The Dog Days Are Over: Clean Up Your Dog's Poo, Get Free WiFi

Mexico City park services have started an ambitious new plan to get dog owners to clean up after their pets by offering them free Wi-Fi!

It would seem that people have not been doing that good of a job cleaning up the tootsie rolls and pooch piles left behind in public parks. Mexican Internet provider Terra has teamed up with local advertising agency DDB to offer free Wi-Fi in 10 public parks located around Mexico City in an attempt to get pet owners to clean up after their doggie's messes.

Pet owners who deposit the poo into special receptacles located throughout the selected parks will be rewarded with free Wi-Fi minutes, broadcast through unique routers shaped like doggy bones. A heavier load means more minutes, so you will be a bit luckier if you take a lumbering Great Dane to the park rather than a diminutive chihuahua.

But don't try to be a wise acre by trying to add rocks to the poo to make it heavier: the parks plan to hire poo monitors who will check the excrement for any extraneous materials! You can watch the insane video promoting the new policy below:

The Stirring Giant: Mexico's Popocatepetl Volcano Has Country on Alert

Authorities in Mexico raised the alert level for the Popocatepetl volcano near  Mexico City on Monday after it started spewing red-hot fragments of rock and clouds of dust and ash high into the atmosphere.

Officials are so uneasy about the rumblings of the now-glowing Popocatepetl volcano that nearby schools have been shut down and tourists and adventure-seekers are being warned to stay away. The lava dome of Popocatepetl, some 50 miles to the southeast of the capital city, started to expand on Friday, Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention said.

The sudden change in activity in the 5,450 meter (17,900 foot) volcano could provoke large explosions capable of sending dangerous, incandescent fragments out over considerable distances, as well as intense ash showers, the center said in a statement. The volcano, along with its "twin" volcano Iztaccíhuatl, can be seen by Mexico City's 25 million residents on a clear day.

The Center for Disaster Prevention raised the alert level to yellow phase three from yellow phase two, indicating possible magma expulsion and explosions of increasing intensity. It is the third-highest warning on the center's seven-step scale. Emergency services should ready evacuation teams and shelters, limit access to the area around the volcano and alert air-traffic control systems, the center said in an official statement.

The startling increase in activity at the volcano comes a week after a series of earthquakes rattled the country, including a 7.0 tremor that swayed skyscrapers in Mexico City and caused people to flee in panic into the streets. 

Rattled: Powerful Earthquake Strikes Mexico, Killing Two

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale rattled Mexico City last night, knocking out power to the Latin republic's capital and killing at least two people. Emergency services said an 18-year-old man was killed in the town of Iguala when a roof collapsed onto him and another man was killed when a dislodged boulder crashed into his vehicle as he was driving along the busy Mexico City-Acapulco Highway.

The temblor struck as streets and stores were packed with Christmas shoppers along Mexico City's famed retail and entertainment district the Zona Rosa. Thousands of people fled department stores such as La Condesa, running out into the streets in panic, as the loss of street lights and traffic signals due to a power failure snarled traffic in one of the world's largest cities, with an estimated population of 28 million people. The earthquake was felt as far away as the resort city of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast in Mexico's popular Mexican Riviera. Communications also went off line for a while after the quake, including telephone and some cable television services, with millions of people trying to call friends and relatives once the shaking had ceased.


Many people feared a repeat of the catastrophic 1985 earthquake that struck Mexico City, which killed almost 20,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages. The enormous metropolis sits on a large plain located between two active volcanoes Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl and is highly susceptible to seismic events