Around the world
FRANCE: French Premier Edouard Balladur, the overwhelming favorite to become president, declared his candidacy Wednesday and pledged to lead France into the 21st century. "France mustn't be afraid," he said on national television. "It must believe in itself." Polls suggest Balladur, a conservative who also appeals to moderates, will win a seven-year term to succeed President Francois Mitterrand, whose Socialist Party is floundering.COCONUT: A Malaysian farmer was killed by a coconut apparently thrown by his pet monkey, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Mat Hussin Sulaiman, 76, was waiting below a tree Tuesday to collect the coconuts that his monkey was trained to pluck when one hit him in the neck, breaking it, the New Straits Times quoted police as saying.
PAINTINGS: France Wednesday announced the discovery of 300 prehistoric wall paintings in a southern cave that officials said are more spectacular than the famed paintings of Lascaux or Altamira. The works, dating back about 20,000 years to the Paleolithic era, depict bison, reindeer and about 40 rhinoceroses that existed in the region during the glacial era. The cave, 1,500 feet deep, is in the Ardeche River canyon, an area 260 miles south of Paris known for its grottoes and subterranean rivers.
KITE CLASH: A seemingly harmless children's kite-flying contest triggered a violent clash in western India, leaving at least seven people hospitalized, The Press Trust of India reported Wednesday. Parents supervising the contest in the western city of Jaipur began hurling stones at each other following a quarrel between children who were flying the kites.
Across the nation
SURVIVORS: For days, a young brother and sister prayed and encouraged each other to cling to life as they lay bleeding and paralyzed from gunshot wounds inflicted by their mother in Orlando, Fla. She lay nearby, dead from a shot to the head. The children tried to attract attention by playing the television loudly and banging a telephone - which was disconnected - against the bedroom wall. But neighbors ignored the noises. The youngsters weren't discovered until a co-worker looking for their mother called police when no one answered the door. Officers who found the children Tuesday estimated they had been there at least four days without food or water. "We were all amazed that the children made it," said Sgt. Mike Holloway. "They talked to each other, they prayed together, encouraged the other to hang on. It was their faith in each other and their faith in religion."
SHOOTING: Distraught that his girlfriend was getting back together with her husband, Edward Leonard Hand pointed a gun to his chin and tried to kill himself. He killed the husband instead, police said. The bullet passed through Hand's chin, out his right cheek, and struck and killed Ronald Gauley, police in Bartow, Fla., said. Hand, 33, was hospitalized for three weeks. He was charged Tuesday with manslaughter, third-degree murder, shooting a firearm in an occupied dwelling and two counts each of armed kidnapping and aggravated assault.
BITTEN: A Baptist man was bitten and killed by a rattlesnake he brought to church because the Bible says believers "shall take up serpents." Dewey Bruce Hale, 40, was bitten during Sunday services at New River Holiness Church in Enigma, Ga., and died at home late that night, the sheriff's office said. The death was ruled accidental. "The Sheriff's Department was not called by family or the church," said Sheriff Jerry Brogdon. "Nothing was reported. If he had gone to the hospital, it would've all been different."
In Washington
NEW DRUGS: The Food and Drug Administration says it approved drugs 21 percent faster last year than in 1993. In its annual report on drug approval, the FDA said Tuesday it approved 85 new drugs and biological products last year, including 22 new "molecular entities," drugs whose active ingredients have never been sold. The median approval time for the 62 new drugs was 19 months, 21 percent shorter than for drugs approved in 1993.
Other news
ISRAELI PRIME Minister Yitzhak Rabin's junior coalition partner Wednesday demanded a halt to all Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank, warning that peace with the Palestinians was at stake. . . . A BRIDGE collapsed Wednesday in the Philippines, sending a minibus plunging 40 feet into a river and killing three people. . . . A FARMER who went to a Chinese zoo and killed a young tiger has been executed, an official newspaper reported Wednesday.