SYDNEY, Australia (AP) – For Chris Lyons, reciting a 4,400-digit number was as easy as Pi.

Lyons, 36, recited the first 4,400 digits of Pi – a mathematical value that has an infinite number of decimal places – without a single error at the 2006 Mindsports Australia Festival, organizer David Cordover said Tuesday.

Cordover said Lyons, a memory coach from Melbourne, took 2½ hours to complete the feat.

Lyons said he spent just one week memorizing the digits before reciting them for judges at the festival Monday.

“With the right techniques and a bit of practice you can remember whatever you want,” he said.

His accomplishment is far from a record.

In July, a Japanese psychiatric counselor recited Pi to 83,431 decimal places from memory, breaking his own personal best of 54,000 digits and setting an unofficial world record, according to media reports.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) – A man had to be rescued after becoming wedged in a washing machine while playing a game with his children, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

A fire officer pulled Robin Toom, 38, out of the machine after Toom became trapped while playing hide-and-seek, according to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

“I just hopped in there and couldn’t even get the lid down and the kids came in and said, ‘Ha, ha! We found you,”‘ Toom told the newspaper.

Toom, of the Queensland city of Townsville, waited for an hour with his knees pressed to his chest before being rescued by local fire squad member Dave Dillon, the paper reported.

Rather than dismantling the washer, Dillon reached into the machine and pulled out Toom’s wedged foot.

Toom said he planned to change the rules of hide-and-seek for his children.

“I hope they don’t go hiding in any washing machines now,” he said.

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GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) – A man already on probation after robbing the same place multiple times is accused of doing it again.

Christopher Harris, 19, of Green Bay, was charged with armed robbery Monday in the holdups at the Astor Park Mini Mart.

Harris was serving five years’ probation after spending about a year in jail on two counts of armed robbery. That case involved stickups at the East Mason Shell station three times over six days in July 2004.

In the latest case, police said they apprehended Harris after a robbery Sunday night. Clerks told officers the same man also robbed the store around 6 a.m.

Police said the robber gave the clerk a bag and demanded money while holding one hand in his pocket as if he had a weapon. The clerk pushed an alarm that summoned police.

Officers used a video surveillance system to identify Harris as a suspect, and a witness told them she saw a man run from the store to a car, according to a criminal complaint.

Police saw a car matching the description, stopped it and found Harris inside, along with cigarettes and cash from the store, authorities said.

Harris remains in jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

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CHARDON, Ohio (AP) – Here’s a sweet deal for residents: The city will plant sugar maples on some lawns for free.

City Council members voted last week to spend $3,000 in local tax dollars to plant the trees in hopes of halting the decline of the community’s sugar maples.

“We’re hoping people will see the value in this and agree to let the city plant a sugar maple in their yard,” said Ken Miller, chairman of the city’s Shade Tree Commission. “We all benefit from the beauty of these trees. It’s part of the ambiance of this town, and that’s not something we want to lose.”

Over the past 15 years, this community 25 miles east of Cleveland has seen the number of sugar maples along streets dwindle by about 200, to just under 100 trees.

The city has tried to plant replacements on public land but the maples’ roots were confined by the surrounding pavement, and salt that splashed up from icy roads damaged tree trunks.

Moving the sugar maples onto front lawns, 10 to 15 feet from the sidewalk, should give them a better chance for survival, Miller said.

The city plans to plant about two dozen trees this summer and provide follow-up care for at least two years before turning responsibility over to the homeowner.