Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Elephants Evicted From Mumbai, India

· Elephants -- long revered in India as symbols of wisdom and good luck -- have been banned in Mumbai, India's largest city.

Before the ban, 14 elephants worked in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). They took part in weddings and other religious ceremonies and begged money for their handlers.

Animal-rights activists protested how the elephants were treated. They were forced to walk on crowded, sometimes scorching roads. Most lived under busy highway overpasses, and when not working they were kept chained to posts, unable to move freely.

· What can you do with a cellphone besides making calls? Perform surgery, for one thing.

When the power went out in a small city in Argentina recently, doctors used the light from several cellphones to continue an emergency operation. The hospital's backup generator had failed, and "the surgeons and anesthetists were in the dark," a hospital spokesman said.

So the patient's family collected cellphones from people in the hallway, and the emergency appendectomy continued -- successfully, we're happy to report.

· People living in Paris have a new way to get around the crowded French capital: free bikes.

About 10,000 heavy-duty bikes are available to those who sign up. The bikes are parked at 750 sites around the city and can be ridden for up to 30 minutes for free.

With another 10,000 bikes on the way, Parisian taxi drivers are grumbling about the competition.

· Don't tell Don Frick that lightning doesn't strike twice. He says he's living proof that it does.

A bolt last week burned the zipper and pockets on the Pennsylvania man's jeans, "but didn't burn me." Frick said he was first struck by lightning 27 years ago.