Giving each other space may not work in every relationship, but it’s what keeps the magic alive for the very fertile giant panda pair at the San Diego Zoo.
Since 2003, Bai Yun and her consort, Gao Gao, have produced three cubs, making them one of the most reproductively successful panda couples ever in captivity.
Their youngest offspring, a chubby female, will be named Monday when she reaches 100 days old, following Chinese tradition.
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Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the evacuation of thousands of people in the eastern Philippines ahead of a powerful tropical storm, officials said Wednesday.
In one province alone, officials estimated that up to 200,000 people would be evacuated to gymnasiums, churches and schools by Friday when Tropical Storm Mitag was forecast to make landfall.
And in Vietnam, the government said Tropical Storm Hagibis was expected to hit the country’s southern region Saturday.
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You wouldn’t want to use it to carve a Thanksgiving turkey, but if you need to push a cuticle, measure a tire tread, clean a golf club or adjust a bicycle spoke, this is the knife for you.
A Swiss Army knife that weighs nearly three pounds has been inducted into the 2008 edition of Guinness World Records for “most functions on a penknife.” At the time, the knife had 85 tools; the latest version has 87 tools and at least 115 uses, according to Wenger North America, the Orangeburg-based American distributor that announced the induction Tuesday.
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Britain’s prime minister apologized Wednesday for the government’s loss of two computer discs containing the personal data of 25 million people, saying there was no excuse and promising a review of data procedures.
The two discs contained the department’s entire database relating to the payment of child benefits — a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children — Treasury chief Alistair Darling said.
The data on 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families, includes names, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, and, in some cases, bank account details.
The loss became public Tuesday and prompted the resignation of Paul Gray, the head of Revenue and Customs, which supervises taxation and welfare payments.
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It’s never a good sign when your boss apologizes in advance for assigning you a review so when Dan handed me a copy of Empire Earth III and said “I’m sorry,” I was a little nervous to crack it open. I mean, I really, really liked the original Empire Earth, and I was even a fan of Mad Doc’s first sequel. What could they possibly have done to depart so radically from the success of the previous game? In short, a lot.
Fans of the series will be disappointed that the sequel removes much of the complexity and variety that separated Empire Earth from the other RTS games. Where the previous games had over a dozen distinct eras and tons of historical civs with unique bonuses, Empire Earth III reduces it down to bare essentials. You can play as the tech-heavy West, the population heavy East, or the unconventional Middle East. Beginning in the Ancient era, you’ll have the chance to progress through to Medieval, Colonial, Modern and Future as the game progresses.
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The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother’s wife and fathered a child by her.
Members of Archbishop Earl Paulk’s family stood at the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church a few Sundays ago and revealed the secret exposed by a recent court-ordered paternity test.
In truth, this is not the first — or even the second — sex scandal to engulf Paulk and the independent, charismatic church. But this time, he could be in trouble with the law for lying under oath about the affair.
The living proof of that lie is 34-year-old D.E. Paulk, who for years was known publicly as Earl Paulk’s nephew.
“I am so very sorry for the collateral damage it’s caused our family and the families hurt by the removing of the veil that hid our humanity and our sinfulness,” said D.E. Paulk, who received the mantle of head pastor a year and a half ago.
D.E. Paulk said he did not learn the secret of his parentage until the paternity test. “I was disappointed, and I was surprised,” he said.
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If you don’t count Super Mario Sunshine - and a lot of people don’t - it’s taken more than 10 years for a proper follow-up to Super Mario 64 to arrive. But Super Mario Galaxy wastes little time in establishing itself as both a worthy successor and also as one of the more immediately gratifying games in recent memory. Get past that umpteenth Princess Peach kidnapping sequence, and you’re immediately thrown into a colorful, pop-up book of a world where every surface is part of the playing field.
Although the title Super Mario Galaxy suggests a bit of hyperbole, the game does live up to its name by putting Mario in space and having him work his way through planetoids and other floating objects. Because each planetoid is so small and has its own gravitational pull, almost every available surface can be utilized to get Mario from point A to B.
Jump over the edge of a floating island and you might find yourself being pulled over to the “bottom” side. To reach a platform directly overhead you’d have to jump high enough to escape the pull of where you’re standing and end up flipping upside-down. It sounds like a lot to handle, but none of this ever interferes with how beautifully the game plays.
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Hate crime incidents rose nearly 8 percent last year, the FBI reported Monday, as civil rights advocates increasingly take to the streets to protest what they call official indifference to intimidation and attacks against blacks and other minorities.
Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.
More than half the incidents were motivated by racial prejudice, but the report did not even pick up all the racially motivated incidents last year.
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Three boys, ages 8 and 9, were charged Monday with raping an 11-year-old girl last week, court officials and police said.
“Never in my 20-plus years of law enforcement have I conceived of something like this,” Police Chief Michael Wilkie of Acworth, Georgia, told CNN.
Clad in blue jumpsuits, the two 9-year-olds and one 8-year-old appeared in court in Cobb County, north of Atlanta, on Monday afternoon and were ordered to remain in custody until a further hearing. Family members were in court for their appearance, which was closed to reporters.
Wilkie said the girl told investigators she was raped Thursday evening. She was examined by doctors after her family reported the allegation late Saturday, and investigators questioned her extensively on Sunday, he said.
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The king of Spain’s recent undiplomatic outburst at the Venezuelan president has become a ringtone hit across Spain.
An estimated 500,000 people have downloaded the insult featuring the words “Why don’t you shut up?”, generating a reported 1.5m euros ($2m).
King Juan Carlos asked Hugo Chavez to “shut up” at a summit in Chile last week after the president said Spain’s ex-PM Jose Maria Aznar was a “fascist”.
Branded mugs, t-shirts and websites featuring the row are also profitable.
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A second case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in turkeys in a farm on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said today.
The farm was one of four where culls were taking place because of fears of “dangerous contact” with the initial case at Redgrave Park Farm, discovered last week.
All 9,000 turkeys have already been slaughtered at the new infected premises, which is operated by the same company as the site of the first outbreak.
The site of the new infection, Hill Meadow Farm, Knettishall, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, is outside the original 3km protection zone set up around Redgrave Park farm, but inside the wider restricted area which covers Suffolk and much of Norfolk.
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The body of an American basketball player who was reported missing two weeks ago, was found in the middle of a dense thicket in the central state of Goias, police said on Monday.
Police spokesman Norton Luiz said by telephone that the body was that of Tony Harris, a former Washington State University basketball star who was under contract to Universo, a professional Brazilian basketball team based in Brasilia, the country’s capital.
“Thanks to an anonymous phone call, police found his body on Sunday slumped against a tree in an Army training ground and with the shoelace of one of his sneakers wrapped around his neck,” Luiz said. “We believe he may have committed suicide because it appears the body fell from one of the tree’s branches, although we are not ruling out homicide.”
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The international jury presiding over the Car of the Year award, made up of 58 specialist journalists from 22 European countries, has elected the Fiat 500 Car of the Year 2008 with 385 votes, ahead of the Mazda 2 (325 votes) and the Ford Mondeo (202). In addition to winning the Car of the Year 2008 award outright, the super-compact Fiat distinguished itself by obtaining votes from most members of the jury: 57 out of 58 included it in their short-list, and 33 made it top in their personal rankings.
This is the second time – the first was the Fiat Panda in 2004 – that an A-segment model has won the most prestigious award in the world car industry. This extraordinary record brings total Fiat Group Automobiles wins to twelve: the Fiat 124 (1967), Fiat 128 (1970), Fiat 127 (1972), Lancia Delta (1980), Fiat Uno (1984), Fiat Tipo (1989), Fiat Punto (1995), Fiat Bravo/Brava (1996), Alfa 156 (1998), Alfa 147 (2001), Fiat Panda (2004) and the Fiat 500 (2008).
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European stocks tumbled for a third consecutive session Monday after Swiss Re became the latest victim of the recent credit crunch.
Companies’ sub-prime exposure “will change according to developments in the underlying housing market,” said Lucy MacDonald, chief investment officer of global equities at RCM Ltd. in London.
The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index fell 2.2 percent to 354.70. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index dropped 2.7 percent to 6120.80, while France’s CAC-40 Index lost 1.7 percent to 5432.57. Germany’s DAX Index closed 1.3 percent lower at 7511.97.
Overall sentiment remained jittery, as Swiss investment bank UBS was downgraded by both Dresdner Kleinwort and CIBC on beliefs that the group has further risks of substantial subprime losses.
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Two women have been arrested in an anti-gay attack on a former “Top Chef” reality show contestant and her friends, police said.
Nassau County police announced the arrests Saturday, a day after victim Josie Smith-Malave’s attorney said she had filed a complaint accusing investigators of not pursuing the case energetically enough. Police said Friday that an arrest had recently been made and another was imminent.
Smith-Malave, who is openly gay and appeared on Season 2 of the Bravo channel show, and three other women were assaulted by about a dozen people after being thrown out of a Sea Cliff bar on Sept. 1, according to police. The attackers hurled slurs about the women’s perceived sexual orientation, spat on them and hit them, police said.
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