Friday, September 28, 2007
hTurtle with 2 heads
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — A pet store has bought conjoined turtle twins from a collector and plans to keep it on display, the store manager said. The 2-month-old turtle, known as a red-eared slider, fits on a silver dollar. It has two heads sticking out from opposite ends of its shell, along with a pair of front feet on each side. But there is just one set of back feet and one tail. The turtle is apparently healthy, and the species can live 15 to 20 years, said Jay Jacoby, manager of Big Al’s Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton. The turtle has not yet been named. The store would not disclose how much it paid. The same exotic-turtle collector sold another Big Al’s store a conjoined-twin turtle about 20 years ago, Jacoby said. The man lives in Florida, but he declined to identify him.
Guilty of killing family
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A former elementary school vice principal was sentenced to death Thursday for the brutal murders of his wife, their three small children and his mother-in-law. Vincent Brothers, 45, was convicted in May of five counts of first-degree murder for the July 2003 deaths.Brothers was arrested as the sole suspect in the murders in April 2004. He claimed he was in Ohio visiting his brother when his family was killed. Prosecutors argued that Brothers flew to the Midwest to establish an alibi, then drove more than 2,000 miles back to Bakersfield in a rental car to kill the five. Police said they found the bodies of Brothers’ estranged wife, Joanie Harper, and two of their children, Marques, 4, and Lyndsey, 2, on her bed. In a hallway, they found Joanie Harper’s mother, Earnestine. Police later discovered 6-week-old Marshall under a pile of bedclothes in his mother’s room. All five had been shot and stabbed.
Army plans expansion
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he’s inclined to approve an Army proposal to spend nearly $3 billion extra to accelerate the expansion of its active-duty force. Army Secretary Pete Geren said speeding up the growth of the force, stretched thin by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would mean recruiting faster and increasing the number of soldiers who re-enlist.
Girl to go back to Cuba
MIAMI — A 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody dispute should be returned to her father, unless separating the child from her Miami foster parents would cause her extreme harm, a judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba. But she said he is a fit father and the state would have a difficult time proving a reunion would harm her. The girl went into foster care after her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005 and then attempted suicide days before Christmas. For the past 18 months she has been living with foster parents Joe and Maria Cubas, a wealthy Cuban-American couple.
9 die in demonstrations
BANGKOK, Thailand — Intensifying their crackdown despite pressures from abroad, Myanmar security forces raided a half-dozen Buddhist monasteries Thursday and opened fire on pockets of demonstrators who continued to demand an end to military rule. The Myanmar government announced that nine people had been killed in the violence, making it the bloodiest day in weeks of escalating protests. The dead included a Japanese journalist who had been covering the demonstrations, according to his employer, APF News. Another foreigner, reportedly a Caucasian woman, was also seen shot and wounded in the street, according to the exile groups.
Pearls fit for a queen
LONDON — Pearls that Marie Antoinette purportedly gave to a British countess for safekeeping after the French queen was imprisoned will go up for auction, Christie’s said Thursday. The pearls, now part of a necklace that also contains rubies and diamonds, are expected to fetch up to $800,000 when they are sold in December. The pearls were reportedly given to Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, wife of the British ambassador to France during the French Revolution, and were intended to help the queen if she managed to flee the country, said Raymond Sancroft-Baker, senior director of Christie’s Jewellery in London. Marie Antoinette died by the guillotine in 1793.
Combined dispatches