ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Even the eyelashes freeze: Russia sees 88.6 below 0

MOSCOW

Even thermometers can’t keep up with the plunging temperatures in Russia’s remote Yakutia region, which hit minus 88.6 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas Tuesday.

In Yakutia – a region of 1 million people about 3,300 miles east of Moscow – students routinely go to school even in minus 40 degrees. But school was canceled Tuesday throughout the region and police ordered parents to keep their children inside.

In the village of Oymyakon, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, state-owned Russian television showed the mercury falling to the bottom of a thermometer that was only set up to measure down to minus 50 degrees. In 2013, Oymyakon recorded an all-time low of minus 98 Fahrenheit.

The press office for Yakutia’s governor said Tuesday that all households and businesses in the region have working central heating and access to backup power generators.

Residents of Yakutia are no strangers to cold weather and this week’s cold spell was not even dominating local news headlines Tuesday.

Some media outlets published cold-weather selfies and stories about stunts in the extreme cold.

Women posted pictures of their frozen eyelashes, while YakutiaMedia published a picture of Chinese students who got undressed to take a plunge in a thermal spring.

Police arrest man who is accused of stealing manhole covers

WEBSTER, Mass.

Massachusetts police say they have arrested a man who stole seven manhole covers and put traffic cones in their place.

The Telegram & Gazette reports the 46-year-old Webster man was arrested last Friday and charged with larceny.

Police say they first received a call around 2:45 p.m. Jan. 10 from a witness who saw the suspect taking a manhole cover in Webster.

Authorities received several other calls about missing manhole covers, and they say they stopped a vehicle matching the witness’ description later that day.

Police say the suspect acknowledged taking the manhole covers and pointed officers to where he had sold them.

Authorities recovered the covers Wednesday from a Millbury salvage yard.

Webster sewer superintendent William Burke says they replaced to stolen covers with spares.

Associated Press