■UNITED STATES
Lawmaker denies affairs
A California lawmaker who resigned after he was caught on tape bragging about his sexual exploits with two women, one of them reportedly a lobbyist, denied on Thursday that he was having extramarital affairs. Mike Duvall stepped down from the California Assembly on Wednesday, one day after a videotape surfaced in which the married legislator is heard telling a colleague that he enjoys spanking one of the women — who he boasts is 18 years younger and favors “eye-patch”-sized underwear. “I want to make it clear that my decision to resign is in no way an admission that I had an affair or affairs,” Duvall, a 54-year-old family-values Republican from Orange County, said in a statement on his Web site. “My offense was engaging in inappropriate storytelling and I regret my language and choice of words,” he said.
■ARCTIC SEA
Underwater mountain found
Joint US-Canada exploration of the Arctic sea floor discovered an unusual underwater mountain and evidence that could boost the two countries’ claims that their boundaries extend farther north. For the past two months ships from the countries have ventured north in an effort to find out how far the continental shelf extends. Christine Hedge, a US school teacher aboard the US Coast Guard cutter Healy, found the first indications of something unusual jutting up from the seabed 2.7km deep. Further examination showed that it was a mountain almost 1,158m high, 19km long and 38km wide. It is about 1,127km north of Alaska.
■UNITED STATES
Bride-to-be disappears
Yale University police appealed to the public for information that might help them find Annie Le, a graduate student who was last seen on Tuesday. Le’s teachers, colleagues, friends, family and fiance are assisting the investigation, along with the FBI, the Connecticut State Police and the New Haven Police, Yale Police Chief James Perrotti said yesterday. Le, 24, was last seen in a university research building in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located. State Police used bloodhounds to try to find Le, and officials are reviewing images from security cameras in search of clues, the Yale Police said.
■UNITED STATES
Jackson might be exhumed
Michael Jackson may not have found his last resting place in a California cemetery, with his brother Jermaine telling a German television show on Thursday he would like to see the grave moved. “I’m not so happy with it,” said the elder Jackson, according to text released in advance of broadcast by the Johannes B. Kerner Show. Jermaine Jackson, 54, who was interviewed in Berlin, said he expected an exhumation and reburial at Neverland, his brother’s private ranch. Michael Jackson died on June 25 and was buried on Sept. 3 at the Grand Mausoleum of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
■UNITED STATES
Cat survives weeks in debris
A woman’s pet cat has been found alive, buried beneath debris 26 days after an Ohio fire. Sandy LaPierre says she assumed one-year-old Smoka had died from the Aug. 10 fire in Franklin, about 48km north of Cincinnati. A demolition company moved in to tear down what was left of the building the day after the fire. A crew from Stark Wrecking Co came back last Friday to clear away the rubble and found Smoka’s head sticking out from under nearly 5m of debris. LaPierre said the cat lost a lot of weight and has some difficulty walking, but otherwise seems fine.
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