Holocaust survivors rally over stipend

Hundreds of angry Holocaust survivors, some wearing yellow Stars of David like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear, marched Sunday to demand an increase in a supplementary stipend that Israel's government has offered them.

The rare public protest was an embarrassment for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who announced the extra payments, amounting to $20 a month, last week in response to concerns about poverty among the 240,000 survivors who live in Israel.

Children, grandchildren and others joined the survivors in their "March of the Living," which drew at least 2,500 people, from the parliament building to Olmert's office.

Many survivors receive $240 to $1,390 per month, including aid from the Israeli government and reparations from Germany and other sources. But government officials say about 80,000 of Israel's Holocaust survivors live below the poverty line.

Pirbright, England

Experts search lab for animal virus

Biosafety experts scoured a high-security animal laboratory in rural England Sunday to determine how a strain of the foot-and-mouth virus may have escaped from a facility dedicated to eliminating the devastating animal disease.

Officials increasingly suspect that the lab — home to a government research center and a company that makes foot-and-mouth vaccine — was the source of the outbreak on a nearby farm. That has raised hopes that the disease was not spread by other animals and could be contained.

Britain has banned exports of livestock, meat and milk and halted the movement of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs nationwide. The United States and Japan immediately banned British pigs and pork products. The South Korean government also banned imports of British pork and pigs, the Agriculture Ministry said today.

Barabanki, India

Floodwaters recede; death toll at 289

Floodwaters across South Asia began to recede Sunday as torrential monsoon rains eased, allowing doctors to treat scores of people and deliver medicine.

But the death toll also rose, with at least 289 people reported killed in the past week.

Helicopters dropped more food and emergency supplies to stranded people Sunday, and the Indian army helped civil authorities carry out rescues. Flour, salt, candles and match boxes were airlifted to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, where hundreds of thousands escaped to higher ground.

Makeshift shelters were overflowing, as most villagers brought their cows, buffaloes and goats along as they fled rising waters.

Nearly a dozen homes collapsed overnight in Uttar Pradesh. Four elderly people who refused to leave the village of Karonda were killed when rains collapsed their home, a police spokesman said.

Nice, France

4 paintings stolen in museum heist

A group of armed, masked men burst into a museum in the southern French city of Nice on Sunday and made off with a painting by French master Claude Monet and two others by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel, police said.

A fourth painting stolen from the Museum of Beaux Arts was by Monet's fellow Impressionist Alfred Sisley. The four stolen works are valued at about $1.4 million, police said.

Also

Police in Lisbon, Portugal, ended a two-day search of the home of Robert Murat, the only suspect in the disappearance of Madeline McCann, 4, three months ago. It was not known if anything was found.

Seattle Times news services