In the Nation
Eagles make a Calif. comeback
LOS ANGELES - There haven't been so many bald eagle chicks on the Channel Islands in 50 years - since chemicals contaminated their food supply and destroyed all of the majestic birds on the island chain off Southern California.
Fifteen chicks have hatched this year on three of the eight islands - Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Santa Catalina - bringing to 36 the number that have survived since recovery efforts started in 2002, said Yvonne Menard of the National Park Service.
Bald eagles had disappeared from the Channel Islands by the early 1960s primarily because of pollution. Millions of pounds of the deadly pesticide DDT and other chemicals were dumped in the ocean off the Palos Verdes Peninsula between the 1940s and '70s.
The recovery project is funded by the chemical companies and cities that dumped the toxins.
- AP
Vanderbilt art returns to R.I.
NEWPORT, R.I. - Marble House exhibits decadence in every corner, from its 22-karat gold-leaf decorations to its Corinthian columns.
But for more than 80 years, the Gilded Age mansion has been without one of its most treasured features: a vast collection of more than 300 objects of medieval and Renaissance art.
The Vanderbilt family bought the works in Paris and displayed them for years in their mansion's aptly named Gothic Room. But after the house closed in 1925, the items were sold to art collector and circus entrepreneur John Ringling.
Now, Newport visitors can see the items in their original setting again. The John and Mable Ringling Museum has lent the collection to Marble House through Oct. 31. The items - paintings and sculptures, busts and furniture - have been reassembled in the Gothic Room and displayed exactly the way they were 100 years ago.
- AP
Man survives fall and impaling
NEW YORK - A 21-year-old musician survived falling from a balcony in New York City and impaling his head on a metal fence spike.
Police say Nicholas Blossom was intoxicated at a party in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood when he fell from a third-floor balcony about 4 a.m. Saturday. Authorities say he landed headfirst on the fence of the second-floor balcony of an adjoining building.
Rescuers used an electric saw to detach Blossom from the fence. He was in stable condition at Bellvue Hospital.
- AP