■PERU
Farmer suffers erection
A farmer underwent an operation after complaining of severe pain from an eight-day erection, a doctor at a hospital in the northern city of Sullana said Thursday. Surgeon Nelson Carrasco said that the 53-year-old had not taken a sexual stimulant or alcohol. He said the patient, whose identity was withheld, suffers from priapism, a persistent erection often because of a blood clot in the erectile tissue.
■UNITED STATES
Journalists dial sex number
Journalists got a shock on Thursday when they dialed a toll-free number to join a conference call with senior officials accompanying President Barack Obama in London. The number turned out to be a sex chat line inviting callers to use their credit card numbers. “Do you have any hidden desires?” a sultry voiced woman asked. “Well, do you feel like getting nasty? Then you came to the right place — brought to you by the girls of Swank magazine,” she said. Reporters finally got through to the two officials in London — National Security Advisor James Jones and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — when they gave up on the US “800” number and instead dialed an international number.
■UNITED STATES
THC kills cancer: study
The main chemical in marijuana appears to aid in the destruction of brain cancer cells, offering hope for future anti-cancer therapies, researchers in Spain wrote in a study released on Thursday. The authors from the Complutense University in Madrid, working with scientists from other universities, found that the active component of marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), causes cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy — the breakdown that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests. The research, which appears in the April edition of US-published Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates that THC and related “cannabinoids” appear to be “a new family of potential antitumoral agent.”
■UNITED STATES
Mother drugs daughter
A mother in Pennsylvania has been charged with giving her 13-year-old daughter drugs and alcoshol so the woman’s boyfriend could get the girl pregnant, police said on Thursday. Shana Brown, 32, is no longer able to have children but wanted to have a baby with her current boyfriend, Duane Calloway, Uniontown Police Detetive Donald Gmitter said. The pair decided to drug the girl so Calloway, 40, could have sex with her without her knowledge, he said. Brown, who has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, turned herself in on Thursday and was being held in the Fayette County jail, police said.
■UNITED STATES
Officers shoot chimpanzee
Officers shot and killed a rampaging chimpanzee in a rural area and then found a squalid, unlicensed dog breeding facility in the chimp owners’ home, officials said. Three people were arrested on Wednesday on charges of animal abuse and neglect, operating as an unlicensed breeder and keeping wild animals without proper registration, Daviess County officials said. The Sheriff’s Department had responded to a call on Monday night on a request to help capture an angry chimp running loose on a highway outside Winston, Missouri. When officers arrived, the nine-year-old chimp opened the patrol car door and grabbed the leg of a deputy, who fatally shot it, Chief Deputy Todd Watson said.
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