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mas, 33, of Denver, Colorado. "And remember, this is the World Cup."
• The intense search for tickets outside Maracana was a lot tougher Wednesday because police boosted security after 88 ticketless Chilean fans broke through barriers at the stadium's media entrance last week and rampaged through the press center, busting down temporary walls while trying to find a way into the stands.
• As fans from around the world held up hand-scrawled signs looking for tickets, police identified scalpers by watching for tickets and money changing hands among the hordes of fans arriving at the stadium's main entrance points. They took into custody sellers from countries ranging from Britain to Russia accused of trying to unload tickets for prices higher than the official FIFA price range of $90 to $175.
• ___

• TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran is rushing to try to save one of the world's critically endangered species, the Asiatic cheetah, and bring it back from the verge of extinction in its last remaining refuge.
• The Asiatic cheetah, an equally fast cousin of the African cat, once ranged from the Red Sea to India, but its numbers shrunk over the past century to the point that it is now hanging on by a thin thread -- an estimated 50 to 70 animals remaining in Iran, mostly in the east of the country. That's down from as many as 400 in the 1990s, its numbers plummeting due to poaching, the hunting of its main prey -- gazelles -- and encroachment on its habitat.
• Cheetahs have been hit by cars and killed in fights with sheep dogs, since shepherds have permits to graze their flocks in areas where the cheetahs live, said Hossein Harati, the local head of the environmental department and park rangers at the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Iran.
• At the reserve, rangers are caring for a male cheetah named Koushki, rescued by a local resident who bought it as a cub from a hunter who killed its mother around seven years ago, said Morteza Eslami Dehkordi, the director of Iranian Cheetah Society. "Since he was interested in environment protection, he bought the cub from him and handed it to the Department of Environment," he said. The cheetah was named after his rescuer's family name.
• With help from the United Nations, the Iranian government has stepped up efforts to rescue the species -- also with an eye to the potential for tourism to see the rare cat.

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