***DUPLICATON ALERT: FEATURES: Note Doctor Who brief.***
MISSISSIPPI
Skydiving teacher killed in tandem jump
A skydiving instructor from Pensacola, Fla., died in a remote swamp after a tandem jump that hospitalized his student, Lamar County Sheriff Danny Rigel said Sunday. James “Jimmie” Horak Jr., 56, an instructor for the Emerald Coast Skydiving Center in Elberta, Ala., died Saturday in a swamp about a mile from the airport in Lumberton, Miss. He was safety-conscious and had made more than 8,000 jumps, said his wife, Debbie Horak. Rigel said he could not identify the student but believes the man was not from Mississippi.
AFGHANISTAN
At least 58 killed in flash flooding
Heavy rains swept across eastern Afghanistan, leveling homes and killing at least 58 people in five provinces, while an estimated 30 others remain missing, officials said Sunday. Provincial spokesmen in Nangarhar, Kabul, Khost, Laghman and Nuristan said that all the floods struck early Saturday. In neighboring Pakistan on Saturday, the same storm system brought heavy rains that caused more than 100 homes to collapse and caved in a factory wall, killing at least 14 people.
LOUISIANA
Gay activist’s home vandalized
A gay activist in New Orleans says someone tore a rainbow flag from his balcony and spray-painted a slur on the house he and his partner share. Police said they and the FBI are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime. John Hill, 68, said a neighbor got surveillance video of the vandal, but it doesn’t show the man’s face. Hill is an equal rights activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. He said he may have been targeted because he wrote an opinion piece in a newspaper saying Louisiana remains hostile toward gays.
CALIFORNIA
Mayor begins 2-week therapy today
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner starts two weeks of intensive therapy today while facing a sexual harassment lawsuit and calls for his resignation amid a flurry of allegations that he groped women for years. Even as he undergoes treatment, Filner, 70, is set to be grilled by lawyers under oath this week in a lawsuit brought by his former communications director that claims he asked her to work without panties, told her he wanted to see her naked and dragged her around in a headlock while whispering in her ear. Neither Filner nor his office has released details about his therapy or its location. Filner is picking up the tab for the treatment.
FRANCE
Zeppelin takes to skies near Paris
Tourists seeking an original way to take in France’s famed countryside have a new way to do it — in a helium-filled zeppelin. Airship Paris’ 250-foot-long, 5-story airship began flights Sunday over the forests and villages northwest of Paris. The company said it has received “lots” of reservations for flights. It said it is the first commercial airship in the Paris region for 30 years. The zeppelin has room for 12 passengers, who can move about the large-windowed cabin during the flight. Because of clear skies Sunday, the Eiffel Tower was visible in the distance. Tourists can also see the Seine river and the Chateau de Versailles from 1,000 feet up.
UNITED KINGDOM
Next ‘Doctor Who’ star revealed
The BBC announced Sunday that Scottish actor Peter Capaldi, best known as venom-spitting political fixer Malcolm Tucker in the sitcom “The Thick of It” and its film spin-off “In the Loop,” is the new star of “Doctor Who,” the famed science fiction series soon to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The identity of the new Doctor had been the subject of frantic speculation. Capaldi is the 12th actor to play the Doctor, a galaxy-hopping Time Lord who travels in the Tardis, a time machine shaped like an old-fashioned British police telephone booth. At age 55, he’s also the oldest since the first Doctor, William Hartnell.
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