Horrific injuries in chimpanzee attack threaten woman’s survival

By Calvin Palmer
The full extent of the injuries sustained by a Connecticut woman, attacked two weeks ago by a pet chimpanzee, emerged today.
The Cleveland Clinic said the savage attack tore off her hands, a substantial part of her face and left her with traumatic brain injury.
Charla Nash, 55, lost her nose, upper and lower lips, [...]

Democrat seeks to ban sale of Barbie dolls

By Calvin Palmer
Barbie celebrates her 50th birthday in a few days but her longevity is under threat from a West Virginia lawmaker.
Democratic Delegate Jeff Eldridge is proposing to ban the sale of the Mattel doll and others like her in West Virginia.
He says the dolls influence girls to place too much importance on physical beauty, [...]

Famous U.S. postage stamp sells for £184,000 at auction

By Calvin Palmer
A U.S. postage stamp, regarded as one of the most famous in the world, fetched £184,000 ($260,000) at an auction in Warwick , England, today.
The 1918 ‘inverted Jenny” depicts a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny biplane the wrong way up on a 24 cents airmail stamp and is one of the most remarkable errors in [...]

Church hands over $145,000 to bogus armored car guard

By Calvin Palmer
“Ask and it shall be given to you,” so the scripture goes. And the scenario played out perfectly at a church in Lincoln, Nebraska, yesterday.
A man dressed in the uniform of an armored car guard went to the financial office of the Berean Church and told an employee he had come to pick [...]

‘Miracle’ man survived for two days in cold Gulf waters, says doctor

By Calvin Palmer
A doctor today described as “a miracle” the survival of one of the four men whose boat capsized off the coast of the Gulf Coast, Florida, on Saturday.
Dr Mark Rumbak said 24-year-old Nick Schulyer would probably have only lived for another five to 10 hours if he had not been rescued on Monday [...]

Brown addresses a joint session of Congress

By Calvin Palmer
Her Britannic Majesty’s Government has kindly provided me with a full transcript of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s address to the joint session of Congress.
Brown received an enthusiastic reception and his speech was warmly received.
Brown is only the fifth British Prime Minister to be granted the honor of addressing both houses on Capitol Hill, [...]

Russian academic predicts collapse of United States by 2011

By Calvin Palmer
President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.
Those are not the predictions of Rush Limbaugh and the Republican far right, although they might be secretly rubbing their hands in glee.
This [...]

Appeals court denies parents access to dead son’s sperm for a grandchild

By Calvin Palmer
The New York state appeals panel yesterday issued a unanimous and unprecedented ruling that the parents of a 23-year-old killed by cancer are not entitled to use their dead son’s preserved sperm so they can have a grandchild.
Mark Speranza, 23, who left semen samples at the Repro Lab Inc. in July 1997 and [...]

Mechanical failures and errors of judgment blamed for Marines jet crash

By Calvin Palmer
Mechanical failures and errors of judgment led to a Marine Corps jet crashing in a San Diego neighborhood last December and killing four members of one family, the Marines said yesterday.
Four officers – the squadron commander, squadron operations officer, standardization officer and maintenance officer – have been relieved of their duties, a move that [...]