National and world news

Report criticizes government waste

Washington, D.C. The government is wasting millions of dollars in managing its vehicle fleet, typified by a newly purchased 1997 car parked for four years next to a Veterans Affairs facility, its keys missing, a congressional report found.

The General Accounting Office, in a separate report, found that the government database supposed to track government aircraft is inadequate, resulting in the cost of aircraft operations being understated by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The two reports by the investigative office of Congress were made public Monday.

Officials search for tiger loose in Florida

Loxahatchee, Fla. Deputies and wildlife officers were armed with tranquilizer guns Monday as they searched for a tiger that escaped from the home of an actor who once portrayed Tarzan.

When the first deputies arrived on the scene, the 6-year-old tiger jumped on top of their car, police said. The cat was reported missing from Steve Sipek’s residence, near a wilderness area about 15 miles west of West Palm Beach.

Sipek has another tiger, two lions, a black leopard and a cougar on his 5-acre property, the Palm Beach Post reported. The cats, mostly castoffs from zoos, are in a mazelike series of interlocking cages.

Mandolin now focus of legal controversy

Nashville, Tenn. The son of bluegrass music pioneer Bill Monroe said Monday he wants to sell his father’s famous mandolin, preferably to a museum where it can go on public display.

The 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin remains locked in a vault while a Nashville court sorts out a disputed deal that would have sold it for $1.1 million to a proposed museum in Monroe’s hometown.

James Monroe, 63, said he wants out of that deal so he can put the mandolin back on the market and pay the inheritance taxes on his father’s estate.

Police find $47,500 in man’s stomach

Bogota, Colombia A suspect swallowed nearly $50,000 in cash in a failed attempt to smuggle the funds out of Colombia, officials said Monday.

Bogota airport police said they X-rayed the suspect because he was acting nervous while preparing to board a flight for Lima, Peru.

The photo showed dozens of latex-wrapped packets inside his stomach, and police assumed it was drugs, since such a smuggling technique is used by traffickers.

But as the suspect passed the packages from his body, police discovered they were filled with cash – $47,500.

Mosque searched after police get tip

Frankfurt, Germany Police raided an Islamic school Monday, seizing computer data while looking for evidence of violent films, including a beheading, that a young girl said were shown to her and other children to incite hatred toward non-Muslims, officials said.

Some 120 officers raided the Taqwa Mosque’s Islamic school on Sunday after the 9-year-old told her public school teacher she and other children were shown violent videos calling for a “holy war against unbelievers,” a Frankfurt prosecutor’s spokeswoman said.

The mosque director said the items are “harmless recordings of meetings and events.”