You hold him and I'll put the frying pan on! Business is booming for Britain's first crocodile farm
By James Tozer
Last updated at 8:57 PM on 30th October 2009
It was moving day on the Johnson farm, and everyone was hoping that nothing would get lost - such as a limb.
That's because the heavy lifting involved crocodiles. Very cranky ones.
Farmer Andy Johnson, pictured on the left of this photo, had decided to move his seven enormous beasts to their new roomier quarters on his Cambridgeshire property, Europe's first crocodile farm.
Five nervous workers carry the huge crocodile across the farmyard to its new pen
Farmer Andy Johnson, from Old Hurst near Huntingdon, Cambs, breeds the crocodiles for their meat and sell the delicacy in his on-site farm shop
A diner tries out the crocodile at the restaurant Taman Gang in London
The African reptiles, which measure up to 10ft long, had outgrown their existing pool complex.
So with insulating tape keeping the jaws shut, Mr Johnson and a group of volunteers including his wife Tracey set about carrying the crocs 50 yards to the new building.
The most troublesome was Romeo, a 418lb (190kg) male, who threw a tantrum on the way, head-butting Mr Johnson and knocking one of his teeth loose.
But last night all seven were settling into their £60,000 enclosure, enjoying the underfloor heating and pool.
Despite escaping relatively unscathed, Mr Johnson doesn't want to repeat the exercise. 'I never expected crocodiles to be so clever,' he said. 'They are really good at picking up on people's emotions and can sense fear.' Mr Johnson has been keeping Nile crocodiles at Church Farm in Old Hurst near Huntingdon since 2006, and plans to sell the meat.
He believes that by undercutting imported crocodile flesh, which fetches between £8 and £10 per pound, he can find a market among shoppers who want something healthy and original.
Cuddles the crocodile (top) and Sherbert at Mr Johnson's farm in 2006
Caged in the human zoo: The shocking story of the young pygmy warrior put on show in a monkey house - and how he fuelled Hitler's twisted beliefs
By Beth Hale
Last updated at 1:10 AM on 31st October 2009
His ebony skin stood out in sharp contrast to the white crowd pressing to get a better view.
The young African boy bared his teeth at the men and women staring at him through the bars. They were sharpened into dagger-like points, making him appear all the more barbaric to the ignorant hordes.
Above the cage hung a sign proclaiming: 'The Missing Link.' A baby chimp sat disconsolately at the bottom of the enclosure, a single companion to the boy. 
Exploited: Pygmy Ota Benga on display with monkeys at Bronx Zoo in 1906
The year was 1906. This was a pygmy, brought to America as a novelty to be put on display in the monkey house.
The New York Times reported: 'There were 40,000 visitors to the park on Sunday. Nearly every man, woman and child of this crowd made for the monkey house to see the star attraction in the park - the wild man from Africa.
'They chased him about the grounds all day, howling, jeering, and yelling. Some of them poked him in the ribs, others tripped him up, all laughed at him.'
Suddenly, the boy turned. Taking the bow and arrow given to him as an ethnic accessory, he shot at the gawpers. His arrow did no harm, but he did scare the life out of the onlookers.
This was Ota Benga, a pygmy, brought from the Congo and put on display in a zoo as an example of what scientists at the time proclaimed to be an evolutionary inferior race.
His story would divide a nation, and is now told for the first time in a new documentary, The Human Zoo.
The programme lifts the lid on a dark period in history, where 'natives' were paraded as exhibits, fuelling the spread of white supremacism and even contributing to the rise of Nazism.
Tragically, Benga became the victim of one of the most awful acts of exploitation ever seen and died a shadow of the proud young tribesman who arrived in America.
So just who was he, and how did this grotesque experiment help shape the 20th century view of race?
A hundred years ago, before television and mass tourism, a handful of enterprising adventurers, anthropologists and businessman decided to bring the far-flung glories of the world to life in one place. 
Carefree: Ota, pictured showing off his filed teeth, was healthy, spirited and full of life before being taken to America
Huge fairs were held in Paris, London and America, exhibiting everything from Italian gondolas to African elephants.
Having promised the world, there was pressure to deliver: people were the next quarry.
In 1904, the showman anthropologist William McGee conceived the idea of a human zoo, to be held in St Louis in the U.S. state of Missouri.
It was designed to be one of the largest scientific experiments ever undertaken and would be spectacular public entertainment.
McGee wanted the tallest people in the world, veritable giants from Patagonia, at the tip of South America. He wanted the Ainu, who lived on an island north of Japan and were supposedly the hairiest humans. He placed an order for 300 Filipinos - there is no record of why he wanted so many.
His grandson, Phillips Verner Bradford, says: 'If you told him that a place was dangerous, he'd say: "I want to go there!" He was that sort of guy.'
Verner took a boat from New York to London, down the European coast and around Africa to the Congo River.
Bradford says: 'He made his way up the Congo River with steamers as far as they would go. Once he arrived at the great waterfalls, he had to hire a crew of natives.'
They encountered crocodiles and hippopotamuses, and deadly whirlpools that could sink a boat.
Eventually, Verner made it into the jungle. He blithely walked into a village of cannibals, and found that they had captured a rival tribe who were being held in cages, ready to be eaten.
To his delight, the prisoners were pygmies, or Mbuti - just what he was looking for. He began negotiating. Talking to the pygmies in their native Chiluba, he established that they would rather be taken to America than eaten. He bought six pygmies from their captors for a roll of brass wire and some salt.
One pygmy stood out. He was Ota. Photos of him taken in the Congo show a playful, chubby young man, a broad smile revealing his sharpened teeth, which were filed in his youth.
He looks healthy, spirited and full of life, standing around 4ft 8in tall.
He had never seen a white man before. Verner realised that he had a hugely marketable proposition on his hands, and made the return trip across the Atlantic with his human treasure.
For their part, the pygmies were intrigued by everything they saw and were full of questions: how did the boat work? Was there a cage of hippopotamuses down beneath pedalling it along? Verner showed them how the steam engine functioned.
Docking at New Orleans in June 1904, the Africans caught their first glimpse of America. They were stunned by the tall buildings and wide streets.
The six pygmies were sent to St Louis by rail. There, they became McGee's most important exhibits, the centerpiece of the St Louis World Fair, feted by society and academics alike.
Adverts proclaimed: 'They live in forests, they are extremely shy. They eat the flesh of wild animals killed with poisoned arrows. They are cruel, finding delight in torturing animals.
'They have long heads, long narrow faces and little red eyes, set close together like those of ferrets. Their bodies are exceptionally hairy.
'A pygmy has been known to eat 60 bananas at one meal, in addition to other food, and then ask for more.
'They seem to be controlled by an impulse that makes them delight in wickedness. If caught young, they are said to make excellent servants.' 
Scientific racism: Ota Benga's Bronx Zoo captors had an admirer in Hitler
He wanted what he considered the most primitive American Indian tribe, the Cocopah in Mexico. He asked for Eskimos.
But most of all, he wanted the smallest people in the world. He needed pygmies. He had heard that they were very short and very black, and he had to have one.
Explorer Samuel Phillips Verner was dispatched by McGee to the Belgian Congo with a shopping list.
It read: 'One pygmy patriarch or chief. One adult woman, preferably his wife. One adult man, preferably his son. One adult woman, the wife of the last or daughter of the first. One female youth unmarried. Two infants. A priestess and a priest, or medicine doctors, preferably old. All of the above to be pygmies.'
Duly detailed, Verner set off for deepest Africa. He knew that this operation could be the making of him, putting him in the same league as Henry Stanley and Dr David Livingstone.
As the sales pitch shows, the human zoo played into the hands of white supremacists, teaching the public that there was a hierarchy of races, with the white man at the top and all others beneath.
McGee himself, in his book The Trend Of Human Progress, published in 1899, wrote: 'Those who know the races realise that the average white man is stronger of limb, fleeter of foot, clearer of eye, than the average yellow or red or black.'
Bastardising Darwin's theory of evolution, McGee saw each race as a stage in human evolution - with pygmies the least evolved of the species. With his rudimentary Victorian understanding of science, he believed they were the living missing link between apes and humans.
The human zoo was a fantastic success - and widely copied. Dr Sadiah Qureshi, a historian at the University of Cambridge, says: 'Millions of people went to see these shows at their peak. Originally you would get a show in a local theatre. By the late 19th century you would see hundreds, if not a couple of thousand people living on site, eating and on constant display.'
Indeed, some years later, in 1924, King George V and Queen Mary inspected the live exhibits at the British Empire Exhibition, at Wembley. Some Europeans' curiosity knew no bounds, however.
Qureshi says: 'The 1899 exhibition Savage South Africa held at Earl's Court in London caused quite a stir. At one point women were banned from going inside because they had supposedly been touching the natives.' For almost
a year, Ota and the other pygmies lived in America as human exhibits. They were made to build native houses, perform traditional dance ceremonies, live partially naked and cook authentic food.
Ota was described in the press as 'a dwarfy, black specimen of sad-eyed humanity'. With his filed tribal teeth, he was the most celebrated pygmy and dubbed 'Lord of the savage world'. He posed for photographs for 25 cents.
In 1905, after they had been viewed by a total of 20 million people, Verner took the pygmies home to the Congo.
Ota had planned to rejoin his tribe - but discovered that they had been entirely wiped out by Belgian soldiers. He married a girl from the nearby Batwa tribe, and appeared to settle back into life in Africa.
Then his wife was bitten by a poisonous snake and died. The Batwa rejected him, believing he was cursed and responsible for the young woman's death. Ota was cast adrift, a stranger in his own land.
He begged his friend Verner to take him back to America. Verner was reluctant, but eventually acquiesced, taking him to New York.
The pair shared the 3,000-mile sea voyage with crates of live animals, parrots, monkeys, snakes and other exotic booty, which Verner planned to sell in America. On the ship, Ota discovered cigarettes and drink.
Arriving in New York, Verner - who had business to do - bade him farewell, arranging accommodation in a spare room - this time he was not on show - at the American Museum of Natural History. There, he thought Ota would be safe.
Soon, however, he came to the attention of William Hornaday, a conservationist and director of the Bronx Zoo.
Collaborating with one of America's most notorious racists, Madison Grant, he conceived a plan.
Grant wanted to promote 'scientific racism', talking in terms of 'purity of type', and the survival of the white master race.
In 1930, after his work The Passing Of The Great Race was translated into German, Grant received a letter from an aspiring politician, saying 'your book is my bible'.
The man was Adolf Hitler. He would indeed use 'scientific racism' as the foundation for the Third Reich, giving academic grounding to the Holocaust.
Together, Hornaday and Grant offered to take charge of Ota Benga, who initially believed he would be looking after the Bronx Zoo's elephants.
In fact, he was going to be put on public display as a living example of 'racial inferiority'. Immediately, the exhibition prompted criticism. The New York Times reported on September 9, 1906: 'The exhibition was that of a human being in a monkey cage. A human being. In a monkey cage.
'The human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale, but to the average nonscientific person in the crowd of sightseers there was something about the display that was unpleasant.
'It is probably a good thing that Benga doesn't think very deeply. If he did it isn't likely that he was very proud of himself when he woke in the morning and found himself under the same roof with the orang-utans and monkeys, for that is where he really is.'
The exhibition was a sensation. On a single day, 40,000 people arrived to see Ota and his chimp. The show lasted only two weeks, however, due to a public outcry, and human zoos as a phenomenon died out by the Forties.
So what became of Ota Benga? After he was removed from the Bronx Zoo, there was great debate regarding his fate. African-American church ministers insisted he be released - not for his comfort, but because they wanted to convert the pygmy to Christianity.
He was eventually placed in an orphanage for black children, the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, to be 'civilised'. He was dressed in Western clothes and taught how to eat, talk and behave like an American.
He had his pointed teeth capped and attended a Baptist seminary, where he started to study English.
He was kept out of the public eye for four years. Eventually, he moved from New York to the backwater town of Lynchburg, Virginia, where he became a local curiosity and was known as Otto Bingo.
Forevermore haunted by his time in the monkey cage, he would repeatedly slap his chest, declaring: 'I am a man. I am a man.'
He began to save money to return to the Congo, working in a tobacco factory. With the outbreak of World War I, this became impossible and Ota sunk into depression.
He never did make it home. One evening, he went into a barn behind the village general store. He chipped off the caps hiding his teeth, restoring them to their filed-down glory, lit a small ceremonial campfire, and shot himself in the head, dying ten years after being put on display at the Bronx zoo. He was 32 years old.
His story now bears testament to the ignorance of those who believed themselves superior to him.
He was buried in an unmarked grave, but he left his mark on the world, exposing as moral pygmies the lesser men who would cage a human
Naked cheat gets frozen out
Published: Today
A LOVE cheat balances naked and shivering on an air conditioning vent after being caught romping with another man's wife.
Sun Meng, 25, fled outside with the husband yelling abuse from his apartment window. This photo was taken by a neighbour - then posted on a local community website.
Sun said in Chengdu, central China: "People are even laughing at how I look naked. But I must point out it was a very cold day."
Child's body found in Melbourne's Yarra River
AAP
October 31, 2009 04:12pm
THE body of a small child found in Melbourne's Yarra River is that of missing four-year-old boy Christian Peck, his family says.
Police would not confirm the body is that of Christian, who had autism, but the child's aunt said it was him.
"They said there's a little boy in there with blue pyjamas and pictures on it, so we know it's him because that's what he was wearing last night," Anne Rouge said through tears.
The tragic news that the body of a small child had been found in the river on Saturday morning came only seconds after Christian's mother Brenda Bott had given an emotional appeal for information about her son.
The body found in Melbourne's Yarra River was located just 150 metres from where Christian went missing at his great grandfather's home in Vine Street, Heidelberg, north of the city, on Friday morning.
Extended family were gathered at the house that fronts the river on Saturday.
The body was not expected to be formally identified until Sunday, a police spokeswoman said.
It is believed Christian, who liked to wander and had a fascination with water, had climbed out of a window.
Senior Sergeant Wayne Spence said a Victoria Police boat searching the Yarra River found the body submerged beneath a log, about 300 metres from Banksia Street.
The discovery came more than 24 hours after he had gone missing.
A distraught Ms Bott had earlier told reporters "I really would like my son back, he's my son and I can't live without him.
"I don't know how I'm going to cope, I can't go home with all my photos, toys."
Jungle woman Rochom P'ngieng wants to return to the wild
A Cambodian woman who spent 18 years living in a forest after going missing as a child has struggled to reintegrate in village life and wants to return to the wild.
By Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok
Published: 5:24PM GMT 30 Oct 2009
Rochom P'ngieng spent 18 years living in a forest after going missing as a child Photo: AP
Rochom P'ngieng, dubbed "jungle woman" when she emerged in Feb 2007, has still has not learnt to speak and refuses to wear clothes.
Her father said she had been admitted to hospital after refusing to eat for a month and had made several attempts to return to the forest.
Sal Lou said: "Her condition looks worse than the time we brought her from the jungle. She always wants to take off her clothes and crawl back to the jungle.
"She has refused to eat rice for about one month. She is skinny now... She still cannot speak. She acts totally like a monkey. Last night, she took off her clothes, and went to hide in the bathroom."
Rochom P'ngieng disappeared in 1989 when she was eight years old while herding water buffalo in the province of Ratanakkiri bordering Vietnam, north-east of the capital, Phnom Penh.
Her parents had long given up hope of ever seeing her. But in 2007, she emerged from the jungle naked and dirty, hunched over like a monkey, and was caught trying to steal by a farmer.
She was said to have been scavenging food in the forest and could utter only unintelligible words. Sal Lou described the sounds she made simply as "animal noises".
The drama of her disappearance and unlikely reappearance gripped Cambodians who described her as "half animal girl" and "jungle woman", though there were also many questions raised about her identity and whether she could really have survived in the jungle.
But Sal Lou, a village policeman, embraced Rochom P'ngieng as he long-lost daughter after identifying her by a facial scar.
However, in spite of the family's best efforts, the woman has had great difficulty settling in after her years in the jungle.
Sal Lou said that she was admitted to Ratanakkiri's provincial hospital last Monday, but he had removed her because she was unsettled and the medical staff had difficulty preventing her running away.
"We have to hold her hand all the time (at the hospital). Otherwise she would take her clothes off and run away," he said. She has become so difficult that he wants a charity to take her into care.
At the hospital Dr Hing Phan Sokunthea said Sal Lou took her away against the wishes of medical staff. "We wanted to monitor her situation more, but we don't know what to do because the father already took her out of hospital."
The jungles of Ratanakkiri – some of the most isolated and wild in Cambodia – are known to have held hidden groups of hill tribes in the past.
In 2004, four hill tribe families emerged from the dense forest where they had fled in 1979 after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which they supported.
Abandoned baby Sunday finds a family
By Angela Kamper
The Daily Telegraph
October 31, 2009 12:00am
SHE was the newborn left on the doorstep of a stranger's home.
Six months after the baby girl affectionately known as Sunday April was abandoned, she now has adoptive parents who have promised whoever her natural mother is that they will "love and take good care of her".
Sunday was discovered by two girls on the veranda of a Dubbo townhouse in April. After a nationwide appeal the natural parents of the baby still haven't come forward.
"We feel blessed to be Sunday's adoptive parents," her new parents told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
"Our hearts go out to her mum and we appreciate she must have had good reasons to make the decision she did. We want her to know that we will take good care of her daughter.
"Our family is so excited to welcome Sunday into our lives. We love our new daughter very much."
The parents plan to change Sunday's name to give her a normal upbringing away from the spotlight.
They said in the two weeks that she had been with them she had been very healthy and happy and met all her milestones of feeding well and being of a healthy weight.
"She loves to smile and going for walks in her pram," they said. "She is very active and it won't be long before she is crawling."
The Department of Community Services was inundated with well-wishes for the baby but no information about her natural parents came to light.
"We have been very touched by everyone who rang up and wished Sunday well," her parents said.
"As Sunday grows, we will share with her about what happened when she was born, including how so many people helped to try and find her parents and rang to wish her well."
After a child is placed for adoption Community Services supports the family for six months to make sure the child is settling well.
A formal adoption application is then prepared and lodged in the NSW Supreme Court. An adoption order is generally made within a month.
Sunday's new parents are yet to go through this process.
Andre Agassi admits long hairstyle was a wig
Andre Agassi, the former Wimbledon champion, has admitted the long lion-mane hairstyle he wore during the 1990s was actually a wig.
Published: 12:26AM GMT 31 Oct 2009
Andre Agassi of the USA and Boris Becker of Germany talk after a match at the US Open in Flushing Meadows on August 25, 1990 in New York, Photo: GETTY 
Trying to hold back the tears: Andre Agassi has admitted that he took the drug crystal meth during his time on the ATP Tour Photo: PA 
Andre Agassi's hair as it is now Photo: GETTY IMAGES
The tennis ace said he was so destracted by thoughts of the hairpiece falling off and causing him huge embarrassment during his first Grand Slam final that he lost the match.
Agassi made the confession about his locks, which won him a legion of female admirers, in his new autobiography, Open.
He said: "Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole.
"I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?"
He wore the wig for the French Open in 1990, the first time he had reached a Grand Slam final.
"Then a fiasco happened," he said. "The evening before the match I stood under the shower and felt my wig suddenly fall apart.
"Probably I used the wrong hair rinse. I panicked and called my brother Philly into the room.
"It’s a total disaster!" I said to him. He looked at it and said he could clamp it with hair clips.
"It took 20 clips. "Do you think it will hold?" I asked. "Just don’t move so much," he said.
"Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig?
"During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.
"With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head.
It was Brooke Shields, who he married, who suggested he cut all his hair off
"She said I should shave my head," he said. "It was like suggesting I should have all my teeth out.
"Nevertheless, I thought for a few days about it, about the agonies it caused me, the hypocrisy and lies."
After an 11-minute haircut, his appearance had changed dramatically.
"A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled," he said.
"'My wig was like a chain and the ridiculously long strands in three colours like an iron ball which hung on it."
Final Member of Hitler's Inner Circle Dies at 96
Friday, October 30, 2009
The last member of Adolf Hitler's notorious inner circle has died at age 96, leaving behind instructions to publish a manuscript about his time spent alongside the German dictator, the Telegraph reported.
Fritz Darges was present for all major conferences, social engagements and policy announcements during World War II — and experts believe his memoir could disprove claims by some disputed historians that Hitler never directly ordered the extermination of the Jews, and that the "final solution" was the brainchild of SS chief Heinrich Himmler.
Darges rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and thought Hitler was a genius. It was rumored that the dictator's sister-in-law Gretel Braun was interested in him, but he "didn't think he should become the brother-in-law of the Fuhrer."
In 1944, Darges' relationship with Hitler changed at a conference when Hitler ordered him to destroy a fly that buzzed around the room.
Darges suggested that, as it was an "airborne pest," the job should go to the Luftwaffe staff officer, Nicolaus von Below.
Enraged, Hitler dismissed Darges, yelling, "You're for the eastern front," and Darges was sent to combat.
Darges died at his home in Celle, northern Germany.
Boy sleeps after arm-less fun
By VINCE SOODIN
Published: 30 Oct 2009
A SHOCKED mum woke her son up for school yesterday - and discovered his ARM had been severed in the night.
The lad's limb was ripped off in a horrific accident on Wednesday night.
But amazingly the four-year-old boy - helped by his older brother - went to bed with his stump wrapped in a towel.
When his mother woke him up in the morning he said: "Sorry mami, I've gone and lost my arm. I didn't mean to."
An ambulance with a police escort raced the boy to a local hospital with the severed limb.
But it was too late for surgeons to reattach it.
Lucky
The boy is now recovering in hospital but is lucky to be alive.
Police spokesman Wolfgang Juergens said: "It is nothing short of a miracle that he didn't bleed to death in the night."
The accident happened when the boy and his 11-year-old brother played with an old washing machine in the kitchen at their home in the city of Ulm, southern Germany.
The appliance had been stripped down so the drum was exposed.
The pair switched it on and the boy's arm was caught between the revolving drum and the frame — before being ripped off.
But the older brother picked up the severed limb and put it in the family freezer.
Afraid to tell their mum what had happened, the boy astonishingly went to bed.
Police say an electrical defect meant that a sensor which should have not allowed the drum to spin while the front-loader's door was open was not working.
Six bodies found at Anthony Sowell's house, police sources say
By Mark Puente, The Plain Dealer
October 31, 2009, 5:00AM
John Kuntz, The Plain DealerPeople begin to gather Friday afternoon at Imperial Avenue and East 123rd Street as Cleveland police search for bodies in and around the house where Anthony Sowell lives. The crowd got larger into the evening. Some people brought with them pictures of missing friends and relatives.
With Joe Guillen, The Plain Dealer
Updated at 5 a.m.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Scores of law enforcement officers continued their search for convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell Friday night, while investigators temporarily ended their work at Sowell's home after finding the bodies of possibly six people inside and outside the house.
Investigators intend to continue digging at the Imperial Avenue property today in a search for more bodies. Sowell, 50, has lived in the home since 2005.
Police found two of the bodies on Thursday. When a third was discovered Friday afternoon in the basement's dirt floor, it triggered a more extensive search. Vans from the coroner's office were lined up outside the East Side house as a cadaver dog sniffed at patches of yard without grass. 
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Anthony E. Sowell "[Sowell] is the most wanted man in Cleveland right now," said police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho.
Stacho said three bodies were found for sure, and it is believed the remains of three others were located. At least two of the bodies were women. One body was found in the back yard, the rest in the house.
Stacho said the bodies "appear to be in different stages of decomposition." He said an expert from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History was at the house helping coroner employees determine when the victims had died.
Police halted their search for bodies about 8:30 p.m. Stacho said investigators will comb the house and yard "inch by inch, foot by foot."
But the hunt for Sowell went on, aided by U.S. marshals called in from out of state. Sowell moved into the home after serving 15 years in prison for rape.
It was the report of another rape last month, just eight hours after sheriff's deputies checked on the convicted sex offender, that sent police Thursday to arrest Sowell at his home in the 12200 block of Imperial. He was gone, but police found two badly decomposed bodies inside.
Coroner employees are trying to determine the age and race of the people found, and how they were killed. At least one of the victims died from violence, Stacho said.
Sowell's neighbors are scared.
"Everybody in this neighborhood is on edge," said Sheaillivee Kade. "Is this guy a serial killer?"
Creepy crawlies from the dawn of time: Newly-discovered prehistoric spider's web is world's oldest
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:08 AM on 31st October 2009
The world's oldest spider web spun when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth has been found encased in a prehistoric piece of amber.
The tiny tangled filaments date back 140 million years and are linked to each other in the roughly circular pattern familiar to gardeners everywhere.
The web appears to be similar to those of modern orb web spiders, which weave a spiral of silk to catch insect prey.
A light micrograph showing web of threads and a thread with a row of adhesive droplets (arrowed)
The amber was found by an amateur fossil hunter whilst looking for dinosaur remains, and was handed over to palaeobiologist Professor Martin Brasier .
The tiny threads about 1 millimetre (1/20th of an inch) long are held in suspension amid bits of burnt sap and fossilized vegetable matter.
Professor Brasier, of the University of Oxford, said: 'This amber is very rare. It comes from the very base of the Cretaceous period, which makes it one of the oldest ambers anywhere to have inclusions in it.'
Since the discovery of the amber, analysis of the threads has shown they were spun by spiders closely related to modern day orb-web, or garden spiders. 
Image A shows three pairs of spider web thread and image B features the close-up of the top pair of threads
Professor Brasier said: 'These spiders are distinctive and leave little sticky droplets along the spider web threads to trap prey.
'We actually have the sticky droplets preserved within the amber. These turn out to be the earliest webs that have ever been incorporated in the fossil record to our knowledge.'
He added: 'You can match the details of the spider's web with the spider's web in my garden.'
The webs became trapped in resin secreted by trees, probably as a response to fire damage. The amber was then deposited in a large lake bed, until it was exposed by uplift and erosion along the shoreline.
Experiments using modern cherry trees have demonstrated that very similar threads can be obtained by trapping modern spider webs in resin.
This image of modern cherry tree resin shows a pair of recent spider web threads
Just a tiny proportion of the deposits have so far been examined, and Prof Brasier believes they have the potential to yield many more exciting finds, largely due to the development of increasingly powerful imaging techniques.
He said: 'It is a very exciting time to be a palaeontologist, because of all these wonderful techniques being developed. We are able to view things and see detail in ways that we've never been able to before.'
To reconstruct the webs the scientists focused through the amber at 40 different positions, tracing it through the layers and then splicing it together again using a computer technique called confocal microscopy.
The discovery suggests that orb web spinning spiders existed far earlier than had been previously thought, at a time before flowering plants appeared on the planet and triggered an explosion in flying insects.
A modern-day descendant of the prehistoric spiders sits pretty in its web
The amber was found on a beach famous for fossilised dinosaur tracks near Bexhill, in East Sussex. Ancient amber deposits more than 100-million-year-old are extremely rare and scientists hope the Bexhill amber will reveal yet more secrets.
The amber deposit, which is hidden beneath the tide for much of the time, is also believed to be the first significant amber deposit in Britain.
Fossilised charcoal was also found in the fossil beds near to the amber along with fossilised tracks of Iguanodon, large plant eating dinosaurs.
Professor Brasier said: 'Although there were much bigger spiders around at this time, possibly larger than those we see today, this one would have been tiny because amber, which is the fossilized resin of certain conifer trees, only traps very small things.
'This has provided us with a fascinating window millions and millions of years into our past because it was at this time flies, butterflies and moths were beginning to evolve.
'So spiders would have been venturing up into the branches for the very first time to catch these flying insects for their supper.
'When you consider the huge dinosaurs that featured in Jurassic Park such as brontosaurus were around then it does not take much to imagine the amazing place Earth was when this little spider spun its web all those years ago.'
Firefighter Testifies He Found Body of Iowa Toddler Allegedly Killed by Mother
Friday, October 30, 2009
GRUNDY CENTER, Iowa — An emergency worker testified Thursday about finding the body of a murdered 2-year-old boy in brush near a northeast Iowa pond and a first-aid kit that the boy's brother used to try to help him.
Jesup firefighter Shawn Even testified during an emotional opening day of testimony in the first-degree murder trial of Michelle Kehoe, 36, in Grundy County. The Coralville woman is accused of killing her son Seth and injuring another son, 7-year-old Sean, near Littleton on Oct. 26, 2008.
Kehoe's public defender, Andrea Dryer, has said she intends to use insanity and diminished capacity as a defense.
Prosecutors said she covered her sons' faces with duct tape before she slit their throats.
Even testified Seth's body was found near the passenger side of the family's van, parked near the pond. He said Sean was sitting with his knees to his chest inside the van. Even told jurors Sean had a cut on his neck.
"He said that's from his mom," Even said.
Next to Seth's body was a first-aid kit, Even said. Sean told him that it was "from him trying to help his brother," Even said.
A recorded interview Sean Kehoe did with a state trooper was played for the jury as Kehoe and family members listened.
"Your mommy is the one who hurt you?" said Trooper Jim Smith.
"Yes," Sean said.
Smith said Sean was in the family van at the time looking in the direction of Seth's body.
Paramedic Rebecca Smith testified that Sean Kehoe had a cut several inches long and a half-inch deep.
He was taken to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, where he told a Black Hawk County sheriff's deputy that his mother cut his throat.
Debra Hinde, who lives near the pond, testified that Kehoe came to her door about 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 27 with a cut on her neck and covered in blood.
"I opened the door and this person fell into my doorway," Hinde said.
Hinde testified that she called 911 as Kehoe crawled into her house. Kehoe later wrote two notes, one with her husband Gene's phone number and another that said, "A man killed my boys and tried to kill me."
Later she admitted to authorities that she cut her sons' throats after Sean told police what had happened.
Prosecutors said Michelle Kehoe began planning the killing up to two months before when she bought duct tape and a knife.
"Her elaborate and meticulous planning of the murder of her two children had thus began," said Andrew Prosser, an assistant state attorney general.
The trial was moved to Grundy County because of concerns she could not get a fair trial in Buchanan County.
BBC children's TV safari guide killed by charging elephant in Tanzania
By Ryan Kisiel
Last updated at 12:10 PM on 31st October 2009
Trampled to death: Anton Turner was killed by a rampaging elephant in Tanzania
A Safari guide who was working on a BBC children's television programme was killed after an elephant charged and trampled over him yesterday.
Anton Turner, 38, was assisting the filming of the CBBC series 'Serious Explorers' which is retracing the footsteps of legendary explorer David Livingstone in Tanzania, Africa.
Mr Turner, a Brit who is a former Army officer and experienced safari ranger, was seriously injured after the elephant attacked him.
The crew were filming in the Selous Game Reserve - Tanzania's largest safari park - when he was trampled.
A doctor travelling with the expedition treated him, but he died soon after the rampage.
Three children who had been picked by the BBC to travel with the party were present during the fatal charge but both were unhurt.
Mr Turner was due to become a father, a friend said today.
Ryan Wienand, who set up a wildlife reserve in Tanzania with him, said he was 'numbed' by the news.
He told the Daily Telegraph: 'We don't yet know exactly what happened but I got a call this morning saying that Anton had been hit by an elephant and had died.
'It's a huge shock and we are all very upset because it such a great loss. He had a pregnant fiancee, who is absolutely devastated.'
British High Commission spokesman John Bradshaw said: 'We have been providing consular assistance today and trying to help out as much we can.
'There were children involved in the filming, though whether they witnessed what happened is unclear.
'Some of the details of what happened remain hazy. What we can say for certain is that all of the children are now safe.'
Tragic: Mr Turner was killed by a rampaging elephant in Tanzania
Mr Bradshaw said the show's main presenter Ben Major visited the High Commission offices with a senior producer after arriving in Tanzania earlier this month.
He added: 'We were aware they were over here filming. They came in and met the High Commissioner, and we discussed their plans.
'At that stage there was a lot of optimism about the project.
'I believe they were supposed to be in Tanzania for around four weeks, but have only been filming for two or three so far.'
Selous Game Reserve is the largest national park in Africa and covers more than 21,000 square miles.
In addition to a significant elephant population, it is also home to all of Africa's Big Five species as well as hundreds of other birds and mammals.
The park is located around 160 miles to the south of Dar es Salaam, a journey which takes around four hours on a four wheel-drive vehicle.
The BBC has immediately launched an investigation after airlifting the children out the area. Another four children who were in the country joined them and were due to return home later today.
Last night, a spokesman for the corporation said filming of the series had stopped and they had informed Mr Turner's family.
He added: 'We understand at this stage that he was charged by an elephant and was mortally injured.
'Three children were with the filming party at the time of the accident and are all safe.
'Their safety remains a priority, and all the children have been airlifted from the area. We are also consulting their parents and production of the programme has ceased.
'Four other children who were also in Tanzania in connection with the programme will also return home.
'Anton's relatives have been informed and the BBC is arranging for them to fly to Africa as soon as possible. We would like to extend our deepest sympathy to Anton's family and friends.
'Anton was an extremely experienced expedition safari and wildlife ranger and former Army officer who had worked with the BBC in the past.
'As is usual with a serious accident an immediate and thorough BBC investigation into the circumstances of this incident has already begun.'
Muslim Arizona Man Arrested After Allegedly Running Down 'Westernized' Daughter
Friday, October 30, 2009
PEORIA, Ariz. — Police in a Phoenix suburb say an Iraqi immigrant has been arrested in Georgia for allegedly running down his daughter because she was becoming "too Westernized."
Police in Peoria are releasing few details but say 48-year-old Faleh Almaleki is in custody. They aren't saying where he is being held.
Jim Joyner, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in Atlanta, says Almaleki was arrested Thursday when he arrived at Atlanta's airport.
Twenty-year-old Noor Faleh Almaleki is hospitalized in serious condition. Police say the Almalekis moved to the suburb of Glendale from Iraq during the mid-'90s.
Police say Faleh Almaleki was upset that his daughter had become too "Westernized" and he aimed his car at her Oct. 20 in a Peoria parking lot.
Kissing was developed 'to spread germs'
It isn't the most romantic theory, but scientists believe kissing was developed to spread germs which build up immunity to illness.
Published: 8:00AM GMT 31 Oct 2009
Kissing helps to protect women Photo: GETTY IMAGES
They say the gesture allows a bug named Cytomegalovirus, which is dangerous in pregnancy, to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up protection against it.
The bug is found in saliva and normally causes no problems. But it can be extremely dangerous if caught while pregnant and can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects.
Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, researcher Dr Colin Hendrie from the University of Leeds, said: "Female inoculation with a specific male's cytomegalovirus is most efficiently achieved through mouth-to-mouth contact and saliva exchange, particularly where the flow of saliva is from the male to the typically shorter female."
Kissing the same person for about six months provides the best protection, he added.
As the relationships progresses and the kisses become more passionate, the woman's immunity builds up, cutting her odds of becoming ill.
By the time she becomes pregnant, the odds of her unborn baby becoming infected are much lower.
Previously scientists have claimed that kissing acts as a form of evolutionary quality control, with saliva holding clues to fertility, health and genes.
But the psychologists from Leeds and the University of Central Lancashire said these things can be judged without getting quite so intimate.
Dr Hendrie said: "Information concerning body tone, smell, reproductive condition, disease state and, of course, personal physical and oral hygiene can all be gained solely from close physical proximity.
"The small amount of additional information from kissing is an unlikely pressure for its development."
How little bird David defended his young from Goliath the red-tailed hawk (with a mid-flight peck on the head)
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:09 AM on 31st October 2009
This is the David v Goliath moment when a plucky kingbird hopped onto the back of a huge hawk and pecked at its head in a bid to defend its young.
Although small, the species can become very aggressive in the breeding season, especially when larger predators come calling.
This one easily saw off a red-tailed hawk that ventured too close to its nest.
After jumping onto its back, it dug its tiny talons into its opponent's feathers and drilled at its skull relentlessly.
Peck peck peck! Birdwatcher Michael Parrish's stunning shot shows the kingbird steering a red tailed hawk away from is nest
The two birds soared through the skies, with the kingbird clinging on despite the hawk's valiant attempts to shrug it off.
The stunning attack lasted a few minutes until the predator gave up and soared away shrieking.
The incredible moment was captured by amateur photographer Michael Parrish at a nature reserve at Elwood near Chicago, Illinois, in the U.S.
Michael, 48, said: 'I was very lucky even to have seen this, let alone catch it on my camera.
'I regularly photograph and hike a restored grassland called Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.
'As I walked up the open trail I heard a red-tailed hawk in the distance - they have a very distinctive scream which is often used in films to show the wilderness.
'His call was quite distinct and he was quite far away, but what caught my attention was a smaller bird that was attacking him as he perched on a tower line.
'This does happen due to territory disputes, but it is still a sight to see a smaller bird attacking a large predator with such fury and boldness.'
Victory: The tiny parent's acrobatics were successful and the bird of prey was driven off to look for easier pickings elsewhere
He added: 'I watched for a few more minutes wanting to get closer, but knew if I attempted the hawk would fly away - they are very wary of humans and have superb eyesight.
'I continued my hike but all at once the hawks call seemed to be right on top of me. I thought for a moment that I was getting attacked.
'I swung my camera to the side, aimed, and fired rapidly until he passed. It was then I saw the bird as if it was riding the hawk bareback.
'At first I thought, "no way is that possible" and that I had just got a strange angle on the picture.
'But when I looked back on my camera you can see the little bird really is riding the hawk.
'I have seen smaller birds attacking larger birds plenty of times, but I would never expect such a small bird would physically go against such an ominous foe.'