The Fascinating Life and Times of Me

Apparently, Animals+Urine=Disaster, as we see in Today's inaugural installment of Today in (fill in the blank) News

The Dangers of Cat Ownership

Cats use fax as toilet, spark house fire
TOKYO (Reuters) - Two kittens picked the wrong place to relieve themselves when they urinated on a fax machine, sparking a fire that extensively damaged their Japanese owner's house.

Investigators in the western city of Kobe have concluded that the fire in January was caused by a spark generated when the urine soaked the machine's electrical printing mechanism.

The fire damaged the kitchen and living room before it was put out by the house's owner, who was treated for mild smoke inhalation, said Masahito Oyabu, a fireman at the Nagata fire station in central Kobe.

The kittens quickly ran to safety, he added.

"If you have a cat, or a dog for that matter, be careful where they urinate," Oyabu said. "Especially keep them away from electrical appliances and wires."

Those Wacky Cows

Police arrest killer cow
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian police have arrested a cow that killed a bus driver who was urinating on a highway, a police spokesman said Thursday.

The horned African cow, which was wandering stray in the Ojo district of Nigeria's biggest city Lagos, also injured several bystanders after killing the man.

"The cow went mad, ran into a bus driver and knocked him down. Efforts to revive him were fruitless," said Lagos police spokesman Olubode Ojajuni.

Some people suggested the animal be shot, but the district police officer ordered it to be taken alive.

"You know what it will take to arrest a mad cow?" one newspaper quoted a policeman as saying. "We applied ingenuity and arrested the cow, which is now being detained at the station," he said without going into details.

Ojajuni said police were seeking the cow's owner to press charges for failing to keep it under control.

All I can say is, I'm sure glad Reuters News is here to keep us informed about these pressing global issues.