[goldie0608]

How a 12-Year-Old Is Brightening the Lives of Children in Foster Care

Amelia Lisowe created Lisowe's Lights in 2018 to help give children in foster care a sense of safety



When Amelia Lisowe was told she was too young to volunteer, she decided to make a difference by herself.

The Benton, Arkansas, native launched her own non-profit, Lisowe's Lights, in 2018, donating 500 nightlights to kids in the Arkansas foster system that year alone.

Since, she has expanded to all 50 states (and nine countries!) and raised funds to distribute 15,000 nightlights — with no plans of slowing down.

"Kids in foster homes sometimes have to leave in the middle of the night without taking anything with them," she says. "I wanted to help them feel less scared and more safe."

The 12-year-old hopes to give away at least 2,500 more lights in 2023.

Amelia grew up volunteering with her mom, Lauren, who encouraged her daughter to "find something you're good at and use it to make the world a better place," she recalls.

"I'm so proud of her," Lauren adds. "She's involved in every decision we make, every time we spend money, helping decide if something is a good idea or will further our cause."

Amelia also gets help from friends in the Royal International Miss pageant system, who run their own nightlight drives in person and online.

Amelia, a sixth grader who also volunteers at her local food bank and nursing home, says she feels the impact of her work most when she hears from organizations who've put her lights to use.

"I heard about one boy in Oklahoma who never turned off his hall light, not because he was scared, but because he wanted to make sure his little sister was always doing okay across the hall," Amelia shares. "When they got their nightlight, he knew she wouldn't be afraid anymore."

Stowaway raccoon leads warehouse workers on a chase in Colorado



A raccoon stowed away from Kentucky to Colorado on a truck loaded with pallets and ended up leading animal protection officers on a wild chase around a distribution center.

The Boulder Police Department said in a Facebook post that employees at the distribution center saw the raccoon jump off the truck while the load of pallets from Louisville were being unloaded.

Workers called for assistance the next day when the raccoon was spotted stuck between some lumber and a wall.

Animal Protection Supervisor J. Whittle responded to the scene and the raccoon was freed from its predicament, but was "agitated" and led Whittle and the warehouse workers on a 45-minute chase around the distribution center.

"He slid through the catch pole once. I said, 'I got him! I don't got him,'" Whittle said in the Facebook post. "That's when the one employee showed up clutch with the kennel. I grabbed the trash can and the raccoon darted away from that right into the kennel."

Whittle said transportation was arranged to take the raccoon home to Louisville.

"He had plenty of hiding spots and trees and dumpsters," she said, "and I hope he found his family and friends back in Louisville."

[PennySerenade]

Want to visit Dunder Mifflin? The Office is coming to Toronto this spring



For those who've always wanted to celebrate the Dundies, visit Schrute Farms, or air high-five a loved one straight from Pam Beesly’s reception desk, a pop-up event entirely devoted to The Office is coming to Toronto this spring.

Starting March 3, at Yorkdale Shopping Centre, fans can go and live out their favourite show moments at The Office Experience and visit Scranton Business Park.

Visitors can walk through re-created sets of Dunder Mifflin – including the Annex, Ryan Howard’s closet, and Michael Scott’s office – Schrute Farms, and a replica of the warehouse at the gift shop.

“This is the only place where fans can celebrate and interact with the series’ most iconic sets and moments, from sitting behind Michael’s desk to dancing down the aisle at Jim and Pam’s wedding ceremony, or playing Dunder Ball in the Annex,” Co-President and Chief Strategy of Original X Productions, Stacy Moscatelli, said in a news release.

The exhibit also boasts a fake pot of Kevin’s famous homemade chilli that fans can pretend to spill for a photo, and visitors can sit in the breakroom and partake in the Finer Things Club.

The Office Expereince is deemed "largest-ever" official interactive experience by the creators, OGX and Universal Live Entertainment, who consulted with The Office's U.S. creator, Greg Daniels.

[Misstee]

Lost and found: Codebreakers decipher 50+ letters of Mary, Queen of Scots
The cache of letters sheds new light on Mary Stuart's years of captivity in England.
JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 2/7/2023, 4:01 PM




Sample ciphertext (F38) found in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, now attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Enlarge / Sample ciphertext (F38) found in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, now attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Bibliothèque nationale de France


An international team of code-breakers has successfully cracked the cipher of over 50 mysterious letters unearthed in French archives. The team discovered that the letters had been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to trusted allies during her imprisonment in England by Queen Elizabeth I (her cousin)—and most were previously unknown to historians. The team described in a new paper published in the journal Cryptologia how they broke Mary's cipher, then decoded and translated several of the letters. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Mary's execution on February 8, 1587.

"This is a truly exciting discovery," said co-author George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer in Israel. "Mary, Queen of Scots, has left an extensive corpus of letters held in various archives. There was prior evidence, however, that other letters from Mary Stuart were missing from those collections, such as those referenced in other sources but not found elsewhere. The letters we have deciphered are most likely part of this lost secret correspondence.” Lasry is part of the multi-disciplinary DECRYPT Project devoted to mapping, digitizing, transcribing, and deciphering historical ciphers.

Mary sought to protect her most private letters from being intercepted and read by hostile parties. For instance, she engaged in what's known as "letter-locking," a common practice at the time to protect private letters from prying eyes. As we've reported previously, Jana Dambrogio, a conservator at MIT Libraries, coined the term "letter-locking" after discovering such letters while a fellow at the Vatican Secret Archives in 2000.

Those "locked" Vatican letters dated back to the 15th and 16th centuries, and they featured strange slits and corners that had been sliced off. Dambrogio realized that the letters had originally been folded in an ingenious manner, essentially "locked" by inserting a slice of the paper into a slit, then sealing it with wax. It would not have been possible to open the letter without ripping that slice of paper—providing evidence that the letter had been tampered with.



Portrait of Mary Stuart c. 1558–1560 at about 17 years old, painted by François Clouet.
Enlarge / Portrait of Mary Stuart c. 1558–1560 at about 17 years old, painted by François Clouet.
Public domain
Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine de Medici, Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei, John Donne, and Marie Antoinette are among the famous personages known to have employed letter-locking for their correspondence. There are hundreds of letter-locking techniques like "butterfly locks," a simple triangular fold-and-tuck, and an ingenious method known as the "dagger-trap," which incorporates a booby-trap disguised as another, simpler type of letter lock. Mary, Queen of Scots, used an intricate spiral letter-lock for her final letter (to King Henri III of France) on the eve of her execution for treason in February 1587. A 1574 letter from Mary also used a variant of the spiral lock.

Mary was well-trained in the art of cipher by her mother, Marie de Guise, from a very young age. The substantial collection of her letters that are housed in various archives contains tantalizing references to other missing letters. John Bossy, author of Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story (2002), suggested that these missing letters might have been written in cipher to Mary's extensive network of associates and allies—a network that was fatally compromised around mid-1583 by Sir Francis Walsingham (Elizabeth I's spymaster), eventually leading to Mary's trial and execution for treason. Like many before him, Bossy assumed those letters had been lost.

FURTHER READING
Mary, Queen of Scots, sealed her final missive with an intricate spiral letterlock
Enter Lasry and his fellow code-breaking enthusiasts: physicist and patents expert Satoshi Tomokiyo and pianist and music professor Norbert Biermann. As part of DECRYPT, they were scouring various archives for documents encrypted with ciphers, particularly documents that had not yet been attributed. They stumbled upon several collections at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France's online archives, identifying 57 documents fully written in cipher. Other items in the collection dated from the 1520s and 1530s and were primarily concerned with "Italian affairs." None of the text in the letters was written in clear language, so it wasn't possible to determine who wrote them without first deciphering them.

ARS VIDEO
How The Callisto Protocol's Gameplay Was Perfected Months Before Release

Full set of graphical symbols.




Enlarge / Full set of graphical symbols.
Lasry/Biermann/Tomokiyo
Lasry et al. did just that, relying on a combination of computerized cryptanalysis, manual code-breaking, and linguistic and contextual analysis. The documents contained only graphical symbols (more than 150,000 in total), requiring the team to rely on a specially developed graphical user interface (GUI) tool. There was a considerable amount of back-and-forth effort, but first they transcribed a few documents and conducted an initial analysis and decipherment, which revealed that the documents had not been written in Italian (as previously assumed) but in French. The next step involved identifying the special symbols (homophones) and the overall structure of the cipher.

Those partial decipherments enabled Lasry et al. to conclude that the letters had been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. There were already several known letters between the two, so Lasry and his co-authors were able to find some that matched their deciphered material, thereby validating the meaning of several other symbols. They were then able to identify the symbols for names, places, and the twelve months of the year.

All that work allowed them to decrypt the most challenging passages in the letters—puzzling because they seemed to be riddled with spelling errors or were unintelligible, thanks to the use of several different cipher tables designed for different recipients. The final fully recovered cipher table turned out to be quite similar to other ciphers used during this period—including the cipher Mary used to communicate with Guillaume de l'Aubespine de Châteauneuf, who succeeded Castelnau as French ambassador.

"Upon deciphering the letters, I was very, very puzzled, and it kind of felt surreal,” said Lasry. “We have broken secret codes from kings and queens previously, and they’re very interesting, but with Mary, Queen of Scots, it was remarkable as we had so many unpublished letters deciphered and because she is so famous. Together, the letters constitute a voluminous body of new primary material on Mary Stuart—about 50,000 words in total, shedding new light on some of her years of captivity in England."

Selected parts of a cipher between Mary and Chateauneuf, the French ambassador who succeeded Castelnau, used for comparison.
Enlarge / Selected parts of a cipher between Mary and Chateauneuf, the French ambassador who succeeded Castelnau, used for comparison.
Bibliotheque nationale de France
Of the 57 letters, 54 were addressed to Castelnau, and all are written between May 1578 and May 1584. (One partially enciphered letter was dated October 30, 1584.) Taken together with known letters already preserved in archives, Lasry et al. broke Mary's correspondence into five distinct periods. There are relatively few letters in the inventory dated between 1576-1579, including four of the newly deciphered letters. Eleven of the newly decoded letters date between 1580-1581.

By 1582, Mary clearly had established a stable secret communication channel with Castelnau, relying on several trusted couriers, so far more letters were exchanged, including 29 of the newly decoded letters. By mid-1583, Walsingham had recruited a mole in the French embassy who passed on leaked copies of Mary's correspondence with Castelnau. The authors noted that seven of the eight newly decoded letters turned out to have plaintext copies preserved in British archives, adding, "It would seem that the leak from the embassy was quite effective and comprehensive." That would explain why there were no coded letters written to Castelnau between 1585-1586.

As for topics, Mary wrote frequently about keeping their communication channel secure so that she could maintain her network of allies in France. The two also discussed a proposed marriage between Elizabeth I and the Duke of Anjou, with Mary warning Castelnau "that the English side is not sincere in their negotiations, their only purpose being to weaken France and counter Spain," the authors wrote. (Elizabeth never married.) Mary also accuses the Earl of Leicester and others of plotting against her and accuses Elizabeth of not negotiating for Mary's release in good faith. She describes Walsingham as "a cunning person, falsely offering his friendship while concealing his true intentions," per the authors. "She warns [Castelnau]—rightly—that some people working for her might be Walsingham's agents."

The authors believe that examining other collections in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and other archives might unearth even more enciphered letters, especially since Lasry et al. only had access to digitized online material. In addition, their paper only includes fully deciphered text for a handful of the letters, given the sheer amount of the material (some 50,000 words).

“In our paper, we only provide an initial interpretation and summaries of the letters. A deeper analysis by historians could result in a better understanding of Mary’s years in captivity,” said Lasry. “It would also be great, potentially, to work with historians to produce an edited book of her letters deciphered, annotated, and translated.”

Ancient crocodile-like creature sheds light on pre-Jurassic earth



What’s up, croc?

Scientists have discovered an ancient species known to be the “sister” of modern-day crocodiles, according to a new study.

The pre-historic predator, Turnersuchus hingleyae, was found incredibly well-preserved off the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, England. The fossil is the most complete of the “marine crocodiles” to be recovered from 185 million years ago during the Pliensbachian period.

It was a two-meter long, highly aggressive predator that swam the coasts snacking on fish or cephalopods at a time before dinosaurs ruled the animal kingdom.

The fossil’s remarkable state is also helping scientists to learn more about the other pre-historic marine species of Thalattosuchia — an extinct genus resembling modern-day crocodiles — that existed millions of years ago. Researchers anticipate finding more crocodile-like species and learning more about their pre-dino existence.

“I expect we will continue to find more older thalattosuchians and their relatives. Our analyses suggest that thalattosuchians likely first appeared in the Triassic and survived the end-Triassic mass extinction,” said co-author Dr. Eric Wilberg, Assistant Professor at the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University.

It was that extinction event that led to the Jurassic Age of dinosaurs first roaming and ruling the Earth prior to their own elimination and ice age.

Turnersuchus is quite a specimen for another reason. Scientists are analyzing its traits, which are surprisingly disconnected from today’s crocodiles.

Unlike the modern reptile, which lives in wetlands near all sorts of water bodies, the long-snouted Turnersuchus “lived purely in coastal marine habitats,” said co-author Dr. Pedro Godoy, from the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

He added that the Turnersuchus skulls are also different from crocodiles. They — along with other Thalattosuchia — boasted enlarged jaw muscles that enabled fast bites of prey.

Still, researchers believe it is possible that Turnersuchus shares a “thermoregulatory function,” which helps to control brain temperature, with modern crocodiles.



Many questions still remain regarding the ancient croc-like creature’s days on early Earth.

There exists a “ghost lineage” of time periods — ranging from the end of the Triassic until the Toarcian period within the Jurassic — where Thalattosuchians have not been found in ancient rocks, according to the research.

“But now we can reduce the ghost lineage by a few million years,” the team stated upon their big dig.

https://nypost.com/2023/02/07/ancient-c ... sic-earth/

Australian Family had Giant Spider as a Roommate for a Year And They Share Their Thoughts

In a Facebook post on the Australian spider identification page, Jake Gray shocked the internet by showing off his family’s roommate for the past year, Charlotte the enormous huntsman spider.

Gray considers the gecko-eating spider “housemate material” and has enjoyed watching her grow since she started showing up at his house 12 months ago.

Here’s a look at their “housemate”…



“Huntsman spiders have always been tolerated in our home due to their appetite for cockroaches, and we don’t use toxic kill all chemicals for pests,” Jake said to IFLScience. “Just point and push fly sprays.”

Gray named the spider Charlotte after the book Charlotte’s Web to calm his kids’ fear.

While Gray received many online warning posts, this particular species is not as harmful as its size would suggest.

Banded huntsman or Sydney huntsman spiders prefer to run away rather than bite when threatened, and if they do release venom, its effect is mild. They are mostly safe to keep around the house and can act as pest removal, on critters usually smaller than this possum.



If you do come across a huntsman spider, which is fast and can grow as big as 6 inches, the first thing is to stay calm.

“Second, find a take-away container, scoop the spider into the container and release it outside,” behavioral ecologist and spider expert Linda S. Rayor writes in The Conversation.

She added, “Huntsman spiders almost never bite humans since they rely on speed to escape most predators. When they do bite, most bites are quick defensive nips without injecting venom.”

So yeah… now you know!

https://twistedsifter.com/2023/01/austr ... or-a-year/

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[ozswede]

Montreal's No. 1 restaurant on Tripadvisor didn't really exist

Yoo Jeung has been running Le Spot St-Denis, at the corner of Duluth Avenue and St-Denis Street for 22 years. Her flower shop is supposedly right next to the top-rated restaurant in Montreal on Tripadvisor, Le Nouveau Duluth, but she says she's never heard of it.

She says she knows the area very well and tourists often ask her for directions to restaurants.

"But Nouveau Duluth? No," she said — and something about the online listing seemed off to her. "There's a very high ceiling [in the photos]," she said. "On Duluth there are no high ceilings ... it looks fake."

The restaurant was at the number one spot in the travel app's city ratings, but one look at its listing was enough to give pause to foodies.

Le Nouveau Duluth does not exist but the ease with which it rose to the top of a travel advice site is a clear example of how easy it is to create buzz with no substance behind it — and what challenges real restaurants face getting noticed in the algorithm.


Yoo Jeung's flower shop, Le Spot Saint-Denis, is supposedly right next to Le Nouveau Duluth, but she says she's never heard of it.

The page was taken down after CBC sent a request for a response from Tripadvisor. The popular travel site responded saying stunts that create a fake restaurant listing are "uncommon occurrences and do not share the characteristics of genuine instances of fraud."

"On this occasion, a failure in human moderation practices meant the fake listing remained live on the platform longer than it should have. The listings — including the reviews and photos associated with the listing — are now inactive."

For a restaurant to be listed on Tripadvisor, it has to provide a phone number and a website. The linked URL on Le Nouveau Duluth's didn't lead to an active site.

Le Nouveau Duluth has 85 reviews, all of them giving five stars.


Le Nouveau Duluth was #1 of 3,678 restaurants in Montreal according to Tripadvisor. The only problem? It wasn't real.

The top review is titled "Can't believe this place really exist." Most reviewers left only a single review on Tripadvisor — for Le Nouveau Duluth.

The listing had just four photos: two showing what looks like a living room, one of a sports bar and the last of comedian Charles Deschamps, whose name is linked to the restaurant's listed phone number. CBC confirmed the phone uses iMessage.

When CBC checked Quebec's registrar of companies, Le Nouveau Duluth was not listed. The location pin leads to the corner of Duluth Avenue and St-Denis Street, but no restaurant named Le Nouveau Duluth is in sight.

CBC asked four neighbouring businesses if they'd ever heard of Le Nouveau Duluth, including Le Spot St-Denis. All said no. CBC also called the number listed on the Tripadvisor page but received no response.


While there are active businesses in this building at the corner of Duluth Avenue and St-Denis Street, there is no restaurant named Le Nouveau Duluth.

The man behind the gag

Deschamps has confirmed he set up the listing as a joke with one of his colleagues. The pictures were of another friend's basement.

"I received one call a month to book," Deschamps told Radio-Canada. "I said we were full for the next two months. When people would ask for the menu, I would respond with 'we make tapas!'"

Deschamps said he had to take the geolocation tag off the website after someone showed up at his friend's house. Beyond that, Deschamps says he finds sites like Tripadvisor to be problematic.

"One person destroyed a friend's spot on social media," said Deschamps. "She asked 22 people to leave a one-star review just because a wine glass was spilled on a dress."

The comedian says his point is that platforms like TripAdvisor don't work well and he intends to keep pranking them, as much to show them up as to entertain his audience.


Quebec comedian Charles Deschamps says he set up the fake restaurant listing on Tripadvisor as a gag.

'Easy to spot' fakes

Though he's never encountered a fake restaurant on Tripadvisor, cybersecurity expert Terry Cutler says fake reviews are relatively easy to spot.

"If you look at the reviews, a lot of the time they're so vague, like 'Great job,' 'Keep it up,' it has nothing to do with what the review is about," he said.

"If you start seeing nothing but five-star reviews — there's never any negative comments — that should be a sign that there's something wrong."

Cutler says it's easy for anyone to subscribe to a bot service and flood websites like Google or Tripadvisor with fake reviews and climb the ranks — to the detriment of legitimate businesses.

"So if you really have a good five-star restaurant that's in the rankings, now it's going to get deranked because this fake restaurant is taking over," he said.

Graziella Battista, owner of Restaurant Graziella in Old Montreal, says listings like Le Nouveau Duluth are "unacceptable."

"Of course it's worrisome. People who travel rely on these sites that review restaurants and any type of place that tourists visit," she said.

Battista pointed out that, not that long ago, restaurants earned their ratings from established restaurant critics like "the Lesley Chestermans, and all the Marie-Claude Lorties".

She also mentioned a government system that classified establishments with quality assessments. Now, she says, that responsibility has been handed over to online platforms where "everyone's an expert."

She says these websites need more regulation so real restaurants don't get pushed down in rankings.

Quebec's Ministry of Tourism says it has no plan to regulate online restaurant rankings or to introduce a credible ranking system for tourist attractions.

"It's a scam," Battista said of Le Nouveau Duluth. "You can tell when you go on their page and it's number one in Montreal out of 3,670 restaurants."

She says it's getting harder and harder to trust information online.

"In the features, they do everything: they deliver, they do takeout, reservations, outdoor seating, buffet, private dinings, private parking, they have a full bar, wine and beer, waterfront, live music, jazz bar, it's a drive-through, they're on the beach, they have a playground."

[Fatima99]

Peculiar sheep with horn protruding from forehead dubbed 'Ewe-nicorn'



A mystical creature that has cropped up in myths and legends for more than one thousand years, the unicorn is typically depicted as a majestic, gleaming white horse with a long, spiralling horn atop its forehead. Of course, given that nobody has actually seen such a creature in the flesh, it could look far different than the ethereal portrayals in art and literature.

Some people now believe they could well have spotted a unicorn trotting around a field in the UK, although it looks nothing like the one you'll remember from childhood storybooks, and is much more fleecy.

One puzzled individual has shared a picture of a sheep with one singular horn protruding from its forehead, jesting that they'd spotted a unicorn.

Taking to Reddit, where they go by the username u/cvsks86, the perplexed person shared a snap of the sheep in question, captioning their post 'Unicorn?'

The fluffy sheep looks much like any other you'd see bleating away in a field near you, except for the horn positioned squarely on the centre of its forehead.

It's unclear exactly where they spotted this unique-looking creature, although the picture does appear to have been taken somewhere in the UK, not some fantastical realm.

Andean bear escapes enclosure at St. Louis Zoo



Officials at the St. Louis Zoo in Missouri confirmed an Andean bear escaped from his enclosure and was on the loose for about 90 minutes.

Spokesman Billy Brennan confirmed the South American animal, named Ben, escaped from his enclosure in the River's Edge area of the zoo about 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Brennan said Ben fled into a heavily wooded area, making it difficult for the zoo's team to get a clear shot with a tranquilizer gun.

Ben was safely tranquilized and returned to his enclosure about 9:40 a.m., Brennan said.

Zoo officials determined Ben escaped the enclosure by tampering with the steel mesh around the outdoor habitat, causing a cable to break and create a small opening.

Brennan said Ben was returned to his habitat before the zoo opened to the public at 10 a.m., but some pre-school programs were canceled for the day, as students generally arrive around 8:30 a.m.

My fake tan was so bad, my date blocked me — it looked like poo



There’s nothing like a vacation glow, but one man didn’t quite achieve the sun-kissed skin he had anticipated.

Darren — or “Dazza” as he prefers to go by — decided to give himself a fake tan while on vacation in Benidorm, Spain, since he had a date planned for the next day.

Unfortunately for UK-based Dazza, his vacay antics got the best of him, and he fell asleep after applying the lotion, only to wake up with a patchy orange tan and some excess color marks on his chest and neck.

“I couldn’t believe the color I went, I tried to wash it off but I had no joy at all,” the 48-year-old told NeedToKnow.Online.

Desperate to return to a human shade, he asked the woman next door, who had also been fake tanning, how to wash it off.

To make matters worse, he shared his tanning failure with his date, and she promptly blocked him.

Dazza posted about his epic fail on TikTok, where he regularly reveals his getaway antics and love of vacationing with his friend Graham, who had also documented the fail.

Followers were in hysterics over his bronzed faux pas, offering him advice on how to help the situation.

“Baking soda will get it off. Make it into a paste with oil or water,” one suggested.

“Get coffee granules from a barista!!” added another.

Others couldn’t help but compare it to a bodily function.

“It looks like poo lol,” one user eloquently wrote.

The tanned TikToker updated his followers the next day, showing how the dark brown had progressed to a more orange color.

Although he was embarrassed at first about the mishap, he decided to embrace it and not let it ruin his time away in Spain.

“My mate said there was no point in staying in and hiding so we decided to go out,” he said. “But because of some of my viral videos from Benidorm, I have a lot of people wanting pictures with me.”

After an eventful week, Dazza said he had learned a lesson from the experience.

“I’d never use that [fake tan] stuff again,” he declared.

https://nypost.com/2023/02/08/my-fake-tan-was-so-bad-my-date-blocked-me/

[PennySerenade]

Today in marketing stunts that hinge on reaction from users of crisis-plagued public transit systems, we have Toronto-based comedian and podcaster Ben Bankas with some 20 blow-up dolls stationed across the TTC's Yonge-University subway line.

"As a public humour project for the good of Toronto, we ask the question: You know what is ridiculous? The TTC cannot keep our transit system safe," said a PR rep for the comic in a press release issued Monday afternoon.

"We all deserve a safe transit system and maybe permission to laugh during this difficult and stressful time for daily TTC riders."



While true that everyone deserves safety in public and could benefit from some humour, some might argue that it's crass to put nearly two-dozen sex dolls on Toronto public transit vehicles after several weeks of high-profile assaults.

Bankas (and presumably those who share his sense of humour) saw the stunt as a welcome distraction — albeit one also meant to promote the comic's forthcoming live shows.

According to his public relations team, Bankas "came up with the idea of providing a safety doll who you can hug, talk to or simply smile at on the subway today " to make people laugh and encourage a spirit of love.

"We need protection, and I hope that our dolls will give a message to the TTC to send us some safety love in time for Valentine's Day," said the comic in his release, which also cites a recent Nanos poll about lagging public transit safety perceptions in Canada.

Meanwhile, the TTC, City of Toronto, and Toronto Police Service continue to express acute awareness of the need for increased safety on public transit, devoting resources to the problem at breakneck speeds atypical of most government-funded agencies.

We were tipped off in advance this morning that TTC riders might be surprised by some "blow-up dolls" — as in the cheap, cheesy inflatable props best-associated with bachelor parties — during the afternoon commute on Monday.

The "safety dolls" are said to have boarded various subway trains from Dupont Station between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Monday.

It was the aftermath of this prank that really caught the attention of people online, however, when commuters started noticing and posting photos of dolls left behind in various states of destruction.



As the commute progressed on Monday evening, funny photos of the abandoned sex dolls started popping up on online; one of them ensnared by an escalator at Dupont, one mushed into the subway well at Yorkdale Station... more, I'm certain, that didn't get captured on film but no doubt gave commuters a chuckle during an otherwise pretty intense time to be using public transit.

However you take the stunt, it's hard not to smile at the strange sight of a deflated blow-up doll floating aimlessly around a TTC station.

[goldie0608]

Rare Hissing Mushroom Called 'Devil's Cigar' Spotted in Texas Park: 'It Tends to Puzzle Scientists'

"The rare and rather unique, star-shaped fungus is highly selective about where it grows," according to a post on a Facebook page for Inks Lake State Park



The "Devil's Cigar," a distinctive star-shaped mushroom that can make a "hissing" noise, has been spotted in Texas.

Texas Parks and Wildlife announced the discovery in a Facebook post over the weekend, which included pictures of the fungus — known as Chorioactis geaster — that was located along a trail in Inks Lake State Park.

"The rare and rather unique, star-shaped fungus is highly selective about where it grows, mostly attaching to decaying cedar elm stumps in the central and northern parts of Texas," the agency wrote on the park's page.

"Appearing in late fall, it emerges as a dark brown, fuzzy capsule 3-4 inches in length inspiring another of its nicknames, the 'Devil's Cigar,'" reads the post.

When the mushroom unfurls, according to the post, it releases a "strange hissing noise" and a cloud of spores.

PEOPLE's call to Texas Parks and Wildlife to request a comment was not immediately returned.

Texas designated the mushroom, also nicknamed the "Texas Star," as its state mushroom in July 2021, making it one of only three states in the U.S. to have a designated state mushroom, along with Minnesota and Oregon, per CBS News.

Harold W. Keller, a resident research associate at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, told the outlet that the star-shaped appearance of the mature mushroom made it a natural fit for an official designation in the Lone Star State.

The mushroom has also been spotted in Oklahoma and in Japan, CBS News reports. The fungus was first found in Austin in 1893 and is a known inhabitant of the River Legacy Park in Arlington, Texas, according to the outlet.

"The distribution of the 'Texas Star' tends to puzzle scientists," the park said on Facebook, which noted the "the odd sighting around Kyushu, Japan."

[Misstee]

California dog's 7-inch eyelash earns Guinness World Record
By Ben Hooper




A California newfypoo was awarded the Guinness World Record for longest eyelash on a dog when her longest lash was measured at 7 inches long. Photo courtesy of Guinness World Records

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A California couple's dog is now a Guinness World Record holder after her longest eyelash was measured at 7 inches long.

Coco, owned by Rachelle Parks and Michael Babich, had her eyelash measured three times by a veterinarian, who confirmed the lash was grown naturally.

The newfypoo, a mix of a Newfoundland and a poodle, was awarded the record after her 7-inch lash was confirmed by GWR to be longer than the 6.69-inch eyelash grown by an Australian labradoodle named Ranmura, who was awarded the record in 2014.

"When we go out she gets a lot of attention, not just because of her lashes but also her size -- she's a big girl," Parks said. "People are amazed at her lashes. A few years ago they were like 5 1/2 inches long and when I checked on Guinness World Records the current world record was longer.

"Late last year I checked again and they had grown a lot and then I realized that she would break the record, so I applied," Parks said.

Parks said she always instructs Coco's groomer not to trim the canine's lashes.

[lush]

Man Jailed for Stealing Two Monkeys from Dallas Zoo — Says He’ll Do It Again
February 8, 2023*

• Dude, just go to a pound and adopt a cat. It’s legal and you’ll help a homeless kitty.

For the past few weeks, the Dallas Zoo in Texas has been struggling with a mysterious invader. An unknown intruder has cut enclosures open, allowed a leopard to escape its habitat, and reportedly caused the death of a vulture.

But things came to a head on January 30 when two tamarind monkeys were stolen from the zoo. At that point, it became clear that someone was after the zoo’s animals.

Fortunately, the monkeys survived their ordeal. The cops found the animals in a dilapidated church community house after a tip from neighbors.

Based on the tip-off, they’ve now arrested and jailed Davion Irvin, 24. He’s facing six charges of animal cruelty, in addition to a burglary charge.

As to his motive, Irvin has simply said that he “loves animals.” It also seems that he has no intention to stop collecting animals.

The police got on Irvin’s trail after he was spotted near the Dallas World Aquarium, potentially scoping out his next target. He has also bluntly told the cops that if he’s released, he’ll keep stealing animals.

We can all probably agree that while it’s okay to be an animal lover, this isn’t the way anyone should go about it.


“Don’t be too hard on the guy. I get it; who wouldn’t want to stroke my glorious ‘stache?”


Strange Incidents

The first strange incident at the Dallas Zoo happened on January 13. Someone cut open the habitat of Nova, the zoo’s famous clouded leopard.

Due to the cut in the fence, Nova managed to sneak out of her enclosure. She was found unharmed some hours later and returned to her home, where she has reportedly settled back into her normal routine.

Only a short time later, zoo staff discovered a similar hole in the enclosure housing the zoo’s langur monkeys. However, they didn’t seem keen on exploring the outside world and all monkeys were still in their habitat.

Then, on the weekend of January 20-22, the lappet-faced vulture Pin died in his enclosure. An autopsy revealed that he had sustained a “wound” and reportedly didn’t die from “natural causes.”

The zoo’s troubles continued on January 30. Two of their tamarin monkeys — Bella and Finn — disappeared.

Just as before, the monkeys’ enclosure had clearly been cut open with a tool. It was rather clear that someone had stolen the creatures.


Tipped Off

Luckily, Bella and Finn weren’t gone for long. On the evening of January 31, the police received a tip that someone may have seen the monkeys.

Tonya Thomas, the daughter of the pastor of the Family Center Church of God in Christ in Lancaster, told the police that the monkeys may be inside the church’s community house. The building is in poor condition and has been boarded up to await renovations.

According to Thomas, there had been unusual activity at the community house. The door, which was supposed to remain locked, had been open.

When the police got to the house, there was nobody home. Well, there was a small zoo’s worth of animals.

In addition to the two tamarin monkeys, the cops found cats, chickens, pigeons, and other birds in the house. There were also several dead goldfish floating upside down.

Inside were also blankets and empty food cans, and the floor was covered in animal droppings. Although there was no heat, someone had clearly been staying there with the animals.




‘I’ll Do It Again’

The police began to suspect that Irvin may have something to do with the Dallas Zoo’s plight after talking to zoo staff. According to them, Irvin had been at the zoo several times before the monkeys’ disappearance and asked bizarrely specific questions about the animals whose enclosures had been vandalized.

When the cops showed Thomas and her family a picture of Irvin, they recognized him as someone who had attended their church. Putting one and one together, the police started thinking that Irvin may be their animal lover.

Irvin was arrested after a witness spotted him in the vicinity of the Dallas World Aquarium. Under arrest, he confessed to being behind many of the incidents at the zoo — although he’s not at the time connected to the death of the vulture.

He was the one who cut Nova’s enclosure, allowing the leopard to escape. Irvin said he had planned to take the animal, but only managed to “pet it” before she jumped to a high spot he couldn’t reach.

He also confessed to stealing Bella and Finn. On the night of January 29, he jumped over the zoo’s fence and proceeded to the monkeys’ enclosure, which had no security cameras.

Irvin cut a hole in the mesh fence of the monkey habitat, grabbed the monkeys, and took the local DART train to the vacant community house.

The man is also suspected of being connected to a number of burglaries at the Dallas Zoo and in Lancaster. The cops suspect he’s involved in several pet supply thefts.

And he doesn’t plan to stop. Irvin said that if he’s let go, he’ll only steal more animals.

He’s being held in the Dallas County Jail on a bail of $25,000.