A 5-month-old kitten woke a Pennyslvania family up at one in the morning after a fire broke out in their home. The family, plus the kitten, escaped with only the clothes on their backs as fire consumed the house and all their belongings. Another family pet, a cat, died in the fire.

More than 80 percent of Dutch children aged between nine and 15 say they have tried alcohol and on average start drinking at the age of 12. The teen web site Kaboem (www.kaboem.nl) said Monday a survey of young people found some 68 percent of Dutch 15-year-olds admitted drinking alcohol often and a third of respondents said that when they drink they have enough to get drunk .

The Kia Spectra is the first vehicle since 2001 to get the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s worst safety rating in a frontal crash test, according to results released Sunday. The Institute noted that the crash dummy’s head, chest and legs were injured in a 40 mph crash test. The last car to do as poorly was the Chevrolet Cavalier in 2001.

An unidentified Gypsy was decapitated by a rool tile that was blown through the air in a fierce windstorm in France. A storm battered Paris and other parts of France, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes and causing major disruption to air, rail and road traffic.

A shocked pig farmer in Norway discovered a former policeman having sex with his pigs. The quick thinking farmer grabbed his camera and was able to take several photographs to get evidence of the bestiality. The farmer said it was embarrassing to have the film developed but police credit the photos with resolving the case.

The deep-fried Mars bar is now an established part of the Scottish culinary scene. Dipped in batter and then cooked in hot oil, the Mars bar is now on sale in more than a fifth of Scotland’s 627 fish-and-chip shops. The deep-fried Mars bar first surfaced in 1995, reputedly originating in Aberdeen.

A new electrical-generating plant planned for Minnesota will be powered by turkey droppings. The turkey feces power plant will create power for 55,000 homes. The new facility will be the largest poultry-droppings power generating facilty in the world.