man.

Mistress of the Lionesses

Diggers uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler in ancient Canaan.

Friends

Via IOL: "A Polish man was rushed to hospital after his best friend bit off his penis and swallowed it."

Berlin Zoo

At the Berlin Zoo a woman jumped into a polar bear cage.

Gay Elephant

RIA Novosti:

Visitors have been flocking to a zoo in the western Polish city of Poznan to catch a glimpse of an elephant, who it is claimed is homosexual, Polish media said.

The 10-year-old African Bush elephant, Nino, has had to change zoos three times in the past five years because of his aggressive behavior toward female elephants, including pushing them into the pool. However his attitude to male elephants is described as "affectionate."

Schoolbook

RIA Novosti:

A new Polish mathematics schoolbook has sparked nationwide outrage over a racist conundrum, in which students are asked to calculate how to drown more Turks than Christians, national media reported on Friday.

The problem reads: "A boat caught in a storm and about to sink has 15 Christians and 15 Turks on board. To save the boat from sinking, half of the people in the boat must jump overboard. One of the Christians suggests that everyone stand in line and every ninth jumps overboard. How should the Christians stand so that only the Turks drown?"

Drama on the High Seas

Pirate news (updated):

"Captive American Tried to Flee Pirates" - NYT

Scotland

BBC News: "Archaeologists have discovered the earliest evidence of human beings ever found in Scotland."

Light My Fire

A gasoline-soaked woman tried to borrow a lighter to set herself on fire at the Taipei World Trade Center in Taiwam.

Zimbabwe

Celia W. Dugger of the New York Times: "President Robert Mugabe’s top lieutenants are reportedly trying to secure amnesty by torturing opposition officials."

Swashbucklers

Pirate news (updated throughout the day):

• "Standoff With Pirates Shows U.S. Power Has Limits" - NYT
• "Why the Pirates Are Winning the Battle of the Seas" - Time
• "Could 19th-Century Plan Stop Piracy?" - BBC
• "Somali Piracy Exposes Weakness in UN Law of the Sea" - VOA

History: "Top 10 Audacious Acts of Piracy" - Time

Rogue Legionnaire

BBC News: "Security forces in Chad have captured a French Foreign Legion soldier who killed four people, including two comrades and a UN peacekeeper."

Jiro and Sumi

From Time magazine, January 20, 1936:

On small Tsushima Island, Japan. Jiro Tanaka, 21, fell in love with Sumi Chan, 19, a prostitute. Protesting that he could not afford to patronize the "restaurant" where she worked, he took her away and secreted her for a month, under the floor of the bicycle shop where he worked. Summoned to appear for a military examination at his native village, Toyomizu, 75 miles away, and still in love and poor, Tanaka bought a steamship ticket home, packed his girl in a box and took the box aboard. The box was delivered to a lodging house in Hakata, made odd little noises which persuaded the proprietor to call police.

Horrors in China

Subject: Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937–45

Japan Times:

Ichiro Koyama, who was enlisted in Imperial Japanese Army from the age of 20 and stationed in China's Shandong Province, says he has a duty to tell Japan of the atrocities committed during wartime so that the same mistakes are not made again.

Related articles

Infiltrators

Voice of America:

A U.S. newspaper is reporting that spies using the Internet have infiltrated control systems of the U.S. electrical supply network and planted computer programs that could be used to disrupt electricity service.

The report in the Wall Street Journal cites current and former national security officials as saying the spies are from China, Russia and other countries.

Leopard

Five people sustained wounds during a clash with a leopard at a home in northern India. Forest rangers caged the wild animal.

Golden Masks

RIA Novosti: "Russian archaeologists working at Egypt's Fayoum Oasis have uncovered a number of mummies wearing golden masks, as well as other artifacts of historical value, a Russian Egyptologist said on Wednesday."

Jumper

RIA Novosti:

A 22-year-old Russian man suffered minor injuries after leaping out of a fifth-story window twice following a drinking binge, Russia's Life.ru news Web site reported on Wednesday.

Together with two friends the jumper, known as Alexei, drank three bottles of vodka. After the drinking session, his wife Yekaterina watched in horror as he opened the kitchen window and leapt out of their fifth-floor apartment.

"I did not realize what was happening at that moment," the man said in an interview with Life.ru. "Now I can say just one thing — I was lucky."

The terrified woman ran downstairs to see her husband getting up from the ground before heading back towards their apartment.

Before an ambulance arrived, Alexei leapt out of the window for a second time.

The jumper was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with minor concussion and scratches. He is currently receiving out-patient treatment.

When the man sobered up from his binge-drinking session and was told about his exploits, he said he was quitting drinking.

Somali Raiders

Pirates commandeered a U.S.-flagged ship (updated).

Dog Owner

RIA Novosti:

The 24-year-old owner of a pit bull in Germany has been detained after biting a police officer who asked him to put a muzzle on his dog, the ddp news agency reported on Wednesday.

The incident occurred after residents in the western German town of Aachen called police saying they were frightened that a pit bull was walking around their houses without a leash and a muzzle.

When police arrived, they saw that the dog had already ripped up two footballs and parents had taken children playing in the park away from the dog. The owner observed his pet's actions without intervening.

When asked to put a muzzle on the pit bull, the man started yelling at the officer and bit her on the hip.

Megamouth Shark

WWF: "An extremely rare megamouth shark was caught by Filipino fishermen, marking only the 41st time the species has been seen in the 33 years since its discovery and giving new insight into the elusive shark’s behavior."

Motorcyclist

From Time magazine, October 1, 1951: "In Manhattan, Paul Sweeney, 20, lost control of his motorcycle, crashed through the window of the Tumble Inn bar."

Brothels

Headline at the Los Angeles Times: "Nevada debates whether to tax its working girls."

Meat Market

Victoria Gill, BBC News: "Chimpanzees enter into 'deals' whereby they exchange meat for sex, according to researchers."

African Grey Parrot

"Bizarre Parrot Custody Battle Settled"

Inside Cambodia Today

Seth Mydans of the New York Times reports from Cambodia:

Some older people say they still hear the cries of wandering ghosts whose bodies have not been properly laid to rest. “They come out at night and frighten people,” said Mr. Khieu Hong, the man with the radio. “They cry ‘Whoo, whoo!’ It sounds like somebody is being tortured and crying out.” But the children who graze cattle nearby seem deaf to the moans of ghosts.

Read "Pain of Khmer Rouge Era Lost on Cambodian Youth."

Tourist

An elephant killed a Dutch tourist in India.

Chechnya

RIA Novosti:

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has said that men in the republic should take more than one wife to protect the honor of unmarried women, claiming that "it is better to be a second or third wife than to be dead."

Kadyrov told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily that polygamy was necessary in the Russian republic of Chechnya, as there were many more women than men, and that they should all be "fixed up."

He also said that if an unmarried young girl or a divorced woman has sexual relations with men in the Muslim republic then "her brother will kill her and her man."

"We have very severe customs," the 32-year-old leader emphasized. "It is better for a woman to be a second or third wife than to be dead. There is no law on this, but I am saying to everyone — whoever has the desire or the opportunity, you need to take a second wife."

However, the paper said that Kadyrov also noted that as polygamy was not allowed by law, he was simply suggesting that Chechen men act in this manner.

"As far as the law goes," he expounded, "prostitution is forbidden by law, yet how many women sell themselves on the streets of Moscow? Thousands of girls are sold every night!"

"We have no prostitution at all [in Chechnya]," he told the paper. "We are very strict on this."

Stinking Dutchman

RIA Novosti:

A foul-smelling ship, crewed by Ukrainian sailors, has been drifting in the Black Sea for four months, the NEWSru.Ua Web site said, citing a local newspaper.

The Beriks, dubbed the Stinking Dutchman by border guards, left the Georgian port of Poti in December 2008. Its cargo contains over 200 tons of decaying meat and poultry which started to rot after some of the ship's refrigerators stopped working.

Ukrainian authorities are refusing to let the vessel approach within 20 kilometers of the shore.

The 12 merchant seamen on board are forced to wear breathing apparatus to enter the ship's hold due to the stench and are reported to be running out of food and water.

They have tried several times to leave the ship on small boats, but the port authorities have sent them back.

The Beriks has been refused entry to the Ukrainian ports of Feodosiya, Yevpatoriya and Nikolayev. The ship has reached the Kerch Strait, but is not permitted any closer to land.

Ukraine's sanitary services have also refused to give permission for the ship's stinking cargo to be unloaded, and the vessel lacks specialist equipment which would allow it to be dumped in neutral waters.

Fox News

RIA Novosti:

Sailors on a cargo ship traveling from Kamchatka to Vladivostok in Russia's Far East rescued a fox that had been stranded on an ice floe, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported on Tuesday.

Feast

From Time magazine, January 7, 1935:

In Octani, Romania, Nikola Stepan gave a great feast to celebrate the absence of his wife. When the wife failed to return, his guests investigated, learned that Nikola Stepan had killed his wife, then cooked and served her for the feast.

Sea Dog

Last November a pet dog fell off a boat in rough seas near the coast of Australia. The dog swam in the shark-infested waters and reached a largely uninhabited island. Rangers captured the dog four months later.

Piracy

Somali pirates seized more vessels.

Schindler's List

"A list compiled by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler has been discovered by a researcher at a library in Australia," the BBC says.

Liberation of Paris

Mike Thomson, BBC: "Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a 'whites only' victory."

Business Heritage

U.S. Census Bureau:

The need to pay a $15 debt sparked one of the most useful of inventions, patented this week in 1849. Walter Hunt, a New York mechanic, owed the debt. While he thought about how to raise the money, he fiddled with a small piece of wire. Finally, he bent the wire with a twist in the middle, creating a spring, and formed a clasp at the other end, to guard the point of the wire. He had invented the safety pin. Hunt called his device a "dress pin," and sold his rights to it for $400, little realizing that its utility would last for centuries.

Michael Crichton

New York Times: "Michael Crichton, the best-selling author who died last year, left behind at least one finished novel and about one-third of a second."

The title of the finished novel is Pirate Latitudes.

Previous: Author

Tugboat

Pirates captured a Yemeni tugboat in the Indian Ocean.

Tamil Nadu

Earlier today a wild elephant killed a 68-year-old man on a road in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Arizona

John Dougherty of the New York Times reports from the Copper State:

The federal government has opened a criminal investigation into the capture and death of the last known jaguar in the United States, amid accusations that a biologist working for the state illegally baited a trap to attract the cat.

Related: "Getting People to Coexist with Cats"

Pirates

VOA News: "A report out of Kenya says Somali pirates have hijacked a German ship with 24 crew members on board."

Egyptian Shoemakers

At the Los Angeles Times, Jeffrey Fleishman has an article about two shoemakers in Cairo.

New York, New York

NPR: Why are New York City banks so easy to rob?

Truckers

Scott Glover of the Los Angeles Times:

The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the last three decades.

Perry Expedition to Japan

Japanese woodblock print of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, circa 1854

All Aboard!

"The last generation of Pullman porters — who played a critical role in African-American history — is dying off, and Amtrak is trying to find the last few for National Train Day," Jennifer 8. Lee of the New York Times reports.

During the first eight years of my life, I traveled by rail frequently. I spent a lot of time in the drawing rooms and dining cars of America's great trains — the Twin Cities Zephyr, the Orange Blossom Special, the 20th Century Limited, etc.

CWCID: TigerHawk

Boxing Champion

"You used to hang out with two professional fighters," an old friend recalled at dinner tonight. "Did you know any heavyweight champs?"

"Jersey Joe Walcott," I replied. "I talked to him a few times after his retirement from the boxing ring."

Pakistan

Salman Masood, New York Times: "The images of a young girl being whipped in Swat have raised questions again about the government’s peace deal with the militants in the region."

Saturday Night at the Movies

Via ABC Online, Australia: "An attempt to distract university students in Maryland from late-night drinking with a feature-length porn movie has been blocked after state senators threatened to cut funds for the college."

Sicily

In Catania a man used a box cutter to cut off his wife's head.

Wizards of the World, Unite!

Via IOL: "Wizards and psychics accustomed to working in the world beyond want to conjure up a trade union in Russia to manage their earthly employment worries, the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Friday."

Nepal

"The Talk of Nepal: The Future of Its Gurkhas"

Kaliningrad

A beaver bit a woman in Russia's city of Kaliningrad.

The Big Squeeze

CNN: "Police in Allendale, South Carolina, are investigating whether a funeral home fit a 6-foot, 5-inch man into his coffin by severing his legs."

Arunachal Pradesh

"White-Water Rafting Among Headhunters"

American Freighter

Via IOL: "The wreck of the first American ship sunk during World War II has been located off Australia's southern coast, ocean researchers said on Wednesday."

Irrawaddy Dolphins

Voice of America: "Researchers with a wildlife conservation group say they have discovered thousands of rare Irrawaddy dolphins living in the waters of Bangladesh."

Tiger Catchers

"The hunt for Sumatra's killer tigers"

Cattlemen

A leopard injured two cattlemen in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

"The cat attacked the men in the jungle near a village," a traveler said.