Rock'n'Roll legend Elvis Presley did in fact visit Britain, it was revealed yesterday, with a secret visit to London accompanied by another rocker.
For more than half a century it was generally accepted the "King" only made a fleeting transit visit to Scotland in 1960 much to the disappointment of his legion of UK fans. But theatre producer Bill Kenwright has revealed in a radio interview that Elvis, then 23, managed to go sightseeing in London with Cockney singer Tommy Steele.
The pair's trip, understood to have taken place in 1958, included visits to the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, Mr Kenwright said. Elvis did not perform.
Elvis's only documented visit to Britain was in brief stopover in Ayrshire when his plane landed at Prestwick airport to refuel. Photographs show that he was accompanied by his soon-to-be wife, teenage sweetheart Priscilla.
Dogs 'rescue' abandoned girl
Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said yesterday.
Villagers in the eastern state of Bihar saved the newborn on the weekend after they saw three dogs barking near a baby covered with mud.
"The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said yesterday from Bihar's Samastipur district.
"The girl is crying but is safe in the lap of a childless couple who have adopted her."
Bush seeks game show help
US President George W. Bush, making a highly unusual appearance on US television game show Deal or No Deal, sought show host Howie Mandel's help to deal with the federal budget in upcoming talks with Congress.
"Howie, I don't know if you're free to come to Washington anytime soon but I have to reach an agreement with Congress on the federal budget. How'd you like to host a $3 trillion dollar Deal or No Deal,"
Mr Bush joked.
Mr Bush made the appearance via videotape to wish good luck to one contestant, Army Captain Joseph Kobes who is an Iraq war veteran. The President also noted the show's wide popularity saying he was "thrilled" to be appearing on it.
Held for stealing frozen sperm
Indian police said yesterday they arrested a man for stealing dozens of frozen sperm samples from a laboratory in western India. The arrest surprised officials at the sperm bank who say more samples could have been stolen over a period of time.
"We are caught in a very difficult situation, as we do not know how many samples have been smuggled out of the laboratory," said Suryakant Hayatnagarkar, an official at Cryobank, a laboratory in Aurangabad city in Maharashtra state. The Times of India newspaper reported yesterday that more than 100 samples were stolen from the sperm bank last week. The man was arrested on Monday after a tip-off from doctors in Mumbai, India's financial capital, where the stolen samples eventually landed.
Cherry seeds into space
Japan's famed cherry trees have carried the hearts of a nation for centuries but they will soon enjoy another honour - their seeds being blasted into outer space.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has approved a project to send the seeds of cherry trees to the Japanese laboratory at the International Space Station, which is orbiting above Earth, officials yesterday.
Japan Manned Space Systems Corp., a Tokyo-based private-sector consortium of 55 companies, organised the cherry seeds' half-a-year stay in space in part to see whether or how microgravity would affect them.
Controversial Hitler ad
Mexico's top electoral body ordered broadcasters to stop running a controversial TV ad that compares a firebrand leftist leading a siege of Congress to dictators Hitler and Pinochet.
The TV ad, funded by a Mexican businessman angry at a blockade of Congress by opposition lawmakers trying to derail an oil reform plan, says the antics of protest leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are endangering democracy.
"The complaints committee decided unanimously to order the withdrawal of the spot from today," a spokesman for the Federal Electoral Institute said yesterday.
Leftists seized Congress podiums on April 10 to block a government proposal to lower barriers to private investment in the oil sector, controlled by the state since 1938. The action has left Congress paralysed.
"Who shuts congresses? In 1933, Adolf Hitler in Germany. In 1939, Benito Mussolini in Italy. In 1973, Augusto Pinochet of Chile," the ad says, over grainy footage of the Nazi leader, his fascist ally in Italy and Chile's late military dictator.