World Briefs

The Duchess of Cambridge has sent a touching message of support to a young patient she met in a cancer unit.

Kate wrote to nine-year-old Fabian Bate, who is battling with leukaemia, after spending time with him at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London last month. The Daily Mirror revealed that the Duchess said in her letter: “I was so touched by your strength of character.”

She told the youngster, who is undergoing chemotherapy and hoping to have a bone marrow donation from his sister: “I will keep my fingers crossed that your health goes from strength to strength.” (PA)

Van Gogh’s death

Experts at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum remain unconvinced by a new book that claims the 19th century Dutch artist was accidentally shot by two teenagers and did not die from self-inflicted wounds.

The biography published this week of Vincent van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith says the artist, who suffered chronic depression, claimed to have shot himself to protect the boys, and that “he was covering up his own murder.” He died two days later.

Leo Jansen, the museum curator and editor of Van Gogh’s letters, said the biography, “Van Gogh, A Life,” is a great book.” But experts “cannot yet agree” with the authors’ conclusions about the painter’s death. (AP)

Captives freed

Mexican soldiers freed 61 men being held captive by the Zetas drug cartel for use as forced labour.

The army said the men were found guarded by three Zetas kidnappers in a safe house in the border city of Piedras Negras. Soldiers made the discovery during a security sweep in the area that also turned up an abandoned truck filled with six tons of marijuana.

General Luis Crescencio Sandoval Gonzalez said one of the captives was from Honduras and others were from various parts of Mexico. He said the three kidnappers were arrested. (PA)

Rare insect

A rare insect whose larvae dig little pits to trap their prey of other bugs has been found in only its second breeding site in Britain.

Government conservation agency Natural England said the antlion, a member of the lacewing family, has been found at its Holkham National Nature Reserve in Norfolk.

The adults look like small dragonflies, but in their larval stage the bugs excavate cone-like burrows in which they lurk waiting for other insects to slide in, before grabbing them in their huge jaws and sucking them dry. (PA)

Bag power

A handbag used by a Florida school board member to hit a gunman holding colleagues hostage has gone on display in Florida.

Ginger Littleton’s bag was auctioned online for more than £10,000 in December. Ms Littleton was not able to disarm the gunman, but a security guard shot and him and he then killed himself.

The bag has gone on display at Panama City Beach library. (PA)

Pot luck

Equipment seized from a marijuana operation is going to be used to grow a different kind of herb – and vegetables, too.

Industrial generators, lights and hydroponic plant containers will be given to a Philadelphia university and a food lab.

The lab grows greens, lettuce, peppers and broccoli and the university already uses hydroponic techniques to grow basil sold in local supermarkets. (PA)

Taxis for prisoners

A British security firm with a government contract worth a potential £420 million for transporting prisoners to court has been moving defendants about in black cabs.

Serco signed the seven-year deal in March. It is worth £42 million per annum to them and there is an option for a further three years.

However the company, whose deal covers London and the east of England, has recently been using scores of private taxis after a computer system organising pick-up and drop-off details failed. (PA)

Prodigal zebras

An endangered female zebra and her foal that escaped from their exhibit and forced a Boston zoo to evacuate visitors have returned to their enclosure.

Operator Zoo New England said the baby – at the exhibit for the first time – broke through the exhibit’s electrical fencing at Franklin Park Zoo and its mother followed.

The foal returned to the enclosure about 40 minutes later. Its mother was led back to the zebra barn later. (PA)