■ UNITED STATES
Hate incidents on the rise
An interracial couple in Pennsylvania woke up to find the remains of a burnt cross in their front garden. A California town saw cars and garages vandalized with swastikas, racist epithets and slogans such as “Go Back to Africa.” Black effigies hung from nooses in an island community in Maine. Students chanted “assassinate Obama” on a schoolbus in Idaho. Barack Obama’s historic election as the US’ first black president has led to a surge of racist incidents across the country, hate-crime monitoring groups and analysts say. Mark Potok, director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said the final weeks of the US election campaign and its aftermath had witnessed “hundreds and hundreds” of hate-related incidents.
■ UNITED STATES
Flamingo takes flight
An Iowa zoo has recaptured a flamingo that flew over a Des Moines neighborhood, a golf course and the entire zoo during a seven-hour freedom flight. Blank Park Zoo workers clipped the adult Chilean flamingo’s wings a second time after it was recaptured. Zoo spokesman Terry Rich says the birds can molt and regrow their feathers, enabling them to fly.
■ UNITED STATES
Man begs for job
After nine months of looking for work, Paul Nawrocki turned to a Depression-era tactic to find a job. Over the past few days the 59-year-old businessman has been walking the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan wearing a suit, a tie and a large signs that reads, “Almost homeless.” Nawrocki, who was laid off from his job at a toy company in February. The sight of a middle-class businessman down on his luck seems to have struck a chord with some New Yorkers. Nawrocki said he’s already landed interviews with recruiters who saw him passing out his resume on the street. Nawrocki, who is married, spent 23 years in the toy industry, mostly as an import operations manager. He made a good salary, “almost six figures,” he said. The company where he worked filed for bankruptcy in August.
■ UNITED STATES
Inmate escapes, returns
Chad Toy’s escape from jail wasn’t what shocked his jailers; it was his plea to be let back in. “When I rang the bell at the jail and told them who I was, they were surprised,” Toy told the Paducah Sun newspaper. Toy, 21, was in a western Kentucky jail awaiting trial on charges stemming from a July home invasion. Officials said he escaped on Monday while on a cleanup detail in the lobby. He bolted after a guard unlocked the front doors to clean an area. But Toy returned that afternoon, wet and covered with grime. He told authorities his sister had told him to surrender. A jailer said he doubts Toy’s account. He thinks the escapee spent his brief liberty hiding beside the Tennessee River.
■ MEXICO
Interpol head arrested
The head of Mexico’s Interpol office has been arrested on suspicion he had contacts with the country’s major drug cartels, the Attorney General’s office said on Tuesday. Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas, the Federal Investigation Agency’s International Police Affairs and Interpol director, was arrested on Sunday as part of “Operation Clean-up,” a government crackdown on corrupt police. Four members of Special Organized Crime Investigation Division, including its intelligence chief, have been arrested, the office said. Investigators said drug cartels were paying some officers between US$150,000 and US$450,000 a month for information.
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