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I'm gonna shine up this Tommasini instead.
In Morehead, Ky., in December, two men, ages 44 and 18, were charged with theft for allegedly swiping an 18-inch-long bearded dragon lizard from the Eagles Landing Pet Hospital and trying, in two beverage stores, to exchange it for liquor. [WHAS-TV (Louisville), 12-22-09]
Daniel Gable, 61, was arrested for breaking and entering a neighbor's apartment in Fargo, N.D., in December. He had triggered the resident's "burglar alarm," which consisted of the stack of empty beer cans the resident places just inside his front door every night. [Fargo Forum, 12-30-09]
A team of researchers led by a University of Connecticut professor, writing recently in the ornithology journal The Auk, declared the local saltmarsh sparrow to be America's most promiscuous bird, in that 95 percent of the females hook up with more than one male during a mating season. The likelihood that any two chicks in a nest had the same father was only 23 percent, and in one-third of the nests, all chicks had different fathers. The researchers hypothesized that the frequent flooding of Connecticut's marshes destroys so many nests that non-choosy females have gained evolutionary advantage. (A wren in Australia and a parrot in Madagascar are said to be comparably promiscuous.) [BBC News, 1-22-10]
CNN) -- A luge slider from Georgia was killed Friday when he crashed during an Olympic training session hours before the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Georgian Embassy and the International Olympic Committee said.
Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, was on the final corner of the course during official training when he had a "serious crash" and was propelled off the track, according to the IOC. Doctors were unable to revive him, the IOC said.
"Our first thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of the athlete," IOC President Jacques Rogge said in a written statement. "The whole Olympic family is struck by this tragedy, which clearly casts a shadow over these Games."
Kumaritashvili was scheduled to compete in the men's singles luge event, which begins Saturday.
"This is a terrible accident," said Josef Fendt, president of the International Luge Federation. "This is the gravest thing that can happen in sport, and our thoughts and those of the luge family, are naturally with those touched by this event."
KTLA News
5:14 PM PST, February 8, 2010
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