December 24, 2002 (Newspaper Publishing PLC) - Rumours that Western aid agencies are collecting human blood in return for food aid have spread panic among villagers in famine-stricken Malawi, who are barricading their homes out of a fear of vampires. The anxiety is so great in parts of southern Malawi that farm workers in one of Africa's poorest countries are staying at home.

The moon is full
And the wind is calm
The night has come
In all its splendour

A silent call
Across the land
Summons me
From my slumber

C
In the land of Efil Retfa
We dream. Our days have just begun
Chart the sky, to cloak the sun
Don't know where we're going
Nowhere to run

In the land of Efil Retfa
We seduce and kill beneath the moon
Serene and mad, we roam the land
Our day of judgement
Approaches soon

Come to me
My lovely child
Take my hand

a whole city, producing more devastation in the four or five minutes it lasted, than would a half century of ordinary phenomena.

May 24, 2007 (Stars and Stripes / Kevin Dougherty) -- Count "Dracula" as being among the best monikers ever bestowed on a military base in a war zone. But then what would you expect from a bat-talion from Transylvania?

June 20, 2007 (The Daily Times / Rhys Saunders / Aztec, NM) -- A 28-year-old man who did not deny robbing and attacking a man dressed as a vampire Oct. 31 outside Safeway on West Main Street in Farmington was sentenced Monday to three years of supervised probation.