News Article #5

Friday December 16
USA Today

The Cat who rated an upgrade

Housecat Emily paddes way from her Appleton, Wis., home in September, wandered into a shipping center and ended up in a sea container that crossed the Atlantic. A month later, she turned up in Nancy, France. Emily wasn't carrying a passport, but the ID collar around her neck led finders to her owners. After a mandotory month in French quarantine, she was flown home in style. Continental Airlines offered a free business class seat from Paris, which proved to be the cat's meow. Emily looked like a happy traveler as she purred in her owners' arms during a December reunion at the Milwaukee airport.

Beating odds

I saw an amazing thing today walking down the street in the New York. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I saw a little boy, about 9. He was on crutches. He also only had one leg, his left jean pant leg was pinned up to the thigh. But the other foot wasn't in a shoe it was on a rollerblade! He was one-legged roller bladding down the street! He was having a tough time with it at the moment but his guardian was standing next to him slowly walking at his side. I would think it to be impossible for a one legged boy to rollerblade down the busy sidewalk of Times Square but not this boy. I was very impressed and I hope that soon he masters that quest.

Funny New York Coincendence

This is one of the reasons why NY is special:

I was sitting on the subway when a conversation struck my ears. There was a guy talking about a girl that he used to see a lot on 8th Avenue. She didn't see him but he saw her. He thought that she was very pretty but his enjoyment of seeing her wasn't more than an innocent crush. He was finally going to say hello and introduce himself when she stopped showing up. He told his roomate about the girl and his roomate kept trying to convince him to talk to her but he never got the chance. He was bummed but stopped thinking about it. Then, yesterday, at a department store they got in the elevator at the same time. He seized this opportunity to say hello. They exchanged names and went about thier different directions, her name was Julie. Later that same day he was going to a movie and as he was going up the stairs and Julie was coming down the stairs! Amazed at this coincedence, the chatted and laughed. At the end of the conversation the man asked for her last name. When she said her last name he looked at her in utter amazement. He knew of this Julie. Julie happened to be really good friends with his roommate! He brought up the name of his roomate and they laughed at what a small world it was. They went their seperate ways again this time friends. Well the man thinks that is the end of the wierd story but as he is telling the story to his friends on the subway I realize that I know Julie as well. In fact I know the reason why she was on 8th ave and why she stopped going to 8th ave. I was working with Julie at that job. We were doing a play together! I was going to tell the guy how strange that is...but then he would know that i was listening to his whole story so I kept my mouth shut. NY is so small sometimes!

News Article #4

Russian squirrel pack "kills dog"

BBC World Edition
Thursday December 1

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report. Passers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute. They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh. A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although schientists are sceptical. The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in the Maritime territory, and was witnessed by three local people. A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say. "They literally gutted the dog", local jouralist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

"When they saw the men, they scatttered in different directions, taking pieces of thier kill away with them" Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack. While squirrels without sources of protein might attack bids' nests, he said, the idea of them chewing a dog to death was "absurd". If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he added. Komosmolskya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory. Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year. "The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he added.