Today's Odd News - Reuters News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Belarus sacks top brass over teddy bear scandal
Tue,31 Jul 2012 10:59 AM PDT
Reuters - MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday sacked his air defense chief and the head of the border guards for failing to stop a Swedish plane drop hundreds of teddy bears over the hardline state in a pro-democracy stunt. The plane, chartered by a Swedish public relations firm, crossed into Belarussian air space from Lithuania on July 4 and dropped about 800 of the toy bears near the town of Ivenets. Each bear carried a message calling for Belarus to show greater respect for individual human rights. ... Full Story | Top |
Lithuania denies entry to Soviet-styled Porsche
Tue,31 Jul 2012 09:56 AM PDT
Reuters - VILNIUS (Reuters) - A Belarusian man driving a Porsche sports car emblazoned with the red and yellow flag of the Soviet Union was denied entry into Lithuania on Tuesday on the grounds that the public display of such symbols in the Baltic country is illegal. Under the rule of the former Soviet Union for almost half a century, Vilnius banned the public display of Soviet symbols in 2008, sparking protests from former colonial master Russia. ... Full Story | Top |
Berlin museum dung heaps are reminder of Nazi past
Tue,31 Jul 2012 09:55 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Visitors to Berlin's main modern art museum this summer should take care not to step on piles of horse manure, placed as a reminder of art that was stolen, destroyed or went missing under Nazi rule. With his installation at the New National Gallery of four piles of artificial dung, painted blue, Austrian artist Martin Gostner has said he is paying tribute to Franz Marc's painting "The Tower of Blue Horses". The Nazis seized Marc's seminal expressionist work in 1937, branding it "un-German" and "degenerate". ... Full Story | Top |
German trainee fined 227,000 euros for illegal Facebook party
Mon,30 Jul 2012 07:56 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court has handed a 20-year-old apprentice a 227,000-euro ($280,000) bill to cover police costs after he organized an illegal party through the Facebook social network in the southern German town of Constance. The man identified only as Matthias L. told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he attended a number of other parties announced on Facebook and got the idea to have an even bigger event at a public beach on the shores of Lake Constance. The newspaper said thousands had signed up to attend, clicking the 'join' button, but town leaders banned it in advance. ...
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Red Sox fans, fearing loss of mascot, see Yankee conspiracy
Fri,27 Jul 2012 02:35 PM PDT
Reuters -  BOSTON (Reuters) - As if fans of the cellar-dwelling Boston Red Sox aren't downtrodden enough, for a spell on Friday the costume of Wally the Green Monster, the team's popular mascot, was missing. Fearing it was swiped, the team alerted the police. A security guard at Fenway Park thought he saw a thief in the emerald green outfit getting away. On the Red Sox' website, Wally is described as "pretty big" - no matter who is wearing the outfit. The timing of the incident inspired recurring mid-summer conspiracy theories. ...
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U.S. Olympic swimming team show off dancing skills in spoof video
Fri,27 Jul 2012 04:33 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - It's not all hard work and no play for the U.S. swimming team at the London Olympics. A light-hearted, spoof video filmed by the team during training has gone viral on the internet with tens of thousands of viewers clicking to watch top names such as Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Missy Franklin dancing and lip-syncing to hit "Call me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen. The video, billed by the team as an attempt to "blow off steam" in the run up to the Games, features swimmers dancing down the aisle of a plane, waving arms around on a bus and even strutting their stuff under ...
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Man charged with manslaughter in Florida butt-injection case
Fri,27 Jul 2012 03:50 AM PDT
Reuters - ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A man who injected a woman in the buttocks with unknown substances during an illegal cosmetic surgery was arrested on Thursday and charged with manslaughter in the woman's death, authorities said. Oneal Ron Morris, 31, of Hollywood, Florida, is known to have injected other women with substances such as bathroom caulk, cement, Super Glue and the tire product Fix-A-Flat, officials with the Broward County Sheriff's Office said. Authorities described Morris as a transvestite who went by the nickname "The Dutchess. ... Full Story | Top |
Japanese men drop inhibition, turn to parasols to beat the heat
Fri,27 Jul 2012 03:46 AM PDT
Reuters -  TOKYO (Reuters) - It's summer in Japan, which means shaved ice, cold noodles and parasols against the blinding sun - for men. While women have used sun umbrellas, or "higasa," for centuries, power conservation and increasingly hot summers have sent sales of men's sun umbrellas sharply higher, with department stores across Japan scrambling for stocks. "There's been a spike in demand for men's sun umbrellas of about three times since last summer," said Mayumi Mio, a spokeswoman at Takashimaya, a major Tokyo department store. ...
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Opticians see advertising gold in Korean flag flap
Fri,27 Jul 2012 03:45 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - A British chain of opticians saw publicity gold on Friday after Olympic officials blundered by showing the South Korean flag instead of North Korea's at a women's soccer match. Opticians Specsavers took out adverts in national newspapers with the North Korean flag above the South Korean one and, written in Korean, a message suggesting the officials should have visited them for an eye test. The company's regular tagline, used in commercials featuring embarrassing cases of mistaken identity, is 'Should have gone to Specsavers'. ...
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Austrian admits making up story to get rid of snake
Thu,26 Jul 2012 03:41 AM PDT
Reuters -  VIENNA (Reuters) - An Austrian applauded for capturing a 2.3-metre (7.5-foot) boa constrictor he said he discovered on a riverbank has admitted he made up the story to get rid of a pet snake he found too big to handle, an animal rescue group said on Thursday. "It turns out he could not get to grips with the snake and wanted to get rid of it this way," said Susanne Hemetsberger, head of the Austrian Animal Protection Association. The owner handed over the reptile to an animal shelter. ...
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Germans blow off steam with swearing hotline
Wed,25 Jul 2012 08:40 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Two German entrepreneurs have devised a way for passive-aggressive citizens to blow off some steam - dial a telephone number and give the person on the other end a verbal lashing. The swearing hotline, known as "Schimpf-los" ("swear away") in German, has operators standing by seven days a week for frustrated individuals to jeer at and taunt using the most unsavory language they can muster. "We don't judge people who are angry," said Ralf Schulte, who set up the hotline with his fellow media services provider Alexander Brandenburger. "It happens. It's natural. ... Full Story | Top |
Austrian find dates bras back to 15th century
Tue,24 Jul 2012 07:59 AM PDT
Reuters -  VIENNA (Reuters) - Four mediaeval bras have been found in a collection of textiles excavated from an Austrian castle, confounding conventional wisdom that bras did not exist before the 19th century. The linen garments were found in the remains of Lengberg Castle in eastern Tyrol. They resemble modern bras in that they have two distinct cups, and have decorative needle lace that would not have been visible when worn under a dress. The bras were among 2,700 textile fragments found during archaeological investigations of the castle by a team from the University of Innsbruck, which began in 2008. ...
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Cash-strapped Berlin stalked by 450-year-old debt
Tue,24 Jul 2012 05:20 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - The sleepy hamlet of Mittenwalde in eastern Germany could become one of the richest towns in the world if Berlin were to repay it an outstanding debt that dates back to 1562. A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year. According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). ...
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Singer quits Wagner festival over Nazi tattoos
Sun,22 Jul 2012 07:58 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - A Russian opera singer has pulled out of the Bayreuth opera festival over Nazi tattoos on his chest days before the start of the celebration of Richard Wagner's works that was once popular with Third Reich leaders. Evgeny Nikitin was meant to play the Flying Dutchman in Wagner's opera of the same name but German newspaper and TV images have shown him bare chested with tattoos that resemble symbols used by the Nazis. One looks like a swastika, which appears to be covered by a new tattoo in more recent pictures. "I had these tattoos done in my youth. ... Full Story | Top |
Eye Eye captain: Bounty mutineer descendants may hold key to myopia
Fri,20 Jul 2012 06:36 AM PDT
Reuters - SYDNEY (Reuters) - Descendants of the famous Bounty mutineers who now live on an isolated Pacific Island have among the lowest rate of myopia in the world and may hold the key to unlocking the genetic code for the disease, according to a new study. A study of residents on Australia's Norfolk Island, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) northeast of Sydney, showed the rate of myopia, or short-sightedness, among Bounty descendants was about half that of the general Australian population. ... Full Story | Top |
SpongeBob coins among Peregrine assets seized by FBI
Thu,19 Jul 2012 04:51 PM PDT
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - Silver SpongeBob SquarePants coins minted by a private company in New Zealand were among the assets seized by FBI agents from Peregrine Financial Group after its chief confessed to nearly 20 years of fraud last week. Ira Bodenstein, the trustee in Peregrine's bankruptcy case in Chicago, said the coins were in a vault at the firm's Cedar Falls, Iowa, headquarters. The value of the takings was not immediately clear. The coin disclosure adds a new twist to the case of Peregrine Finiancial Group CEO Russell Wasendorf Sr. ... Full Story | Top |
Experimental musicians use body as instrument
Thu,19 Jul 2012 06:21 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - Peter Kirn makes music with an unusual instrument - his own body. The Kentucky native pinches two electrically charged pennies connected to a laptop via two short green wires. The rudimentary contraption is held together by bits of solder and hot glue which allow him to measure the electrical currents of his body and synthesize them into melodic sound. Kirn, 34, a writer of creative technology, is one of several artists performing in Berlin who are exploring new ways of composing music with the human body. ...
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Cash-strapped Berlin stalked by 540-year-old debt
Wed,18 Jul 2012 10:10 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - The sleepy hamlet of Mittenwalde in eastern Germany could become one of the richest towns in the world if Berlin were to repay it an outstanding debt that dates back to 1562. A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year. According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). ...
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Needles found in food on four Delta flights to the U.S.
Mon,16 Jul 2012 06:02 PM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines said on Monday that "sewing-type" needles were found in sandwiches served on flights from Amsterdam to three U.S. cities over the weekend and that investigators were trying to determine how they got into the meals. The airline said the needles were found by passengers in four sandwiches on flights from the Dutch capital bound for Atlanta, Minneapolis and Seattle. Kristin Baur, a Delta spokeswoman, said local and federal authorities were investigating the incidents aboard four flights. ...
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Weather cuts short trip of U.S., Iraqi "lawn chair" balloonists
Sun,15 Jul 2012 12:28 AM PDT
Reuters -  BEND, Oregon (Reuters) - Two men sitting in lawn chairs tied to 350 helium-filled balloons failed in their bid on Saturday to set a world record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight when bad weather forced them down well short of their destination. A crowd estimated at more than 1,000 people watched as American Kent Couch and Fareed Lafta of Iraq lifted off on Saturday morning from the parking lot of Couch's Stop & Go Mini Mart in the Oregon town of Bend. They soared into clear skies with light winds, perched underneath balloons in the colors of the U.S. and Iraqi flags. ...
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American, Iraqi "lawn chair" balloonists lift off
Sat,14 Jul 2012 12:41 PM PDT
Reuters - BEND, Oregon (Reuters) - Two men sitting in lawn chairs tied to a cluster of 350 helium-filled balloons lifted into the Oregon sky on Saturday in a bid to break the Guinness World Record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight. A crowd estimated at more than 1,000 people watched as Kent Couch and his flying companion Fareed Lafta, of Iraq, lifted off from the parking lot of Couch's Stop & Go Mini Mart in Bend, Oregon at 10:21 a.m. local time Saturday. They soared into clear skies with light winds. ... Full Story | Top |
Berlin gripped by family feud over sausages
Thu,12 Jul 2012 03:26 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Call it the battle of the bangers. A family feud over sausage succession rights is adding some spice to Berlin's summer. This week, after months of bitter legal wrangling with his mother, Mario Ziervogel opened a fast-food outlet serving Berlin's famous dish, the currywurst - fried pork sausage sliced up and smothered in ketchup and curry powder. His shop is just a few blocks away from his family's restaurant, Konnopke's Imbiss, one of the city's most famous eateries because it was the first to introduce the currywurst to then-communist East Berlin in 1960. ... Full Story | Top |
New app rescues people from bad dates
Tue,10 Jul 2012 02:16 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most people have been there, trapped on an awkward date that is going nowhere. But relief could be on the way with a new app that provides an incoming rescue call. The Bad Date Rescue app, which was launched by the dating website eHarmony.com this week, lets users arrange for a call to appear on their iPhone to graciously allow them to bow out if a date isn't going well. "There are all sorts of reasons for why people would want to get out of a date," said Arvind Mishra, director of product management at eHarmony. ... Full Story | Top |
EU farmers deliver moo-ving "milk lake" protest
Tue,10 Jul 2012 12:14 PM PDT
Reuters - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Dairy farmers sprayed thousands of liters of milk outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, creating a "milk lake" to protest against low prices. Protesters from around Europe, including Italy, Germany, Ireland and France blocked off a square with tractors and statues of cows brightly painted in the national colors of EU member states. One milk producer perched on a haystack and used an industrial-sized hose to spray the contents of a milk truck into a makeshift tarpaulin pool, splashing demonstrators, spectators and reporters. ... Full Story | Top |
Batman could fly, but he'd crash and die
Mon,9 Jul 2012 11:21 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Holy crash landing Batman! The crime-fighting caped crusader could fly but if he did, he would smash into the ground and probably die, a group of British physics students have calculated. Dashing the dreams of comic fans across the world, four students from the University of Leicester said that while Batman could glide using his cape as he does in the 2005 film "Batman Begins", his landing would almost certainly prove fatal. ...
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On a New York island, firefighters set homes ablaze
Fri,6 Jul 2012 12:49 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Firefighters will spend the next two weeks setting homes ablaze on a small island in New York Harbor for one purpose: Saving lives. Eighteen abandoned townhouses on New York City's Governors Island, formerly housing for members of the Coast Guard, have been turned into a setting for roaring fires in experiments aimed to develop new strategies firefighters can use to save lives. In one on Tuesday, a match was lit near newspaper in the basement of a fully-furnished home. ...
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Fetish fashion takes over the Berlin underground
Fri,6 Jul 2012 06:15 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Riders of the Berlin subway have been taking trips this week that go far beyond the hip German capital's already outlandish standards, as models in latex wear, fetish gear and "spirit hoods" staged a fashion show on a train. Girls wearing all-leather sado-masochist bodysuits tottered through the train car, followed by male models wearing nothing but ornamental metallic sculptures around their groin. Models in neon tulle dangled from the subway poles. ... Full Story | Top |
Four held over Spanish medieval manuscript theft
Wed,4 Jul 2012 09:34 AM PDT
Reuters - MADRID (Reuters) - A former church caretaker, his wife, son and another woman have been arrested in connection with last year's disappearance of a priceless medieval text from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwest Spain, police said on Wednesday. The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century collection of sermons and liturgical passages, vanished from a safe deposit box in the cathedral, the endpoint of the ancient pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago. ... Full Story | Top |
Doctors remove 51-pound tumor from New Jersey woman
Tue,3 Jul 2012 04:05 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey surgeons removed a rapidly growing, 51-pound (23-kg) cancerous tumor from a woman who had delayed treatment for more than a month until she became eligible for health insurance, her doctor said on Tuesday. "She was a skinny lady with a huge belly. I mean it looked like she was literally pregnant with triplets," said Dr. David Dupree, who led the surgery on the 65-year-old woman, at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey. ... Full Story | Top |
Brazilian club asks fans to give blood
Mon,2 Jul 2012 03:17 PM PDT
Reuters - SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian football club Vitoria has removed its trademark red hoops from its shirt and told supporters it will add the color back gradually as fans donate blood. The campaign, entitled "My Blood is Red and Black", is named after the club's traditional colors and comes amid a nationwide drive to get more Brazilians to give blood for transfusions. "We wanted to do more than just ask fans to give blood," said Vitoria's president Alexi Portela Junior. ... Full Story | Top |
Fed-up Lebanese protest against protests
Fri,29 Jun 2012 04:06 AM PDT
Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - If you can't beat them, join them. Dozens of Lebanese, exasperated by rampant tire-burning protests across the country, rolled out tires and stopped traffic in the capital Beirut on Thursday. Police armed with automatic rifles quickly deployed down the street, looking baffled at the small crowd raising the banner "We are tired", and blocking traffic with colorfully decorated tires. Angry motorists honked their horns. ... Full Story | Top |
Korean shamanism finds new life in modern era
Thu,28 Jun 2012 09:20 PM PDT
Reuters - INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA (Reuters) - Colorful flags snapped in the sea breeze as more than a dozen Korean shamans, dressed in bright colors, danced and chanted prayers in front of a huge cow's head stuck to a trident. The ceremony on a ship was designed to exorcise demons that threaten fishermen and bring good luck to everybody on board. The presence of several hundred spectators underlined how the ages-old trance rituals were going strong again, having been shunned as recently as 30 years ago. "People are trying to understand more, learn more, and see more. ... Full Story | Top |
Wandering Cape Cod bear captured in Boston suburb
Wed,27 Jun 2012 04:11 AM PDT
Reuters -  BOSTON (Reuters) - He's baaack: A male black bear captured on Cape Cod earlier this month, where it was tranquilized and moved to central Massachusetts, showed up again on Tuesday just six miles from downtown Boston. State officials said they had captured the bear in a tree in the Chestnut Hill area of Brookline, just west of Boston, and confirmed it was the same bear which roamed the Cape for about two weeks before being captured and relocated on June 12. The bear was identified by a tag placed in its ear. It had probably traveled about 100 miles. ...
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Venezuelan tribe angry at "sacred" stone in Berlin
Tue,26 Jun 2012 11:29 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - Wolfgang von Schwarzenfeld's sculptures in a Berlin park were meant to promote world peace, but the 79-year-old German now finds himself at war with a Venezuelan tribe which accuses him of stealing a sacred pink stone known to them as "Grandmother". The Venezuelan government is championing the Pemon Indians of the "Gran Sabana" region by demanding the return of the polished stone from Berlin's Tiergarten park - putting the German government in something of a dilemma. ...
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Reading offers Brazilian prisoners quicker escape
Mon,25 Jun 2012 09:26 AM PDT
Reuters - BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a novel way to shorten their sentences: four days less for every book they read. Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil's most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced. ... Full Story | Top |
Spaniards stomp their heels at bailed-out bankers
Fri,22 Jun 2012 08:27 AM PDT
Reuters -  MADRID (Reuters) - A flamenco troupe bursts into a bank branch in Seville in southern Spain, lampooning bankers in dance and song. Further north, in Galicia, 50 men dressed in prison garb march into a bank shouting slogans against costly state bailouts for lenders. In Barcelona and Madrid, a growing organization of elderly protesters stage regular "occupations" of bank branches, wearing reflective vests and carrying signs decrying the bailouts. ...
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Pakistan cracks down on pot-bellied police
Fri,22 Jun 2012 06:14 AM PDT
Reuters - ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan is cracking down on portly policemen after only a quarter of the 19,000 officers in the Punjab province passed a fitness test. Policemen in the South Asian nation are widely seen as corrupt and ineffective. Now their weight is coming under the spotlight as well. The plump police, responsible for safeguarding the most populous province, were warned in letters to trim their waist-lines to the regulation 38 inches by the end of the month, local newspapers said on Friday. Those who fail may be removed from field duties, The News reported. ... Full Story | Top |
Zimbabwe MPs surrender to scalpel in AIDS fight
Fri,22 Jun 2012 06:12 AM PDT
Reuters - HARARE (Reuters) - Forty-four members of Zimbabwe's parliament were circumcised on Friday as part of a national HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. In a rare show of political unity, the MPs from President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's rival MDC camp chatted calmly with reporters as they queued at a clinic set up inside the parliament complex. "When I went in there I was a bit scared but after they had explained the process I felt at ease," 53-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP Blessing Chebundo told Reuters within minutes of the operation. ... Full Story | Top |
Breast cancer survivor wins right to swim topless in Seattle
Thu,21 Jun 2012 09:38 PM PDT
Reuters - SEATTLE (Reuters) - A woman who survived a double mastectomy and says wearing a bathing suit covering her chest causes searing pain has won a battle to swim topless at Seattle's public pools. Jodi Jaecks, a 47-year-old fitness buff who had surgery to remove both breasts last year to treat cancer, was initially denied permission this year to swim topless by staff at Seattle's Medgar Evers pool. According to city spokesperson Dewey Potter, a sign at the pool stated, "This is a family recreation facility. Please dress and act accordingly. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. close to seizing disputed dinosaur skeleton
Thu,21 Jun 2012 05:41 AM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - U.S. authorities said they expect this week to seize a 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton that was discovered in Mongolia more 65 years ago and now is stored in New York and at the center of an international legal dispute. A federal judge in New York has signed a warrant that allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to seize the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus bataar - an Asian cousin of the North American Tyrannosaurus rex - from Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. "We should have it by the end of the week," said Luis Martinez, a spokesman for U.S. ...
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