A fisherman who survived for 15 months at sea is being sued for one million dollars by the family of his dead colleague, who accuse him of eating their relative to survive. Salvador Alvarenga paid Ezequiel Cordoba, $50 to accompany him on a two-day fishing trip off the coast of Mexico back in November 2012. After a vicious storm pushed the boat out to sea, the pair survived by catching fish and birds, and drinking turtle blood and urine. Cordoba eventually died after making Alvarenga promise not to eat his corpse and to find his mother and tell her what happened. The lone survivor was found on a remote island in the Pacific after nearly a year adrift. Cordoba’s family are now demanding one million dollars compensation after claiming he was a victim of cannibalism. Alvarenga’s lawyer pointed out that the lawsuit was launched days after a book about the ordeal was published & believes that this demand is part of the pressure from this family to divide the proceeds of royalties.
Fed up with corruption among local officials, residents of a far-flung Siberian city are yearning for a different kind of politician: a cat. Barsik, the 18-month-old Scottish Fold claw has been propelled to stardom after finishing far ahead of his human rivals for the post of mayor of Barnaul–a city rocked by a series of high-profile corruption cases. In an unofficial poll launched earlier this month by the Altai Online page on Russian social network Vk, has become the talk of the town in the city of 700,000 people located some 2,250 miles east of Moscow. “People don’t know who to trust any more,” local pensioner Yevgeny Kuznetsov said, “They have come to the conclusion that they can’t trust the authorities.” Farmers have launched a crowd-funding initiative to raise a billboard in the city centre depicting the feline candidate with the slogan “Only mice don’t vote for Barsik!” It’s said the initiative had so far collected 1,400 rubles (US$20).
They may not be the most demure décor, but it’s hard to imagine what a blow-up Santa could have done to offend two men who police say targeted the holiday decoration in an attack last week. According to a Cedar Grove police report posted on the department’s website, a neighbor reportedly saw a dark Jeep pull up to a front lawn.Two men got out of the car and began punching the $100 inflatable lawn decoration. They then got back in the car, and drove away. Police investigating the Santa attack found several punctures in multiple locations on the decoration. A search for the alleged attackers did not locate them.
