Pick Weird And Stolen Aprils

Mayu Yamamoto of Japan's International Medical Center said her team had succeeded in extracting vanilla from ordinary cow dung, although she conceded the flavoring could only be commercially used in non-food products like shampoos. Ringer Park Partnership Group and Friends of Ringer Park spread nasty rumors about each other, compete ruthlessly for new members, resist mediation more fiercely than some street gangs do and commit park vandalism in order to embarrass the other group. The origin of the feud appears to be differences in aggressiveness and in attitudes toward dogs. Zimbabwe's inflation officially reached 1,042% in April, with prices doubling every three or four months and unemployment rising to 70%. Only the unsophisticated fail to spend any money they have promptly, even though, for example, toilet paper sells for $145,000 a roll (about 69 US cents). President Robert Mugabe's remedy has been to print trillions of dollars in new money. As Congress debates whether to retain the federal estate tax, evidence released in April that 18 super-rich families (including the owners of Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell's soup and the Mars company) spent as much as $500 million in the last 10 years through industry and trade associations to urge abolition of the tax, and if their campaign is successful, the families will have saved themselves an estimated $71 billion in taxes, a return of 142 times the investment. ( 70% of Americans favor abolition, even though only 1 taxpayer in 400 owes any tax.)