The Kerrville Times from Kerrville, Texas • Page 34

Page 2 WU-OK Among the recent uses of DNA genetic Scien tists at Oxford University are using it to determine the gender of the world's rarest bird, the Brazilian blue Spix macaw, whose males ostensibly completely resemble females. And authorities in Cocoa, filed cattle-rustling charges against two men in November after matching the DNA of a calf that was the offspring of a pure bred, slaughtered cow with the DNA in an uncooked slab of pot roast the men allegedly sold after cutting it from the cow. Sticky traffic Police in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs conducted a three-week campaign in November to increase motorist awareness of traffic signals, including the mass distribu tion of "I Stop for Red Lights" bumper stickers. Aftershocks California's January 1994 earthquake officially killed 58 people, but within six months, the state had received almost 400 requests for the $6,000 burial grants from federal disaster funds, by people claiming their dead relatives perished because of the quake. Turkey dog A Thanksgiving press release from the Butterball company said the highlight of calls to the company's emergency hot-line occurred in 1993 when a woman reported that her pet Chihuahua had jumped into the cavity of the family's turkey and was stuck.

Grab a brown In November, Japan's Economic Planning Agency, in an annual report, called on Japanese husbands to participate more in family activities. Agency surveys estimated that 85 percent of husbands "never" help their wives with household chores, and that younger women, knowing this, are increasingly declining marriage, resulting in a falling birth rate that alarms the agency. Parole call In October, William Soule, 71, on probation on DUI charges in Dubuque, Iowa, turned himself in and said he'd rather go to jail. Soule said, "I can't take another year of probation." And in Septem her, Kansas prisoner Joe Carr, 77, convicted of murder in 1941, passed up his parole-board hearing for the 15th consecutive time. But another Kansas inmate, murderer Marvin D.

Brockett, 64, is vying for parole. Since age 7, Brockett has been free of correctional facilities for a total of only three years. Good eats In July Robert Minahan, a chef who specializes in crocodile cuisine at a resort in the Kakadu National Park in Australia, was attacked by a 6-foot crocodile while swimming at Barramundi Gorge Minahan said, "It feels strange to be on the other end of the food chain." Catflfht! In September, four women, using a chemical spray allegedly attacked another woman who had beaten them to a parking space at the Galleria mall in Glendale, sending the woman to the hospital Police went to the parking lot, looking for the women, and found them having an argument outside their car because the keys were locked inside After finding the chemical spray, police charged the women with assault, then helped open the car and found shoplifted clothing in the back seat. Wife trading The Chicago Tribune, reporting in July on the trial of a marriage matchmaker in China's Guangzhou Province, related the testimony of a barber who agreed to offer his unwilling wife to the matchmak er for a scam in which would sell the woman to a farmer, col lect the fee, then immediately retrieve her. The barber was cheated out of the promised reward first and now faces life in prison for sell ing his wife.

The wife preferred the farmer, anyway, and will not be returning to the barber. A gift from the chief Kner Arcilla Henson, was arrested in (ilciulale, Calif, in Jan uary and charged with stealing a "humvee" military vehicle from the local National Guard armory Police said Henson was driving the vehicle at night without lights, ivfuswl to acknowledge them when they signaled him to pull over, and said, when finally stopped, that President Clinton had given him the humvee flease send your news uftivc uvml in ('hack Stu-ptterd, I'O. lltix Si I'vtvnbunf, h'lu The 'X' File Movie tells chilling true story of a natural born killer 1 0 one had seen him and the authorities wouldn't even acknowledge he existed. So more than 50 people died horribly at the hands of a savage serial killer until one dogged detective finally captured him. "Citizen tells the uphill struggle of a Russian detective (Stephen Rea) to capture modern history's most prolific serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo (Jeffrey DeMunn).

Co-stars include Donald Sutherland as the lone military Citizen Feb. 25 on HBO official to help crack the case and Max Von Sydow as a psychiatrist whose profile of the unknown killer proves chillingly accurate. "I love the idea of a cop nobody believes in, who knows he's on to it, who knows what he's looking for," says Rea, remembered for his Oscar nominated role in "The Crying Game" and more recently his turns With the Vampire" and "Ready to Wear." "But he's up against the system." It takes place in the then-Soviet Union, where government officials refused to publicize the case even after the body count rose ominously. Their obstinacy to keep the truth hidden, combined with a backwardness in forensic science, produced a deadly delay. "I was really attracted to the heroism of these two characters played by Stephen and Donald," Chris Gerolmo says, "and their doggedness in the face of this myopic bureaucracy." The movie is based on a book, Disney already pushing 'Poca' IT won'l open in theaters until this summer, and it likely is still in production, but Disney already is pulling out the stops for its new animated film, Tocahontas." l-nterlainment Weekly reports that Disney is preparing lie-ins with Nestle.

Mattel, Payless ShoeSource and Burger King promote its story of me legendary maiden and her relationship witti Capt. John Smith (whose voice comes from Mel (iibson) "The Killer Department," by Robert Cullen, who lived in the U.S.S.R. for more than a decade and headed Newsweek's bureau in Moscow. "Chris saw it more as a drama," Cullen says. "I saw it more as a study of the way the Soviet police operated and the way that the Soviet underclass existed underneath our noses without really attracting any attention, but that was obviously the class that Chikatilo preyed on." Although the killer committed grisly crimes, the filmmakers focus instead on his pursuit and mostly suggest the horrors about to occur.

"The audience knows what's going on," producer Timothy Marx says. Both the author and met Chikatilo in prison prior to his execution, but DeMunn only saw videotapes of the trial and the man he would portray "You have to get past the barri er of, 'Oh, what a horrible per DeMunn says. "You have to get inside them. Once you do that they are just human beings. Chikatilo was incredibly sick and distorted, but it's not about good and bad.

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