When Lebanese restaurant owner Raymond Salha and his wife, Amal, decided to have oysters for lunch 10 days ago, they got more than just lunch. When Amal opened the shell on one of her oysters, she found it contained 26 pearls of various sizes. The couple immediately believed the pearls were valuable, so Salha called the city’s maritime museum which sent a team to his Al-Fanar Restaurant in the southern port city of Tyre. The team took the oyster — and the pearls still inside it — away for testing. At the museum, Salha said officials later told him they counted “only” 25 pearls. He insisted however, that he and his wife counted a total of 26 pearls of varying sizes inside the oyster, some very small. A few days later, the oyster was preserved and returned by the museum, along with the pearls. Salha, who insists the oyster still contains 26 pearls, plans to keep it on display at his restaurant. This is not the first time they found a pearl in an oyster. Once, long ago, they found a single pearl while opening an oyster. Although their latest find is not believed to be worth a lot of money, Salha says their importance is in the sheer number found inside a single shell.

A Target Range Middle School science teacher has a story to tell his students. It might not be about the day’s lesson, but it is something they will remember. Jim Litz, of Missoula, Mont., went for a bicycle ride Monday morning. As he was traveling about 25 mph, he came upon a rise and spotted a black bear about 10 feet in front of him. He didn’t have time to stop and T-boned the bruin. Litz suffered some bruising and a big scratch on his back after he struck the bear. He tumbled over the handlebars, his helmet hit the bear’s back and the two went cartwheeling down the road. The bear rolled over Litz’s head, cracking his helmet, and scratched his back before scampering up a hill above the road. Litz’s wife drove by shortly after the crash and took her husband to the hospital.

An alert patrolman in Readington Township, N.J., stopped twin brothers, Julio and Josel Rodriguez, of Bethlehem, Pa., at 2 a.m. Wednesday. The patrolman soon noticed discrepancies in the 18-year-old brothers’ stories after pulling them over for failure to maintain a lane and a broken brake light. Police said Julio Rodriguez, who was driving, was trying to avoid getting a ticket. So he tried to switch his identity with his brother. Well the cop did not buy it. So he arrested them both and charged them with obstruction of justice. And, Julio Rodriguez was also issued three traffic citations. The brothers were released pending court dates. Police didn’t immediately know if the two had a lawyer.

Our reporter, Gina Morton, met with a woman in Danville today who is holding a pet first aid class through the Red Cross. At first, it seems like a strange program but in New Bedford, Mass., a lucky cat owes one of its nine lives to a firefighter who revived it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Al Machado rescued the cat from a burning apartment Tuesday, telling The Standard Times of New Bedford that he saw immediately that it needed air. Machado began performing mouth to mouth on the animal as he carried it outside. Video shot at the scene shows Machado bent over, breathing into the cat’s mouth several times. The cat, a tiger angora, was revived and resting comfortably soon after. No humans were injured in the fire. A man and woman whose last known address was the building that burned were arrested and charged with arson, authorities said. Two other cats died in the second-floor apartment, but two dogs there were saved with the help of oxygen from paramedics and animal rescue personnel. Pets on the other two floors — including a ferret and even some frogs on the first floor — were all saved. Asked what it tasted like to give mouth-to-mouth to a cat, Machado laughed, grimaced and said: “Like fur.” So pet first aid can be a lifesaver.