Ancestor

Carnegie Museum of Natural History:

A new fossil primate from Myanmar suggests that the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, not Africa as many researchers believe.

Previous: Landmark Scientific Find

Camel

Via Independent Online: "Spanish researchers said Monday they have discovered evidence of a previously unknown type of camel which lived in Europe six million years ago."

Biological Fountain of Youth

FASEB Journal: "Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history — significantly longer lifespans."

Pirate Fighters

RIA Novosti:

Eleven littoral states of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea have agreed to create an all-Arab naval task force to prevent the spread of sea piracy in the region, a Yemeni newspaper said on Tuesday.

DNA

Jessica Berman, Voice of America: "Scientists are using DNA to trace illegal ivory from slaughtered elephants to its countries of origin in an effort to nab poachers."

Food

A major group of dinosaurs had unique way of eating.

Italy

IOL: "Nearly 18 percent of the Italian population — 11 million people — trusts self-styled sorcerers and healers, a consumer watchdog said in a report on Monday."

Lion Prides

Matt Walker of the BBC:

Lions form prides to defend territory against other lions, not to improve their hunting success, a study reveals.

In doing so, they act much like street gangs, gathering together to protect their turf from interlopers, says a leading lion expert.

Tokyo Bay

Mark Willacy at ABC Online, Australia:

Japanese police have found a number of severed hands and other body parts in Tokyo Bay.

Investigators believe the Yakuza, or Japanese Mafia, could be behind the killings.

Paul the Apostle

Voice of America:

Pope Benedict XVI says bone fragments found in a tomb beneath the floor of Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls are probably remains of the Apostle Paul.

The pontiff announced Sunday that carbon dating tests run on the fragments, which were found inside a stone sarcophagus discovered beneath the floor of the basilica, confirm that they date from first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, speaking Sunday at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls.

Christians have traditionally believed St. Paul was buried beneath the main altar of the basilica, which was built in the late fourth century. The 8-foot-long sarcophagus containing the bone fragments was discovered in 2002.

The pope's announcement came on the eve of the Feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, a major feast day for the Roman Catholic Church.

Paul and Peter are regarded by the faithful as the greatest early Christian missionaries.

Russian Casinos

Clifford J. Levy of the New York Times reports from Moscow:

One of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history is to occur on Wednesday, and the Kremlin itself is decreeing it, economic crisis or not.

The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor across the land, under an antivice plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin that as recently as a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched.

Venice

IOL: "Nine centuries of male monopoly on the canals of Venice came to an end on Friday when the first woman passed the test to become a trainee gondolier."

Tribal Clashes

Voice of America:

Tribal clashes in northwest Tanzania have killed at least 12 people, with many others injured or displaced from their homes.

The fighting between the Kurya and Luo tribes broke out on Thursday, in the Rorya district, when Kurya cattle rustlers invaded a Luo village and stole some cows.

Local officials say many people have been seriously injured in the fighting, and that dozens of homes and properties have gone up in flames.

Police are in the area and have been collecting the bodies.

Tanzanian newspapers report the government plans to send a larger force to the region to restore security.

Australia

A shark bit an Australian surfer.

Tuscany

Via Australian Broadcasting Corp.: "Nine former SS soldiers aged 84 to 90 have been sentenced to life imprisonment in their absence by a Rome military tribunal for the massacres of 350 civilians in Tuscany in 1944."

United Kingdom

"Top secret War Office papers have revealed a strange and macabre weapons project tested by the Allies during World War II," the BBC says.

Miscellany

World news:

• A BBC reporter saw a mob burn people alive in Kenya.
• The Russian Imperial House wants to return to Russia.
• In Sri Lanka an astrologer made the wrong prediction.

Egyptian Tycoon

Mona el-Naggar of the New York Times:

A Cairo court confirmed Thursday the death penalty for an Egyptian tycoon convicted for paying a hit man to murder a Lebanese pop star, in a case that has riveted the Arab world with its tantalizing blend of fame and fortune.

Previous: Egypt

Concentration Camps

Mareike Fallet and Simone Kaiser, Der Spiegel: "Concentration camp brothels remain a hushed-up chapter of the Nazi-era horrors."

Jackie

"Jackie Onassis Seduced Marlon Brando" - New York Post

Amputations

Voice of America:

Islamist militants in Somalia's capital have amputated a hand and a foot from each of four young men convicted of robbery.

A court set up by the militant group al-Shabab had found the men guilty of stealing cell phones and pistols from residents of Mogadishu.

Hooded men using a machete carried out the amputations on Thursday, as a crowd of hundreds looked on.

Witnesses said the suspected thieves, some of them believed to be teenagers, screamed in pain, and that some in the crowd had to turn away.

Wallabies

Stoned wallabies created crop circles in Tasmania.

Tiny Bats

Via IOL: "Scientists have identified a new species of bat weighing just five grams in the Comoros island archipelago off eastern Africa, the Natural History Museum in Geneva said on Wednesday."

Tunguska Event

Cornell University: "The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere, says new Cornell University research."

Music

John Noble Wilford, New York Times: "Archaeologists said a bone flute and two fragments of ivory flutes discovered last fall represent the earliest known flowering of music-making in Stone Age culture."

Zambia

A monkey urinated on Zambia's President Rupiah Banda.

Words

From RIA Novosti: "Russian officials and politicians will face fines for mispronouncing words or using coarse language in interviews under a new law being drafted by the mass communications ministry."

A Taste for Sin

"Berlusconi in Crisis After Allegation of Affair" - Jeff Israely, Time

Murderers

"Along the U.S.-Mexican border, drug cartels recruit young men and operate their smuggling and murder-for-hire rings on both sides of the divide," notes James C. McKinley Jr. of the New York Times.

Sequoyah

From John Noble Wilford of the New York Times: "An archaeologist and explorer of caves has now found what he thinks are the earliest known examples of the Sequoyah syllabary."

Rare Drum

Diggers excavated an ancient drum in South Korea.

Serial Killers of the Sea

Matt Walker of the BBC:

Great white sharks do not aimlessly wander the ocean waiting to stumble upon their next meal.

Instead, the biggest sharks identify a location from which to strike, and then search the surrounding killing zone for their next victim.

That suggests that the sharks use a premeditated hunting strategy akin to that used by some human serial killers.

Jordan Valley

Israeli archaeologists discovered an underground quarry.

European Trains

L.A. Times: "Popularized in fiction between the wars as places for skulduggery and worse, trains and their stations have played a key role in modern-day plotting and attacks by Islamic terrorists."

Cattle Stampede

A herd of cattle killed a woman in England.

Australia

Watching a crocodile, a helicopter pilot crashed into the mud.

Business Travel

I have to spend several months at remote trading centers in Central Asia. I won't post many blog entries during the trip.

Escape from the Taliban

"A New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban has escaped and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan," the New York Times reports.

Update: More here.

Monaco

ABC Online, Australia: "At least one suspected member of a notorious international gang of jewel thieves known as the Pink Panthers has been arrested in Monaco."

Treasure Boat

Searchers found the Polar Mist in the Strait of Magellan.

Cashmere

Keith Bradsher, New York Times: "As demand in the West for luxury sweaters erodes, the impact is felt on goat farms in Inner Mongolia."

Thai Ivory Trade

Thailand continues to harbor the largest illegal ivory market in Asia.

Careers at the CIA

Wall Street Journal: "Downsized investment bankers: Fear not. The Central Intelligence Agency wants you."

Smithsonian Magazine

The July issue of Smithsonian magazine is up!

Tanker Explosion

RIA Novosti: "A tanker carrying about 1,800 tons of crude oil and 100 tons of diesel fuel has exploded near the Vietnamese coast and sunk, the Sovfracht Maritime Bulletin reported Thursday."

Voodoo

New York Daily News: "Determined to drive the evil spirits out of her daughter, a Queens mom performed a bizarre voodoo fire ritual that left the 6-year-old girl scarred for life, prosecutors say."

Molybdenum

Frank Thadeusz, Der Spiegel: "Geologists have found deposits of the rare metal molybdenum in the Erzgebirge mountain range in eastern Germany. The valuable find has triggered a gold-rush mentality in the economically depressed area."

Lone Gunman

Via ABC Online, Australia: "A notorious Indian bandit has been shot dead after a fierce 48-hour gun battle that saw him take on 400 armed police, officials said."

Mekong Dolphins

WWF: "Pollution in the Mekong River has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction, a new report by WWF has revealed."

Tarzan of the Apes

A Paris museum takes a serious look at Tarzan. Vincent Dowd of the BBC has the details.

Orangutans

University of Pittsburgh:

New evidence underscores the theory of human origin that suggests humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science. Reporting in the June 18 edition of the Journal of Biogeography, the researchers reject as "problematic" the popular suggestion, based on DNA analysis, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, which they maintain is not supported by fossil evidence.

Canadian Mom

Via ABC Online, Australia: "Using nothing but her quick wit and bare hands, a Canadian mother fought off a cougar that had pinned down her 3-year-old daughter in a forest north of Vancouver, police say."

Kermen Basangova

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times writes about a fake murder in St. Petersburg, Russia:

It is a tale in harmony with this city of Dostoyevsky, where intrigue and dark conspiracy, fictional and real, have been plotted for centuries in the creepy alleyways behind and between the grand imperial facades.

Read more.

Woolly Mammoths

BBC News: "Woolly mammoths lived in Britain as recently as 14,000 years ago, according to new radiocarbon dating evidence."

Stickleback

Scotland's University of St. Andrews:

A common species of fish found in Europe and across the UK is the "genius of the fish world" according to researchers at the University of St. Andrews.

The new study has found that the way fish learn could be much closer to the human way of thinking than previously believed.

Cold Sharks

Drug smugglers hid more than a ton of cocaine inside frozen sharks.

China

Wieland Wagner, Der Spiegel: "China's Communist Party is cracking down on corruption. Wealthy businessmen and party officials are being targeted, and even the country's richest man is being held by authorities in an undisclosed location."

Book Review

Tears in the Darkness

El Salvador

CU-Boulder:

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system — a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago.

Puppy

Via ABC Online, Australia: "A puppy in Britain has had a lucky escape after a four-year-old boy accidentally flushed it down the toilet when he was trying to wash it, the Daily Mirror newspaper reports."

Uttarakhand

Last night a leopard took the life of a woman near her house in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

"The leopard attacked a man in a nearby village several days ago," a trader said.

Hail

Via ABC Online, Australia: "At least 14 people were killed and more than 180 were injured in a severe hailstorm that destroyed thousands of homes across eastern China's Anhui province, authorities said."

Dog Gone

A crocodile snatched a dog from a spot near two children in Western Australia.

Orissa

Wild elephants killed a 70-year-old woman outside her home in India's state of Orissa. The marauding pachyderms destroyed eight houses in the village.

Urban Coyotes

NPR: "Look closely enough, and you'll find wild animals lurking in the alleyways of the most urban cities in America."

Inside the CIA

"The Secret History" - New Yorker

Cat Killer

Sarah Netter at ABC News, USA: "Miami-area cat owners can breathe a sigh of relief following the arrest of an 18-year-old who police say mutilated and killed nearly three dozen cats."

Previous: Feline Fatalities

Kutai National Park

Norimitsu Onishi writes about squatters at Indonesia's Kutai National Park. The New York Times has the story.

Rat Island

IOL: "The rats appear to be gone from Alaska's Rat Island, more than 200 years after they scurried off a rodent-infested Japanese ship."

American Sikhs

John Burnett at NPR:

In the high desert town of Espanola, N.M., you'll find a community of American Sikhs — converts to the 500-year-old Sikh religion from India. With a gold-domed temple as a backdrop, men and women live quiet lives of meditation, yoga and vegetarianism.

They also run a big business.

Read more.

Oman

Pirates seized a cargo ship off the coast of Oman.

Sea Piracy

Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service reports from Brussels:

NATO will continue its anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said today.

The alliance’s defense ministers, who met here over the last two days, agreed to send the Standing NATO Maritime Battle Group 2 to relieve Battle Group 1, which is now operating in the area, de Hoop Scheffer said.

“That means that NATO will continue to play its role in the fight against piracy,” he said.

The battle group represents six nations, with a possibility of other NATO nations contributing ships. “Other nations might be ready and willing to join at a certain stage,” the secretary general said.

The NATO mission would have ended had the ministers not agreed to continue it, de Hoop Scheffer said. He added that it would be unacceptable for a political-military organization like NATO, with its huge inventory, to do otherwise.

“But NATO will be there,” the secretary general said. “And it may be that the mission will be beefed up. I’m very happy with the results.”

School

"Woman Builds School After Hyena Kills Girl" - CNN

Canada Geese

Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended New York City's plan today to kill 2,000 Canada geese this summer.

Toucan

The keel-billed toucan is the national bird of Belize.

Photo credit: Pearl Vas

Weather

Phil Mercer, Voice of America: "Climatologists are warning that an El Niño weather pattern, which can spark severe floods, forest fires and droughts, could develop in the coming weeks across the Asia-Pacific region."

Snow Roots

Wiley-Blackwell: "It may not be the Yeti, but in a remote region of the Russian mountains a previously unknown and entirely unique form of plant root has been discovered."

Deforestation

"Study: Deforestation's Economic Boost Is Short-Lived" - Bryan Walsh, Time

Diné Bikéyah

Keith Mulvihill visited the Navajo Nation.

One year I spent Christmas with Navajo friends.

Feline Fatalities

"Tommy the Cat's Death Linked to Serial Killer" - CNN

Carradine Case

Michael Winter at USA Today: "The former coroner of New York City has concluded that actor David Carradine did not commit suicide in a Bangkok hotel, the Associated Press reports."

Brunei

Photographer: Erik Fearn

Police Station

IOL: "Police in Sierra Leone have called in the army and fire brigade to try to take back control of a police station which has been overrun by hundreds of poisonous snakes."

Hermès

"In the Bag: How Hermès Beats the Recession" - ABC News, USA

Mali

Fid Thompson at Voice of America: "The worst drought in 26 years is threatening the survival of Mali's rare desert elephants."

Background: Elephants of Gourma

Karate

BBC News: "Prostitutes in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have begun taking karate lessons to protect themselves from violent customers and pimps."

Banker

BBC News: "The lover of one of the most influential bankers in Europe has broken down in court and admitted killing him after kinky sex."

Here is an update.

David Carradine's Death

Susan Donaldson James, ABC News, USA:

As the remains of actor David Carradine arrive in Los Angeles this week, a grainy photo of his limp body in a Bangkok hotel room — in what appears to fishnet and a wig — raises more questions about his mysterious death.

Harsh Interrogation

Via IOL in South Africa: " A police officer in Kenya faced attempted murder charges on Wednesday for allegedly severing the penis of a suspected fertilizer thief."

Tadpoles

Tadpoles fell from the sky in Japan.

Fox

From Spiegel Online: "A vixen has stolen more than 120 shoes from doorsteps in the German town of Föhren over the last year, amassing a collection that would impress even Imelda Marcos."

American Indian Artifacts

Howard Berkes at NPR:

As many as 150 federal agents, sheriff's deputies and tribal police served arrest and search warrants in Utah, Colorado and New Mexico Wednesday morning, capping a two-year undercover sting aimed at a black market in ancient Indian artifacts.

Mattress

News agency RIA Novosti: "An Israeli woman unknowingly threw out her mother's old mattress which contained $1 million in savings, the Yediot Ahronot reported on Wednesday."

Fate

"Italian Who Missed Fatal Air France Flight Dies in Car Crash"

Citizen Uprising

Sabrina Tavernise and Irfan Ashraf of the New York Times:

Villagers are rising up against the Taliban in a remote corner of northern Pakistan, a grass-roots rebellion that underscores the shift in the public mood against the militants and a growing confidence to confront them.

Sketchbook

Maïa de la Baume of the New York Times: "A sketchbook containing 33 drawings by Pablo Picasso, estimated to be worth between about $8.4 and $14 million, has been stolen from a Paris museum, officials said Tuesday."

Moth

University of Arizona:

UA biologist and amateur insect collector Bruce Walsh has published his discovery of a new species of moth. The moth has distinct bright pink wings, which prompted Walsh to name it after his wife.

Germany

Via IOL: "A dog out on a walk found a live U.S. grenade from World War II and eagerly delivered it to his master, police said on Monday, but authorities were able to defuse the explosive before it went off."

Birds and Dinosaurs

Oregon State University:

Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight — and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.

The conclusions add to other evolving evidence that may finally force many paleontologists to reconsider their long-held belief that modern birds are the direct descendants of ancient, meat-eating dinosaurs, OSU researchers say.

Soviet Sub

RIA Novosti:

A team of Swedish and Finnish divers have located the wreckage of a Soviet WWII S-type diesel submarine near the Aland islands in the Baltic Sea, a Swedish news agency said on Tuesday.

The S-2 submarine sank on January 2, 1940, in a minefield during the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland (November 1939-March 1940). The entire 50-member crew was lost.

Locomotion

Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "Researchers have found that a snake's scales, which create friction with surfaces, are key to its forward movement."

Goa

A leopard injured a 45-year-old woman in India's coastal state of Goa.

New Guinea

Natalie Angier of the New York Times: "The long-beaked echidna is one of the oldest, rarest, shyest, silliest-looking yet potentially most illuminating mammals on earth."

Brave

Arrowmaker

American Indian, Ojibwa (Chippewa), circa 1903

Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Beaver Country

"Around the nation, decades of conservation efforts and changing land use have brought many species, like beavers, so far back from the brink that they are viewed as nuisances," Cornelia Dean of the New York Times writes in the United States.

Lake Huron

University of Michigan:

More than 100 feet deep in Lake Huron, on a wide stoney ridge that 9,000 years ago was a land bridge, University of Michigan researchers have found the first archeological evidence of human activity preserved beneath the Great Lakes.

The researchers located what they believe to be caribou-hunting structures and camps used by the early hunters of the period.

Autopsy

New York Daily News: "Famed New York pathologist Michael Baden is on his way to California to perform a private autopsy on the body of David Carradine."

Spymasters

"Intelligence Turf Battles Test Spy Chiefs" - Mark Mazzetti, New York Times

Lion in Water

Via IOL: "A lion that escaped from its cage in a China zoo went for a swim in a local river."

Bone Bed

UC Berkeley has news about California's Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed.

Forefinger

Spiegel Online: "A chimpanzee called Pedro made a name for himself on Monday by biting off the forefinger of Berlin Zoo's director."

Broken Ankle

Apparently U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

India

Via IOL: "A frog that constantly changes color is being worshipped as a god in India."

Remember That Tree

Matt Walker of the BBC:

Chimpanzees remember the exact location of all their favorite fruit trees.

Their spatial memory is so precise that they can find a single tree among more than 12,000 others within a patch of forest, primatologists have found.

Togo

The Great Hole

By Josh Crosslin

Long ago, the chief of the Moba tribe gathered together 300 of his best hunters. It had rained very little that year, and the dry season was fast approaching. But the chief was not worried. He knew of a place where his men could fish, hunt, and collect water for the coming months.

"In the sacred forest of Doong," he said to the hunters, "cross over the mountain to the river below. Where the mountains turn west, the river plunges over a cliff and into a great hole that has no bottom. The hole is connected to the ocean. Because it has no bottom, it never goes dry."

The next day, the hunters journeyed to the sacred forest. As the chief had advised, they crossed a mountain and turned west. But as they approached the great hole, the skies turned dark. Suddenly, great torrents of rain poured down upon them.

Pulled by the storm's intense grip, the hunters fell down into the riverbed. Water rushed upon them from every side. All of the hunters were swept into the great hole — all, except one.

The lone survivor ran back to the village to tell the chief what had happened. Upon hearing the news, the chief was overcome with sorrow.

"I must go to the great hole to honor the spirits of our men," he declared. And as dawn broke the next morning, the chief set out.

The chief rode his camel into the sacred forest of Doong, crossing the mountain to the river below. Steering his camel to a rock on top of a waterfall, he got off his camel and looked down at the great hole below.

While the chief was gazing into the water, he felt a tap on his shoulder. The chief turned, slowly and hesitantly. He had seen no one in the forest all morning.

A beautiful woman dressed in a shimmering white cloth stood before him. In her hands, she held a gourd of water flavored with ground millet. Kneeling before the chief, she offered him the gourd and smiled. The chief thanked her, took a sip of the sweet water, and spilled what remained on the rocks.

As quickly as she had appeared, the woman vanished.

The chief then spoke in a sacred language, telling the spirits of the river about the brave deeds of the hunters who had died. As he spoke, the animals of the forest gathered around him. One by one, they came to tell the chief that they were sorry for his loss. The birds came first, then the lions, antelope, and elephants.

From deep down in the hole where the men had died, the animals of the water — the fish, crocodiles, and snakes — rose to the surface. They were moved by the chief's words.

All at once, the animals disappeared back into the air, forest, and water, and the chief turned to leave. But as he climbed back on his camel, he noticed that the hoof prints of the camel were embedded in the soft, young rock, as were the knee prints of the woman who had knelt before him with the gourd of water. The stain from the water he had spilled on the rocks also remained.

If you go to Doong today, you will find those imprints and that stain. And when the chief of the Moba tribe stands before the great hole, all the animals come again, just as before, to show that they have not forgotten.

(Editors note: Josh Crosslin was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, 1997–1998. When he visited the waterfall, he heard this story from his guide.)

Pagoda

Seth Mydans, New York Times: "In highly superstitious Myanmar, the collapse of a temple was widely seen as something portentous."

Gunfight in Acapulco

Samuel Goldsmith, New York Daily News: "Sixteen drug cartel hitmen and two Mexican soldiers were killed in a two-hour gun battle near the heart of Acapulco Saturday night as terrified travelers cowered in their rooms nearby."

Desperate Parents

From CNN: "Parents of the children trapped in a burning Mexican day-care center rammed their vehicles into the building to try to free the trapped children, witnesses told CNN."

Kung Fu

Adam Nichols of the New York Post writes: "A secret sect of kung fu assassins could have silenced actor David Carradine as he delved into their shadowy activities, according to his family's lawyer."

Mafia

From the New York Daily News: "New York City's Five Families owned the 20th Century. Now they must confront the 21st — still alive, still armed and still dangerous."

Québec

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has a nine-year-old article about early settlers in New France:

To tell the story of these pioneers, we would have to talk of adventures, of epics. We would have to tell how these people surmounted a thousand dangers, survived terrible storms and fought Indian tribes daubed with war paint, lending this modern-day odyssey a style that is worthy of the biggest Technicolor blockbusters from Hollywood.

The article mentions French carpenter Zacharie Cloutier (1590-1677). He is one of my ancestors.

Other descendants of Zacharie include Madonna, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, Angelina Jolie, and Camilla, Dutchess of Cornwall.

Fordlandia

NPR: "Carmaker Henry Ford thought he could perfect society, but he was defeated in the jungles of Brazil."

Pirates

Somali pirates released a Nigerian tug.

"The pirates captured the vessel last August," a trader said.

Jammu and Kashmir

A leopard killed a 6-year-old boy and a bear injured a 55-year-old man in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Peru

Via Australian Broadcasting Corp.: "Archaeologists excavating a site in northern Peru have found the remains of nearly three dozen people ritually sacrificed 600 years ago."

Samarkand

Fabric merchant, 1911

Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Hollywood Hot Dogs

Hugo Martin of the Los Angeles Times put together a report on Pink's hot dog stand: "The family took the business from a humble pushcart in a weed-choked lot to a Hollywood landmark."

Web site: Pink's

Families Flee

Australian Broadcasting Corp.: "A herd of hungry elephants has forced all 5,000 families from a village in northern Mozambique to abandon their homes, state media reported on Friday."

Purse Snatcher

Two high-school students chased and captured a purse-snatching cop in Japan.

Spy Charges

U.S. Justice Department:

A former [U.S.] State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government.

Russian Empire

Inmates in a zindan, a traditional Central Asian prison, ca. 1907-1915

Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Manhunt

From the New York Daily News: "The feds were hunting for a former upstate New Yorker with an arsenal of guns Friday who told a Utah bank manager he was 'on a mission to kill' President Obama."

Update: Arrest

David Carradine

TMZ:

Now we know why David Carradine's family thinks foul play may have been involved in the actors death — his manager tells us Carradine was found with his hands tied behind his back.

Update — From Susan Donaldson James, ABC News, USA:

The mysterious death of actor David Carradine — perhaps by autoerotic asphyxia — focused renewed attention on a practice that is one of the greatest and most dangerous sexual taboos.

Naked in the Sun

"Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has reacted angrily to the publication in Spain of photographs showing topless women and a naked man at his villa," BBC News reports.

Previous: Party Pictures

No More Tears

BBC News:

An Italian senator has demanded the government intervene after a convicted Mafia boss was freed from jail because he was suffering from depression.

Anti-Mafia Commission member Carlo Vizzini called the release of Giacomo Ieni into house arrest "scandalous."

Ieni had been sentenced to eight years for racketeering, but broke down in tears in front of his parole board, saying he could not take jail any more.

Winning Hearts and Minds

U.S. Army PFC J.P. Lawrence, American Forces Press Service:

There is one question soldiers are trained from the beginning not to ask. They learn they can ask where and when, but that they never should ask why.

On today’s battlefield, however, why is more important than ever.

“If soldiers want to know, ‘Why are the children throwing rocks at us?’ and ‘Why are they rocketing us?’ That’s what we do,” said Leslie Kayanan, team leader of the Human Terrain System team assigned to the 34th Infantry Division.

HTS, which began in June 2006 and was expanded by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in 2007, is a program that seeks to study cultural perceptions by attaching anthropological research teams to combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more.

Serbia

Excavators unearthed the skeleton of a mammoth.

Joint Effort

RIA Novosti: "Russia and China have agreed to start preparations to create a cross-border nature reserve to protect endangered Siberian tigers and Far East leopards."

Dagestan

Sunni Muslim man with a sheathed dagger, circa 1907-1915

Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Bo

Spiegel Online: "The Obama marketing mania continues in Germany. Cute and cuddly stuffed animals designed to look like his new pet will soon be on the shelves."

Israeli Girl

RIA Novosti:

A six-year-old Israeli girl from the Ramat Gan suburb in Tel Aviv defended herself against a knife-wielding burglar using just a broom and then assisted police to arrest him, local media said on Wednesday.

The 51-year-old robber knocked on the door of the girl's apartment, and ordered her to leave when she opened it. After the girl refused, the man produced a knife, but was forced to flee when the child grabbed a broom and attacked him.

The man, who is believed to have burgled two other apartments in the same district, was soon arrested. Police were able to apprehend the man mainly because of a detailed description given to investigators by the girl.

Swiss Connection

"Switzerland has surprisingly close ties with North Korea," the BBC's Imogen Foulkes says.

Land of the Czars

Church of the Resurrection, Kostroma, Russia, 1910

Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Adaptability

University of Florida:

A new University of Florida study shows mammals change their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental changes, contradicting a common assumption that species maintain their niches despite global warming.

Dead Woodcutter

Last week a 16-foot crocodile swallowed a 30-year-old woodcutter on an island off the coast of Myanmar (Burma). Searchers slaughtered the reptile and recovered the man's body.

Red Sea

A shark killed a French tourist in the Red Sea.

Fast Evolution

University of Chicago Press Journals:

What's the secret to surviving during times of environmental change? Evolve…quickly.

A new article in The American Naturalist finds that guppy populations introduced into new habitats developed new and advantageous traits in just a few years.

Airplane

Spiegel Online:

The Ilyushin plane once used as a government aircraft for East German officials will now be outfitted with a whirlpool and sauna. A Dutch entrepreneur wants to turn the Soviet-built airplane into a luxury hotel — with the Cold War-era cockpit still intact.

Palm Wine

Katie Hamann, Voice of America: "At least 23 people have died on the Indonesian resort islands of Bali and Lombok after consuming locally produced palm wine made with methanol, a fuel used for lanterns."

New York's Love Gov

Tony Zambito of the New York Daily News:

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer fed his insatiable appetite for high-priced call girls by frolicking with them in swanky hotels in at least three states, a lawyer for an admitted hooker-booker said Monday.

Behind the Wall

Klaus Wiegrefe of Der Spiegel:

Historians have long argued over whether East German leader Walter Ulbricht or his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev was ultimately responsible for the construction of the Berlin Wall. A newly discovered Russian document from August 1961 provides some answers.

Mask

Ngil mask

Fang tribe, Gabon, 19th century

Photographer: Marie-Lan Nguyen

Old Pottery

From BBC News: "Examples of pottery found in a cave at Yuchanyan in China's Hunan Province may be the oldest known to science."

Tapir

Anthony King of the New York Times: "The Malay tapir, the largest of the world’s four tapir species, remained largely invisible to science until recently."

Malaysian Prince

Via News24, South Africa:

A teenage U.S.-Indonesian model has returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of a Malaysian prince, after her dramatic escape with the help of Singapore police.

Galapagos Islands

University of Leeds: "The Galapagos giant tortoise and other iconic wildlife are facing a new threat from disease, as some of the islands' mosquitoes develop a taste for reptile blood."

Nasiriyah

Via IOL, South Africa: "A plague of snakes has caused panic in Iraq's southern province of Nasiriyah, biting cattle and worrying residents as poisonous reptiles flee their dens in the country's water-deprived marshes."

Mass Migrations

American Museum of Natural History:

Densely packed wildebeests flowing over the Serengeti, bison teeming across the Northern Plains — these iconic images extend from Hollywood epics to the popular imagination. But the fact is, all of the world's large-scale terrestrial migrations have been severely reduced and a quarter of the migrating species are suspected to no longer migrate at all because of human changes to the landscape.

Chicken Dinners

BBC News: "China's health authorities are reported to be putting a stop to restaurants serving chickens which have been bitten to death by poisonous snakes."

Buckets of Blood

Celeste Hicks, BBC News: "Hungry people in the central African nation of Chad have raised an old culinary fad from the dead — to get their fangs stuck into fried blood."

Nuclear Disarmament

From the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti:

A Russian political expert has told RIA Novosti that the international community is not paying enough attention to the threat of an imminent nuclear catastrophe.

"Today we are rightly worried about problems such as the possible development of the economic crisis, a H1N1 pandemic, and ecological safety. However, humanity is not paying attention to the increasing potential for a nuclear catastrophe," said Vladimir Kulagin, professor of global politics at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

He also said that the peaceful use of nuclear energy had increased massively following a fall-off after the Chernobyl disaster, and that its further growth would "invariably" lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"The possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists is being underestimated," he said, adding that global nonproliferation efforts were failing like never before.

Kulagin also criticized global efforts at encouraging disarmament.

"It's unfashionable to resist disarmament efforts," he said. "However, many states and political figures consider it a waste of time to undertake this."

"This is likely to continue until nuclear weapons are inevitably used," he warned. "It would be better if this use were confined to a regional scale, for example if the Koreas or Iran or some terrorists use a few warheads somewhere on the planet. Then, it seems, humanity will recognize that the so-called idealists who are calling for the total destruction of nuclear weapons were right. Only then, it appears, will movement towards a nuclear zero and real nuclear safety begin."

Russian Submarines

RIA Novosti: "Russia's navy has 12 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines in service, but only eight of them are combat-capable, a Russian military analyst said on Monday."

Lawmakers

"In Russia, Lawmakers Turned Poachers Rile Public" - Kevin O'Flynn, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty