oddly enough

oddly enough

Ohio teen scoops 3-foot carp from floodwaters in street

NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio

A northern Ohio teenager is reeling in attention for a big catch after he spotted a 3-foot carp swimming in receding floodwaters on his street and scooped it into his arms as his mother caught the scene on video.

North Royalton resident Jake Sawyer, 16, waded through more than ankle-deep water as he stalked the big fish in the dark Monday night and eventually trapped it.

First he tried to throw a towel over it to stun it. He said when that didn’t work, he tried to push it toward a curb.

“I just slowly put my hand on it, and then once it got comfortable with me, I just kind of bear-hugged it and lifted it up,” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Sawyer said heavy rains that day had caused flash-flooding as high as his mailbox, and he suspects the large grass carp slipped out of a nearby pond as the water rose.

He said he wanted to ensure the fish didn’t become trapped and die in the street, so he carried it back to the pond. He estimates it weighed 40 pounds.

UK tower with glare that melted car to get sunshade

LONDON

A London skyscraper that drew ire for having a glare so strong it melted nearby cars and shops will get a permanent fix.

The offending tower — known as the Walkie-Talkie for its curved, bulging shape — is to have a sunshade attached to its south-facing facade to stop the concave surface from reflecting sunlight and beaming concentrated rays to a nearby street, developers said Thursday.

The 37-story building made headlines in September when a Jaguar owner who parked his car at its foot complained that the solar glare melted part of the vehicle. Local shopkeepers also said the beams — dubbed “death rays” by the British press — blistered paint work and burned a hole in a floor mat during the hottest parts of the day.

Developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf had put up a dark, netted screen as a temporary measure. They now say they have received permission to erect a permanent sunshade of horizontal aluminum fins, which they say will solve the problem by absorbing and diffusing sunlight.

The sunshade will cover much of the Walkie-Talkie’s southern face and inevitably will block the Thames views for the tower’s occupants “to a limited extent,” the developers said. But they added that “the extra texture, detail and reduction in reflectivity will make the building a better neighbor.”

It wasn’t the first time that the skyscraper, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly and officially known as 20 Fenchurch St., attracted controversy. Even before it was built, UNESCO, the United Nations heritage body, complained that such tall buildings would negatively impact the historic Tower of London nearby.

Associated Press