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A man is accused of having child pornography and having it on the job, police said.On Friday, a former city of Dayton worker, Charles Evans, 62, made his intial court appearance on federal charges.Evans pleaded not guilty to receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography, police said.Evans will have another court appearance on Dec. 6.

The al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, called on European governments to end their military cooperation with the US in Afghanistan in a new audio message broadcast today.With his fifth public message this year, bin Laden sought to exploit tensions between European capitals and Washington over the ongoing Nato military campaign in Afghanistan.He reiterated that he was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US, not the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan at the time."The American tide is ebbing," he said in a message addressed directly to the European public. "It is better for you to restrain your politicians who are thronging the steps of the White House."

In a quick rebuttal to bin Laden's audio message, parts of which were carried on al-Jazeera television, the Afghan government said bin Laden had no right to interfere with its sovereignty. It also rejected his accusations that Afghan civilians were being killed by Nato troops, saying they were being killed by extremists.His message came as Poland is reconsidering its commitment of 1,200 troops to the Nato mission, following the election of a new government.
Bin Laden has issued four other public statements this year: on September 7, September 11, September 20 and October 22. The September 7 video was bin Laden's first in three years and was issued to mark the sixth anniversary of 9/11.

The last message in October was an audiotape broadcast on al-Jazeera television where bin Laden called for Iraqi insurgents to unite and avoid divisive "extremism".Bin Laden's followers in Iraq have angered other Sunni groups and tribes through their hardline interpretations of Islam and the indiscriminate killing of civilians.As a result, Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq and allied themselves with US forces.

In his October tape, the speaker said the strength of faith was in bonds between Muslims, not in a tribe, nationalism or an organisation.A message released on 20 September called for a holy war against Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who has sided with the Bush administration against the Taliban since 9/11.Earlier this week, al-Qaida's media wing announced that it would soon release a new message from bin Laden. As-Sahab said bin Laden would address European countries in the message.

To an endangered animal, a zoo is supposed to offer sanctuary.A macaque monkey may even consider itself fortunate to live in one - safe from poachers and predators.Fortunate, that is, until the rare Indonesian animal falls foul of Newquay Zoo's strict approach to cage discipline.Animal charities and conservationists condemned the 'awful' decision to kill two adult male monkeys who behaved aggressively.

The two rare macaques Venus and Ia were killed because the zoo could not find a place for them
Venus and Ia were put down by lethal injection despite being members of the most endangered species of macaque - there are just 100,000 in the entire world.Keepers at the Cornish zoo say they killed two of their three male macaques because they could neither live together or be found new homes.But the decision was slammed as 'unacceptable' after it emerged that a nearby monkey refuge had not even been contacted about the problem.Matt Thomas, a keeper at The Monkey Sanctuary in Looe - just 40 miles away from the zoo - said: "They never contacted us."What they have done is horrendous and would not happen here. It would never be considered."There are other options and places which could have taken these animals on."Another keeper, Rachael Hevesi, added: "Our staff would have been willing to help to find a suitable place for the monkeys - but they did not ask us. I am very saddened and shocked."
The macaques cannot be kept alongside other monkeys because of their agressive nature
The pair of male Sulawesi black crested macaques were two of three males kept in their own enclosure at the zoo where the mission statement describes it as a "charity dedicated to conserving our global wildlife heritage and inspiring [...] a life long respect for animals and the environment."The pair initially lived harmoniously with the zoo's other male macaque but later became aggressive and started to fight.Director of the zoo, Stewart Muir, said efforts to find a new home for one or both monkeys had failed.He defended the decision to put the animals down, saying "The male Sulawesi macaques can be very aggressive towards each other."This resulted in us having to separate permanently one animal. This could not continue as primates should never be kept alone."Sulawesi black crested macaques are an endangered species so the enclosure at Newquay Zoo is valuable to the future breeding and long term survival of this species."He continued: "No suitable home could be found in any other zoo or sanctuary. "We had to look at the long term welfare of the animals and what would happen if they fought or one died, leaving one permanently on its own."After looking long and hard at the situation and much soul searching, we came to the conclusion that we could not re-home these two males and guarantee their long term health and welfare."The only option left open to us was to put them to sleep."This will give us the opportunity to bring in young females to join our breeding male, so we can continue with this much needed breeding programme."It is an incredibly hard decision to make and we all feel very sad at the turn of events, but we are dedicated to the long term conservation of this species and hope that with the introduction of breeding females we can help play an active part in securing the species futuresurvival."Keepers say it would have been impossible the separate the animals as they must live in groups and cannot be housed in isolation.The crested black macaque is found on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia and is threatened by over hunting for food where its meat is considered a delicacy.Its habitat is also threatened by human settlement, land clearing for agriculture and logging.Macaques are social creatures and were often seen in groups of 100 or more before their decline in the wild.They feed on fruit, vegetation, insects and small animals such as mice, crabs and lizards and interact by grooming each other and communicating vocally with grunts.It is classified as endangered on the world conservation union's red list and listed on appendix II of convention on international trade in endangered species.

Having frequently pedaled his bike over the Gowanus Canal’s bridges in Brooklyn, Ludger K. Balan was familiar with its sickly green tint, oil-slicked surface and rotten-egg smell. Then, one day about eight years ago, he looked into the canal and saw a school of striped bass chasing minnows.Soon he was putting on his diving gear and jumping right in.“I assumed like everybody else that it was open sewage,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was a connected tributary.”The popular conception about New York City waterways is that the only people diving in them are the ones getting dumped in body bags. But the resilience of those bass inspired Mr. Balan. He wanted to demystify urban waters like the Gowanus to change them from environments that are ignored and shunned to those that are protected and perhaps even loved.In 1998, he founded the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy, a group of people who literally immerse themselves in the problem they are trying to fix.Based at the Marine and Ecology Center in the Bronx, the Urban Divers run youth educational projects and river cleanups with six divers and 150 land-based volunteers. They monitor pollution, make recommendations to the city and conduct demonstrations in which they show live video of their dives. On Dec. 6, the group and several city officials will hold a forum on the future of the Gowanus Canal.

Over the summer, the Department of Parks and Recreation contacted the group, which has only three paid staff members, to monitor an oyster restoration project in the East River. Restoring the population of oysters, which once flourished beneath the East River’s murky waves, could have a significant impact on cleaning up the river. The Urban Divers said that one oyster can filter up to a gallon of water.Sheathed in their neoprene suits, the divers resemble members of the Starship Enterprise, perhaps with good reason: Mr. Balan said diving in the Gowanus Canal “is like going to the moon.”To save money on gas, they often dive from an inflatable boat, with a detachable motor, that looks like a children’s wading pool. They take turns blowing it up with a foot pump. Divers are expected to buy their own equipment, which can cost up to $1,500.When Avra Cohen, 55, went into the Gowanus this past summer to collect samples from an unidentified microbial colony growing on the bottom, he wore a suit of vulcanized rubber, two pairs of gloves and a full face mask.Mr. Cohen was inoculated against hepatitis A and tetanus. A friend suggested that he get vaccinated for typhoid, too. “And the doctor asked me where I was traveling,” Mr. Cohen said. “And I told him, ‘Brooklyn.’”

Mr. Cohen, with a ponytail and graying beard that give him the weathered look of a born adventurer, described another dive in Sheepshead Bay. He said he found shopping carts, tires and an old bicycle frame with barnacles growing on it.“It shows you, a land-lubber person, that when you dump stuff in, it stays,” Mr. Cohen said. “And if it happens to be car batteries, eventually the lead leaches into the water and ends up in fish that might be on your dinner plate.”Pollution has plagued the 1.8-mile Gowanus Canal since its early days as a commercial waterway and shipping hub. A tunnel to sweep in clean water from New York Harbor broke down in 1960 and was not repaired until 1999.The Gowanus is cleaner today than in previous decades, but still bedeviled by sewage overflow and runoff from local industrial plants. Biology students from the New York City College of Technology recently detected gonorrhea in a drop of water from the canal, according to Scienceline, a New York University publication. And scientists have yet to identify the microbes that Mr. Cohen collected, though they do know that they kill red blood cells.

Because urban waters present unusual challenges, like entanglement in fishing line, river currents and low visibility, Mr. Balan said it was important to “zen” with a dive beforehand, to visualize each step. During a recent East River dive, Mr. Cohen accidentally touched the bottom of the river, and plumes of sediment ballooned around him. “I was in a nine-foot impenetrable cloud,” he said.He spent nearly an hour underwater taking photographs and video of the substrates — layers of clam shells — that the Parks Department had placed in the river to encourage oyster growth. He found old oyster shells that crumbled to dust in his fingers.As for new spats, or young oysters, the prognosis was not good. “Maybe a few,” Mr. Cohen said, “but it wasn’t like a big plate of oysters waiting for me.”As the sun set, the Urban Divers headed back to Clason Point in the Bronx. They sped past the bony legs of a dilapidated dock and the lights of La Guardia Airport. Beneath the hulking jets, their inflatable boat looked like a water insect barely skimming the river’s surface.Mr. Balan grew up diving in the Caribbean, with its clear waters and explosion of natural life. In contrast, sediment levels in the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary inhibit visibility.“So everything you encounter is an amazement,” he said.Audiences that watch his live diving demonstrations react the same way. “Every time we see a fish,” he said, “we get a standing ovation.”

As a first-time mother, Sara Herman thought it was only to be expected that she had an enormous bump after five months.What she and doctors failed to realise was that the petite mother-to-be, who is only just over 5ft, was expecting a giant.When Jack eventually arrived at 37 weeks he weighed an astonishing 14lb 8oz. Doctors had to move Jack to a bigger incubatorAnd now, after health problems kept him in hospital for four months, he is enjoying life at home in Manchester with 37-year-old Mrs Herman and her husband Keith.

"At five months I looked like I was going to give birth at any moment and the size of my bump meant it was difficult for me to get around," said Mrs Herman, a product sourcer."But because it was the first time I'd been pregnant, I just thought this was normal."Mrs Herman became pregnant in September last year, shortly after marrying Keith, who runs a sales promotion business. A scan at 14 weeks showed the baby was growing fast and doctors even thought that the due date was wrong as the baby was so large."When they said they thought Jack was going to be big, I imagined a 9lb or 10lb baby at the most," she said. "And that's what the doctors thought too."When she was five months pregnant, the couple went on holiday to New York, where strangers asked her if her baby was due any day.

She said: "Jack was actually about 7lb then, so he was actually the size of an average new-born baby."I was finding it very difficult to get around the department stores, and had to lie down in the afternoons as I was so exhausted from all the weight I was carrying."At 37 weeks, Mrs Herman was admitted to Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester as she had not felt the baby move much for the last two days."He was actually so big that there wasn't much room for him to move around, which is why I hadn't felt much movement," she said."I was taken straight down for a caesarean. The doctors actually gasped when they brought him out."

Tests showed that Jack had grown so big because of a condition called hyperinsulism which causes the body to produce too much insulin, leading to weight gain.His heart muscle had thickened since it had to work extra hard because of his size. All right, Jack: He now weighs 22lb and wears clothes for an 18-month-old Mrs Herman said: "He may have looked big and healthy, but he was actually life-threateningly ill. They had to put him on a drip."I went in to see him after a few hours and I couldn't believe his size. He was in the unit with premature babies, who looked tiny compared to him. He actually filled the whole incubator. After a few days, the doctors had to get him a bigger one."Jack was transferred to Pendlebury Children's Hospital in Manchester, which is setting up a support group for children with hyperinsulism.

At the age of 14 weeks he had 95 per cent of his pancreas removed to treat his condition. The operation was a success and he was allowed home with medication.His heart condition has also improved.He weighs nearly 22lb, compared with the average weight at six months of 16lb, and wears clothes for a child aged 12 to 18 months.Mrs Herman added: "I have to manage his weight very carefully because of his condition. Surprisingly, he doesn't have a good appetite but he's starting to eat rice and mashed banana."He's such a happy baby, always laughing and giggling. People can't believe that he's only six months old when I take him out in his pram."Britain's heaviest baby was Guy Warwick Carr, delivered in Cumbria in 1992 weighing 15lb 8oz.The biggest ever born was a boy produced in 1879 by Anna Bates of Canada, who like her husband was more than 7ft tall. The infant weighed 23lb 12oz and died 11 hours after birth.