Forest rangers in the northern Italian Alps have for the first time taken pictures of an albino mountain goat at about 10,000 feet above the Les Laures valley in the northwestern Val d'Aosta region. Named "Snowflake", the albino capra ibex was seen climbing with its mother Sunday, reports Christian Chioso a regional wildlife official. The occurrence of Albinism is rare in any species and has not been previously documented among this type of goat. AP quotes Chioso as saying, "This is the only one ever documented, the only one ever seen. " Capra ibex is a type of wild mountain goat with large curved horns that lives in mountainous areas.

One of Napoleon's swords sold at an auction in France Sunday for more than $6. 4 million. According to auctioneers, no other Napoleon memorabilia has garnered as high a sum as the gold-encrusted sword, which Napoleon wore as he went into battle in Italy about 200 years ago. The sale took place at the Osenat auction house, located in Fontainebleau, a town southeast of Paris. The buyer was not immediately named. It was not expected that the 32-inch sword would sell for more than $1. 6 million.

After a four-year struggle to get a European Union visa, an Egyptian man had a nervous break-down at the Cairo airport and tore apart his passport, minutes before boarding a plan to Milan, Italy. The debacle ended the young man's hope of entering Europe. Other travelers noticed the young man talking to himself vaguely and then storming off into a breakdown, which caused him to tear his passport apart. The fresh Humanity Studies graduate had gone through a long and hard process to get the visa.

A 74-year-old Italian granny got the shock of her life when she discovered a hand grenade in a sack of potatoes that she bought at a grocery market in southern Italy. Olga Mauriello, resident of San Giorgio, a small town near Naples, rushed to call her neighbors when she discovered the dirt-covered explosive device as she started pealing the potatoes.

A Dallas-bound American Airlines flight from Tokyo was forced to make an emergency landing in Honolulu after its pilots heard some noise in the cockpit; which later turned out to be a squirrel. Airline spokesman John Hotard told The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the pilot made the decision to land midway as he feared that the animal could have chewed through wiring or caused other problems.