MOSCOW, May 27 (Reuters) - Russian police have taken into care a 5-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said on Wednesday.

The girl, who lived in the Eastern Siberian city of Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like an dog when police took her into care.

"For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," a police statement said.

"The unwashed girl was dressed in filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of an animal and jumped at people," it said.

The flat had no heat, water or sewage system.

A police spokeswoman said the girl, known as Natasha, is being monitored by psychologists in an orphanage. Her mother was being questioned but her father has not been found yet.

She appears to be about 2-years-old, though her real age is five, refuses to eat with a spoon and has taken on many of the gestures of the animals with which she lived, police said.

"When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks," the police said.

Feral children, the stuff of folklore all over the world, usually exhibit the behaviour of the animals with whom they have had closest contact, a condition known as the Mowgli Syndrome after the fictional child from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" who was raised by wolves in the jungle.

Such children have usually built strong ties with the animals with whom they lived and find the transition to normal human contact extremely traumatic. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Farah Master)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Video: I'm So Sorry Mr. Policeman For Saying You Were Getting Blowjobs in the Bathroom

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has denied having an affair with an underage girl and said he would resign if he was caught lying about it.

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Mr Berlusconi said that if someone asked had he had "a spicy or more than spicy" relationship with a minor, his answer would be "absolutely not".

"I have sworn this on the lives of my children," he told reporters in Rome.

Mr Berlusconi, 72, is under pressure to explain his relationship with Noemi Letizia, 18, an aspiring model.

His wife, Veronica Lario, announced earlier this month that she was divorcing him after it was reported that he had attended Ms Letizia's 18th birthday party in Naples and given her an expensive necklace.

To Italians, I want to ask a question: Would you want your children brought up by this man? Dario Franceschini Leader, Democratic Party

"I cannot remain with a man who consorts with minors," she said.

Mr Berlusconi said he had only gone to Ms Letizia's party because he happened to be in Naples that day and was an old family friend.

But photographs later emerged of them together at several social events last year, when she was 17. The prime minister also confirmed that she had stayed at his villa in Sardinia and attended a new year's party there.

'Furious'

During a meeting with reporters in Rome on Thursday, Mr Berlusconi repeated previous denials that he had had sex with a minor.

BEING MRS BERLUSCONI In Feb 2007, Veronica demanded a public apology from her husband for his flirting, to which he replied with a written one In the 2004 biography Veronica's Tendency she revealed that "Silvio eats lunch while attached to the phone and dinner is the same" Veronica rarely accompanies her husband on foreign trips The couple met in 1980, wed 10 years later and have three children in their 20s Mr Berlusconi has said he was smitten when he first saw the 24-year-old actress on stage The battle of the Berlusconis Profile: Silvio Berlusconi

"I have answered the only question that anyone has the right to ask me: 'Prime minister, have you had a, let's say, spicy, or more than spicy, relationship with an underage girl?' The response is: 'Absolutely not,'" he said.

"I am aware that, if this were perjury, I would have to resign a minute later."

The age of consent in Italy is 16, but people under 18 are considered minors.

The comments come a day after the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Dario Franceschini, asked Italians at a European Parliament election rally: "Would you want your children brought up by this man?"

The question provoked a furious response from Mr Berlusconi's children, who have rarely made public statements in the past.

"Angry?" asked Marina, his eldest daughter from his first marriage and chairman of publisher Mondadori, in an interview for Corriere della Sera.

"I am indignant. Furious. No, this is enough. This time, I don't intend to stay silent. My father has always worked a lot, but there has never been a time, a single time, in which I did not have him near when I needed him."

Her younger brother, Mediaset deputy chairman Pier Silvio, demanded to know how Mr Franceschini dared make such a "bad taste" remark.

The premier's three youngest children also said in a statement that they had been "brought up in a family atmosphere that was balanced and full of values".

"Politics should not turn to judging the role of a father, which has nothing to do with politics," Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi said. 

Man who claims subway sodomy sues NYPD for $220M

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA | rocco.parascandola@newsday.com

5:03 PM EDT, May 28, 2009

A man who's accused city police officers of beating and sexually assaulting him sued the New York Police Department and the city for $220 million yesterday in federal court.

Michael Mineo, a 24-year-old tattoo worker, said he is not worried that the timing of the suit - some four months before the anticipated start of the trial for the three officers charged in the incident - makes it seem like he cares most about making money.

"Not at all," he said outside Brooklyn federal court after his lawyers filed the suit. "It's going to speak for itself because I'm not lying. There's no way I could have lied and made this up. I don't want the accused officers on the police force anymore."

One of his lawyers, Kevin Mosley, said "to not file a suit would almost look like he was trying to hide something. He has nothing to hide."

Michael Mineo said he was sodomized by NYPD officers.
(Photo by Patrick E. McCarthy / December 8, 2008)

Mineo made headlines last October when he accused three officers of beating and sexually assaulting him with a nightstick in the Prospect Park subway station while trying tosubdue him after he was stopped for smoking marijuana.

The case drew immediate comparisons to the 1997 attack on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima inside the 70th Precinct. Louima was violated with a broomstick by Officer Justin Volpe, who plead guilty and is in prison.

In December, Officer Richard Kern was indicted on a charge of sexually abusing Mineo, while officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were indicted on charges of hindering prosecution and official misconduct.

"It's not surprising," said Richard Murray, Morales' lawyer. "He hopes they'll prevail and he'll get a lot of money. But I'm confident that after trial, Officer Morales will be found not guilty of any criminal misconduct, and my belief is that there was no misconduct on behalf of any of the officers."

Cruz's lawyer, Stu London, said, "I've thought, from the beginning, that his financial interest was always his primary interest as opposed to the accuracy of the events as he related them."

Attorneys for Kern and the NYPD had no comment, and lawyers for the city say they have not had a chance to review the suit.

Morales and Cruz saw blood from the attack and did nothing, prosecutor Charles Guria said at the time of the indictment, while Kern warned Mineo he faced felony charges if he went to the hospital or to a precinct.

Mineo was given a summons for disorderly conduct, and police left the scene. The summons was defective, an apparent attempt to make sure what had happened would never be learned, according to law enforcement sources.

But Mineo did go to the hospital, and he says the incident has emotionally scarred him and left him unable to return to work. His injuries - a rectum laceration - cause him great pain, he says, and he's aware of the case's place in history.

"My kids are going to know about this when I have a kid," Mineo said. "It's humiliating. This is considered a rape."

Daniel Edward Rosen contributed to this story.

May 14, 2009--In South America female phorid flies have developed a bizarre reproductive strategy: They hover over fire ants (pictured in a file photo), then inject their eggs into the ants with a needle-like appendage. The egg grows and the resulting larva generally migrates to the ant's head. The larva lives there for weeks--slurping up the brain and turning the ant into a "zombie," in some cases compelling the ant to march 55 yards (50 meters) away from its colony to avoid attack by other fire ants.Finally the baby fly decapitates its host and hatches, exiting through the ants head, as shown in the pictures in this gallery.(Related: "'Zombie' Roaches Lose Free Will Due to Wasp Venom.") U.S. scientists regularly release several species of phorid flies to control alien fire ants, which have spread across the southern U.S. during the past half century and outcompeted many native ant species. Now scientists have released a new species of phorid, Pseudacteon obtusus (not pictured), for the first time in the U.S., Texas A&M University announced May 11. Released in southern Texas in 2008 and eastern Texas in April 2009, P. obtusus is the first phorid released in the U.S. that is known to attack ants as they forage. In theory, feeding ants are more vulnerable to attack than those hunkering down in hidden nests.The flieswhich don't have a taste for native U.S. antsalso drive the frightened fire ants into their nests, freeing up more food for the indigenous ants.It's about "leveling the playing field for native ants. We're trying to restore the balance," said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas.
—Photograph courtesy Sanford Porter

Designer Jinsun Park from Korea has come out with a simple tool called Color Picker. Place the pen against an object and press the scan button, the color will be detected by the color sensor and the RGB cartridges in the pen will mixed the required inks to create the target color.