News In Brief

January 16, 2001

We'll swing by tomorrow

You could say that government buildings near India's presidential palace in New Delhi have a security problem. Bureaucrats have been threatened. Documents have been damaged. Food has been stolen. But there's no mystery about who the culprits are: monkeys. It's estimated at least 10,000 of them scamper around the buildings - which house, among other things, the prime minister's office. Officials, however, say there's little they can do. Monkeys have a sacred status in India's main religion, Hinduism.

ALL IT TOOK WAS A KEY

At first, the drug bust was going according to plan. Police on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi apprehended one suspect, handcuffing him and stuffing him into a patrol car. But as they chased others, news accounts say, the first drove off. The cruiser was found six miles away and the fugitive was later recaptured. Still unexplained is how he managed to start the car.

Test your powers of recall on last year's Super Bowl ads

In 12 days, hundreds of millions of TV viewers around the world will watch Super Bowl XXXV. At least some will tune in as much for the costly and eagerly anticipated 30-second commercials as for the action on the field. But after marveling at their creativity for a few days, how many of us still recall any of the ads by the time next year's game rolls around? To find out, InsightExpress, a market research group, surveyed 600 adult online consumers Jan. 5. The ads from last year's Super Bowl that made the most lasting impression and the percentage of respondents who said they recalled each:

Budweiser (all three ads) 75.8%

Mountain Dew (chasing the cheetah) 48.1

Nuveen (Christopher Reeve "walking") 31.7

Pets.com (sock puppet) 27.0

EDS (herding cats) 22.9

E-Trade ("money out the wazoo") 18.1

BMW (running through the woods) 15.4

Monster.com ("When I grow up") 13.3

Business Wire

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society