King Charles Offers Surprise Tribute to Tina Turner
Band performs 'The Best' during changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace



If you can't get enough of the tributes honoring Tina Turner, who died at age 83 after a long illness, here's one more, courtesy of King Charles III. Each day, visitors outside London's Buckingham Palace are treated to the changing of the guard, a 45-minute ceremony in which one group of sentries makes way for the next. On Friday, things were a little different, per USA Today: As the switch got underway, the Band of the Welsh Guards performed Turner's 1989 hit "The Best," in a clip now widely seen from Force News. The band had help with the cheerful tune from the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards Corps of Drums.

The Independent notes that King Charles and Turner first met more than 35 years ago, when she performed during the Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert at London's Wembley Stadium. That wasn't Turner's only connection to the British royals: Prince William has fond memories of Turner in general, and "The Best" specifically, which he says his mother, the late Princess Diana, would play in the car while driving him and his brother, Prince Harry, to school. "Sitting in the back seat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment," William recalled in a 2021 Apple interview, adding he still "secretly" loves the song. "When I listen to it now, it takes me back to those car rides and brings back lots of memories of my mother."

[goldie0608]

Curious Orangutan at Louisville Zoo Asks to Look at Visitor's Newborn Baby

The Kentucky zoo said the orangutan, named Amber, is known for her "playful personality" and often points out things about visitors



An orangutan at the Louisville Zoo went viral after sharing a special moment with a newborn baby.

The orangutan, who social media users later identified as 35-year-old Amber, was videotaped gesturing at a three-month-old baby through the glass of her zoo exhibit.

"Oh, she wants [to see] the baby? There's the baby," someone can be heard saying in the video as the child's mother brings the infant closer to the glass divider between the primate and the zoo visitors.

In the clip, Amber moves closer to the glass to look at the baby, who is wearing a gray onesie, and gives the child a sweet smile as she gazes at them. The moment won over the hearts of bystanders, who murmured their "awws."

The baby's mother told USA Today that the orangutan shared another beautiful moment with the child when she kissed the glass twice when the child was brought nearby.

This isn't the first time Amber has asked to see a little visitor at the zoo more closely. In a separate TikTok posted by Shalena Hittle earlier this month, the curious orangutan points at Hittle's newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket.

In the video, Hittle's husband brings the sleeping baby close to the glass, and Amber moves her head near the window to get a better look. After peering at the baby's face, the orangutan points to the child's feet and head as she calmly watches him through the window.

"The orangutan asked to see our 2-week-old," Hittle captioned the post.

According to the zoo's website, Amber was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on October 15, 1987, and moved to the Louisville Zoo with fellow orangutan Teak in 1996. The zoo said she is known for her "playful personality" and for pointing out things about visitors.

"She enjoys interacting with guests and may tap the glass to grab the attention of those nearby, pointing out sparkling accessories, brightly colored fingernails, or gesturing towards a purse or backpack to see what's inside," the zoo said.

Orangutans "rely more on facial expressions and body language to communicate," according to the Smithosnian's National Conservatory and Biology Institute. The animals can be "highly social" and "exhibit social tolerance.

[HogwartsExpress]

Toothpaste thief caught with $2,100 worth of tubes: North Vancouver RCMP



It was a minty-fresh crime that resulted in an attempt to nab $2,100 worth of toothpaste from a local grocery store.

In a tweet, the North Vancouver RCMP says officers were near the Superstore on Seymour Boulevard. on Friday when they spotted a “man running out of the emergency exit followed by staff.”



Police say Mounties arrested a man on the scene and returned the toothpaste.

“We think he was trying to make a clean getaway but was unsuccessful,” a tweet from RCMP reads.

With files from Sonia Aslam


sourcee: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/05/29/toothpaste-thief-north-vancouver-rcmp/

[PennySerenade]

Hungry Hummingbird Mistakes Woman's Hair For A Flower



Earlier this month, TikTok user @sheena.ltd paid a visit to a bird sanctuary in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.

Set in a lush, subtropical rainforest, home to a whole host of native wildlife, the trip was bound from the start to be an unforgettable one.

But for Sheena, it got even more magical still.

Sheena is an artist who lives in Argentina, where she’s employed as an image consultant. Her passion for aesthetics isn’t just expressed in her work, however.

She’s big on the use of colors in her personal style as well.

And that fact earned Sheena an unlikely new admirer.



While walking through the sanctuary, Parque das Aves, Sheena was suddenly struck with the feeling that she was being watched.

From a short distance away, her eyes landed on a little hummingbird who’d apparently noticed her first.

“I could feel he was looking at me,” Sheena told The Dodo. “And then he approached me.”

Here’s footage of what happened next:



Apparently, the little bird had mistaken Sheena for a flower.

“It was a magical moment,” she said. “I don’t know how to describe it.”

Sheena, of course, had no nectar to offer the curious hummingbird, and he eventually flittered off to find a more fitting bouquet.

But in their interaction, there was still sweetness exchanged.

“I am an animal lover,” Sheena said. “This encounter could not have been more incredible. It makes you feel very special.”

Taipei’s hottest new menu item is a 14-legged crustacean





A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people queuing up—both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles.

Since the The Ramen Boy launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on May 22, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than a 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant.

“It is so attractive because of its appearance - it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be identified only as Mr. Hu, as he held up a giant isopod while customers took pictures.

“As for the cooking method, we use the simplest way, steam, so there is no difficulty to process it.”

The restaurant steams the isopod for 10 minutes before adding it to the top of a bowl of ramen with thick chicken and fish broth. Each bowl costs 1,480 Taiwan dollars ($48).

A customer said the meat tastes like a cross between crab and lobster with a dense texture and some chewiness.

Giant isopods - a distant cousin of crabs and prawns - are the largest among the thousands of species in the crustacean group, the NOAA Ocean Exploration said on its website.

They are usually found about 170-2,140 meters (186-2,340 yards) deep in the ocean, with 80% of them living at a depth of 365-730 meters, Taiwan’s Animal Planet said in a Facebook page.

A Taiwanese expert identified the species as “Bathynomus jamesi,” discovered near the Dongsha islands on the South China Sea. They are thought to be caught at between 300-500 meters.

Since the ramen launched, some scholars have expressed concerns over the potential ecological impact of bottom trawling fishing tactics as well as possible health risks.

But customers at the restaurant disagree.

“If it’s just a special menu, and the giant isopods were caught unintentionally like the restaurant owner says they were, everyone should try it if they get a chance,” said 34-year-old Digell Huang, who works as a genetic counselor.

“I am very honored to have this opportunity to taste it,” she added as she ate from a bowl of the isopod-topped noodle.

A scholar, however, warned against potential health risks, saying the largely unknown species may contain toxins or heavy metal such as mercury.

The Bathynomus jamesi species was recognized officially in Taiwan last year and there is not much data on it, said Huang Ming-chih, a biotechnology associate professor specializing in deep-sea invertebrates at the National University of Tainan.

“The best practice would be to do more research … build a complete database and then allow people to eat, it would be better that way,” he added.

[prokroustis]

NEW DISCOVERIES AT POMPEII’S REGIO IX



Archaeologists are conducting new excavations in Pompeii’s Regio X at a previously unexplored area .
Pompeii was a Roman city, located in the modern commune of Pompeii near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with the Roman town of Herculaneum, were buried under 4 to 6 metres of volcanic ash and pumice during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The Vesuvian eruption spewed forth a deadly cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km, ejecting molten rock, pulverised pumice, and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The excavation area is focused on Insula 10 of Regio IX, which occupies the central part of Pompeii, bounded to the north by the Via di Nola, to the west by the Via Stabiana, and to the south by the Via dell’Abbondanza.

The site was first investigated in 1888 but was interrupted, which partly excavated two atrium houses built in the Samnite period when Pompeii was conquered by the Samnites, an Oscan-speaking Italic people.

The area was developed in the 1st century AD into product workshops and a fullonica (laundry), with work benches and basins for washing and dyeing cloths. Also constructed is a bakery with an oven, and rooms for the processing of food products.

Excavations of the rooms have revealed three victims of the Vesuvian eruption, who had taken refuge but died when the structure collapsed. An anthropological investigation has identified that two of the victims are adults, while the third is a child approximately 3-4 years of age.

In the atrium of a house with an adjoining oven, two frescoes with scenes from Roman and Greek mythology have re-emerged, depicting Poseidon and Amimone in the first, and Apollo and Daphne in the second, in addition to traces of charred furniture due to a fire that broke out during the catastrophe.

[Misstee]

Ten-pound pup with only 3 teeth saves his brother by chasing off coyote in backyard

Cheryl Hanna
May 30, 2023

A ten-pound Maltese, with nerves of a German shepherd K9 officer, saved his little brother by chasing off a coyote in their Mission Viejo backyard. The coyote already had the smaller pup is its mouth.

David and Erin Mascaluso, the owners of the two dogs caught the scary scene on their home surveillance camera earlier this month. The hero pup, named Vinny, is 11-years-old, has only three teeth, but in all reality, this pooch should be wearing a Superman cape; everyone is impressed!




The video captures the incident where the coyote is spotted jumping the fence and chasing Vinny’s brother, Harley into a corner. Harley started to yelp out in fear, and within seconds, Vinny can be seen running across the yard and chasing the coyote away, while Harley runs off in the other direction.

The video also captured sight of another coyote on the other side of the fence during the attack. Harley suffered two lacerations on his upper back and one on his chest. He did receive some stitches, and apparently had Vinny not interjected his scrappiness and determination to look in the mirror and see a Rottweiler’s reflection, Vinny may not have survived.

Queen’s music catalog could sell for over $1 billion, source says

By Chloe Melas and Dan Heching, CNN



The songs of Queen are known the world over, and the band’s body of work might soon sell for a staggering sum.

A source familiar with the music acquisition tells CNN that discussions are “well underway” for Universal Music Group to acquire Queen’s catalog from Disney Music Group.

The source added that the sale could surpass $1 billion and that the deal is “expected to close within one month.”

A spokesperson for Disney Music Group, however, told CNN the company has no plans to sell the catalog.

Bruce Springsteen previously made headlines in December 2021 with the sale of his song catalog, with the total in the vicinity of $500 million.

That sum remains arguably the highest amount a music catalog has sold for, but if the Queen sale goes through, a new record will be set.

The billion dollar total for Queen’s music is surely that high thanks in part to the 2018 Oscar-winning film “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which told the story of the band’s inception with a focus on late frontman Freddie Mercury, thereby inspiring a resurgence in popularity of the band’s music.

Justin Bieber, the estate of David Bowie and Sting have all recently completed sales of their respective music catalogs as well.

[lush]

Accidental Miracle – Placebo Treatment Restores Blind Woman’s Eyesight
May 24th, 2023*

An 80-year-old woman who had lost her eyesight over a decade ago due to glaucoma recently recovered her vision after being administered a placebo treatment for her chronic back pain.

One night, 12 years ago, Lynley Hood, an award-winning writer from Dunedin, in New Zealand, was reading a book when the vision in her left eye suddenly became blurry. She blamed it on tiredness and decided to turn in, but the next morning the blurriness in her eyesight had not gone away. She was soon diagnosed with a fairly rare form of glaucoma, and the doctor notified her that her condition would probably never improve and that it was now only a matter of keeping the condition from advancing. She eventually became legally blind, being unable to read and write due to her glaucoma, Then, over a decade later, an accidental miracle occurred, and Hood’s eyesight returned.


Photo: NewsHub

As if her severely damaged eyesight wasn’t enough of a problem, in 2020, Lynley Hood fell and fractured her pelvis, which left her with severe back pain. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it gave her the opportunity to participate in a University of Otago chronic pain treatment research project. She just wanted to alleviate her chronic pain somehow, but the electric stimulation treatment proved a lot better at something else…

The project that Lynley Hood signed up for last year consisted of two groups that participated in electrical stimulation sessions. Participants in both groups were required to wear a special helmet wired with electrodes, but while received electrical stimulation to the brain, the placebo group only received superficial stimulation to the scalp level.

80-year-old Lynley Hood was in the Placebo group (without knowing it), but after four weeks of electrical stimulation, her deteriorated eyesight recovered to nearly 100 percent. The woman’s ophthalmologist couldn’t believe it.

“Surprisingly, her vision improved so much that her ophthalmologist said it was a miracle,” project co-leader Dr Divya Adhia told the Otago Daily Times. “Miracle is not a word we use very often in science, but it was — an accidental miracle. It wasn’t the intended outcome, but to see that my research has actually made an impact on people is really miraculous.”

After living with severely reduced eyesight for 12 years, Lynley Hood is now adjusting to her new lease on life. She had absolutely no central vision in her left eye, while her right eye was like ‘TV static’, but now she can see perfectly again, which means she can go back to writing.

“At first, I thought I was imagining it,” the award-winning author said. “They’ve got such flash equipment that they could trace every millisecond of the current — it went across my scalp and into my eyes. The equipment showed that the cells in my retina went, ‘hey guys, something’s happening’, and it sent a whole lot of messages down my optic nerve to the parts of my brain that makes pictures and words and colors out of electrical messages.”

No one knows exactly how the electrical stimulation brought Mrs. Hood’s eyesight back, but Dr. Adhia and her team definitely want to find out. They are now designing another study to run alongside the chronic pain study, to determine how the electrical stimulation helped the 80-year-old author and hopefully help others in her situation.

Drink and eat these surprising foods to fend off memory loss: new research



Forgetting something? Can’t recall the actor’s name — you know, the one from that movie?

Maybe you need more red wine and cherries in your diet, a new study suggests.

Researchers have found that people whose diets were poor in flavanols — a substance found in certain foods — had better memories after three years of taking flavanol supplements.

“These are exciting results because they suggest that there is an optimum amount of flavanols in the diet,” Gunter Kuhnle, study co-author and professor of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Reading in the UK, said in a news release.

Red wine, black and green tea, dark chocolate, beans, kale, watercress, onions and fruits like cherries, blackberries, black grapes and apples contain healthy amounts of flavanols, according to experts.

Researchers asked more than 3,562 older adults to take either a 500 mg flavanol supplement in pill form or a placebo for three years. Their memory was tested on an annual basis, using online tests of short-term memory.

Additionally, at the beginning of the study period and at yearly intervals, participants’ urine was sampled to determine their flavanol levels.

For the people who already had plenty of flavanols in their diets at the beginning of the study period, there wasn’t much improvement in memory, even if they took the flavanol supplements.

But among the people whose diets started off low in flavanol, their memory scores jumped by 16% after just one year of taking the flavanol supplements. And their improvement in memory was sustained over the three-year period.

“The improvement … raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults,” study co-author Adam Brickman, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University, said in a news release.

Health experts noted that the study points to the need for additional research into how nutrients are needed to maintain a healthy brain into old age.

Researchers asked more than 3,562 older adults to take either a 500 mg flavanol supplement in pill form or a placebo for three years. Their memory was tested on an annual basis, using online tests of short-term memory.

Additionally, at the beginning of the study period and at yearly intervals, participants’ urine was sampled to determine their flavanol levels.

For the people who already had plenty of flavanols in their diets at the beginning of the study period, there wasn’t much improvement in memory, even if they took the flavanol supplements.

But among the people whose diets started off low in flavanol, their memory scores jumped by 16% after just one year of taking the flavanol supplements. And their improvement in memory was sustained over the three-year period.

“The improvement … raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults,” study co-author Adam Brickman, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University, said in a news release.

Health experts noted that the study points to the need for additional research into how nutrients are needed to maintain a healthy brain into old age.

“In this century, as we are living longer, research is starting to reveal that different nutrients are needed to fortify our aging minds,” study co-author Dr. Scott Small said in a news release.

“Our study, which relies on biomarkers of flavanol consumption, can be used as a template by other researchers to identify additional, necessary nutrients,” Small added.

But not all scientists were enthusiastic about the results of the study, which was partly funded by Mars, a maker of chocolate and other candies.

“I’m afraid that the results obtained do not support the claim that flavanols improve memory function,” David Curtis, honorary professor in the Genetics Institute at University College London, told Science Media Centre.

“Even in the group who initially had low flavanol consumption, those taking a flavanol supplement for years had about the same memory function as those taking placebo and any differences were well within chance expectation,” Curtis said.

Other scientists caution that the study’s focus on short-term memory doesn’t reveal much about the risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

“[I]t’s important to make the distinction between age-related memory loss and dementia. While the primary sign of Alzheimer’s disease is loss of episodic memory, age-related memory loss is common for everyone,” Davide Bruno, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, told Science Media Centre.

Though it’s possible that flavanols might play some role in the development of dementia, the supplement’s “effects on memory appear to be modest, and limited to those individuals with a lower quality diet at the start of the study,” Bruno added.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/30/drink-and ... oss-study/

[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
WEDNESDAY MAY 31
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]

Nurse runs for her life after spotting 'black panther' in the street

An exhausted nurse says she 'ran for her life' after coming face-to-face with a black panther on her commute home - only to look back and realise it was a life-sized stuffed toy. Evody Onesi says she turned a street corner after back-to-back night shifts and 'almost had a heart attack' when she encountered the giant beast.

The 26-year-old spotted what she thought was a real black panther lying on the pavement so she screamed and immediately began running for safety. But when she looked back to check if the big cat was chasing her she noticed it wasn't moving so turned back to creep past it instead.



However, as she got closer she made the 'embarrassing' realisation it was actually a life-sized stuffed toy. Evody's viral footage shows the big cat's ears poking up, its paws outstretched and its rigid shape showcasing a life-like outline. The nurse, who says she'd been awake for 24 hours when she saw the toy, believes someone planted it to prank pedestrians and fears someone may have seen her 'terrified' reaction.


The black panther that caused concern

Her TikTok video went viral racking up more than three million views, with users agreeing it looks real and one even branding the prank 'pure evil'. Evody said: "I turned around a corner and saw this huge black cat so I screamed and ran the other way. I nearly had a heart attack.

"At that point I'd done two night shifts and I was really tired. As I was running I looked back and realised it hadn't moved so I went back because I didn't want to walk the long way. It all happened very quickly. I was terrified. But as I got closer I thought 'that's not right' and realised it was a toy.

"When I realised I thought 'oh god, I hope nobody saw that'. I bet someone put it there to prank people and there's going to be a recording of me now. It's so embarrassing. What got to me was the way it was positioned. The way the bone is sticking out of the back legs is exactly how it would have looked if it was real.

"It's more rigid than you'd expect a toy to be. I'm glad that when people saw the video they thought it was real too, so I knew it wasn't just me going crazy. It's life-sized and I think that's what got me.

"If I hadn't taken the video people would have thought I was hallucinating due to lack of sleep. I might have thought that too. It can't just have been me that was scared by it."


Evody Onesi

Evody says when she checked the corner later that day the panther had been moved and she hasn't seen it since. Her TikTok has earned more than 70,000 likes. She captioned the post: "I just had a near damn heart attack and tried to run for my life. Now why would anyone do this?"

"I've been awake since 10am yesterday, which is literally 24 hours, My brain took a very long time to compute this was a stuffed animal." One commented: "I would have ran!"

Elody replied: "I ran for my life. It was so embarrassing. I started looking around thinking 'did anybody see that?'. A second wrote: "I'm crying. Someone definitely put it like that on purpose. That's pure evil."

A third added: "I didn't realise it was a stuffed animal." Another agreed and commented: "It fooled me too!"

The incident happened in Lewisham.

[goldie0608]

Husband Slams Down Crown of Brazil Beauty Pageant Winner After Wife Places Second

Pageant officials condemned the man's actions and said they would take "appropriate legal measures"



For one contestant's husband, second place wasn’t enough.

The Miss Gay Mato Grosso 2023 pageant in Brazil on Saturday was interrupted during the crowning ceremony by the husband of the runner-up.

In video shared on social media, which was also posted on local news outlet Globo, the two frontrunners of the pageant, Miss Várzea Grande Emannuelly Belini and Miss Cuiabá Nathally Becker could be seen holding hands on stage as they waited for the winner to be announced.

Right after the winner was announced and a pageant official moved to place the crown on Bellini's head, Becker’s husband stood up on the stage and snatched the crown away, throwing it to the floor, per TMZ.

The man tried to get Becker to leave the stage with him before returning to grab the crown and throw it to the ground. Several audience members could be heard screaming and security eventually stepped in to remove him from the stage.

Pageant organizers released a statement on Instagram on Monday condemning what happened.



“We vehemently condemn the incident that occurred at the time of the crowning of the elected Miss, when the partner of Miss Cuiabá...invaded the stage and aggressively destroyed the crown,” pageant officials wrote in a message translated from Portuguese.

“We would like to inform you that the legal team for our contest has been contacted and will take the appropriate legal measures," officials continued.

“We sympathize with the elected Miss, as well as with the Miss who was in second place, since she is not responsible for...attitudes of third parties,” officials added,.

A similar incident occurred in 2021 when Pushpika De Silva, a pageant queen who won the title of "Mrs. Sri Lanka" said she was injured after her crown was forcefully removed from her head onstage by a former winner.

The incident was captured on a televised broadcast of the ceremony, which showed Pushpika De Silva being named the 2020 winner of Mrs. Sri Lanka before her crown was taken by Caroline Jurie, who won the pageant in 2019. She had claimed De Silva was divorced, which is against the pageant's rules, but De Silva clarified in a Facebook post that she was separated.

Jurie was arrested and released on bail in relation to the incident.

[Fatima99]

Flower That Grew Only in York Brought Back From Extinction After 30 Years—First Ever British De-Extinction



English media is gushing over the news of the first “de-extinction event” that saw a yellow wildflower unique to northeast England brought back to life.

Extinct since 1991, the York groundsel managed to carry on thanks to a handful of seed that was shed from three potted specimens on a windowsill at the University of York.

Stored at the Millennium Seed Bank in the Kew Gardens, botanists at Natural England organized a resurrection for the York groundsel after they received word the seeds were reaching the end of their lifespan.

A plastic greenhouse was constructed for the experiment at the Rare British Plants Nursery in Wales, and thanks in no small part to its excellent fecundity, 98 of the 100 seeds germinated, and soon, those three survivors on a windowsill had passed their genes on to literally thousands of offspring, three whole decades after they died.

“It’s a smiley, happy-looking yellow daisy and it’s a species that we’ve got international responsibility for,” said Alex Prendergast, a vascular plant senior specialist for Natural England. “It’s also got an important value as a pollinator and nectar plant in the area because it flowers almost every month of the year.”

“It only lives in York, and it only ever lived in York. It’s a good tool to talk to people about the importance of urban biodiversity and I hope it will capture people’s imagination,” he told the Guardian.

This groundsel is the only known species to have evolved in England within the last 50 years as it dumped all its evolutionary vigor into figuring out how to live successfully in urban environments.

It grew out of every crack in the pavement during the stagflationary recession of the 1970s, but soon fell prey to widespread weedkiller application.

Prendergast said that this de-extinction event is likely to be a one-off because of the unique nature of the York groundsel, but added that it nevertheless demonstrated the immense importance of the Millennium Seed Bank.

Piglet falls from truck on the highway, gets new sanctuary home



After falling from the side of a truck on a busy Nevada highway, a piglet named Lucky has a new home at an animal sanctuary.

Lars Gradel said he was driving on Interstate 215 in Las Vegas late last week with his work partner, Rebecca Zajac, and her son, Colton, 7, when a truck carrying pigs pulled in front of them and a small piglet fell from the side of the vehicle.

"We saw a pig fly out the side of the truck, and he tumbled about 10, 15 times down the side of the freeway," Gradel told KVVU-TV.

Gradel pulled over to check on the animal.

"I was worried he was really hurt, and then he stood up, and I just yelled, 'Go grab him before he gets in traffic!'" Zajac recalled.

The work partners wrapped the piglet in a towel and brought him into the car.

"We assumed that he would be injured by the amount of tumbles he took on the freeway, and it was going like 60 miles per hour," Gradel said. "But surprisingly, he was OK."

They took the piglet to a local veterinarian.

"The vet told us he was probably about 8 to 12, 14 weeks. He was recently weaned from his mom, so he didn't even know how to drink water when we got him or anything like that," Gradel said.

The piglet, dubbed Lucky, spent the weekend in Zajac's back yard before they were able to find him a permanent home at the All Friends Animal Sanctuary.

Zajac said the sanctuary is close by her home, and Colton is eager to visit his new friend.

Tara Pike, founder of All Friends Animal Sanctuary, said falling from the truck may have saved Lucky's life.

"His fate was to go to a fattening facility where he would be fed a lot, and then in about six to eight months, he would've been sent to slaughter," Pike said. "And now Lucky's going to be wallowing in mud and rooting around in the ground and digging little holes with his snout and eating watermelon and popsicles in the summer."

She said Lucky currently weighs about 18 pounds, but could end up 700 to 800 pounds when he reaches adulthood.