■UNITED STATES
Toilets to fuel San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas, unveiled a deal on Tuesday that will make it the first US city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel. San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tonnes a year of a substance gently referred to as “biosolids,” which can be reprocessed into natural gas, said Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city’s water system. “You may call it something else,” Clouse said, but for area utilities, the main byproduct of human waste — methane gas — will soon be converted into natural gas to burn in their power plants.
■UNITED STATES
Firefighter resuscitates cat
A lucky cat owes one of its nine lives to a firefighter who revived it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Al Machado rescued the cat from a burning apartment on Tuesday, telling the Standard Times of New Bedford, Massachusetts, that he saw immediately that it needed air. Machado began performing mouth to mouth on the animal as he carried it outside. Video shot at the scene shows Machado bent over, breathing into the cat’s mouth several times. The cat, a tiger angora, was revived and resting comfortably soon after. No humans were injured in the fire.
■UNITED STATES
‘Twist’ is No. 1 song
How’s this for a twist: Of all the No. 1 songs in the 50 years of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Chubby Checker’s The Twist ranks as the most popular single. Elvis and the Beatles did not even make the top five. Checker’s ranking may come as a surprise to some, but not to the classic rocker. “I’m glad they’ve finally recognized it,” said Checker of his early 1960s hit. He compared The Twist — named by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock ‘n’ roll — to the creation of the telephone as a groundbreaking moment, because he said it was the first time people were dancing “apart to the beat.” Santana’s Smooth, featuring Rob Thomas, is the No. 2 most popular, followed by Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife, Leann Rimes’ How Do I Live and The Macarena by Los Del Rio.
■CANADA
Bear attacks fisherman
A man is recovering in the hospital after a black bear swam across a river, climbed onto a dock, jumped on a boat and attacked him. Conservation officer Gord Hitchcock said on Wednesday the 52-year-old man was fishing at a marina in a tiny coastal community off the Pacific coast when the bear mauled him. Hitchcock says people tried to help the man using hooked poles, knives and a hammer to pull the bear off of him. Fire Chief Dan Tennant said he had never heard of such an incident in an area where the bears are normally docile. Tennant said the man’s friends managed to kill the bear.
■PERU
Fetus found in tomb
Archeologists say they have discovered the jawbone of a fetus among the remains of a sacrificed woman in a pre-Inca tomb, suggesting the Lambayeque culture practiced the atypical sacrifice of pregnant women and their children. The remains of the woman and unborn child were found with three other sacrificed women and several llamas, lead archeologist Carlos Wester La Torre said. The sacrifice of a pregnant woman was “very unusual,” archeologist Walter Alva said. “So this could represent a sacrifice for a very important religious event,” he said.
RSS