Cute and cuddly wildlife

Cute and cuddly wildlife
EATONVILLE, Wash. -- A day-old female wolverine kit is hand-fed by Dallas LaDucer, a Northwest Trek worker at the Pierce County wildlife park.
Cheney won't be charged
WASHINGTON -- Texas authorities closed the investigation into Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident Thursday without bringing any charges. President Bush said Cheney had handled the situation "just fine."
Killer pleads in slaying
NEW YORK -- A man who killed his ex-girlfriend, tossed her body in the garbage and left her 4-year-old daughter wandering the streets of New York pleaded guilty to manslaughter Thursday, prosecutors said. Cesar Ascarrunz, 32, also pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering the girl, Valery Belen Saavedra Lozada, by leaving her barefoot and alone after the killing in late September. The killing of Monica Lozada-Rivadineira, 26, captured the city's attention. After child welfare workers found Valery on the street, they put the little girl on television in an attempt to track down her family. Investigators later found her mother's body in a landfill.
Trial in baby's slaying
McKINNEY, Texas -- A woman accused of chopping the arms off her 10-month-old daughter believed she was supposed to die along with her baby, a mental health counselor testified Thursday. Jail counselor Sherry Wing's testimony provided the first glimpse into Dena Schlosser's thinking on the day she is accused of killing her baby with a kitchen knife. Schlosser, 37, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the November 2004 death of her baby Margaret, known as Maggie.
Show dog remains lost
NEW YORK -- The search for an award-winning show dog that got loose at Kennedy Airport was called off Thursday, but officers in the area are still keeping an eye out for the wayward whippet, authorities said. The 3-year-old whippet, formally known as Champion Bohem C'est La Vie and answering to Vivi, had won an award of merit at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week. The dog apparently escaped her travel cage on the tarmac Wednesday as she was about to be loaded onto a plane for the flight home to Southern California.
Sex-assault charges
NEW LONDON, Conn. -- A senior at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy has been charged with sexually assaulting six female cadets in the campus barracks and other sites. Webster M. Smith, 22, of Houston was separated from the rest of the student population after the first complaint was filed with administrators Dec. 4, the academy said. Smith, a linebacker on the academy's football team, was charged Feb. 9 under military law with rape, assault, indecent assault and sodomy against female cadets, said Chief Warrant Officer David French, an academy spokesman.
France criticizes Iran
PARIS -- France accused Iran on Thursday of developing a secret military nuclear program in one of the toughest public criticisms yet against Tehran by a European nation. "No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in an interview with France 2 Television.
2 Iraqis die of bird flu
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The dead uncle of an Iraqi girl who died last month after contracting bird flu also had the disease, U.S. and U.N. officials said Thursday, citing test results at a U.N.-certified laboratory in Egypt. One further test must be carried out by a London laboratory certified by the World Health Organization before the United Nations confirms that the uncle did in fact have the H5N1 bird flu virus. In Europe, German and Slovenian officials confirmed their first cases of bird flu. Countries from Liechtenstein to Romania ordered poultry indoors or quarantined villages to stem the spread of the disease.
Girl's note brings help
BERLIN -- German police said Thursday they rescued a 13-year-old girl and arrested an ex-convict accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing her after they followed up on a note the child managed to drop begging for help. The girl's handwritten note was found by a man near trash containers in the neighborhood where she was held for five weeks only about a half-mile from her home. In it, the girl begged the finder to alert police and included the address where she was being held and the name of her kidnapper.
Combined dispatches