■UNITED STATES
Snake in the wash
Laundry workers in Manhattan found a 1.2m snake slithering in the dirty wash. An employee at Gracie Laundry in Manhattan got a shock when she spied a boa constrictor nestled among the bags, NY1 broadcaster reported on Wednesday. “At first I thought it was a joke,” said Eddie Huerta, a friend of the worker who made the discovery. He called the city’s animal control offices. An Animal Care and Control official surmised that the 4kg boa, who was nicknamed Slither, had been abandoned, and was seeking human company. “It was somebody’s pet at one point because it’s very comfortable around humans,” Jose Ortiz said. He said Slither was “a very timid snake, not an aggressive snake at all.”
■ARGENTINA
General convicted of killing
A retired general and four other members of the military have been convicted and sentenced to long prison terms in the 1976 killing of a communist activist. Retired general Santiago Riveros was sentenced to life in prison for aggravated homicide by a three-judge federal court in Buenos Aires province during televised proceedings on Wednesday. Four other retired servicemen received prison sentences of 14 to 25 years in the killing of Floreal Avellaneda, who was abducted in 1976 by a military squad.
■UNITED STATES
Jury to decide Smith case
A New York City judge says a jury can decide whether the author of a best-selling book about the death of Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith defamed her lawyer by calling him a pimp. Federal Judge Denny Chin found plenty of reasons on Wednesday to let the jury hear a US$60 million libel lawsuit brought by lawyer Howard Stern against Blonde Ambition author Rita Cosby. The judge says the veteran television news anchor’s book contains allegations that may be too outlandish to be true, such as claims the lawyer had sex with one of Smith’s former boyfriends and acted as her pimp.
■UNITED STATES
Dropped fish damages car
A woman in Ohio is telling a fish story about one that got away — from a bird — and damaged her car. Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish — a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead — smashed a car windshield on Tuesday when an eagle dropped its catch from a height of about 12m, the Sandusky Register reported. Leighann Niles says the impact felt like a brick hitting her Toyota’s windshield. The woman from the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid was vacationing along the lake in Marblehead. Niles says she had thought herself lucky to escape damage in another animal encounter shortly before the fishy one. She says a truck hit a small bird, which struck her back passenger door and startled her five-year-old daughter.
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