Gangsters
seek cop
protection

AFTER four months of
increasingly violent attacks
on them by vigilantes, South
African criminal gangs began
lobbying for police protec-
tion in November.

More than a thousand
gangsters stood autside the
gates of Parlianient in Cape
Town, b ”
and “pe. in the wake of
news that one gang leader
was shot 72 times by a vigi-
lante and his body set on tire.

The yang members claim
they are basically good peo-
ple and that their own mur-
dering, thievery and drug-
dealing were merely attempts
to cope with apartheid.

Hone revealed =r

that they are encouraging
male inmates to marry cach
other in order to hold down
HIV infections.

Eight couples have taken
the plunge so far and
received a certificate in which
they pledge mutual fidelity.
The marriages are valid only
in prison because Honduran
law docs not recognize same-
seX marriage.

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The parents of Alexandra
Taylor, 5, received an undis-
closed settlement — from
Continental Airlines because
the airline permitted another
customer to bring a six-foot-
long python into the cabin of
a 1994 flight, which allegedly
caused Alexandra to have
severe nightmares.

The snake’s owner, had
brought along her comipan-
ion as a “support snake” pre-
scribed by ber therapist to
help her overcome the trau-
ma of being sexually harassed
by a professor.

A federal — magistrate
ordered physician Susan J.
Powers to pay the U.S. gov-
ernment $292,000 for break-
ing her contract to provide
medical care to underserved
rural areas in exchange for
the government's having
funded her medical educa-
tion.

Powers tried to get out of
the contract by claiming that
if she left her “support net-
work” of friends in the San
Francisco Bay area, she
would become despondent
and possibly suicidal.

Minnesota — Civil
s Union was success-
ful in gaining the nght to
vote in the November elec-
tions for three diagnosed
“sexual psychopaths” con-
fined by law to a hospital in
St. Peter but who have no
pending criminal sentences.
One was escorted to a
polling place, but the other
two were not permitted out
and had their ballots brought
to the hospital by an election
monitor.

China's) Xinhua news
agency reported recently that
Ms. Lui Yux 16, had sue-
cessfully undergone tongue:
reduction surgery to snip off
several inches’ worth that
extended outside her mouth.

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SWE

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