Life

NEW ORLEANS—New Orleans’ flood defences appeared to withstand Hurricane Isaac, but thousands of people to the north and south of the city had to be evacuated or rescued as the storm lingered over the U.S. Gulf Coast with whistling winds and constant rain.
At least two deaths were reported.
The storm flooded neighbourhoods in a rural part of the state and in neighbouring Mississippi.

TORONTO—West Nile virus activity is surging in southern Ontario and the province may be on track to equal its worst year ever in terms of total cases, an official with Public Health Ontario said yesterday.

MONTREAL — A fruit salad the size of a small swimming pool has claimed a world record for Montreal’s McGill University.
The 5,038-kilogram concoction dethroned Fresno State University on Tuesday for the Guinness World Record for the biggest fruit salad ever.
Volunteers sliced and diced their way through mountains of food, most of it grown at McGill’s Macdonald Campus Farm.

TORONTO — Jenny Lutes painted a scene that seemed as chaotic as it was comical.
The mother of two daughters sat rocking baby Madelaine in a chair, pumping milk and snacking on fruit, while also fielding questions from and gluing a craft and cutting paper for her five-year-old, Ava.

CAMBRIDGE BAY, Nunavut—The search for the lost ships of the ill-fated Franklin expedition continues.
A new research project was announced yesterday by the prime minister in Nunavut, where the ships are believed to have sunk.
“Why do we search for the Franklin?” asked Stephen Harper.

TOKYO — Honda Motor Co. finally has its first home product packed with its prized robotics technology — a sensor-equipped lawn mower.
Miimo goes on sale next year, only in Europe, where spacious lawns are often enclosed in gates, targeting 4,000 unit sales a year.

Every year, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., releases its Mindset List to give a snapshot of how the incoming freshmen class views the world. The list for the Class of 2016:
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Most students entering college for the first time this fall were born in 1994. For these students, Kurt Cobain, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon and John Wayne Gacy have always been dead.
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The term “F-bomb” surfaced in newspapers more than 20 years ago but will land Tuesday for the first time in the mainstream Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, along with sexting, flexitarian, obesogenic, energy drink and life coach.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Century-old baseball cards discovered in an Ohio attic sold big at an auction but they aren’t going to make anyone super-rich. That’s because the cards and the money are being evenly divided among 20 cousins.

TORONTO — They have to be among the four most dreaded words a man can hear from his wife or intimate partner: “I’ve got breast cancer.”
While it is the woman who becomes the prime focus — her anxiety, how she endures treatment and the lingering fear of recurrence — male spouses go through their own form of emotional hell when faced with the diagnosis.