The skeleton, about 4,000 years old, was found at the site of Balathal, near Udaipur in northwestern India. Historians have long considered the Indian subcontinent to be the source of the leprosy that was first reported in Europe in the fourth century B.C., shortly after the armies of Alexander the Great returned from India.

The skeleton is described in the journal PLoS One by Gwen Robbins, an anthropologist at Appalachian State University, and colleagues in India. The authors say the skull shows signs of erosion typical of leprosy.

The authors say their find confirms that a passage in the Atharva Veda, a set of Sanskrit hymns written around 1550 B.C., indeed refers to leprosy, a reading that had been doubted because until now the oldest accepted written accounts of the disease were from the sixth century B.C.

The bacterium that causes leprosy seemed to have spread worldwide from a single clone, biologists reported three years ago. But for lack of sufficient samples, they could not tell whether the bacterium was disseminated when modern humans first left Africa about 50,000 years ago, or spread from India in more recent times.

Other biologists have contended that because the bacterium is not very transmissible, requiring prolonged intimate contact between people, it would not have started to spread until around the third millennium B.C., when people started living in dense populations in cities and long-distance trade sprang up.

This was the right period for leprosy to have spread from India to Europe, Samuel Mark, an anthropologist at Texas A&M, argued in an article in 2002. But he doubted that Alexander’s troops were the mode of transmission. More likely, in his view, is the possibility that leprosy arrived with women imported as slaves by ship from India to Egypt.

Using radiocarbon analysis scientists say the man or woman, it is still not possible to determine the sex, lived between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago.

Europe was then occupied by both Neanderthal man, who had been in the region for thousands of years, and anatomically-modern humans – Homo sapiens.

Modern humans first arrived in Europe from Africa.

The skull appears very like humans today, but it also displays more archaic traits, such as very large molar teeth, which led some scientists to speculate the skull may belong to a hybrid between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals – an idea discounted by other experts.

Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at Washington University in Missouri, said the jaw was the oldest, directly-dated modern human fossil. “Taken together, the material is the first that securely documents what modern humans looked like when they spread into Europe,” he said.

Authorities said Wednesday that Teresa Tambunting, 50, of Scarsdale, N.Y., a longtime employee of Jacmel Jewelry, brought a suitcase filled with 66 pounds of gold worth an estimated $868,000 back into the company’s office after an investigation was launched in January, The New York Times reported. Authorities allegedly found another 447 pounds of stolen gold at the vault manager’s home in February, the newspaper said.

“With gold trading at nearly $900 an ounce, the defendant is accused of establishing a virtual mining operation in Long Island City which siphoned off millions of dollars’ worth of the precious metal from her employer,” District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in the statement.

“It is alleged that this once-trusted employee carried out her long-term scheme by concealing jewelry and raw gold in the lining of her pocketbook.”

She was released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned in Queens Criminal Court Tuesday on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. She is expected to enter a plea May 19.

Tambunting, who had worked at the store for 28 years, faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order.

“It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country’s slaughterhouses,” Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.

Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation.

His family lives in the 3,000-population village of La Gloria in the state of Veracruz, where a flu outbreak was reported on April 2. State officials arrived and tested dozens of people.

Lab tests confirmed that Edgar was the only patient in Veracruz to test positive for the swine flu virus; the others had contracted a common flu. Health officials had returned to Edgar’s sample only after cases of the new flu strain were spotted around the country.

“In this case, there’s a patient who turned out to be positive for the swine-flu virus, with the exception that at that time in no region of the world it had been established as an etiological, epidemic cause,” said Mexico Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova.

Edgar has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.

His mother blamed a huge pig farm in the neighborhood for the virus.

“We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example,” Zoran Bulatovic said. “It hurt like hell.”

Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, used a hacksaw to cut off most of his left-hand little finger Friday.

Bulatovic said he decided to act after his deputy, “a single mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger. I could not allow her to do that,” he said.

Some employees have not been paid for years, only collecting social benefits, like free medical care.

About two dozen workers went on a 19-day hunger strike last year. They want the company’s debt to be swapped for state-held equity and a welfare program for those nearing retirement.

Alberto tried to contest the charge and the carrier reduced the bill to $17,000, arguing that the five-figure charge was what it cost them to deliver the movie.

Indeed, $62,000—or $17,000—is pretty daunting for a 98 minute animated movie about an robot. However, it’s pretty clear that Alberto made a rookie mistake after he purchased the data card for his laptop that could have been easily avoided. Instead, he inadvertently joined the legions of other mobile users who failed to pay attention to the fine print before traveling.

Stories of users receiving unexpectedly huge bills after using their phones and data cards are easy to find on the web. In fact, there’s even a class-action lawsuit brewing over an iPhone owner’s receiving a $2,000 bill after roaming in Mexico (hey, $2,000 is nothing compared to $17,000). Whether or not it’s fair for carriers to charge these outrageous fees is up for debate—the carriers insist that the roaming charges overseas are extravagant and that they are just passing along the fees to their customers

Stephen Rowell, 28, who adopted the alias The Mailman, had a folder of songs in his home when police searched it, along with more prosaic evidence like credit card numbers, The Portland Oregonian reported Thursday. One song described his methods.

“Here’s a hustle you may recognize from before.

Shhh, be quiet, while I creep to this front door.

Credit card and checks, you never know what mail you’ll get.

If you find the right sh–, you’ll leave your victim in debt.”

At Rowell’s sentencing hearing Wednesday, Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Demer described him as “the top of the pyramid,” saying he recruited friends into his crimes.

Demer asked for a 20-year sentence while Rowell’s lawyer asked for eight. Judge Jerry Hodson split the difference.

Vassallo said because of numerous requests from tourists to be buried in the southern Italian town, the decision was made to sell tombs equipped with video and audio equipment, the Italian news agency, ANSA, reported Thursday.

The mayor said the technology will include a camera that pans the town’s graveyard while offering glimpses into the area’s scenery.

“We’ve decided to sell 150 tombs and, what’s more, give them the long-distance technology needed for distant relatives to commune with their dear departed,” the mayor said.

”A Web cam will be operational ’round the clock and there’ll also be a new sound system to give them a feel of the meditative atmosphere.”

Santos’ journey into the underworld of teenage drug smuggling offers a glimpse into how drug cartels lure teenagers into doing their dirty work.

They’re often called mules. These teenagers are usually hired only to smuggle drug loads across the border. It’s a short drive or walk that offers quick cash but can carry serious consequences.

Drug cartels “just need someone who can legitimately cross the border,” said Bill Molaski, the El Paso Port Director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

As an American, Santos could freely cross the El Paso-Juarez border and not raise suspicion. At age 15, Santos says, he met “a guy” at a party who introduced him to drug kingpins in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

“You start off as a driver,” Santos said. “People feel like they can trust you, then you move up to something bigger.”