The country confirmed a case of mad cow disease at a farm in British Columbia -- the country's fifth case since May 2003, when the US closed the border to Canadian beef. However, no part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed systems, so it will have no bearing on the safety of Canadian beef, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement Sunday. The agency had announced on Thursday it had a suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In humans, meat products contaminated with BSE have been linked to more than 150 deaths, mostly in Britain, from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare and fatal nerve disease.
■ Canada
Firefighters rescue dog
Firefighters rescued a shivering dog from a river after it was spotted clinging to an ice shelf. "Buddy," a Rottweiler-shepherd cross, had escaped from an Edmonton backyard early on Sunday morning. While his owners searched the neighborhood, a passer-by spotted him in the icy water 3m from the shore of the North Saskatchewan River. "They thought he was a piece of wood until he was howling and making some noise," Captain Brian Corus said. Six fire trucks from three stations were dispatched to the river. Four firefighters in a rescue boat eventually reached Buddy, pulled him from the river and wrapped him in a blanket.
■ United States
Sex offenders murdered
Two registered sex offenders were fatally shot in their central Maine homes, and a Canadian man sought in connection with the slayings fatally shot himself after Boston police cornered him on a bus, Maine authorities said. Stephen Marshall, 20, shot himself in the head on Sunday with a .45 caliber handgun when officers stopped the bus he was on and climbed aboard, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney. Officers heard a gunshot and found Marshall with a massive head wound in a window seat 13 rows behind the driver, Procopio said.
■ United States
Woman burns guests
A woman was accused of crashing a Sudanese wedding party in Schenectady, New York, and splashing people with an acidic substance, injuring six people, authorities said. Six people were injured in the early Sunday attack, including two firefighters whose latex gloves melted as they tried to treat the others. Police said they didn't know the reason for the attack and the acidic substance has not been identified yet. "You gotta be pretty twisted. It was pretty nasty," said Darren Marino, one of the firefighters. Marino said the firefighters thought they were answering a call for a hot-water burn and didn't realize they were dealing with acid until they reached the hospital.
■ Peru
Election result close
A shrinking margin separated two presidential hopefuls in elections a week after the April 9 vote, as moderate-left former president Alan Garcia and conservative former congresswoman Lourdes Flores vied for a spot in a runoff. With delays in the vote count persisting, it could be weeks before it is known who will face nationalist former army officer Ollanta Humala in the second round in late May or June. Results from election officials on Sunday showed that with almost 90 percent of the ballots counted, Garcia and Flores were separated by only 95,619 votes, down from more than 120,000 last week.
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