Flying pig hogs headlines in year's odd stories

Flying pig hogs headlines in year's odd stories
Reuters

LOS ANGELES, JAN 1: As memories of pregnant chads fade fast and George W Bush gets ready to move into a White House some people think he won in an election so close that it was decided by one Supreme Court vote, it is time to look at some of the year's odder stories.

While politics is not usually included in this annual recounting, the endlessly recounted US Presidential election - finally decided 36 days after ballots were cast - certainly qualifies as a weird tale.

After all it had all the elements: the mystifying butterfly ballots of Palm Beach, volatile Votamatic machines, journalists groping to spell the name Tallahassee, dimpled, hanging and pregnant chads - the paper that should be pushed through when a vote is cast on a ballot - and the fate of a nation hanging in the balance, no less.

But all's well that ends, as they say.

Thanks to a five-to-four vote of the US Supreme Court, the recounting stopped, Democrat Al Gore conceded defeat, Bush became President-elect and television stations stopped calling people named Chad to ask them what it feels like to be named after bits of paper.

Florida, the Chief scene of the election confusion, was also the setting for another odd tale of the year 2000 - the saga of little Elian Gonzalez in which a tug-of-war ensued between Cuba and the United States over whether the six-year-old shipwreck survivor should stay with his anti-Castro Miami relatives or be returned to his Communist-ruled homeland.

After a seven-month front-page fight that split a nation and wound up as a television movie, Elian eventually was returned home but not before he was taken to Disney World for an All-American day, hugging Mickey Mouse, marvelling at Cinderella's Castle, and eating a mouse-eared ice cream bar.

Alas, there was a jarring moment when the boy was about to board a boat on the "It's a Small World" attraction, said Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Miami relatives. "He was a little frightened...he asked `Is this boat going to sink?'."

Seeing Disney's Magic Kingdom theme park may have been Elian's secret wish but American actor Richard Gere had a loftier goal in 2000 - he wanted to be US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, that is if he could choose to be any woman for a day.

Gere, best known for his sexy roles in movies such as "American Gigolo" and "An Officer And A Gentleman", said he deeply admired Albright. "The first image that came was the Secretary of State," Gere said when asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" programme which woman he would like to be.

ABC's Diane Sawyer said Albright had laughed when told of Gere's wish, saying: "And I'd Like to be him."

Albright, however, had no desire to be related to anyone named Chad. She told a press conference that while she was impressed with Florida's efforts to count its ballots: "I must tell you, however, that if I should ever be blessed with another grandchild, it will not be named Chad".

Forget good wishes, it was a case of great good luck for a Spanish man earlier this year. He narrowly escaped injury when a nine pound (4 kg) ball of ice - thought to be frozen human excrement ejected from a passing aircraft - fell on his car near the southern city of Seville, authorities said.

He was about to get into his car when a friend stopped him for a chat. The ball of ice then plummeted out of a cloudless sky and crushed the front of the vehicle.

There was tragedy in Colombia, however. Two young sisters who underwent liposuction together in January

To get rid of some extra pounds wound up paying for the surgery with their lives.

Police said the sisters died in the recovery room of a clinic in the southwest city of Neiv, soon after the cosmetic surgery to have some fat removed from their abdomens and thighs.

Their father, Jorge Alvarado, said he agreed to pay for the surgery as a birthday gift for 15-year-old Ingrid Catalina. Ingrid died alongside her sister Nubia Patricia, a 21-year-old third-year law student.

"We had promised them a trip to the United States, so that they could improve their English, but they decided to go for the liposuction instead," Alvarado said.

A recent survey of plastic surgeons suggested that more people die during liposuction than many other types of surgery, perhaps because the procedure is often done quickly and without due care.

Meanwhile, one person was killed when a giant sleigh built in the shape of a Bavarian beer garden smashed into a cabin at the bottom of a ski slope during a show race in southern Germany.

Fourteen men were riding in the sleigh -- one of 17 competing for prizes for speed and the most elaborate decorations. The driver apparently lost control at high speed and the sleigh broke apart before crashing into the cabin.

The event, which draws about 5,000 people to the Spitzingsee region South of Munich in March, was cancelled after the accident.

In February a young Frenchman who dreamed of becoming a serial killer and sending a severed human head to his former girlfriend was jailed for 30 years for murdering his first and only victim.

Saying he was inspired by the Hollywood thriller "Seven,"Pierre Navelot admitted to a court in Metz that he and a friend killed a woman but fled her flat before decapitating her because a neighbour knocked on the door after hearing screams.

The court sentenced Navelot to 30 years and his accomplice Laurent Trottin to 28 years for the murder of 20-year-old Alexandra Fernandez.

In the 1996 film "Seven", two detectives hunt down a serial killer who decapitates one of his victims and sends her head in a box to her husband.

Navelot told the court he wanted to kill to become famous and said he suffered from low self-esteem. "You can't live just being nobody at all," he said.

The year 2000 began with a scare that all the world's computers would run amok as a result of the Y2K. That did not happen but it was the year that a pig flew - first class.

The owner of a 300 pound (136 kg) pig took her pet along first class. "I am a big animal rights person. My pig has the right to be with me on an airplane," said Maria Tirotta Andrews after she, her daughter and pet Charlotte gained international notoriety by boarding a six-hour non-stop flight from Philadelphia to Seattle on October 17.

Andrews, who suffers from a heart condition, said the pig's presence helped relieve stress, adding that she took the animal aboard the Boeing 757 on her doctor's recommendation.

"I love this pig. She's my best friend," she told the Philadelphia Daily News, which mounted a two-week campaign to find Andrews and published its interview with her under the banner headline "The Pig and I".

US Airways allowed Charlotte on board, along with 200 human passengers, after granting it the same "service animal" classification reserved for guide dogs for the blind.

According to the airline, Charlotte slept for most of the flight.

But as the plane landed, the animal went hog-wild and started squealing, tried to get into the cockpit and charged through the cabin.