ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

90 cats are rescued from smuggling near Thai border

BANGKOK

Thai police say they rescued about 90 famished cats that they believed had been headed to Vietnam. They declined to say what fate they had rescued the felines from, but cats are considered a delicacy in their intended destination.

Police Col. Sakchai Sadmaroeng said recently that his men stopped a pickup truck at a checkpoint earlier this month and found six plastic cages full of cats in Nakhon Phanom province. The driver was arrested and faced charges, including animal cruelty and illegal transportation of animals.

The Thai driver told police he received $63 to drive the cats to the Mekhong River, near the Thai-Laotian border.

Cat meat is offered in many restaurants in Vietnam. Dogs also have been smuggled there from Thailand for their meat.

Nearly 14-pound baby born at western Pa. hospital

KITTANNING, Pa.

A woman has given birth to a nearly 14-pound baby at a western Pennsylvania hospital.

Doctors at Armstrong County Memorial Hospital near Kittanning say they don’t keep official records of the largest baby ever birthed at the facility, but say Mark and Michelle Cessna’s daughter born recently is the largest they can recall.

“Little” Addyson Gale Cessna is anything but, weighing in at 13 pounds, 12 ounces and measuring 25 inches long.

The couple is from Rural Valley, not far from the hospital, which is about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The Cessnas told KDKA-TV that doctors believed the baby would be above average, but even so, they were told to expect a child about 11 pounds.

Addyson Gale was delivered by cesarean section and joins two brothers.

Officials: NM mom struck by lightning, gives birth

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

A pregnant New Mexico woman has survived a bolt from the blue to give birth to a bouncing baby girl.

Authorities say Kendra Villanueva and the baby’s father, Ian Gordon, were watching fireworks with friends on the Fourth of July when lightning struck both of them in the front yard of an Albuquerque home.

KRQE-TV reported that Villanueva was just weeks from her due date and was rushed to University of New Mexico Medical Center, where she had an emergency cesarean section. Mother, father and baby survived relatively unscathed.

The couple named the baby Kimberly Samantha Rose Gordon, and said they’ll also call her “little Flash Gordon.”

Ian Gordon says the new parents are hoping their new daughter will “run fast, or save the universe.”

Associated Press