World Briefs

Five years after she went missing from her Colorado home, Willow the cat has been reunited with her owners in New York City.

How the cat ended up on a Manhattan street 1,600 miles from home remains a mystery. She was dropped off at a shelter last week. A microchip implanted when she was a kitten led to the Squires family in Boulder.

Chris and Jamie Squires and their three children were reacquainted with Willow at the Hilton New York hotel last night. Mrs Squires says she hopes the unlikely reunion prompts more people to put microchips in their pets. (AP)

Race over

Nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis gave up his run at a New Jersey state senate seat yesterday, quitting the race a day after he was booted off the ballot by an appeals court panel.

Mr Lewis, a 50-year-old American athletics star who won four Olympic long jump gold medals in a row from the 1984 Los Angeles Games through the 1996 Atlanta Games, announced a halt to his legal fight after see-saw court rulings.

The US Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Mr Lewis did not meet the state’s four-year residency requirement to hold office. It did so jut seven weeks before voters cast ballots and only days ahead of the printing of the ballots.

Mr Lewis, who grew up in New Jersey but has lived mainly in Texas and California as an adult, was running as a Democrat and trying to unseat Republican incumbent Dawn Addiego.

The panel, reversing an earlier decision to allow Mr Lewis on the ballot, said the fact Mr Lewis voted in California as recently as two years ago weighed heavily in their decision. (AFP)

Bikini show dropped

A beach resort in Muslim-majority Malaysia has scrapped a publicity event for an international Miss Bikini pageant after officials warned it could promote indecent behaviour.

The Pangkor Island Beach Resort had planned to host a preview of the pageant, scheduled to take place in Thailand.

However, government officials in Malaysia’s northern Perak state insisted the event would “tarnish the country’s image”.

The resort will proceed with a Full Moon Beach Party on October 7 but will cancel the Miss Bikini preview, said resort spokesman Doris Chin. The preview would have featured an ice sculpture and announcements of pageant details, but no women parading in bikinis, she said. (AP)

Not giving up!

Endurance athlete Diana Nyad is preparing for a second attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida and set a world record at the age of 62.

Ms Nyad was to set out from the Hemingway Marina in Havana yesterday.

The Los Angeles woman fell short in a previous attempt at the swim last month, calling it off after 29 hours in the water and about halfway through the 166-kilometre journey. She said then that there would be no repeat.

But she said yesterday: “Don’t listen to athletes when they say it’s over.” (AP)

Mistaken identity

A panda born at Atlanta’s zoo and returned to China for breeding will end up being a father, not a mother as originally thought.

Zoo Atlanta staff and a researcher from the panda research centre in China where Mei Lan now lives examined the panda 19 days after its birth and determined the panda was female, said Rebecca Snyder, curator of mammals at Zoo Atlanta.

But researchers in China recently noticed male reproductive organs and determined Mei Lan is male.

It is difficult to determine the sex of giant pandas early on and mistakes are not uncommon, Ms Snyder said. (AP)

‘Living statue’ ban

Culture officials in Rome are mulling a ban on “living statues”, arguing that dressing up in costume and standing on the street to solicit spare change has no artistic merit, media reported yesterday.

“Living statues demonstrate no artistic activity, to the extent that they can’t be compared to mimes, and they amount to a veritable racket,” said Federico Mollicone, deputy culture chief in Rome’s mayorship.

The proposed ban is part of a broader Bill from Mr Mollicone’s office, which aims to regulate activity on Rome’s streets, reports said. (AFP)