Federal officials have begun searching trees near an Air Force base in Northern California for a destructive Asian beetle officials believe arrived last month in a shipment of tiles from China. Two Asian longhorned beetles were found outside a privately-operated warehouse at the former McClellan Air Force Base outside Sacramento. A team of U. S. Forest Service smokejumpers, firefighters trained in parachuting into forest fires, have been searching for traces of the insects in trees near the site since Monday.

A 38-year-old woman goes to the doctor with an excruciating pain in her cheek only to discover she has three dozen fly maggots eating their way through her nasal cavity toward her brain. The pig farmer from the northwestern city of Chiang Mai is believed to be the first reported case in Thailand of maggots nesting in a human's nose, Tawee Thanuparprangsan of Nakhon Ping hospital reported.

At least they don't have to run along side a limo to do their jobs. The U. S. Secret Service is being charged with the duty of watching over the well being of a mother duck and her clutch of nine eggs located in a nest near the entrance to the Treasury Department. Various names are being suggested for the brown mallard, including "Duck Chaney" and "Quacks Reform". Metal rails are set up to guard the fowl and her nest from curious on-lookers and tourists who gather daily as they make their way to the White House. Officials including Treasury Secretary John Snow often stop by to check on the bird. The duck will be relocated near water after her eggs hatch, which is expected in about three weeks. Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols says "Foreign leaders, members of Congress, everybody who visits Treasury has to pass by the duck".