[HogwartsExpress]

82-year-old Japanese man arrested for driving without license, says he had one 60 years ago

Maybe he just hadn’t had enough time to get a new one yet.


On Monday morning, at about 11:45 a.m., an officer from the Hyogo Prefectural Police was out on patrol in the town of Shiso. While driving around the city’s Yamazakicho neighborhood, he spotted a motorist driving a kei car, Japan’s class of ultra-compact cars, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

The officer pulled the car over, and the driver identified himself as Toshiyuki Ishibashi, a resident of Himeji. But while it’s standard procedure for the police to ask to see your driver’s license during a traffic stop, Ishibashi was unable to show his, since he doesn’t have a license. He used to have one, though, as he told the officer “My license was revoked around the time I was 20, and I haven’t gotten a new one since.”

It might seem strange that Ishibashi can’t remember something as significant as when his license was taken away. But hey, you have to give the guy some slack for not remembering all the nitty gritty details, since it happened around 60 years ago.

Yes, Ishibashi is now 82 years old, and has apparently been driving around license-less for the past six decades. When the officer who pulled Ishibashi’s car over learned that he was operating it on public roads without a license, he placed the octogenarian scofflaw under arrest on the spot.

While what Ishibashi did was unquestionably illegal, it’s hard to say how much of a danger he actually really posed to others. On one hand, his license having been revoked suggests that, back when he had a license, he drove in a very reckless manner. On the other hand, the fact that we’re just finding out now about his lack of license suggests that in the 60-someodd years since his license was revoked, he’s been driving carefully enough that he seemingly hasn’t gotten a single ticket or been in an accident in all the time since he legally lost his driving privileges.

Still, operating a vehicle on public streets is too potentially dangerous an activity for it to be allowed without official testing and certification. So remember, kids, and senior citizens too: Getting a driver’s license in Japan is a pain, but it’s just something you’ve got to suck up and do. And if you really can’t be bothered to get yours, at least wear a seat belt.

Source: https://soranews24.com/2023/04/12/82-ye ... years-ago/

[PennySerenade]

This woman pledged to eat a poutine hot dog for every Blue Jays home run – then they hit a record



A Toronto woman made a bold pledge before the Blue Jays’ opener on Tuesday night.

“For every Jays HR [Home Run] tonight I’ll eat a poutine hot dog,” Jordan Cicchelli, a content producer at TSN’s Bardown, declared in a tweet ahead of attending the ball game at the renovated Rogers Centre.



The inspiration for the culinary challenge sprouted from Cicchelli’s travels with the team to Arizona.

There, she chronicled drinking a pina colada out of a baseball bat and eating macaroni out of a baseball helmet.

“Food I guess became my thing heading into the baseball season,” she told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday. “Whatever it takes to get people into it.”

When the Rogers Centre released their new menu for the baseball season a couple weeks ago, Cicchelli said she would eat as many poutine hot dogs as she could, before factoring in that she doesn’t eat meat.

As a remedy, she decided to push forward with the pledge and make her own version of the dish.



In the fourth inning, Matt Chapman homered and as promised, Cicchelli got in line for a veggie dog and poutine. With only one left by the time she reached the front, she started chowing down right at the concession stand.

It wasn’t long before Kevin Kiermairer and George Springer slammed back-to-back homers in the fifth, followed by homers by Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk in the eighth.

“The Blue Jays just set the franchise record for most HRs in a home opener, you have got to be kidding me,” Cicchelli tweeted, paired with a video of her face in utter disbelief. “You can’t make this up,” she said, shaking her head.

By then, with only one poutine dog digested, Cicchelli said she was “zonked” and “for the sake of [her] organs” donated $100 to Jays Care Foundation instead.

Next time, Cicchelli is pitching a more achievable challenge, like Oreo ice cream sandwiches or ice cream in a helmet for every home run.

“I don’t know if I’m crazy for saying I would totally do it again,” she said.

[Misstee]

Maine museum offers $25,000 reward for recovery of crashed meteorite
By Ben Hooper


Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter

April 13 (UPI) -- A Maine museum is offering a $25,000 reward for the retrieval of meteorite fragments that made landfall near the Canadian border.

The Maine Mineral & Gem Museum said in a Facebook post that the fireball was visible in the April 8 daytime sky over Washington County, Maine, and Doppler radar from NASA indicated pieces of the space rock crashed to earth near Calais, which is close to the border with Canada.

The museum is offering a $25,000 reward for the first person who finds and turns over a meteorite fragment weighing at least 2.2 pounds.

Darryl Pitt, head of the meteorite division at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, said the museum is also willing to offer smaller amounts of cash for any size piece of the space rock.

"Finding meteorites in woods of Maine. It's not the simplest of the environments," Pitt told CNN. "It's a sparsely populated area but not as sparsely populated as where most meteorites fall -- the ocean."

Pitt said hundreds of meteorites fall to earth each year, but only eight to 10 of the space rocks are recovered by researchers annually.

He said the meteorite pieces would be distinguishable from normal rocks due to having blackened exteriors from entering the atmosphere.

[goldie0608]

Waitress fired for mixing her own blood into cocktails: ‘Job terrorism’



This isn’t your typical Bloody Mary.

A waitress has been fired from a restaurant in Japan after allegedly creating a cocktail with her own blood at the request of a paying customer.

Mondaiji Con Cafe Daku, which loosely translates to Problem Child Dark Cafe, tweeted the disturbing news earlier this month. Management publicly apologized, calling the server’s actions “absolutely not acceptable.”

The anonymous employee allegedly infused her blood into the menu staple, dubbed orikaku, which is usually made with fruit or syrups.

According to a previously reported translation, restaurant management, who likened the server’s actions to “job terrorism,” closed down the business for a day to replace all of the contaminated glasses and dump any potentially tainted bottles of alcohol.

The restaurant owner tweeted their own apology on April 2, writing in part, “Once again, I am very sorry to have caused you trouble.”

Waitstaff dress in gothic fashion, wearing dark clothes and makeup – signals of “mentally unstable” or “problematic” women, according to the restaurant – as part of the gimmick of Mondaiji, which bills itself as an all-you-can-drink establishment for a meager $19 cover (or 2,500 yen).

The cafe, which opened last month, is located in the city of Sapporo, in Hokkaido, the Straits Times reported.

“Drinking the blood of other people is an extremely dangerous act,” Dr. Zento Kitao told Japanese news site Flash, according to the Straits Times.

“Cases of people getting infected from drinking another person’s blood are rare, but major diseases can be transmitted through blood, including HIV, hepatitis C, hepatitis B and syphilis,” he added. “If there are wounds in the mouth, it is easy to be infected by blood transmissions.”

In a clinical setting, he noted, medical professionals take extra precautions and wear eye and face guards when handling bodily fluids such as blood. Kitao then publicly urged both the waitress and customers who ingested her blood to be tested for all kinds of blood-borne diseases.

The culinary-based case bares resemblance to the so-called “sushi terrorism” of late, in which vandals purposefully contaminate the delicacy as it makes the rounds through an establishment on a conveyor belt. Last month, the delinquent behavior resulted in the arrest of three people.

[lush]

Telescope ‘Imaging Error’ Turns Out to Be a Bizarre Black Hole Flying Through Space
April 13, 2023*

• Anything can happen when space stuff bigger than we can conceive smashes together.

Almost every photo has an error in it. Whether it’s due to a scratched lens, light refraction, or poor settings, you can usually find some kind of an artifact or oddity in the picture.

When astronomers noticed a weird white line on an image from the Hubble space telescope, that’s just what they thought it was. An imaging error, probably caused by radiation or something.

They were wrong.

What they’d found was a never-before-seen cosmic phenomenon. A galaxy had spat out
a supermassive black hole and sent it hurtling through space.

And that white line? That’s the trail of newly formed stars the black hole is giving birth to in its wake.


Photos courtesy of NASA, Pieter van Dokkum (Yale), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI)


‘We Have a Little Streak’

Pieter van Dokkum, a professor of physics and astronomy at Yale University, is the lead author of the study detailing the new discovery. He called finding the black hole “pure serendipity.”

That means a stroke of luck. We’re just saying because we had to look it up.

Van Dokkum wasn’t looking for black holes when he noticed the oddity in the Hubble pictures. He was simply trying to find good old globular star clusters in a nearby dwarf galaxy — as you do.

“I was just scanning through the Hubble image and then I noticed that we have a little streak,” van Dokkum said in a NASA statement.

He didn’t think much of it. Van Dokkum figured it was just a cosmic ray hitting the camera, producing an artifact on the lens.

That kind of thing happens often with space pictures. That’s why NASA has a system to eliminate these kinds of artifacts from telescope photos.

But to van Dokkum’s surprise, that white line was still in the picture even after removing cosmic rays.

“It didn’t look like anything we’ve seen before,” he said.

Now curious, van Dokkum did some follow-up imaging using the W. M. Keck Observatories’ telescope in Hawaii.

“We found that the line and [a nearby] galaxy are connected,” van Dokkum told LiveScience. Further study of the trail produced a reaction straight out of 2001: Space Odyssey.

My god, it’s full of stars!

“We think we’re seeing a wake behind the black hole where the gas cools and is able to form stars. So, we’re looking at star formation trailing the black hole,” explained van Dokkum.

Based on all available evidence, the galaxy the star trail comes from spat out the black hole.




It Takes Three to Space Tango

Deservedly, van Dokkum calls the finding “quite astonishing.” But how does something this unusual happen?

Van Dokkum and his team suspect that the whole thing is a result of a collision between three galaxies and black holes. Initially, the first two black hole-equipped galaxies smashed together, causing the holes to start running circles around each other.

Then, when the third galaxy plummeted into the mix, things got out of hand. Van Dokkum suspects the new black hole essentially booted one of the original due out into space, taking its place in the cosmic dance.

Yet, the new dancers didn’t necessarily escape unscathed. There are features on the other side of the galaxy that suggest the conjoined black holes may have taken off in the opposite direction.

But back to the lone wanderer. Unlike what you might think, it’s not actually destroying planets and stars ahead of him.

Instead, it’s hurtling through a fortunately empty region of space where there’s nothing but gas. The immense gravity of the black hole is condensing the gas into new stars that it leaves behind as it passes.

And it’s passing fast. The black hole is moving at a speed that would allow it to get from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes.

As such, it’s left a long line of stars behind it. The starry trail is twice as wide as the Milky Way — you know, our home galaxy.


Implications: Unpleasant

But what does this all mean, in the end? Van Dokkum isn’t quite sure yet, as his team hasn’t yet conclusively proven what we’re actually looking at.

But if their theory is true, this is the first time we’ve ever seen anything like it.

“If confirmed, it would be the first time that we have clear evidence that supermassive black holes can escape from galaxies,” said van Dokkum.

To physicists, astronomers, and other space nerds, that’s exciting news. The discovery would confirm a 50-year-old theory and allow scientists to look for similar phenomena elsewhere.

But what about us average Joes and Joleens? Well, we don’t know about you, but we’re more than a bit terrified.

If galaxies can spit out black holes, that means this is probably not the first time it’s happened. How many ginormous black holes are there, plowing their way through the universe?

And how many of them are aimed directly at us?

[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
FRIDAY APRIL 14
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

Man shocked by massive spider hiding in banana: ‘Fright of my life’



One man’s trip to the grocery store turned out really creepy – literally.

While opening up a bunch of bananas he bought from UK grocery store Tesco, Craig Harrison, 35, noticed a giant female spider in the bag — along with her egg sac that could’ve contained up to 200 babies.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a shock horror reaction like it before. I was completely gobsmacked to discover it,” Harrison told Caters, adding it “gave me the fright of my life.”

And the spider wasn’t just huge — it was also venomous, too.

Known as the Huntsman spider, it is the largest arachnid in the world and can be pretty painful — though not deadly — if it bites you due to its venom, according to Live Science.

This particular kind of spider can grow to have up to a 1-foot-long leg span.

“I don’t consider myself to have a spider phobia, generally,” Harrison admitted. “This one was in a completely different league though!”

He explained that when he grabbed the bag of bananas in the store, he was clueless that there was a spider with eggs nestled in it.

“I had no idea the package I picked up in store had a Huntsman spider hidden inside. The spider had been nestled between the bananas, out of sight, clutching onto its egg sac,” Harrison said.

Harrison, who works in IT, said that he only noticed the creepy crawler after he saw the bag move and the Huntsman escaping from it.

When he realized the horror that he was seeing, Harrison scooped up the creature and sealed it in a Tupperware container, sending it off to the supermarket’s pest control service.

Upon receiving the spider, the supermarket confirmed that the bag of bananas had come from the Dominican Republic, more than 4,000 miles away from Windsor, the town in England where Harrison lives.

There was no word on the fate of the spider or its unborn offspring.

Now, Harrison is urging others to make sure they double-check what’s in their pre-packaged produce.

“I encourage others to be vigilant when buying pre-packaged fruit and vegetables — it’s not impossible for creatures to work their way into our homes in this way,” he said.

He revealed that Tesco has offered him £100 — about $125US — in return for the hair-raising ordeal, but he hasn’t decided whether he’s going to accept the cash yet.

“I’ll be checking all my pre-packaged fruit from now on, or preferably buy loose goods,” Harrison declared.

But the worst part of it all?

Harrison ate the banana.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/13/man-shock ... f-my-life/

[ozswede]

Aldi bosses to run London Marathon as Cuthbert the Caterpillar

Three senior leaders at Aldi are to run the London Marathon dressed as the discounter’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake.

Aldi UK MD Graham Hetherington and group MDs Dan Ronald and Oliver King are set to take on the 26.2-mile course in the three-person costume.

The three bosses are aiming to raise £100,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust by tackling the event dressed as what Aldi described as “the nation’s favourite caterpillar cake”.


From left: Graham Hetherington, Dan Ronald and Oliver King

Cuthbert the Caterpillar was at the centre of a legal battle in 2021 when M&S launched a High Court trademark infringement claim against Aldi, arguing the cake was too similar to its own Colin the Caterpillar. The two retailers reached a confidential out of court agreement in November that year.

“Seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer in the UK every day and Teenage Cancer Trust works tirelessly to make sure they don’t face it alone,” said Ronald.

“All the highly trained expert staff and specialist cancer units they provide in NHS hospitals across the UK need our support and we want to raise both money and awareness for this vital cause.”

King said: “There is no better way to show our support for this fantastic charity than by proving that Cuthbert, everyone’s favourite caterpillar cake, can take on one of the world’s most famous marathons.

“But, running a marathon attached to each other is going to be really hard so we’ll certainly be ‘Colin’ on everyone’s support as we crawl to the line.”

Those interested in donating should visit Aldi’s Just Giving page.

Aldi trolled M&S on social media over its lawsuit in 2021, with stunts such as adverting Cuthbert’s return to sale on billboard posters on vans parked outside M&S stores. Cuthbert also got a cameo role in Aldi’s 2021 Christmas ad, being led away by police in cuffs in the background of a scene.

However, Aldi hasn’t always had things its own way in intellectual property disputes with M&S. In February this year, the High Court ruled Aldi’s Infusionist gin liqueur amounted to an infringement of protected designs for M&S’s Light Up gin liqueur range.

[prokroustis]

REMAINS FROM THE CREW OF THE WARSHIP VASA IDENTIFIED AS A WOMAN



The investigation of human remains found on the warship Vasa, initially identified the skeleton labelled as “G” as that of a man. However, recent research reveals that the skeleton actually belonged to a woman.
The Vasa was a Swedish warship, commissioned by the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, as part of his military expansion during the war with Poland-Lithuania (1621-1629).

It was built at the navy yard in Stockholm between 1626 and 1627 and was adorned with lavish decorations and bronze cannons, making the ship one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world at the time.

On the 10th of August 1628, the ship set sail on her maiden voyage, however, the ship was dangerously unstable with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull, causing the ship to sink killing thirty of her crew.

Following the raising of the ship in 1961, it was the scene of a comprehensive archaeological excavation, in which numerous human bones were found on board and examined.

“Through an osteological analysis it has been possible to discover a great deal about these people, such as their age, height and medical history. Osteologists recently suspected that G could be female, on the basis of the pelvis. DNA analysis can reveal even more”, says Dr Fred Hocker, director of research at the Vasa Museum, in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Vasa Museum has been partnering with the Department of Immunology, Genetics, and Pathology at Uppsala University in Sweden since 2004, to conduct a comprehensive study of all the remains discovered on the Vasa ship.

“For us, it is both interesting and challenging to study the skeletons from Vasa. It is very difficult to extract DNA from bone which has been on the bottom of the sea for 333 years, but not impossible”, said Marie Allen, professor of forensic genetics.

“Already some years ago we had indications that skeleton G was not a man but a woman. Simply put, we found no Y-chromosomes in G’s genetic material. But we could not be certain and wanted to confirm the result”, added Allen.

Thanks to an interlaboratory study conducted with Dr. Kimberly Andreaggi from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFMES-AFDIL), the team have devised a novel testing technique for the examination of numerous genetic variations.

“We took new samples from bones for which we had specific questions. AFMES-AFDIL has now analysed the samples, and we have been able to confirm that G was a woman, thanks to the new test”, says Marie Allen.

Marie Allen and Kimberly Andreaggi view the examination of the Vasa skeletons as an opportunity to advance their forensic techniques, which can subsequently be applied to analyse DNA in criminal inquiries or to identify deceased military personnel.

Dr. Anna Maria Forssberg, historian and researcher at the museum, explains: “We want to come as close to these people as we can. We have known that there were women on board Vasa when it sank, and now we have received confirmation that they are among the remains. I am currently researching the wives of seamen, so for me this is especially exciting, since they are often forgotten even though they played an important role for the navy“.

Additional findings are anticipated soon from the fresh samples. Marie Allen and Kimberly Andreaggi will be able to provide insights into the physical appearance of the individuals, such as the colour of their hair and eyes, and potentially even their familial origins.

“Today we can extract much more information from historic DNA than we could earlier and methods are being continuously refined. We can say if a person was predisposed to certain illnesses, or even very small details, such as if they had freckles and wet or dry ear wax”, says Marie Allen.

The Vasa Museum’s researchers are currently studying the skeletons from several perspectives, including the personal possessions found with them. Eventually the results will be presented in an exhibition at the museum and a book about the people who died on board Vasa.

[goldie0608]

My mom’s friend wore a custom-made white gown to my wedding: ‘Clown’



They said yes to the dress.

A bitter bride took to the “Wedding Shaming” Reddit community this week, claiming that her mom’s friend showed up to her wedding in a custom-made, white dress that looked similar to hers.

She posted a photo that shows a bride in a floral, flowing, v-neck wedding dress as she stands next to her groom.

Standing on the other side is a woman also in a floral white dress — but this one has long sleeves and a more modest cut.

Her look was completed with a dramatic red hat, a black Lady Dior bag and peep-toe heels. Everyone’s face is covered by an emoji in the photos shared to Reddit — with the party pooper wearing the poop emoji for the big day.

The newlywed revealed in the comments section of the post that she had specifically asked her guests not to wear white. She added that in her culture, red is also a “frowned-upon” color to don for a wedding.

“This clown did both,” she wrote.

The Redditor also claimed the gauche, unidentified wedding guest “kept gravitating towards the camera,” hamming it up for a photo every chance she got — including with the bride’s parents.

The bride said the woman asked her twice for the photos, but in response, she simply told her that she had not received them.

In the comments section, many users slammed the mom’s friend, with one person labeling her an “overdressed Mormon.”

“Besides the color she didn’t do herself any favors with the style, she looks like an overdressed Mormon,” the commenter wrote. “You on the other hand look stunning.”

Another snarked, “Why does it look like this guest just grabbed random accessories on the way out the door? Nothing matches, and that bag is hideous.”

“That’s straight up a (out of fashion) wedding dress,” someone else typed. “There’s no way she didn’t know what she was doing. I don’t understand what goes through these people’s heads.”

One person chimed in, “She can afford to buy a Dior bag, but clearly she can’t afford any class.”

As unlucky as this bride may have been, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened — in February, TikToker Jasmine Hopper went viral for claiming her own “toxic” mother-in-law wore a white gown to her wedding.

She further alleged the mother-in-law “gaslit” her by saying the dress was cream with gold sequins — not white.

And last year, an Australian woman caught some heat for wearing a white, low-cut dress to her friend’s wedding.

[HogwartsExpress]

Lurpak security shock: TikTok video stuns shoppers after nets placed over tubs of butter

A video of tubs of butter in security nets was posted on TikTok and has attracted millions of views and thousands of comments.



A shopper's video of tubs of "locked-up" Lurpak butter has been watched millions of times on social media.

The 600g tubs of butter were priced at £5.35 at the supermarket where the video was shot - apparently an Aldi store.

In the footage, the tubs are wrapped in a thin black string net, with a black security tag placed on the end of it.

Supermarkets across the UK have previously added tags to basic food items such as cheese and milk - as the cost of living crisis saw price hikes across the country.

But the extra security measures are surreal for shoppers seeing the rising cost of goods.

The video, which was posted on TikTok, has so far attracted almost eight million views, with many users sharing their shock and confusion at the security measures in the comments underneath the clip.

One user commented: "I mean £5 for a bit of salted and shaken milk is a bit nuts."

While another user was baffled by the rising price and security measures: "They can afford the extra protection cost but can't reduce the price."

source: https://news.sky.com/story/lurpak-secur ... r-12852598

Escaped emu leads police on 20-mile chase through Tennessee town



An escaped emu led Tennessee police on a chase through town -- and the bird escaped again the following day.

Harry McKinney, whose family keeps two emus, MeeMoo and MeeMee, at their Roane County home, said MeeMoo was spooked by logging near the home on Wednesday and jumped over the property's 7-foot fence.

McKinney turned to social media for help, and Harriman residents soon started sending him videos of the large Australian bird taking a tour of the town -- with police in hot pursuit.

Steven McDaniel posted a video to YouTube showing MeeMoo strutting down the middle of a road with three Harriman police cars following close behind. He estimated the slow-speed chase was moving at about 20 mph.

McKinney said police managed to surround MeeMoo near the city's downtown, and he rushed to the scene to bring the flightless bird home. He said police told him they clocked MeeMoo running at a top speed of 40 mph during the 20-mile chase.

McKinney said the saga appeared to be at the end, but MeeMoo managed to jump over the fence again Thursday morning, despite the height being increased. He said his wife was able to capture MeeMoo after about an hour.

The couple said the height of the fences on their property has now been increased to 9 feet to help curb MeeMoo's wanderlust.

[Fatima99]

Man so fed up with not getting train seat he carries sofa around to sit on



We've all been there – you're knackered after a long day at work, you squeeze onto a packed train on your commute home and there are no vacant seats. It's going to be a long journey home.

Apart from looking really tired and hoping someone will offer you a seat, there isn't much to do – but one man has taken it a step further.

Tired of never having a seat on his commute home, one man from China decided to fix the problem by bringing his own sofa to sit on.

The man was spotted carrying a single seater sofa around like a backpack while going into a train station, past staff who seemingly don't bat an eyelid.





He could then be seen chilling on the sofa inside the Hangzhou Metro Line 2 in a video posted online, which went quickly viral on Chinese social media platforms.

Speaking to local media, he said he had reached out to a designer to create the sofa, which had straps at the back so he could carry it around.

The young man explained he had the idea of creating a portable chair because he worked in an office and regularly found it hard to get a seat on his way home.

The man, and his friends, decided to create the sofa and record a video about the practical invention.

Posting several photos of how to enjoy the unorthodox invention, the man showed how he could comfortably sit inside the train while other passengers stood around him, as well as sitting on the platform waiting for the train to arrive.



According to Tianmu News, the man had asked staff permission to carry his large sofa backpack around, which is why he was able to bring it past security.

He also had to make sure to travel during off-peak hours to avoid inconveniencing other commuters.

According to the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau, commuters can only carry items of up to 30kg.

[PennySerenade]

Snoopy is real! Meet Bayley, the cartoon dog’s doppelganger



The Instagram account for a certain Mini Sheepadoodle named Bayley is going viral, thanks to the adorable black-and-white pooch’s astounding and uncanny resemblance to Snoopy, the canine mascot for the Peanuts cartoon troupe.

Bayley, who according to the pup’s Instagram page will be two years old next month, sports the same oblong face as Snoopy, along with the exact same color distribution – a white face and muzzle, adorable round black nose and furry, floppy black ears.

The pooch is also surprisingly photogenic, posing calmly for perfect photos and video throughout the pet-centric social media page.

While Snoopy is known to be a beagle, Bayley’s breed of Mini Sheepadoodle – the result of crossing an Old English Sheepdog with a Miniature Poodle – has resulted in a near carbon copy of the drawn animal, in real life.

Snoopy is the famously silent dog that originated in the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz in October of 1950. He also appeared in various “Peanuts” television specials, and has been a fixture as a giant balloon in New York City’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Snoopy is showing up elsewhere in the news on Wednesday, as a t-shirt sporting his personage is gaining in popularity as part of a nationwide American Red Cross-led effort to drive up blood donations.

On Tuesday, on the occasion of National Pet Day, Bayley’s owner posted yet another irresistible snippet of the gorgeous animal, along with the caption, “Mom says I am the cutest pet she has ever seen but to be fair, I am her first and the only furbaby.”

[Misstee]

Spanish athlete emerges from cave after 500 days underground
By Ben Hooper
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April 14 (UPI) -- A Spanish extreme athlete emerged from a cave in Grenada after spending 500 solitary days 230 feet underground.

Beatriz Flamini, 50, entered the cave on Nov. 21, 2021, with an aim to learn about the effects of solitude and deprivation on the human mind and body.

Flamini, who was monitored from afar by a team of scientists from the universities of Almeria, Granada and Murcia, said she lost count of the days after about two months, and thought only 160-170 days had elapsed when she reached the project's goal of 500 days.

The athlete said she passed the time during her stay in cave by reading, writing, drawing, exercising and knitting.

"For me at least, as an elite extreme sportswoman, the most important thing is being very clear and consistent about what you think and what you feel and what you say," Flamini told a news conference after exiting the cave. "It's true that there were some difficult moments, but there were also some very beautiful moments -- and I had both as I lived up to my commitment to living in a cave for 500 days."

Flamini's support team said she read 60 books during her 500 days in the cave. Two cameras documented her time underground for an upcoming documentary about the project.

The athlete's time in the cave is believed to be a new world record for the longest time spent alone in a cave, but it was unclear whether Guinness World Records has a category for the achievement.