Police seek thieves who stole 'The Scream'

Police seek thieveswho stole 'The Scream'
OSLO, Norway -- Norwegian police said today that they were working on several tips in their search for two Edvard Munch masterpieces, including a version of "The Scream," after a bold daytime theft from an Oslo museum in front of stunned visitors.
The paintings were stolen from Oslo's Munch Museum on Sunday by masked, armed thieves, who pulled them from the walls as visitors and staff watched.
Inspector Ivar Stensrud, of the Oslo police, said all available personnel were being used to search for the stolen paintings, which he described as national treasures.
The thieves fled with "The Scream" and another famous painting, "Madonna," loaded them into a getaway car and sped off. No one was hurt. According to the Norwegian news media, the paintings, worth tens of millions of dollars were not insured against theft.
Stensrud said that tips, photographs and videotapes, had been streaming in. Police located the getaway car and the paintings' frames within hours of the robbery.
Stensrud said police are taking a broad approach to the investigation, and have not yet focused on one motive.
Prisoner abuse trial
MANNHEIM, Germany -- A key suspect in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison voiced fear he was being made a scapegoat when he was asked to turn over a laptop computer and other evidence suspected of containing photos of the maltreatment, an investigator told a U.S. military court today.
The investigator, Manora Iem, testified that Spc. Charles Graner consented to the search during a Jan. 14 interview at the prison, but lawyers for Graner questioned the agent's authorization because he said he only got approval from higher-ups after taking the computer and several CDs.
Graner is among four soldiers charged with abuse at Abu Ghraib who is facing hearings this week at a heavily secured U.S. military base in Mannheim. Spc. Megan Ambuhl's case was to be heard later today, while Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Spc. Javal Davis had hearings set for Tuesday.
Toddlers survive fall
LOS ANGELES -- Two toddlers fell out the window of a third-story apartment but suffered only cuts and bruises, officials said Sunday.
The 11/2-year-old boy and his 21/2-year-old sister hit a concrete abutment on their way down in the fall Saturday night, Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said.
"These little folks are pretty resilient," he said. "It's amazing, falling that far, that they had no significant injuries at the scene."
The children's mother was at home at the time, and the children may have climbed onto furniture and pushed an unsecured screen out of a window, Collis said. An investigation was continuing.
"Little people like that, if it was secure, they wouldn't even know where to start," he said.
The children were taken to a nearby hospital to determine if they suffered internal injuries. A hospital spokesman said he could not comment because of patient privacy laws.
N. Korea denounces Bush
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea lashed out today at President Bush for turning "a peaceful world into a pandemonium unprecedented in history," and reaffirmed it won't attend preparatory meetings ahead of planned nuclear disarmament talks.
Last week, Bush referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as a "tyrant," and said he had embarked on six-nation talks to persuade Kim to disarm because the United States couldn't do it alone.
The next round of talks -- which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- are supposed to take place by the end of September. But North Korea has recently thrown those plans into doubt by saying it won't attend working meetings to prepare for the larger talks.
Alleging that Bush has ramped up his hostile rhetoric, an unnamed spokesman from the North Korean Foreign Ministry said the U.S. president's comments "clearly disclosed that it is the real intention of the U.S. to bring down the system in the DPRK by force though everything in the world may change."
Associated Press