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In an ABC news exclusive, former CIA officer Bob Baer, who now works with ABC, says Saddam’s intelligence chief tried to arrange Saddam’s surrender last week. He contacted Baer, with whom he had secretly worked in the past. “They told me the chief of Iraqi intelligence was seeking to get in touch with the United States and could I do anything about that,” says Baer. On April 11, Saddam’s top intelligence officer, Gen. Taher Haboush, came to the home of the Dulaym Tribe’s chief near the town of Ar-Ramadi on behalf of Saddam, to arrange a meeting. But shortly after he arrived, U.S. forces bombed the home, killing the chief, along with 17 members of his family. Haboush managed to escape.
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Want to walk around inside a great old master painting, rather than just stand back and look at it hanging on the wall? Microsoft has developed a program that lets you have the feeling of literally being inside a religious painting by an Old Master. “You feel yourself present in the painting and could even find yourself next to Christ,” says Antonio Criminisi. This program could also solve the current debate on whether Renaissance painters relied on mirrors to help them create perspective, a theory of the artist David Hockney. It would also make it more fun to visit paintings on the internet, rather than see them in real museums. “A virtual museum on the web means you work around the corridors. We think this is a little boring,” says Criminisi.read more

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A flood caused by a crack in a glacier may destroy the city of Huaraz in Peru. The crack has been spotted by a space satellite in a glacier high in the Peruvian Andes that feeds into Lake Palcacocha, at the top of a valley that leads down to the city. Huaraz has a population of 60,000. NASA says, “Should the large glacier chunk break off and fall into the lake, the ensuing flood could hurtle down?reaching Huaraz and its population of 60,000 in less than 15 minutes,” meaning there will be no warning. Glacier expert John Reynolds says, “It’s an ongoing manifestation of climate change.”
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Ranchers near Lincoln, Nebraska are experiencing a return of cattle mutilations. The mystery of these mutilations was never solved, despite investigations by law enforcement agencies in dozens of states during the 1970s and ’80s. Rancher Mike Benes says, “We’ve lived here 17 years on this place. This is the first time we’ve had any problems or anything with our livestock.” On April 5th, he found 2 cows and a calf dead in the pasture. “I saw the calf right away because the other cows were all around it,” he says. The calf’s testicles, scrotum and hindquarters had been removed. “There was no blood in the pasture,” he says. When his veterinarian did an autopsy, he found something even stranger: the cows had been electrocuted.
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