■ UNITED STATES
Obama call assumed prank
When a man sounding remarkably like president-elect Barack Obama called a Florida congresswoman on Wednesday, she assumed it was a hoax. So Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reported, this was no prank. “I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,” Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. Obama congratulated her on her re-election, saying he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. The conversation lasted about a minute when she cut Obama off, telling him she wasn’t falling for the hoax.
■MEXICO
Wandering camels found
It may have seemed like a mirage: Two camels nibbling on a pine tree along a street in Ciudad Juarez on the Texas border. Police tried lassoing the animals, which lunged at the officers with snapping teeth as onlookers chuckled. But in the end, officials say all it took was some juicy green leaves on a branch held by the caretaker to lure the camels back into captivity. Police spokesman Jaime Torres says the camels named Yull and Tobi escaped early on Wednesday from the warehouse of a businessman, who had bought the animals for a planned amusement park.
■YEMEN
Bodies of 24 migrants found
The Interior Ministry says that strong winds and high waves have washed up 24 bodies of Somali migrants on the shore. A ministry statement says the bodies surfaced on Tuesday and Wednesday along the coast near the town of al-Qasha’a. It says another 184 Somalis involved in the same accident at sea survived and managed to swim ashore. It’s not clear what kind of accident it was. Hundreds of Africans die every year trying to reach Yemen.
■UNITED STATES
Jail death ruled suicide
An autopsy has determined the death of a Japanese businessman found dead in a jail cell after being extradited to California in a decades-old murder conspiracy case was a suicide, the coroner’s office said on Wednesday. Kazuyoshi Miura, 61, was found hanging in a Los Angeles Police Department cell on Oct. 10. His lawyer Mark Geragos hired an independent pathologist to examine the body, then said injuries found on Miura were consistent with murder. Police said Miura hanged himself with a piece of his shirt less than 24 hours after he was returned to the US to stand trial for conspiring to murder his wife 27 years ago. The Miura case was a sensation in Japan.
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