Police department running low on pants

Baltimore police are looking for a few good pairs of pants. The police department has run out of two popular sizes of the custom-made navy blue uniform pants it provides to every officer, a department spokesman said Wednesday. Officers who wear size 36 or 38 will have to wait for new pants until a special order comes through. "We are officially out," said Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman. "We're putting in an emergency order for those two sizes." The department attributed the shortage to the recent hiring of 240 new officers. But police union president Paul Blair blamed a new initiative that requires detectives to walk periodic foot patrols in uniform. Cadets receive four pairs of pants when they leave the police academy. When officers need a new pair, they get them free but are required to turn in their old ones. "If [the pants] can be saved, they'll be cleaned and put back into rotation," Harris said.

Dog nursing home to employ puppies to raise spirits

Japan will get its first nursing home for dogs with round-the-clock monitoring by doctors and a team of puppies to help aging pooches feel younger, a pet products company said Wednesday. Owners pay 98,000 yen ($800) a month to keep their dogs at the Soladi Care Home for pets, which opens Friday, according to a joint release by Soladi Co. and the Endo Veterinary clinic in Tochigi, eastern Japan. Veterinarians at the home will offer round-the-clock monitoring, and residents will be fed specially fortified food, the release said. The home, which can accept 20 dogs at one time, will also employ puppies to play with the aging dogs to help them keep fit and feel younger, the release said. Analysts say that a boom in pet ownership in Japan, coupled with better health care and a more balanced diet, has led to a surge in elderly pets in Japan. That has spurred doting owners to turn to vitamins, aromatherapy and even acupuncture to help their companions through their old age.

One-eyed gator pulls golfer into pond

A man who lost his ball in a golf course pond nearly lost a limb when a nearly 11-foot alligator latched on to his arm and pulled him in the water, authorities said. Bruce Burger, 50, was trying to retrieve his ball Monday from a pond on the sixth hole at the Lake Venice Golf Club. The alligator latched on to Burger's right forearm and pulled him in the pond, said Gary Morse, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Burger used his left arm to beat the reptile until it freed him. "I saw him reach down to get his ball and he yelled" for help, said Janet Pallo, who was playing the fifth hole and ran over to drive the man to the clubhouse. Burger, from Lenoir City, Tennessee, was taken to a hospital but was not seriously injured, Morse said Tuesday. It took seven Fish and Wildlife officers an hour to trap the one-eyed alligator, which measured 10 feet, 11 inches, Morse said. The pond at the sixth hole has a "Beware of Alligator" sign. "Unfortunately, that's part of Florida," course general manager Rod Parry said. "There's wildlife in these ponds."

Egyptologists think they have Hatshepsut's mummy

Egyptologists think they have identified with certainty the mummy of Hatshepsut, the most famous queen to rule ancient Egypt, found in a humble tomb in the Valley of the Kings, an archaeologist said on Monday.

The archaeologist, who asked not to be named, said the candidate for identification as the mummy of Hatshepsut was one of two females found in 1903 in a small tomb believed to be that of Hatshepsut's wet-nurse, Sitre In. Several Egyptologists have speculated over the years that one of the mummies was that of the queen, who ruled from between 1503 and 1482 BC -- at the height of ancient Egypt's power. The archaeologist said Hawass would present new evidence for an identification but that not all Egyptologists are convinced he will be able to prove his case. "It's based on teeth and body parts ... It's an interesting piece of scientific deduction which might point to the truth," the archaeologist said.

Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas speculated many years ago that one of the mummies was Hatshepsut's because the positioning of the right arm over the woman's chest suggested royalty. Her mummy may have been hidden in the tomb for safekeeping after her death because her stepson and successor, Tuthmosis III, tried to obliterate her memory. Donald Ryan, an Egyptologist who rediscovered the tomb in 1989, said on an Internet discussion board this month that there were many possibilities for the identities of the two female mummies found in the tomb, known as KV 60.

"Zahi Hawass recently has taken some major steps to address these questions. Both of the KV 60 mummies are in Cairo now and are being examined in various clever ways that very well might shed light on these questions," he added. In an undated article on his Web site, Hawass cast doubt on the theory that the KV-60 mummy with the folded right arm was that of Hatshepsut.

"I do not believe this mummy is Hatshepsut. She has a very large, fat body with huge pendulous breasts, and the position of her arm is not convincing evidence of royalty," he wrote. He was more optimistic about the mummy found in the wet-nurse's coffin and traditionally identified as the nurse's. That mummy is stored away in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. "The body of the mummy now in KV 60 with its huge breasts may be the wet-nurse, the original occupant of the coffin ... The mummy on the third floor at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo could be the mummy of Hatshepsut," Hawass wrote.

Chinese woman breaks silence on sex slavery horror

Zhou Fenying is a living witness to the dark history that still poisons China's relations with Japan more than 60 years after World War Two.

When Zhou was 22, Japanese soldiers came to her village in eastern China, grabbed her and her sister-in-law and carted them off to a military brothel, she says. Now 91, Zhou has broken decades of silence to speak of her traumatic experience as a "comfort woman" -- the euphemism the invading Japanese used to describe women forced into sex slavery.

"I hid with my husband's sister under a millstone. Later, the Japanese soldiers discovered us and pulled us out by our legs. They tied us both to their vehicle. Later they used more ropes to tie and secure us and drove us away," she told Reuters in her home village in Jiangsu province. "They then took us to the 'comfort woman lodge'. There was nothing good there," she said, speaking through a local government official who struggled to translate her thick dialect into Mandarin.

"For four to five hours a day, it was torture. They gave us food afterwards, but every day we cried and we just did not want to eat it," Zhou added, sitting in her sparsely decorated home.

The Chinese government says Japan has yet to atone properly for its war crimes, which it says included massacres and forcing people to work as virtual slaves in factories or as prostitutes. In 2005, a push by Japan for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat sparked sometimes violent anti-Japanese street protests in cities across China, with demonstrators denouncing Tokyo and demanding compensation and an apology for the war. "OF COURSE I HATE THEM"

Zhou -- neatly dressed in a dark blue traditional Chinese shirt, her graying hair combed back into a bun -- avoided saying what had happened to her in the brothel, except that she was there with at least 20 other Chinese women. But her son, Jiang Weixun, 62, said she had told him they were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers on a daily basis.

This harrowing experience has left a deep scar on Zhou's life. She cannot forget, and nor can she forgive.

"If it were you, wouldn't you hate them? Of course I hate them. But after the war, all the Japanese went home. I'm already so old. I think they are all dead by now," Zhou said. Zhou said she had served as a "comfort woman" for two months before a local town official rescued her by paying off the Japanese.

She went back to her husband of 10 years, Ni Jincheng, who later died fighting the Japanese. Zhou remarried and lives with her son, Jiang, from her second marriage. Jiang said his mother had been moved to tell her story after learning of the death of Lei Guiying, a well-known former Chinese comfort woman. Lei died of a brain hemorrhage in April. She had gone public with her experiences last year after hiding the ordeal from her family for 60 years. Jiang said he was not ashamed of his mother, one of only an estimated 50 former Chinese sex slaves still alive today.

He said her experiences should highlight to the world the extent of the wartime crimes committed by the Japanese. "When my mother told me about this, as her son, I do not hate her for that. The Japanese are the ones I should be hating. The Japanese are those who committed the crimes. The Japanese are responsible for this, they raped all of the women," he said. Tokyo has not paid direct compensation to any of the estimated 200,000 mostly Asian women forced to work in brothels for the Japanese military before and during World War Two, saying all claims were settled by peace treaties that ended the war. Instead, in 1995, Tokyo set up the Asian Women's Fund, a private group with heavy government support, to make cash payments to surviving wartime sex slaves.

Stop the world, I want to get off!

Today's monumentally stupid headline from the Associated Press: World awaits Paris Hilton's return Let's make one thing perfectly clear: the Paris Hilton phenomenon is one that is ENTIRELY created by the media. It started with a photo being published somewhere of a semi-attractive teenager who was heir to a hotel fortune. From that point on, the media decided that we HAD TO HAVE Paris Hilton news 24/7, and we had to have it at the preposterous level that's hinted at in the headline above, one from a usually-respectable news source. I, and I would argue MOST of the rest of the world, would love nothing more than going back to the pleasant time when Paris meant a city in France, not the most obnoxiously ubiquitous celebrity ever. If anyone ever needs an example of the media deciding what "news" we get to see each and every minute of our lives, remind them: We'll always have Paris.

Nude bather arrested

A 22-year-old American man was arrested on Sunday after an early morning naked bath in the historic Barcaccia fountain at the foot of Rome's Spanish Steps, an Italian news agency reported. The man stripped and bathed in the 17th century Baroque fountain in front of a crowd of tourists, before being led away by police, AGI news agency said. He faces charges of committing an obscene act, it said. The incident comes less than two weeks after a drunken man was arrested for driving his car down the steps that spiral down to the fountain, one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions.

Barber stabs second client with scissors

An Amsterdam barber has been arrested for stabbing a client with scissors, the second such incident involving the barber, Dutch police said on Saturday. The client was stabbed and seriously wounded after a fight broke out earlier this week at the barber's shop, police said. The barber stabbed another client with scissors in 2000. The man later died of his wounds, although the barber was cleared of any charges after a court found he had acted in self-defense. Police said they were holding the man, 42, and investigating whether attempted manslaughter charges should be brought against him.

Fake priest arrested baptizing baby

A man pretending to be a priest was arrested by police as he prepared to baptize a baby in a small town in the north of Portugal.

"When the man said 'in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit' police came in and grabbed him," a member of the church was quoted by local daily Jornal de Noticias as saying. A spokeswoman for the Portuguese police said the 34-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a priest and had several similar arrest warrants to his name.

"We had to interrupt the religious ceremony to identify the suspect," said spokeswoman Amelia Moutinho, adding that the public prosecutor would now investigate the case. The baby was later baptized by a real priest, the local daily said. The man was arrested on June 16.

Thief asks for "time out" in police chase

Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out." "He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint," Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB. Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase. The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals. After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

My new favorite artist - Ruth Price

Pictures from Taylors Falls, MN

250 gallons of water help rescue kitten

It took two fire trucks, five firefighters, several animal rescuers and about 250 gallons of water to rescue a 2-pound kitten.

Animal control officers tried coaxing the gray tabby out of a storm sewer drain with encouraging words and food Monday before giving up after about an hour and a half. Firefighters tried banging tools on one end of the pipe and flashing lights Monday night in hopes of driving him out the other end — but that didn't work either. It wasn't until firefighters flushed about 250 gallons of water through the 10- to 12-inch pipe — enough to wet the kitten's paws — and the feline rushed into the hands of Firefighter Kevin Siers, who was standing inside a manhole.

"We had about an hour and a half of fun," Siers said Tuesday. "Everybody was pretty tickled" when the cat emerged.

Dog drives owner's car into river

Charlie the black lab drove his owner's car into the Pend Oreille River. As Mark Ewing walked home Wednesday evening after returning from picking up a pizza, Charlie jumped into the car through an open window, and apparently knocked the vehicle into gear. "He somehow got the car into neutral," Ewing said. "My car just went boom, down an incline and into the drink." Ewing could only watch as his Chevy Impala sank into the river. No dummy, Charlie jumped out of the window as the car went downhill. "There's nothing weirder than looking at your car cruising down your driveway when you're not in it and seeing your dog jump out and then watching your car go splash," Ewing said. Actually, things got a little weirder when the tow truck driver showed up. Before the driver dove into the water to hook the car up to his truck, he asked Ewing to hold his dentures. "My car's in the drink, I've got dentures in my hand and this guy Keith ... goes swimming," Ewing noted.

Frozen criminal found in Irish fish shop

Pathologists inspected the thawed remains Wednesday of a missing Dublin criminal whose body was found, frozen rock solid, in the Mermaid Fish Shop. The owner of the shop in Galway, western Ireland, last week found the body of Patrick McCormack, 52, concealed inside a plastic container. He appeared to have been badly beaten and his hands were tied behind his back. An examination of the body has been repeatedly delayed at Dublin City Morgue because it had not defrosted. But the work began Wednesday under the supervision of Ireland's assistant state pathologist, Dr. Michael Curtis. The police officer leading the murder investigation, Superintendent Tom Curley, said detectives were exploring the possibility that McCormack's body had been in the freezer since 2002, when his car was found abandoned in the western county of Clare. McCormack, a Dublin native, had criminal convictions for robbery and was on a police list of suspected drug dealers at the time of his disappearance.

Man kills 300-pound bear with a log

A 300-pound black bear raided a family's campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow. Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family's cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it. The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine, grabbed the closest thing he could find — a log from their stash of firewood. "(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear."

Japanese eating champ could lose his chomp

Japanese eating champion Takeru Kobayashi is being treated for an arthritic jaw that could douse his hopes for taking a seventh straight title at the annual Independence Day hot dog eating competition on Coney Island. Last year, the 165-pound champion won his sixth straight Yellow Mustard Belt at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest by devouring a then-world record 53 3/4 frankfurters in 12 minutes.

"Already I can't open my jaws more than just a little bit," he wrote. "There's no pain only if I open my mouth about enough for one finger. More than that is painful and I can't open it." A specialist diagnosed him with arthritis of the jaw, he wrote. "To tell the truth, I'm desperate about healing completely before the July 4 contest," he said, adding that he had begun receiving treatment at a hospital and from a chiropractor. On Tuesday, his United Food Fighters Organization said on its website that Kobayashi has found a doctor he can trust and was "creating an environment in which he can dedicate himself to healing." "The contest is coming up soon, and we'd happy if everyone kept him in their thoughts," the group wrote.