Possible remains found of mythical chupacabra

Possible remains found
of mythical chupacabra

CUERO, Texas — Phylis Canion lived in Africa for four years. She’s been a hunter all her life and has the mounted heads of a zebra and other exotic animals in her house to prove it. But the roadkill she found last month outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra.

“It is one ugly creature,” Canion said, holding the head of the mammal, above, which has big ears, large fanged teeth and grayish-blue, mostly hairless skin. Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 miles southeast of San Antonio. Canion said she saved the head of the one she found so she can get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing and then mount it for posterity.

She suspects, as have many rural denizens over the years, that a chupacabra may have killed as many as 26 of her chickens in the past couple of years. “I’ve seen a lot of nasty stuff. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. What tipped Canion to the possibility that this was no ugly coyote, but perhaps the vampire-like beast, is that the chickens weren’t eaten or carried off — all the blood was drained from them, she said. Chupacabra means “goat sucker” in Spanish, and it is said to have originated in Latin America, specifically Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Gay marriages halted
in Iowa after 1 ceremony

DES MOINES, Iowa — Same-sex marriage was legal here for less than 24 hours before the county won a stay of a judge’s order Friday, a tiny window of opportunity that allowed two men to make history but left dozens of other couples disappointed after a frantic rush to the altar.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, Judge Robert Hanson ordered Polk County officials to accept marriage license requests from same-sex couples, but he granted the stay about 12:30 p.m. Friday. By then, 27 same-sex couples had filed applications, but only Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan of Ames had made it official by getting married and returning the signed license to the courthouse in time. In the front yard of the Rev. Mark Stringer, pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, they became the only same-sex couple wed in the U.S. outside of Massachusetts, where some 8,000 such couples have tied the knot.

Stringer concluded the ceremony by saying, “This is a legal document and you are married.” The men then kissed and hugged. “This is it. We’re married. I love you,” Fritz told McQuillan after the ceremony.

Tony Snow resigns

WASHINGTON — President Bush named a new press secretary Friday, replacing the high-profile showman Tony Snow with his quieter, stickler-for-detail deputy, Dana Perino. Snow, 52, battling cancer, said he was stepping down because he needed to earn more than his $168,000 White House salary — an amount far less than he made as host of the “Tony Snow Show” on Fox News Radio and “Weekend Live with Tony Snow” on the Fox News Channel. “I ran out of money,” said Snow, the father of three.

Perino, 35, will be only the second woman to be White House press secretary when she takes over Sept. 14. The first was Dee Dee Myers in the Clinton administration. With a reputation for being thorough and getting back to reporters with questions, Perino temporarily became the public face of the White House when Snow was out of work for five weeks after a recurrence of cancer in March. “He leaves very big shoes to fill, and I only wear a size 6,” said Perino, who is “almost 5-feet-1.”

Snow was named press secretary April 26, 2006, and White House officials were delighted with his striking popularity around the country, relentlessly good-natured and bright tone and smooth, snappy repartee with the media during televised briefings. He often played to the cameras, waving his arms and making funny faces at questions he didn’t like.

Associated Press