Free Republic

Two former caretakers for Koko, the famous gorilla who communicates with humans using sign language, say they were continually pressured to show Koko their breasts or face the consequences. Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller are suing Koko's primary caretaker, Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson, because she allegedly asked them to "perform bizarre sexual acts with Koko" — namely, taking off their tops — to bond with the five-foot-tall, 280-pound female gorilla. "Patterson would interpret certain hand movements made by Koko as a 'demand' to see exposed human nipples," the suit alleges. "[Patterson] made it known to Keller and Alperin that if...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a lawsuit brought by survivors of the Holocaust in Croatia, the Ukraine and Yugoslavia who allege the Vatican Bank accepted millions of dollars of their valuables stolen by Nazi sympathizers. The Vatican Bank, the financial arm of the Roman Catholic Church, denies allegations that during World War II it stored the looted assets from thousands of gypsies, Jews, Serbs and others who were killed or captured by the Nazi-backed Ustasha regime that controlled Croatia. A federal judge had dismissed the 1999 case, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of...