Samuel Wurzelbacher, Celebrated as ‘Joe the Plumber,’ Dies at 49

Samuel Wurzelbacher, Celebrated as ‘Joe the Plumber,’ Dies at 49

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who briefly became “Joe the Plumber,” the metaphorical American middle-class Everyman, by injecting himself into the 2008 presidential campaign in an impromptu nationally-televised face-off with Barack Obama over taxing small businesses, died on Sunday at his home in Campbellsport, Wis., about 60 miles north of Milwaukee. He was 49. The cause was…

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Water hookups come to Alaska Yup’ik village, and residents are thrilled to ditch their honey buckets

Water hookups come to Alaska Yup’ik village, and residents are thrilled to ditch their honey buckets

Sanitation workers Thomas Noatak and Joseph Moses start every workday riding a four-wheeler along the muddy roads of this small Yup’ik village on southwestern Alaska’s vast Kuskokwim River, looking for human waste. They’re checking honey bucket bins — large steel containers where residents dump their waste at neighborhood collection points. When they find a bin full…

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