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One painfully memorable day this spring Jack Reese did a crazy dance in the middle of a persimmon grove on his farm in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. Flailing wildly, he tried to yank off his pants and swat his ankles at the same time. He had made one of the worst mistakes a Southern farmer can make: he forgot to watch the ground for a moment and thus tromped on a foot-high mound full of fire ants. Incensed by the intrusion, the insects promptly swarmed up Reese's legs, stinging him mercilessly over and over again. It felt like dozens of hot needles...

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RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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