The long arms of the world’s tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs, state media and an aquarium official said today.

The dolphins got sick after nibbling on plastic from the edge of their pool at an aquarium in Liaoning province. Attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because the dolphins’ stomachs contracted in response to the instruments, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Veterinarians then decided to ask for help from Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia with 41.7-inch arms, state media said.

Bao, 54, was confirmed last year by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest living man.

Chen Lujun, the manager of the Royal Jidi Ocean World aquarium, told The Associated Press that the shape of the dolphins’ stomachs made it difficult to push an instrument very far in without hurting the animals. People with shorter arms could not reach the plastic, he said.

Photographs showed the jaws of one of the dolphins being held back by towels so Bao could reach inside the animal without being bitten.

“Some very small plastic pieces are still left in the dolphins’ stomachs,” Zhu Xiaoling, a local doctor, told Xinhua. “However the dolphins will be able to digest these and are expected to recover soon.”

DAMASCUS, Va. - He sees you when you’re streaking…

An Independence, Va., man might find himself with a lump of coal for Christmas after he was caught running through town naked Monday by none other than Santa Claus himself.

Stephen Brewer is charged with indecent exposure after officials say he was seen running nude right in front of the Damascus Police Department.

A man dressed as Santa was driving near Damascus when a man driving erratically behind him began throwing trash, parts of his truck and clothing out the windows.

Santa, who asked that his name be withheld, said by the time the man got into Damascus and jumped out of his truck, he was stark naked.

Detective Steven McVey says he heard squealing tires and yelling. He walked outside and saw Santa pointing him toward the naked man, who was walking across the parking lot of a local car dealer.

Sergeant John Rouse arrested Brewer. He says Brewer told him he’d been to the dentist and taken some pain pills, perhaps one too many.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Knoxville Fire Department investigators used a ruse of their own to nab a man suspected of making a series of bogus emergency calls on his cell phone.

After receiving a false report of a gas leak on Dec. 14, firefighters compared notes.

They confirmed 15 fake 911 calls over a two-month period, including four house fires, six car crashes and various other medical emergencies. All came from the same cell phone.

So they called the number and left a message saying the phone’s owner had won a gift card from a major retailer, Fire Capt. Brent Seymour said.

Within an hour, Seymour received a call back from a man identifying himself as the phone’s owner. “He willingly gave his name and address,” Seymour said. “I told him I would be sending that gift card.”

But that wasn’t quick enough to suit the man. He wanted the gift card in time for Christmas. So the investigators set up a meeting for that evening.

Seymour said he waited only a few minutes in a business parking lot before suspect Jason Mark Harms arrived on foot, identified himself as the gift card recipient and was arrested.

Seymour said Harms’ first words were, “You can’t prove it.”

But General Sessions Judge Charles Cerny found the evidence strong enough Wednesday to send 15 felony counts of making false reports against Harms to a Knox County grand jury.

Harms, 29, told authorities he thought he was doing taxpayers a favor by drawing otherwise lazy firefighters out of their cozy fire halls, according to court papers.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — A giant wild hog boasted to be bigger than the near-mythical “Hogzilla” caught in southern Georgia a few years ago has been killed in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood.

The hog hung snout down from a tree today in William Coursey’s front yard, not far from where the avid hunter said he shot the beast. He said he hauled it to a truck weigh station, which recorded the hairy hog at 1,100 pounds.

The Department of Natural Resources did not know whether the hog was a record for the state. “We don’t keep records on hogs,” said Melissa Cummings of the DNR’s public affairs department.

But Coursey believes his behemoth surpasses the famed superswine shot and killed in 2004 that weighed in at half a ton on the farm’s scales. A team of National Geographic experts later confirmed “Hogzilla” didn’t quite live up to the 1,000-pound, 12-foot hype, saying the beast was probably 7 1/2 to 8 feet long, and weighed about 800 pounds.

The news of Coursey’s kill got people are talking about the enormous beasts that roam the state.

“Nobody keeps official records,” said Daryl Kirby, an editor with Georgia Outdoor News. “But it’s one heck of a hog.”

Dracula’s castle is for sale for $78M

The Habsburg family said that it wanted to sell a Transylvanian castle famous for its connections to the 15th century medieval ruler who inspired “Dracula” for 60 million euros, or $78 million, to the local authorities, an attorney said.

The local council says it is interested in buying Bran Castle, but a government minister criticized the price tag, calling it too expensive.

Dominic Habsburg, the owner, insisted the family had honorable intentions.

“We are trying to find the best way to preserve the castle in the interest of the family and the people of Bran,” Habsburg said in a statement made available exclusively to The Associated Press.

The castle was returned to Habsburg, a New York architect, on May 26, decades after it was confiscated by the communists from Habsburg’s mother, Princess Ileana, in 1948, the year the royals were forced to leave the country.

After the restitution, concerns were raised that the family could sell castle to a hotel chain and that the site could end up being the centerpiece of a Dracula theme park that would blight the surrounding, pristine countryside.

The castle, perched high on a rock and surrounded by snowcapped mountains in southern Transylvania, is one of Romania’s top tourist attractions and is visited by 400,000 people each year.

Faced with the enormous expense of the castle’s upkeep, Habsburg said he wanted to place the property in the hands of the local council with an eye toward ensuring its historic character is preserved.

“The family has the country and the people in their heart. We are grateful for the restitution as a moral act to amend injustice,” the statement from Habsburg said.

But he added, “The way of life cannot be returned and the restitution has come with financial sacrifice. ... We would like Castle Bran to remain a symbol of everything that is honorable and good in Romania.”

The community of Bran, where the fortress was built in the 14th century to help stave off invasion, gave it to Ileana’s mother, Queen Marie, in 1920 to thank her for her efforts in unifying the country. It was briefly associated with Prince “Vlad the Impaler,” whose cruelty inspired novelist Bram Stoker’s creation, the vampire Count Dracula. History says he spent one night there.

In 1938, Ileana inherited the castle, which is located some 105 miles north of Bucharest.

In recent years, the castle — complete with occasional glimpses of bats floating around its ramparts in the twilight — has attracted movie makers as a backdrop for films about Dracula and other spooky themes.

Lia Trandafir, an attorney for Habsburg, said the local authorities are interested in buying it. “They’d like to see it coming back to the community and they consider it a central pillar of tourism in Brasov county,” she said.

Aristotel Cancescu, head of the local city council is due to travel to Vienna, Austria, on Monday to open discussions about a bank loan. If he manages to secure a loan, it will need to be approved by local councilors.

Culture Minister Adrian Iorgulescu has criticized the planned purchase of the castle, saying it is too expensive. “I have nothing against the castle being bought by the city council if they are stupid enough to pay this money,” he said. He added he believed the castle was worth a fourth of Habsburg’s asking price.

Water intoxication blamed in death of Calif. woman who competed radio station drinking contest

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A woman who competed in a radio station’s contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner’s office said Saturday.

Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.

“She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad,” said Laura Rios, one of Strange’s co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. “She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.”

It was not immediately know how much water Strange consumed.

A preliminary investigation found evidence “consistent with a water intoxication death,” said assistant Coroner Ed Smith.

John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station’s owner, said station personnel were stunned when they heard of Strange’s death.

“We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred,” he said.

Initially, contestants were handed eight-ounce bottles of water to drink every 15 minutes.

“They were small little half-pint bottles, so we thought it was going to be easy,” said fellow contestant James Ybarra of Woodland. “They told us if you don’t feel like you can do this, don’t put your health at risk.”

Ybarra said he quit after drinking five bottles. “My bladder couldn’t handle it anymore,” he added.

After he quit, he said, the remaining contestants, including Strange, were given even bigger bottles to drink.

“I was talking to her and she was a nice lady,” Ybarra said. “She was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for kids.”

"Doomsday Clock” moved closer to midnight

LONDON — The world has nudged closer to a nuclear apocalypse and environmental disaster, a trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists warned today, pushing the hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight.

It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as “a second nuclear age” prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.

But the organization added that the “dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons.”

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to the survival of human civilization.

“As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth,” said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.

“As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change.”

The bulletin’s clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin’s editor Mark Strauss told The Associated Press.

“There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse,” he said, “That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat.”

The threat of nuclear war, however, remains by far the organization’s most pressing concern. “It’s important to emphasize 50 of today’s nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people,” he said.

The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin’s board, which is composed of prominent scientists and policy experts, in coordination with the group’s sponsors.

Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved 18 times, including today’s move.

It came closest to midnight — just two minutes away — in 1953, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union.

Police said they caught a 16-year-old robbery suspect who had eluded authorities on several previous occasions when his baggy pants fell down, causing him to stumble as officers chased him.

“We literally caught him with his pants down,” Lt. Jack West of Covington police said.

Suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint and stealing another man’s car after beating him with a brick, the teenager had run away from police several times in recent weeks, West said.

An officer spotted the teen standing on a street corner Monday, called in for two backup officers, then tried to make an arrest.

“They all converged on him from different directions,” West said. “He started to run, but his low-riding pants fell down and he stumbled to his knees.”

The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was booked on warrants for armed robbery, carjacking, two counts of aggravated battery and being a child in need of supervision.

NORTH BONNEVILLE, Wash. — A man who said he used a stun gun on his wife’s 79-year-old grandmother was arrested for investigation of domestic assault.

Aaron de Bruyn, 26, was cited with fourth-degree domestic violence assault Wednesday and released from the Skamania County jail Thursday, Police Chief Calvin Owens said. The grandmother wasn’t injured.

De Bruyn said he was arguing with Rosemary Garlock, who accused him of abusing his 7-month-old son when he swatted the boy’s diapered bottom to stop him from grabbing electrical wires.

When she refused to leave, he said he shocked her on her right shoulder as she sat on the living room couch.

“She yelped, because getting Tased hurts,” de Bruyn told The Columbian newspaper.

De Bruyn said he had the 50,000-volt Taser X26 energy weapon to protect against burglars. He said he called authorities, saying he had a relative in his house who would not leave.

De Bruyn’s stun gun was confiscated.

“If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t,” he said.

A 10-year old actor is getting an early education in the litigious side of entertainment.

Dominic Scott Kay, who played the voice of “Wilbur” in the recently released film “Charlotte’s Web,” filed suit Thursday against a Malibu woman who gave him $11,000 to finance a short film he wrote and directed, which stars Kevin Bacon, in exchange for a producer credit.

According to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Conroy Kanter is now demanding creative control over the film, “Saving Angelo,” about a boy who rescues a badly injured dog and nurses him back to health.

Kay’s attorneys at Los Angeles’ Steptoe & Johnson claim their young client has shelved the film since September 2005 in response to litigation threats from Kanter’s lawyers. The complaint seeks a declaration that Kanter is not entitled to creative control of the film and has no right to interfere with its distribution.

“She has had attorneys involved from the beginning and has sent threatening letters to Dominic and his family saying if he continues to edit the film without her consent, she’ll sue him,” said Dylan Ruga, who, along with Steptoe partner Michael Heimbold and Stanton “Larry” Stein of Dreier Stein & Kahan, have taken the case pro bono.

Ruga said Kay has twice missed opportunities to open the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival with “Saving Angelo” and has turned down invitations to other festivals, including AFI and the Heartland Film Festival, because of Kanter’s interference.

“She had begged to be a part of the film,” said Ruga. But Kanter has since become greedy, the lawsuit states.

Kanter’s attorney, sole practitioner Michael Stoller, said, “My client is truly astounded and saddened to learn that her former long-term friend, Cindy Kay (Dominic’s mother), instigated this lawsuit for declaratory relief which included unkind and misleading statements.”

Stoller said Kanter agreed to finance the film to benefit animal rights. “Somehow the pure charitable intention has been subverted for the purpose of monetary gain and Hollywood exploitation,” he said.

Kay’s film credits include “Minority Report” and “Loverboy,” in which he co-starred with Bacon.

Kay wrote the film based on his own experience in rescuing a dog. He was able to recruit Bacon and other actors to donate their time for the film because any proceeds from it will be given to animal charities, Ruga said.

LOS ANGELES — A man dressed as Chewbacca was arrested after police said the street performer head-butted a tour guide operator in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles was booked Thursday for investigation of misdemeanor battery, police Lt. Paul Vernon said.

Police said the 6-foot-4 street performer was seen arguing Thursday afternoon with a tour guide who had expressed concern the Star Wars wookie impersonator was “harassing and touching tourists” in violation of city law.

The city passed ordinances last year seeking to crack down on the colorful assortment of actors who perform outside the landmark theater. The move was prompted by complaints from tourists who said the actors were aggressive and abusive if they refused to pay for pictures.

Security guards escorted Young off theater property, but he decided to strike back and head-butted the tour guide, Vernon said.

“The lesson here is you can have the force with you,” Vernon said. “You just can’t use illegal force.”

Young could not be reached for comment. His telephone number was unlisted.

The tour guide, Brian Sapir, told the Los Angeles Times that he asked the Chewbacca impersonator to stop harassing two young Japanese tourists when the actor exploded in anger.

“He said, ‘Nobody tells this wookie what to do,’” Sapir said.

Bears fan loses bet and must change name

Scott Wiese, a die-hard Chicago Bears fan, will legally change his name to that of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning after signing a pledge in front of a crowd at a Decatur bar last Friday night. He vowed to adopt Manning’s name if the Bears lost Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The final score was Colts 29, Bears 17.

So on Tuesday, Wiese went to the Macon County Courts Facility and started the process of changing his name.

“I made the bet, and now I’ve got to keep it,” said the 26-year-old, who lives in Forsyth, just north of Decatur.

Wiese will now have to advertise his intention in the local newspaper — the Herald & Review — for several weeks and then have a judge give him the OK to become, legally anyway, Peyton Manning.

The men have little in common, Wiese acknowledges.

Manning the quarterback is 30 years old, stands 6-foot-5 and has a contract with the Colts worth more than $100 million.

Wiese is 5-foot-11 and works at a Staples office-supply store for somewhat less.

“I think I kind of represent all Bears fans,” he said. “Not that I’m saying they’re all idiots like me, but I represent their passion because I really care about my team, you know?”

While he pledged to take on the new identity, Wiese didn’t make any promises about how long he would keep it.

Princeton to close ESP lab

The extrasensory perception lab at Princeton University will be shuttered at the end of the month. Maybe you already knew that.

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory will close after 28 years of studying ESP and telekinesis, research that embarrassed university officials and outraged the scientific community.

PEAR’s founder, Robert G. Jahn, said the lab, with its aging equipment and dwindling finances, has done what it needed to do.

“If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will,” Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton’s engineering school and an emeritus professor, told The New York Times for Saturday editions.

Princeton made no official comment on the lab’s closure.

One of the world’s top experts on jet propulsion, Jahn was able to buck a research system based on university and government money that uses strenuous peer review. Instead, Jahn estimates he was able to raise more than $10 million in private donations over the years.

A standard experiment at PEAR would have a participant sitting in front of an electric box flashing numbers just above or below 100. Staff would tell the person to either “think high” or “think low” as they watched the display.

PEAR researchers concluded that people could alter the results in such machines about two or three times out of 100,000. Jahn claimed if the human mind could slightly alter a machine, it might be able to be used in other areas of human life, such as healing disease.

Animal lover killed after entering cheetah cage at Belgian zoo

BRUSSELS, Belgium — An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium, authorities and zoo officials said Monday.

Karen Aerts, 37, of Antwerp, was found dead in the cage, Olmense Zoo spokesman Jan Libot said. Police said they ruled out any foul play.

Authorities believe Aerts, a regular visitor to the zoo, hid in the park late Sunday until it closed and managed to find the keys to the cheetah cage.

“Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust,” Libot said.

One of the cats that killed Aerts was named Bongo, whom the woman had adopted under a special program. She paid for Bongo’s food, Libot said.

Animal rights group GAIA called for the immediate closure of the zoo, located 55 miles northeast of Brussels, saying it was unsafe for both visitors and the cats.

Rudy Demotte, the Belgian minister responsible for animal welfare, sent a team to investigate.

Inventor of the TV remote dies

Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died.

Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

Adler joined Zenith’s research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1.

Adler is survived by his wife, Ingrid.