Man sues after learning he’ll live

A man who said he spent his life savings after being told he had months to live is seeking compensation after doctors conceded they had got the diagnosis wrong.

John Brandrick, 62, was told two years ago that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported. He decided to spend his remaining time in style, quitting his job and spending his savings on hotels, restaurants and holidays.

A year later, doctors at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in southwest England revised their diagnosis: Brandrick was suffering from pancreatitis, a nonfatal ailment.

“My life has been turned upside down by this,” Brandrick said. “I was told I had limited time to live. I got rid of everything – my car, my clothes, everything.”

Brandrick said he did not want to take the hospital to court, “but if they have made the wrong decision they should pay me something back.”

MEXICO CITY

4 drug smugglers killed, police say

Four purported drug smugglers were killed in a shootout with soldiers in western Mexico on Monday, the second deadly clash in a week between traffickers and troops in the same remote, mountainous region.

The clash took place in Apatzingan, 125 miles west of Mexico’s capital in Michoacan state, and left three men and one woman dead, said Magdalena Guzman, spokeswoman for the state prosecutor’s office.

The Defense Department said in a news release that three soldiers were injured in the shootout. The soldiers were raiding a house of suspected drug traffickers, who resisted with automatic rifle fire and grenades, it said.

Plagued by drug violence, Michoacan is the target of a military-led anti-drug offensive. Last week, five soldiers, including a colonel, and a suspected drug cartel enforcer were killed in a shootout not far from Monday’s killings.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands

Vulture missing, likes to bite ears

A private bird of prey breeding center was inundated with calls Monday after appealing for help tracking down a 3-foot-tall white-backed vulture called Abu that was blown away in high winds while soaring over the park.

“We’re getting calls from all over the country,” said Wilma van Rixel, of the Stonehenge Wildlife center.

Abu, who is normally kept in an enclosure, disappeared Friday while training for flying demonstrations staged by staff and birds from the center in Schoonrewoerd, southern Netherlands.

While asking for help locating Abu, the center has advised the public not to try to catch him, warning he could peck at their ears or fingers, especially if he has not eaten for a few days.

SAO PAULO, Brazil

Ex-beer taster wins alcoholism lawsuit

A Brazilian court has ordered a brewer to pay $49,000 to an alcoholic beer taster who said he drank more than 3 pints of beer a day.

The unidentified employee alleged that the company did not provide the health measures needed to keep him from developing alcoholism, a labor court in the Rio Grande do Sul state said in a statement Friday.

The employee said in his lawsuit that for more than a decade, he drank 16 to 25 small glasses of beer during his eight-hour shifts.

He also said he received a bottle of beer after each shift.

An initial ruling had favored Ambev, or Companhia de Bebidas das Americas, which alleged the employee already was an alcoholic before becoming a beer taster.

Judge Jose Felipe Ledur said the company still was negligent because an alcoholic should never have been made a beer taster.