Lead Story
In March Christina and Cliff Fields summoned police to their home in San Carlos, California, to help them with their burgeoning pet-rat problem. It had started when they were given one as a gift. Then they purchased two at a pet store. Because rats can have up to five litters per year of up to 11 rats each and begin breeding at two months of age, the Fieldses ended up with over 300 pet rats in their apartment.
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Cuba’s communist party expanded Valentine’s Day this year into a celebration of “love for one’s nation, for one’s work, love for one’s comrades.” Speculation on the part of Cubans in Miami ranged from a belief that the government needed to divert people’s attention from economic problems to the possibility that Fidel Castro had fallen in love.
In December the government-owned Ugandan telephone company cut off service temporarily to the rest of the government for failure to pay its overdue bill of around $5.4 million.
