George Kaufmann brings his pet, Sollie, to his jewellery shop, Robert Bernard Jewellers, in Rockville, Maryland, every day.
Mr Kaufmann and his business partner, Robert Rosin, were meeting a diamond dealer in late January and perusing his gems when disaster struck.
The three men were looking at a 3-carat diamond, valued at $20,000, when the stone suddenly fell to the floor - landing right next to Sollie. Before anyone could retrieve it, the dog ate the gem.
They rushed the animal to a vet, who said nature would have to take its course, so they spent three anxious days waiting to see if the gem would turn up in the dog's stool.
"When we took a walk in the morning and evening I collected and went through everything," Mr Kaufmann said.
"It wasn't glamorous, but you gotta do what you gotta do," Mr Kaufmann told Fox News.
Eventually, his patience paid off, and Mr Kaufmann found the diamond - which he cleaned and returned to the dealer.
Telegraph
Saturday, April 03, 2010
X-ray shows knife in boy's head
The 16 year-old amazingly survived the attacked after a fight with a local gang at an internet café where he worked in Mishazi, Jilin province, China’s northeast.
The gang had asked him to load unauthorised software on to the store’s computers, to try and beat the teenager’s record high score on the video game Counter Strike, Chinese media reported.
The gang had accused him of cheating.
After the teenager refused, the group become embroiled in a row, during which he was stabbed and a kitchen knife was plunged through the teenager’s left temple.
Incredible pictures later emerged of his X-ray, which showed a half-inch tip protruding from his right temple.
Astonished doctors at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital at Jilin University then watched in amazement as he staggered into casualty with the help of friends who were holding him up.
Surgeons, who initially thought it was a student prank until the teenager collapsed, later operated on him for two hours to remove the blade.
"His face was covered in blood, but he was still conscious,” said Prof Yan Shijun, the hospital’s deputy director of neurosurgery.
“I've never seen anything like it in 23 years as a surgeon.
"The X-rays and CAT scans confirmed that the blade had not hit any main arteries or nerves.”
Police are now examining security CCTV of last week’s attack while doctors say the teenager is likely to make a full miraculous recovery.
“The patient may have post-surgery complications like infections, brain damage or epileptic fits,” Prof Shijun said.
“But he has regained consciousness and is really lucky.
The teenager’s friend Huang Shen, 18, said the pair were attacked by a local gang who tried to force Xiao to load unauthorised software onto the cafe's computers.
"When we were playing games, a group of people from the same café came to us, saying we must install some software to win the game. Then we had an argument with them,” he said.
"I'd been stabbed in my left arm, and when they had gone, I found Wei was lying on the ground with a knife in his head.”
The teenager’s father, who did not want to be named, said his son left school last year as an 8th grader.
“He then worked from time to time, and spent most of the time at the internet café,” he said.
“We would never expect he would have such injuries at a café.”
Telegraph
The gang had asked him to load unauthorised software on to the store’s computers, to try and beat the teenager’s record high score on the video game Counter Strike, Chinese media reported.
The gang had accused him of cheating.
After the teenager refused, the group become embroiled in a row, during which he was stabbed and a kitchen knife was plunged through the teenager’s left temple.
Incredible pictures later emerged of his X-ray, which showed a half-inch tip protruding from his right temple.
Astonished doctors at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital at Jilin University then watched in amazement as he staggered into casualty with the help of friends who were holding him up.
Surgeons, who initially thought it was a student prank until the teenager collapsed, later operated on him for two hours to remove the blade.
"His face was covered in blood, but he was still conscious,” said Prof Yan Shijun, the hospital’s deputy director of neurosurgery.
“I've never seen anything like it in 23 years as a surgeon.
"The X-rays and CAT scans confirmed that the blade had not hit any main arteries or nerves.”
Police are now examining security CCTV of last week’s attack while doctors say the teenager is likely to make a full miraculous recovery.
“The patient may have post-surgery complications like infections, brain damage or epileptic fits,” Prof Shijun said.
“But he has regained consciousness and is really lucky.
The teenager’s friend Huang Shen, 18, said the pair were attacked by a local gang who tried to force Xiao to load unauthorised software onto the cafe's computers.
"When we were playing games, a group of people from the same café came to us, saying we must install some software to win the game. Then we had an argument with them,” he said.
"I'd been stabbed in my left arm, and when they had gone, I found Wei was lying on the ground with a knife in his head.”
The teenager’s father, who did not want to be named, said his son left school last year as an 8th grader.
“He then worked from time to time, and spent most of the time at the internet café,” he said.
“We would never expect he would have such injuries at a café.”
Telegraph
Bodies of 21 babies found in China river
Bodies of 21 babies have been discovered in plastic bags in a river in eastern China and authorites suspect they were dumped there by local hospitals, state media reported Tuesday.
An initial investigation showed that eight of the 21 babies wore identification tags on their feet tracing them back to Jining Medical College Hospital in Shandong province, the according to the People's Daily Web site. The other 13 were unidentified.
Three of the eight were admitted to the hospital in critical condition, the report said. It did not say when they were admitted.
Video footage posted online showed interviews with local residents who discovered the bodies covered in plastic trash bags floating near the shore over the weekend.
Calls to the Jining Medical College Hospital information office rang unanswered Tuesday afternoon.
Some of babies shown in the video, ranging from newborns to several months old, wore bluish-green identification tags with their mother's name, their birth dates, measurements and weight, while others were found shrouded in hazardous waste bags.
An official who answered the phone at the Jining Health Bureau confirmed the news, but would not give any details. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.
Fox News
An initial investigation showed that eight of the 21 babies wore identification tags on their feet tracing them back to Jining Medical College Hospital in Shandong province, the according to the People's Daily Web site. The other 13 were unidentified.
Three of the eight were admitted to the hospital in critical condition, the report said. It did not say when they were admitted.
Video footage posted online showed interviews with local residents who discovered the bodies covered in plastic trash bags floating near the shore over the weekend.
Calls to the Jining Medical College Hospital information office rang unanswered Tuesday afternoon.
Some of babies shown in the video, ranging from newborns to several months old, wore bluish-green identification tags with their mother's name, their birth dates, measurements and weight, while others were found shrouded in hazardous waste bags.
An official who answered the phone at the Jining Health Bureau confirmed the news, but would not give any details. Like many Chinese officials, he refused to give his name.
Fox News
Monday, March 15, 2010
Woman graduates from school at age of 91
A 91-year-old woman has graduated from evening school in southern Japan, the daily Mainichi Simbun paper reported on Wednesday.
The Kobe evening school is for people who failed to receive a secondary education because of difficult circumstances.
"I had to sacrifice a lot and give up a lot," Sidzue Hirai said.
Hirai was orphaned in early childhood and had to start to work at the age of twelve. She married at the age of 18 but her husband was killed in World War Two. After marrying again, her house was destroyed by an earthquake in 2007.
"This school has returned my youth to me. I've received back everything I lost. I would like to continue my education further and I believe this day is to be a start of a new path in my life", she said at a graduation ceremony.
Ria Novosti
The Kobe evening school is for people who failed to receive a secondary education because of difficult circumstances.
"I had to sacrifice a lot and give up a lot," Sidzue Hirai said.
Hirai was orphaned in early childhood and had to start to work at the age of twelve. She married at the age of 18 but her husband was killed in World War Two. After marrying again, her house was destroyed by an earthquake in 2007.
"This school has returned my youth to me. I've received back everything I lost. I would like to continue my education further and I believe this day is to be a start of a new path in my life", she said at a graduation ceremony.
Ria Novosti
Baby born with tail
Surgeons in China have operated to remove a five inch tail from a four-month-old baby girl.The little girl, called Hong Hong, was born with the tail but it had since doubled in size, reports the Anhui Market Daily.
Her father, Hou, of Lixing town in eastern China's Anhui province, said he had been "shocked" to see the tail at birth.
"I wanted to cut it off when she was born, but doctors suggested we wait some time, as a newborn is too weak to take such a surgery," he said.
He checked the tail each day, hoping it would get smaller but instead it just "grew bigger and bigger", he added.
Doctors at the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital said they too had been surprised by the case.
"It's very rare, about one in a million. We have never seen anything like this before," said Dr Sun Jun.
X-rays had shown that the tail was connected to a fatty tumor within the spinal column.
Dr Sun said the surgery had been successful, but it was still too early to say whether further treatment would be necessary.
Ananova
Boy develops fish scales at 14 months old
This 14-month-old boy born without pores in his skin has baffled medics by developing fish scales.Doctors believe Song Sheng, of Jinhu, eastern China, may be suffering from a rare genetic condition that means his body cannot cool itself.
Song Sheng - called fish boy by locals - began developing scales within days of his birth caused by his lack of pores.
Doctors say because he cannot sweat or lose heat through his skin, it peels away in fish-like scales.
Instead, his family controls his body temperature by laying him in baths of ice.
Song Dehui, his father, said: "He is in a lot of pain all the time and if we don't have enough ice he gets a fever."
But doctors have told the family there is still no known cure for the genetic condition, known as Lamellar ichthyosis.
"It can be treated but not cured so we are praying for a miracle or a folk medicine cure," his father said.
Telegraph
It's pregnancy, not gout -- woman shocked
BAMPTON, England, March 10 (UPI) -- A British woman said she gave birth to her first child only 3 hours after doctors discovered she was pregnant, and not suffering from gout as they had thought.
Belinda Waite, 21, of Bampton, England, said she had been in and out of the hospital for 9 months with problems her doctors attributed to irritable bowel syndrome and gout -- and she was shocked Feb. 6 when doctors told her she was about 3 months pregnant, The Sun reported Wednesday.
Waite and husband Wayne Boyles, 28, said the hospital sent her home just before midnight but she was back 3 hours later to give birth to a healthy 8-pound, 14-ounce daughter.
"I was really shocked. They told me to get some rest and make an appointment with the doctors the following Monday," Waite said. "Three hours later, Louise was born. I don't think Wayne could believe it was happening."
Officials at the hospital, run by National Health Service Devon, were unavailable for comment, The Sun said.
UPI
Belinda Waite, 21, of Bampton, England, said she had been in and out of the hospital for 9 months with problems her doctors attributed to irritable bowel syndrome and gout -- and she was shocked Feb. 6 when doctors told her she was about 3 months pregnant, The Sun reported Wednesday.
Waite and husband Wayne Boyles, 28, said the hospital sent her home just before midnight but she was back 3 hours later to give birth to a healthy 8-pound, 14-ounce daughter.
"I was really shocked. They told me to get some rest and make an appointment with the doctors the following Monday," Waite said. "Three hours later, Louise was born. I don't think Wayne could believe it was happening."
Officials at the hospital, run by National Health Service Devon, were unavailable for comment, The Sun said.
UPI
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