A great practical joke

Take a look at this, and then at this. Evidently, someone came up with a story that a certain hotel heiress had decided to advocate on behalf of Indian elephants getting drunk on farmers' rice beer, and at least the AP, as well as a few spokesmen for conservation organizations, fell for it.

Hopefully this particular heiress does some thinking about why the AP took this seriously in the first place. It's not everyone, after all, who can be credibly accused of fighting for the rights of drunken, carousing pachyderms.