Pudgiest pets compete in slimming contest

LONDON – Eight of Britain's fattest pets are to embark on a 100-day diet and fitness regime in a bid to crowned this year's pet fit club champion.

The seven dogs and one cat, who are all more than 30 percent overweight and weigh a combined total of 191 kg (30 stones), were picked by veterinary charity PDSA who are running the slimming contest.

The animals, who need to lose a total of 74 kg to reach their ideal weight, will be put on specially tailored diet and exercise programs.

The pet who achieves the biggest percentage weight loss and best follows their new regime will be crowned champion, winning their owner a pet-friendly holiday.

PDSA statistics show around 30 percent of Britain's dogs are overweight or obese, amounting to around 1.95 million fat dogs.

"Alongside their daily portions of pet food, owners often show their affection by giving unhealthy human treats such as cheese, buttered toast and biscuits. They don't realize they are actually killing their pets with kindness," said Sean Wensley, a veterinary surgeon at PDSA.

PDSA veterinary nurse Jennie Keen with Tinks, a 13-year-old cat from Gillingham. His current weight of 9.8kg (21.61 lbs) makes him around 96 percent overweight.

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Kangaroo genes close to humans

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists said they had for the first time mapped the genetic code of the Australian marsupials and found much of it was similar to the genome for humans, the government-backed Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics said.

"There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," centre Director Jenny Graves told reporters in Melbourne.

"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," Graves said, according to AAP.

Humans and kangaroos last shared an ancestor at least 150 million years ago, the researchers found, while mice and humans diverged from one another only 70 million years ago.

Kangaroos first evolved in China, but migrated across the Americas to Australia and Antarctica, they said.

"Kangaroos are hugely informative about what we were like 150 million years ago," Graves said.

Kangaroos are seen on the Department of Defence property in Belconnen, Canberra, in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China, Australian researchers said on Tuesday.

Preacher with 86 wives gets court reprieve

LAGOS – A Nigerian court said an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives should be released from jail after he was held for failing to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of the women, his lawyer said.

The authorities in central Niger state had charged Mohammed Bello with "insulting religious" creed and "unlawful marriages" after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him a September 7, 2008 deadline to comply with sharia, Islamic law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives.

He was jailed after he failed to comply.

"The Federal High Court granted Bello unconditional release yesterday," defense lawyer David Ikotun told Reuters by phone from Abuja.

Niger is one of 12 predominantly Islamic northern states that started a stricter enforcement of sharia eight years ago.

Bello, who lives with his wives and about 170 children in the town of Bida, had pleaded not guilty to the charges at an Upper Sharia Court in the state capital Minna. But the judge refused him bail and ordered he be remanded in prison.

Before his detention, the preacher had filed a petition at a Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja seeking to enforce his rights and to be protected from local chiefs and Muslim leaders who threatened to banish him if he failed to divorce 82 of his wives.

"The judge also ordered that the inspector general of police provide him with adequate protection to ensure that his fundamental human rights are not infringed," Ikotun said, adding that Bello was still in custody.

The Niger state government said it will appeal the judgment, the lawyer said.

The court adjourned Bello's hearing to December 12.

His case has stirred controversy in Africa's most populous country of 140 million people, roughly half of whom are Muslims.

The preacher had received a number of death threats after Nigerian media began reporting on his situation in September, his spokesman said.

Boy makes rare recovery from rabies

BRASILIA – A 15-year-old boy in Brazil recovered from a normally deadly rabies infection, becoming one of a handful of survivors of the virus worldwide and the first in the country, the health ministry said on Friday.

The teenager, who was bitten by a blood-sucking bat in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, was found to be clear of the virus after more than a month of hospital treatment using a combination of drugs.

The case is one of only three known in which a person survived a confirmed rabies infection, the ministry said in a statement. There are five other cases of people surviving suspected rabies infections, a ministry spokesman said.

The virus -- transmitted by infected animals such as dogs, cats or bats through their saliva when they bite, scratch or lick humans -- causes inflammation of the brain and usually leads to death if left untreated.

The ministry said it was investigating why the teenager was not given a rabies vaccine immediately after he was bitten.

He was treated with a combination of antiviral drugs, sedatives and injectable anesthetics, a procedure called the Milwaukee protocol after the U.S. city where it was first successfully applied in 2004.

Doctors at the Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital in the state capital Recife plan to publish details of the Brazilian case in an international medical journal. They did not rule out some lasting damage to the boy's motor functions.

Brazil hopes to eradicate rabies transmitted to humans by domesticated animals such as cats and dogs by 2010 through a vaccination campaign for pets.

The number of recorded human rabies cases in Latin America's largest country has fallen from 44 in 2005 to nine in 2006 and just one last year.

Man nabbed after hitting girlfriend with sandwich

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving on Interstate 95 on Friday. Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off.

The victim nearly lost control of the car because she couldn't see the road and the man then allegedly ripped off the rear-view mirror and used it to shatter the windshield.

The man was freed on $7,500 bail.

Police haven't said what type of sandwich was involved.

This is TheOldGuy reporting from