[00.15 GMT] Last night's and this morning's news has mostly been taken up by a story from Canada that an anoymous local Iraqi negotiator has made contact with Swords of Truth Brigades, but has now ben missing since 8 December and is believed kidnapped. Ekklesia has it on good advice that there is no substance to this on either counts, but it has morphed across the web with predictable speed and little interest in fact-checking. Only one of the four core sources we queried about corroboration has even bothered to reply. True or not, it seems to fulfil the criteria for "news" when there is none. Meanwhile: Seattle couple recall man seized in Iraq. "He's a kind, gentle person," Christie Schmid says of Jim Loney (Seattle Post-Intelligencer).

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