Nation

While conflict in Israel continues to resonate around the world, the University served as a place for celebration Thursday for roughly 500 Israel advocates.

Gopher Israel and Hillel, the University's Jewish student center, observed the 60th anniversary of Israel's establishment with Israeli music, a kosher buffet, a piñata and a camel on the Northrop Auditorium patio.

Julia Krieger, president of Gopher Israel, said the event was designed to showcase things people like about Israel rather than push a religious agenda.

.SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - With a bill like a duck, a tail like a beaver and snake-like venom hidden in heel spurs, the platypus could be the result of some strange genetic experiment.

And it is, scientists say: evolution.

A scientific team published the genetic makeup of the Australian animal in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday, confirming that its features - which straddle multiple animal classes - are reflected in its DNA.

The research could help explain how mammals, including humans, evolved from reptiles millions of years ago, they said.

.JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - The players bounded into the gym, shedding their long black cloaks and veils to take to the basketball court. Up this night: Jeddah United against the Jaguars, as 30 women spectators hooted and hollered from the stands.

Such is the start of women's sports in Saudi Arabia - a Muslim country so conservative that the fledgling women's sports teams that have begun to appear in recent years remain almost entirely underground, far from public scrutiny or religious clerics' eyes.

University Vice President for Research Timothy Mulcahy has withdrawn his name for the position of chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last Thursday.

Mulcahy said in a statement that he made the "difficult decision" to notify the selection committee of his decision last Thursday after weighing personal and professional factors.

Correction: This article incorrectly spelled the last name of Fresh Energy’s executive director. The correct spelling is “Noble.”

A group of protesting scientists hope to break into the global warming debate with a petition against the theory of human-driven global warming.

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a small independent research group, announced the petition before the National Press Club on May 19.

.WASHINGTON (AP) - Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements.

With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year's storms seem to be unusually powerful.

University student Pengyun Zeng's classmates urged her to call her parents immediately on May 12, though she didn't know why.

Then she heard about the earthquake that hit her home province in China, Sichuan, and panicked when she couldn't reach her parents because no phone signal was available.

Zeng's parents made it through the disaster - after spending a night in their car to be safe - and now the pharmaceutics graduate student has joined other University Chinese students to raise money for earthquake relief.

.VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Syria has told fellow Arab countries that it will not permit an International Atomic Energy Agency probe to extend beyond a site bombed by Israel, despite agency interest in three other suspect locations, diplomats told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The agency's main focus during its planned June 22-24 visit to Syria is a building in the country's remote eastern desert that was destroyed by Israeli jets in September.

>UTRECHT, Netherlands (AP) - Utrecht police say a 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a "mooning" that went horribly wrong.

A police statement says the man and two others had run down a street in Utrecht with their pants pulled down in the back "for a joke."

It says that at one point the 21-year-old "pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant" that broke and resulted in "deep wounds to his derriere."

.JERUSALEM (AP) - Authors of Palestinian school textbooks took small steps toward softening their portrayal of Israel under the rule of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - but progress was quickly reversed after the militant Islamic Hamas took over, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education and by the American Jewish Committee looked at 120 textbooks published from 2000 to 2006.