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Millions of anchovies — a protected species in Europe — have died in northern Spain after an unexplained mass beaching, officials said Friday. The fish, all juveniles, were found stranded along large stretches of Colunga beach, 35 miles east of the port city of Gijon, a normally pristine seaside landscape in the verdant province of Asturias. "More than three tons have been found so far, and our main — untested — hypothesis at the moment is that they tried to flee from predators and accidentally beached," said Luis Laria, chief coordinator of a marine protection unit working with the government....

Track and field line judge Lia Mara Lourenco is helped after a javelin hit her in her foot during 'Brazil Trophy,' a national track and field competition, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Jonne Roriz, Agencia Estado)

A western Iowa woman is recovering from the shock of finding a drowned bat in her tea mug - after she sipped from the cup all day. The brown bat, about the size of two tea bags, was found a few weeks ago by a 60-year-old Woodbury County woman, said Chuck Cipperley, an environmental director for the Siouxland health office in Sioux City. "I knew the person, so I knew it was no joke," said Cipperley, who took the call from the woman. The woman, who declined to identify herself, told Cipperley she found the bat when she was cleaning...

Chinese surgeons have performed the world's first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ. Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his...

Segway is recalling all 23,500 of the self-balancing scooters it has shipped because of a software glitch that can make its wheels unexpectedly reverse direction, throwing off the rider -- and in at least one incident, break some teeth. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday said consumers should stop using the vehicles immediately. Segway is cooperating on the voluntary recall.

Police in Lawrence arrested two people following the discovery of more than $1 million in cocaine in a rental van. Investigators found even more cocaine in a Methuen home along with $120,000. Workers at a car rental agency found the drugs inside two liquor boxes in the back of the van on Tuesday morning. The cocaine was covered in transmission fluid to mask the scent. The van was rented to 30-year-old Nicole Paquette of Haverhill. A detective posed as a car rental employee, called Paquette and told her to come pick up the boxes. Paquette arrived at the store at...

CORAM, N.Y. - A car hit a dirt hill at high speed and flew 200 feet into the second story of an apartment building on Tuesday, killing the driver, police said. Two people in separate apartments at the time of the 9 a.m. crash escaped injury, and there were no injuries on the street. Investigators did not know what led the driver, Vincent Pontillo Jr., to speed down a dead-end street. His 2004 Honda Accord, which was launched from a 4-foot dirt hill, penetrated the building up to its rear bumper, police spokesman Officer William Fairchild said. An autopsy was...

A stray bullet from an upstairs room wounded a Buffalo man Sunday morning while he was using the toilet in the Buffalo Tourist Lodge, 1159 Main St., police said. Walter Her, 68, who had been living at the hotel for several months, was treated in the intensive care trauma unit of Erie County Medical Center for a wound to the lower left side of his back. His condition was unavailable late Sunday, but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. "Two guys and a girl were upstairs partying, and they say they found a gun in the room when...

Stephanie King had to tell her music teacher that a raccoon was to blame for her missing homework. "I explained that the raccoon fell from the ceiling in my bathroom and it ran into my bedroom," the 13- year-old seventh grader at Osceola Middle School told the St. Petersburg Times. "Animal control came out to get it and they couldn't catch it and they said we couldn't go in my room." Stephanie's grandmother vouched for her story Friday with school officials. "I told them she can't get her homework, her books, because everything is locked in the bedroom," Natalie King...

An Amtrak passenger traveling with her ailing father waited nearly 23 hours and about 1,000 miles to tell authorities he had died so she could avoid the cost of shipping the body home, police said. The train had reached Chicago when Daniel Stepanovich's daughter told officials that he had died in a sleeper car on Sunday evening, about the time the train was pulling into Glenwood Springs, Colo., said Chicago Police spokeswoman Jo Ann Taylor. The woman told police she couldn't afford to ship his body home. She said Stepanovich, 80, suffered from lung and brain cancer. Stepanovich was pronounced...

Paraglider lands in minefield 1 hour, 30 minutes ago JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli man was stuck in the middle of a minefield near the Syrian border Saturday after crashing his paraglider and severely injuring himself. The unidentified man took off from a peak in the Golan Heights and drifted east toward the Syrian and Jordanian borders before crashing in the minefield, injuring his legs and breaking several bones, rescue services said. "He's in the process of being rescued," an army spokesman said. Paragliding, in which participants jump off tall peaks or cliffs with a parachute strapped to their back,...

Wife Runs Over Husband Sleeping In Driveway Man Says He'd Been Drinking Alcohol POSTED: 8:44 am EDT August 24, 2006 ROGERS, Ark. -- An Arkansas man who fell asleep in his driveway woke up when his wife came home and turned into the driveway to park the car and ran over him. Kristine Bolson told the Benton County Sheriff's Office that she drove into her driveway shortly after midnight Tuesday and heard a loud cracking sound. She said that when she got out of her vehicle, she heard moaning and found her husband, Richard Gonzalez, on the ground near her...

A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say. Some have taken to carrying pepper spray to ward off the masked marauders and the woman who was bitten now carries an iron pipe when she goes outside at night. "It's a new breed," said Tamara Keeton, who with Kari Hall started a raccoon watch after an emotional neighborhood meeting drew 40 people. "They're urban raccoons, and they're not afraid." Tony Benjamins, whose family lost two cats, said he got...

A 21-year-old man was trapped in a tank of chocolate for about two hours early Friday, police said. Capt. Randy Berner said the worker said he got into the tank at the Debelis Corp. to unplug it and became trapped waist deep in the chocolate. "It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," Berner said, and co-workers, police and firefighters were not able to get him out until the chocolate could be thinned out. "It's the first time I've ever heard of anything like this," the police captain said. The worker said his ankles were sore after the incident,...

A BRITISH swimmer who felt the pinch after losing his wallet during a late-night dip in the sea was convinced it had vanished - until it turned up clamped between a lobster's claws. The wallet was recovered by a diver who caught the crustacean red-handed on the sea bed. After picking up the offending lobster, he pried the wallet from the creature's claws and after finding a business card inside, handed it into a hairdressing salon. Swimmer Paul Westlake, 30, from Plymouth on the southwest English coast, received a surprise telephone call from a staff member at the salon he...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Paris Hilton got no love this week from her pet kinkajou Baby Luv - in fact, the racoon-like animal bit her. The heiress was not badly hurt but did visit a hospital emergency room to receive a tetanus shot, her publicist, Elliot Mintz, told The Associated Press on Friday. Hilton was frolicking with her exotic pet early Tuesday morning "the way some people play with their cats and dogs" when the animal became excited, Mintz said. "Baby Luv bit her. It's a superficial bite on her left arm," he said. Hilton, concerned that she was bleeding,...

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Woman Arrested In Connection With Death STRASBURG, Colo. -- Authorities have arrested a woman in connection with the discovery of a baby's decomposing body found in the back of a truck in Arapahoe County, Colo.

Judge: Lawyer is too drunk to argue case 1 hour, 9 minutes ago LAS VEGAS - A judge ordered a blood-alcohol test for a defense lawyer whom she said smelled of alcohol, then declared a mistrial after declaring him too tipsy to argue a kidnapping case. "I don't think you can tell a straight story because you are intoxicated," Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt told defense lawyer Joseph Caramango as she declared a mistrial for Caramango's client, Dale Jakuchunas. Caramango told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Tuesday report that he was not drunk, and had been ready to...

NORTHAMPTON, Pa. - Enjoying a relaxing 54th birthday in the yard, Mike Colwell went to move the sprinkler, backing up momentarily to avoid the spray, toward a horseshoe pit with a 1-inch-thick rusty steel stake. "My two heels hit the back wall of the pit. The next thing I know, this thing just tore through me," Colwell said. As he fell on the stake, it pierced into his buttocks, fractured his pelvis, and came within a millimeter of his iliac artery, which carries blood to the body's lower extremities. "I just felt something tearing right through my leg for 5...