Monday, 12-25-06: A wild elephant in eastern India was looking for food and wound up killing three villagers and injuring ten. It damaged some huts and then went back into the forest. The destruction of the elephants' havitat has forced them to forage for food in populated areas. Tuesday, 12-26-06: From a column by Jeremy Rifkin: "Scientists tell us that within the lifetime of today's children, the wild will disappear from the face of the Earth.... We are losing 50 to 150 species per day to extinction." Wednesday, 12-27-06: James Brown, the "godfather of soul," has died. After his death, his 36-year-old wife found the gate to his home padlocked. James Brown's lawyer says they weren't legally married. Tomi Hynie says they were.... A 47-year-old woman in Carson City, Nevada, is facing battery charges. She hit her boyfriend across the face with a beer bottle, and then while applying bandages she applied Super Glue to his face to help the bandages stick better. Scientists say a dolphin only found in the Yangtze River has gone extinct. It's a white popoise with small eyes. Only 13 were found in a 1997 survey, and 1 in 2004. This year's survey covered 2175 miles and found none. The stranded passengers are gone from the Denver International Airport, but not the stranded luggage. Neither United nor Frontier could say how many bags are left. They'll be writing folk songs about this.... Pregnant or nursing women who eat generous amounts of cruciform vegetables (like broccoli and cabbage) help protect their children from cancer, both as infants and later in life. The bones of a huge dinosaur have been discovered in Spain. It lived 150 million years ago, and weighed 45 tons. Its humerus (the bone from the shoulder to the elbow) is the size of an adult human. New dinosaurs are being discovered at a rate of about 15 a year these days. Friday, 12-29-06: Somalia's capital fell without a shot. The Ethiopian and government troops marched quietly into the city before dawn. An Islamic alliance that had controlled Mogadishu evaporated, and the city reverted to clan-based chaos. Clan militias reclaimed their old neighborhoods. Drugs gangs unleashed a wave of attacks on police stations early yesterday in Rio De Janeiro. Police squads sent into a dozen of the squatter slumms met armed resistance. The battle went on all day, and ended with 18 dead. 7 police officers were indicted yesterday on murder charges in a pair of shootings in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The shootings took place on a bridge, and left two people dead. One of them was mentally disabled, and the other was 19. Neither had any weapons on them. Someone stole a truck in Villa Park , Illinois, that contained $50,000 worth of broccoli. Domestic violence rates in America fell by more than 50% between 1993 and 2004, the Justice Department says. American Indian women are the most likely to be victimized. Saturday, 12-30-06: Heather Mills McCartney reported the theft of some paintings valued at $19.5 million, and the Sussex police came to the country estate they once shared. Turns out Paul took the paintings. He informed her by text message. A 19-year-old mentally handicapped woman spent three days trapped in an elevator in a Paris apartment building. She left home to buy some bread. And elevator repairmen found her, shivering and dehydrated. A waitress in Caldwell, Idaho, was left a $1000 tip. When she saw it, she started breathing fast and felt weak in the knees. She bought gifts for her kids, a coat and Nikes for herself, and is saving the rest for a car.