■ United States
Dog kills baby; runs wild
A two-week-old boy was fatally mauled by his family's pit bull terrier, authorities said. The mother left the infant in a swing in a second-floor bedroom and went downstairs to her front door to talk briefly with a neighbor Friday, said police Major Fred Bealefeld III. When she returned, the baby was injured. The boy was pronounced dead at a hospital, said fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright. The dog apparently left the house after the attack, and when police responded, they found a "large, vicious pit bull" running around the street, Bealefeld said.
■ Australia
Dali-Disney film wins prize
A long-lost seven-minute animation by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney, which took 57 years to complete, has taken the top prize at an Australian film festival. Fragments of the unfinished film Destino along with story boards, sketches and an original score were painstakingly put together by a team assembled by Disney's nephew Roy Disney after they were discovered in the studio's vaults. Disney now hopes that Destino, which fended off almost 90 entries to take the Melbourne International Film Festival's Grand Prix for Best Short Film late on Friday, will be considered for an Academy Award nomination, and it is looking at ways of releasing the animation commercially. "If you saw it, you'd say this is what I'd imagine Dali paintings to look like if they came to life," said a Disney executive.
■ United States
Elderly woman beaten
An aide in an Arkansas nursing home allegedly beat an 81-year-old woman with brass knuckles because she had been "disrespectful," police said on Friday. The victim, Willie Mae Ryan, was in critical condition at a hospital near the nursing home in Fordyce, a small town about 110km south of Little Rock, they said. An affidavit filed by sheriff's detectives charged that Ryan was beaten on July 30 in her room at the Dallas County Nursing Home by Gayla Wilson, 44, who used brass knuckles.
■ South Africa
AIDS policy reversed
The South African health minister reversed the government's long-standing AIDS policy yesterday by announcing her support for the use of anti-retroviral drugs in public hospitals. The statement by Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is expected to bring cabinet approval for a phased introduction of the drugs. South Africa has the world's highest number of AIDS cases, estimated at nearly 5 million, one in nine of the population, and the government's reluctance to approve anti-retrovirals has attracted considerable criticism. Tshabalala-Msimang was jeered at a national AIDS conference earlier this week, and activist groups have conducted civil disobedience campaigns to press for the drugs to be made available to all in need.
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