NEWS LITE\Whale fans orca-strate move toward freedom.Byline: Compiled by Terry Murphy from staff and wire reports. SAN FRANCISCO - Keiko, the cetacean cetacean Any of the exclusively aquatic placental mammals constituting the order Cetacea. They are found in oceans worldwide and in some freshwater environments. Modern cetaceans are grouped in two suborders: about 70 species of toothed whales (Odontoceti) and 13 species of star of "Free Willy" whose real-life drama mimics a movie script, will escape a cramped tank at a theme park in Mexico City this morning and fly to a new life in Oregon. A team of whale experts planned to start preparations Friday to pack up the 21-foot, 7,000-pound orca in a metal box for a nine-hour, 3,000-mile trip on a C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft. Within two years, scientists hope to find Keiko's family pod off Iceland, where he was captured 13 years ago at the age of 2, and release him to freedom. Until then, the killer whale killer whale or grampus, a large, rapacious marine mammal, Orcinus orca, of the dolphin family. Male killer whales may reach a length of 30 ft (9 m) and females half that length. , 1,000 pounds underweight Underweight An situation where a portfolio does not hold a sufficient amount of securities to satisfy the accepted benchmark of the portfolio's asset allocation strategy. Notes: with a drooping droop v. drooped, droop·ing, droops v.intr. 1. To bend or hang downward: "His mouth drooped sadly, pulled down, no doubt, by the plump weight of his jowls" dorsal fin and a chronic skin condition, will regain strength at the Oregon Coastal Aquarium in Newport, Ore., where he will not perform. A San Francisco environmental group, the Earth Island Institute The Earth Island Institute was founded in 1982 by environmentalist David Brower. It organizes and encourages activism around environmental issues and provides public education. Funding comes from individual members and supporting organizations. , helped plan the intricate journey for the whale, which must travel packed in 1,000 gallons of icy cold water from the Reino Aventura park in Mexico to Oregon. Public interest in Keiko's fate was sparked by the 1993 tear-jerker "Free Willy." In the movie, Willy, a captive forced to perform in a nasty, tiny tank by a mean park owner, leaps to freedom with the help of a young boy, his friends and a soaring musical score. Lightning doesn't strike twice, but lottery does The small town of Sort, Spain, has lived up to its name. Sort means "luck" in the Catalan language spoken here, and residents were celebrating Friday after striking it big in a national lottery for the second time in three years. The winning number in the Nino (Holy Child) lottery, the second of Spain's two big holiday drawings, was sold in Sort - showering $56.4 million on ticket buyers. The same thing happened in 1994, providing an $82.6 million windfall to the lucky. "There's euphoria in the air. Lots of people are unemployed with bills to pay, and in five minutes everything is solved," said Xavier Gabriel, who manages the only national lottery outlet in this northeastern town of 1,000. Each of the 100,000 numbers in the lottery is printed in a series of 28. So the winning number 93561 appeared on 28 tickets that cost $248 each. Usually, a group of people buy one ticket and split it 10 ways. Gabriel said he sold 20 tickets but did not know exactly how many of them were winners - or just how many people in the town had winning shares. One-tenth of a winning ticket paid back $198,000. "I'm as happy as if I had won," he said. Anna Nicole Smith gains ally in fight Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith is getting support from one of her stepsons as she fights the other over her late husband's estate. At issue is the $1.5 billion estate of oil baron J. Howard Marshall This article is about the American oil business executive. For the British radio broadcaster, see Howard Marshall (broadcaster). James Howard Marshall II (January 24 1905 – August 4 1995) was a wealthy magnate, American oil business executive, and university professor. II, who died Aug. 4 at age 90. In court papers, J. Howard Marshall III James Howard Marshall III (b. 6 February 1936 in San Francisco, California) is an American businessman. He was disinherited by his father, J. Howard Marshall II, after siding with William Koch in Koch's attempt to take over Koch Industries, Inc. says his brother Pierce seized control of their father's estate by taking advantage of a decrepit old man. He wants the estate split equally among himself, his brother and Smith, his lawyer said. Smith, 27, has been battling Pierce Marshall as well, claiming he manipulated his ailing father to exclude her from inheriting any money. Michael Jackson back to business, pleasure A recuperated Michael Jackson will be back in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. this weekend, a month after illness caused him to collapse during a rehearsal at the Beacon Theater. Jackson, 37, was scheduled to be in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of on Saturday, spokesman Lee Solters said Friday. The entertainer's schedule included business meetings. He also intended to take in a New York Knicks basketball game with director Spike Lee on Tuesday, Solters said. The Knicks will play the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden Current arenas in the National Hockey League Western Conference Eastern Conference . Woman declared dead, then condition improves A faint breath from a body in a British morgue morgue (morg) a place where dead bodies may be kept for identification or until claimed for burial. morgue n. tipped off officials that a 61-year-old woman taken for dead on New Year's Eve was very much alive. A resuscitation resuscitation /re·sus·ci·ta·tion/ (-sus?i-ta´shun) restoration to life of one apparently dead. cardiopulmonary resuscitation team treated Daphne Banks, who remained hospitalized Friday in satisfactory condition. A spokeswoman at Hitchingbrooke Hospital, 79 miles north of London, refused to discuss what was wrong with Banks. Whatever it was, it fooled the doctor who had pronounced her dead. But as mortuary staff members, including a friend of Banks, moved her body into a refrigerated area, they saw her chest move. "She was on a stretcher with some kind of covering over her, and when they moved the sheet, both the attendant and the undertaker noticed that she was breathing," said hospital spokeswoman Margaret Markey. CAPTION(S): PHOTO Photo (1) Keiko, the really big star of "Free Willy," takes a handout from his trainer Karla Corral on Friday at his Mexico City tank. Associated Press (2) Smith Battling with stepson step·son n. A spouse's son by a previous union. stepson Noun a son of one's husband or wife by an earlier relationship Noun 1. |
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