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October 15, 2000

LOVELY DAY FOR A WALK, THWACK! THUD! Evelyn, a 280-pound gorilla, escaped from her cage at the Los Angeles zoo, and had a lovely time roaming around the grounds for an hour or so as frantic staffers evacuated the zoo and tried, without success, to lure her back behind the bars. She finally wandered into a food court where she was merrily emptying out a trash can when a zoo employee shot her with a tranquilizer dart. 
She pulled it out, threw it on the ground, strolled into the men's room and passed out.

IS THAT YOU, KENNY? Police say Kenneth Bartelson hatched a scheme to rob a Pawtucket, R.I., apartment using his younger brother as a lookout. The brother is legally blind. They, of course, were caught. A resident of the building became suspicious, called the police, and went out onto the sidewalk to wait for them. 
The blind man mistook the resident for his brother and was standing next to him when the cops arrived. 

A LITTLE TENSION IN THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE: Vera Chiluba, Zambia's First Lady, apparently bored with her 32-year marriage, has embarked on an extramarital affair with a local businessman. Her husband, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, found out about it, threw her out of the presidential residence, and went on a 10-day official tour of China. 
Reports that he summoned his wife's lover to have a little talk with him were denied by the president's son, Mikoyan. 

AND HE DIDN'T EVEN BUY HER DINNER: As part of a two-day CPR course in Indiana last year, Brenda Nelson was required to practice mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a mannequin. She is now suing the American Red Cross, claiming that the dummy gave her oral herpes. 
The American Social Health Association says the chance of contracting herpes from an inanimate object "is vanishingly small."

RISK? HA! I SCOFF AT RISK! While Arminio Fraga, the chief of Brazil's Central Bank, was at a meeting on the 14th floor of a Rio de Janeiro building, three well dressed robbers were one floor below robbing the Banco do Brasil. 
Fraga was on the premises to discuss financial risk. 

Mike Pingree writes another Looking Glass column in the Boston Sunday Herald. You can read it by clicking here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists.html

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