[Fatima99]

Amphibious Pitcher makes Debut





I think they meant ambidextrous

[PennySerenade]

Toronto-area family creates 'Kids Who Care' charity for children to help others



TORONTO -- In a year that has been difficult for so many, Fatima Molu and her children found themselves thinking of less-fortunate families in their community.

“We’d have these great dinner conversations about what’s going on in the world, and then they would end because there wasn’t anything actionable that we could do,” Molu tells CTV News Toronto. “So we sat down and we all came together as a family and we decided that this would be a great organization to put together.”

The organization they put together is called Kids Who Care International and it focuses on kids getting creative with fundraising.

“It’s putting kids in the driver’s seat, basically,” Molu explains. “They get to pick their fundraiser, how they want to raise their funds, the people they want to ask.”



They came up with two fundraising “missions” – one being a bicycle drive. Before long, dozens of children in the community were helping collect for the cause.

“We donated bikes for kids who have nothing to do during COVID,” says Ariana. “And as part of that, we’re also washing them and cleaning them up and tuning them up to make sure they’re in great condition.”

“Because some kids don’t have everything that we have,” Leah adds.” And at least maybe they can have some joy.”

Molu encouraged her children to create videos to spread the word about their mission and start collecting donations.

“It’s amazing,” Ali tells CTV News Toronto. “To be a part of all of this, it’s an amazing opportunity.”

The other fundraising mission Kids Who Care International initiated was to make a donation of baby items to the Weston King Neighbourhood Centre.

“We realized that there’s a definite need,” says Molu. “Sometimes you need to get out of your own bubble to see what’s out there.”

The money raised for the donations was done so in a series of creative ways by the kids involved, such as selling homemade bracelets or personal artwork.

Molu says that 35-40 children took part, and together raised about $1,500.

“I had a little girl make gum packets and she sold them for $1.50,” Molu explains. “She made her little gum packets, she raised her funds, and she provided. She felt accomplished, and she’s helping other people. So it’s definitely a win-win.”

For the kids involved, giving back to the community they live in makes the “feel great.”

“It’s putting kids in the driver’s seat, basically,” Molu explains. “They get to pick their fundraiser, how they want to raise their funds, the people they want to ask.”



“It makes me feel great to help others and know that I’m making a difference to those who are less fortunate,” says Ariana.

“We’re helping people that are in need of things, and it’s something for them to do in COVID,” adds Aidan, referring to the bicycle drive.

Molu says Kids Who Care International has helped her children’s sense of empathy, especially during a difficult time for many. She says it’s also teaching them that they can do something to help.

When kids are presented with the options to do good and to volunteer and to help out they will do it,” she says. “But it’s our job as parents to present them with that opportunity.”

“Every child had something to offer, and every kid can do that in every part of Toronto. “

Kids Who Care Chapters have now been started in Orlando, Edmonton and the U.K.

[Fivetide]

This Blind Mom Got To ‘See’ Her Adorable Unborn Baby Thanks to a 3D-Printed Ultrasound



Taylor Ellis was born with glaucoma and has very little vision. When she went in for her 20-week scan and was unable to see her baby, she was left in tears.

When doctors found out she was upset, they conducted a special ultrasound and made a 3D print out of her unborn daughter’s face.

26-year-old Taylor and her husband Jeremy, who is also visually impaired, received the special scan in the post a week later. They were able to feel the baby’s face as a result, and it was a dream come true.

Baby Rosalie is now ten weeks old, and mum-of-three Taylor said the 3D printing technology—most commonly use to make car parts—has been “life changing.”

Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore usually uses the technology to create models of unborn babies with spina bifida. It allows surgeons to get a clear image of the spines of babies to see if they need in-womb surgery. When an ultrasound sonographer at the same hospital found out, he suggested the technology be used to help blind parents. It is thought to be the first hospital in the world to offer the service.

Taylor, a stay-at-home-mother, from Cockeysville in Maryland, said, “I always thought about what my baby would look like and was always saddened to know I wouldn’t have the same opportunity as seeing mothers.

“My sight wasn’t as bad with my first two children, so I could see the 2D ultrasound.

When she received the 3D ultrasound, Taylor said of the exciting moment, “I had the realization that this was my baby’s face, it was so heart-warming. I showed off my scan to my daughters and my parents on video chat.”

Proud mom Taylor, added: “This pregnancy has been so scary but so exciting the whole way through, I just wanted this [moment] really really bad.”

This is truly a great and heart-warming story about how technology can have unexpected benefits in the smallest of ways, yet with huge human impacts.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/blind-mom-sees-baby-through-3d-ultrasound/

[hija]

Paris Rolls Out Farming on the Roof



The idea of farming in Paris may sound strange, but the top of a six-storey building in the centre of the French capital is set to become the world’s largest rooftop farm.

The urban oasis, under construction in Paris’s 15th arrondissement, spans 14,000 square metres and will grow more than 30 plant species. It is expected to produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day this summer, tended by around 20 gardeners using organic methods.

“The goal is to make the farm a globally recognized model for sustainable production,” says Pascal Hardy of Agripolis, the urban-farm company behind the project.

Located above the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in the southwest of the city, the farm will have its own on-site bar and restaurant for 300 diners, using vegetables and fruit grown on-site.

[Governor3]

NYC's First Female Historical Statue Was Unveiled 105 Years Ago. The 6th Just Arrived



On Wednesday morning — Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment — a group of New Yorkers gathered in Central Park for the unveiling of New York City's sixth statue honoring real women. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton now join the 23 historical statues in the park that honor men, along with fictional females like Alice in Wonderland.

This is the first statue in Central Park to depict real women, a celebratory occasion, but one that was briefly controversial when the group behind it — the nonprofit Monumental Women's Statue Fund — originally chose to feature only white women, casting aside the importance of Black women’s voices in the fight for the right to vote.

Additionally, the original statue design called for Anthony and Stanton to hold a scroll, which listed 22 more women who had important roles in the Suffrage movement. About 1/3rd of the 22 listed were Black activists, including Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell. At the time, Gloria Steinem told the NY Times, "It is not only that it is not enough, [it’s that it looks as if Anthony and Stanton] are standing on the names of these other women."

Following the criticism, the group redesigned the statue to include Truth alongside Anthony and Stanton. And today, the monument — located at the park's Literary Walk — has become a celebratory occasion once again, even if it took a long time to get here.

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainmen ... eiled-week

[goldie0608]

The Art of Conversation Lives On



In front of Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf, 26-year-old Adrià Ballester (above) sets up two foldaway chairs and a sign in large letters that reads: “Free conversations!”

Anyone is welcome to stop, sit and chat with him in Spanish, English or Catalan about anything they like. “The idea is just to talk freely for a while,” the 26-year-old writer and storyteller explains. “We have lost the art of conversation,” agrees a young Italian psychology student among the day’s visitors.

“We live in a world where it’s often easier to send a message to someone from another country than to say good morning to our neighbours,” says Ballester, who uses Facebook (Free Conversations Movement) and Instagram (@freeconversations) to promote his project. He posts photos of himself and those who choose to chat along with their reflections and sometimes startling revelations.

At times he feels like a therapist. “You hear good, positive stories and really tough ones, too. A lot of people will tell you about a tricky episode in their life, maybe heartbreak or a job loss. There’s a bit of everything,” he says. A 70-year-old Lithuanian woman even talked about the years she spent in a Russian concentration camp.

During the coronavirus crisis, Ballester took the conversation online, setting up randompenpals.com, a site that invites users to “get a quarantine PenPal in 10 seconds”. He plans to publish a manifesto and aims to spread his initiative to other major cities around the world

3-Year-Old Hailed A Hero For Saving His Friend From Drowning



A three-year-old in Brazil is winning accolades for saving his friend, also three, from drowning in a pool. Arthur de Oliveira did not display the slightest hesitation in reaching out to save his friend after he fell into a pool, reports the Daily Mail. A video shared by Arthur's proud mother, Poliana Console de Oliveira, shows the moment that the three-year-old grabbed his friend's hand and pulled him to safety.

The incident took place in Itaperuna in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

According to local news website G1, the son of a local caretaker, Henrique, made his way to the pool and fell into it while reaching for an inflatable pool toy. As he struggled to keep his head above water, his friend Arthur looked around for help. Then, not finding anyone, he grabbed his friend and pulled him out of the pool in a feat that has won him much praise on social media.


The whole incident was captured on surveillance cameras and the footage shared on Facebook by Arthur's mother, who wrote: "It was 30 seconds of carelessness, the caretaker's son left the house alone, without telling his mother... In my heart I just have gratitude for the life of Arthur's friend and I am proud of my son's courageous, quick and loving attitude."

"My father was sitting on the porch, next to the pool, but it was so fast that he didn't even see it," Ms de Oliveira said to G1.

"When I arrived, Arthur said he saved his little friend. I told him 'my son, you can't, you have to call mommy', and he said that if he called someone, his friend would die," she said.

[peaceableone]

Archaeology mystery: Volunteers baffled by ‘extremely rare’ 1,000-year-old coins

ARCHAEOLOGISTS were baffled after a group of youth volunteers unearthed a handful of ancient gold coins in Israel.
The young people volunteering in an archaeology dig came across 425 gold coins that had lain buried in a clay jar for 1,100 years. Most of the money unearthed dates back to the early Islamic period. This was when the region was part of the Abbasid caliphate.
Weighing around 845g (30oz) the coins would have been worth a small fortune when they were buried.

They would have equated to the value of a luxurious home in one of the caliphate's cities.

The mystery of the coins appears not to be in their discovery but in who might have once owned them.
It is unclear why they were never collected.

In a statement, Liat Nadav-Ziv and Elie Haddad of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the owner would undoubtedly have intended to collect their treasure.

They said: "The person who buried this treasure 1,100 years ago must have expected to retrieve it, and even secured the vessel with a nail so that it would not move.

"Finding gold coins, certainly in such a considerable quantity, is extremely rare. We almost never find them in archaeological excavations, given that gold has always been extremely valuable, melted down and reused from generation to generation."

[eradicator2]

Indian officials rescue elephant that fell into roadside ditch

https://www.newsflare.com/video/375960/ ... side-ditch



Indian officials rescued an elephant that had fallen into a roadside ditch in Bore Forest, Hanur.

Locals immediately alerted forest officials after finding that a tusker had fallen into a ditch.

Forest officials with the help of fire and emergency services managed to remove the elephant from the ditch with the help of an excavator.

The elephant was later released into the forest. This footage was filmed on August 26.

[angellove0810]

Singaporean student builds a Game Boy out of a watermelon, plays Pokemon Emerald on it in public


Imagine, if you will, that you’re on the MRT train home and a young man toting a hefty plastic bag sits next to you. He casually takes out a watermelon — but a very weird one that has a lot of red buttons sticking out of it.

“It’s some kind of bomb!!!”, you might think, considering the contraption’s shape and electronic components. But that brief thought goes away once you see the screen in the middle of the fruit turning on. The young man’s just playing Pokemon Emerald on the world’s first watermelon Game Boy.

It’s pretty simple once you figure out how it works. Using a Raspberry Pi 3 programmable computing board, Singapore Management University student Cedrick Tan ran a Game Boy emulator and loaded it up with a read-only memory (ROM) file of the 2004 Pokemon title. With a power bank, physical buttons, a spare 1.8-inch screen, loudspeakers and a whole mess of wires, Tan fitted it all inside a watermelon with all its flesh scooped out.



According to Tan, the build took him about a month to complete.

"Sadly the original has kicked the bucket, it rotted four days after I posted my Youtube video," Tan mentioned. But he went out and made another one, which he has been bringing it around just for laughs until MelonBoy rots once again.

[johngriffen]

IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY AUGUST 27

A new "news cycle" has begun.
Time for our Ace Reporters to file another story

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

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only once a day
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them to under a minute, 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
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

[goldie0608]

A ‘Momentous Milestone’: Africa Finally Eradicates the Wild Polio Virus From its Continent, After Decades of Work



The World Health Organization is celebrating the news that the African continent is finally free of the wild poliovirus, 24 years after Nelson Mandela helped Rotary International launch its Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign.

“Today is a historic day for Africa, which has successfully met the certification criteria for wild polio eradication, with no cases reported in the region for four years,” said Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, who heads The African Regional Certification Commission for Polio eradication (ARCC).

The success comes after an exhaustive, decades-long process of documentation and analysis of polio surveillance and immunization of the region’s 47 member states, which included conducting field verification visits to each country.

In 1996, African leaders of every country committed to eradicate polio, at a time when the virus was paralyzing an estimated 75,000 children annually. While there is no cure for polio, the disease can be prevented through the administration of a simple and effective vaccine.

Mandela’s call that year mobilized African nations across the continent to step up their efforts to reach every child with the polio vaccine—and the last case of wild poliovirus was detected and defeated in 2016 in Nigeria.

Officials at WHO say the polio eradication efforts have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180,000 lives.

“This is a momentous milestone for Africa. Now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners and philanthropists. I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.”

The announcement Tuesday marks only the second eradication of a virus from the face of the Africa since smallpox 40 years ago.

While the eradication of wild poliovirus here is a major achievement, 16 African countries have reported cases of cVDPV2. While rare, these vaccine-derived polioviruses cases can occur when the weakened live virus used in the oral polio vaccine passes among under-immunized populations and, over time, changes to a form that can cause paralysis. If a population is adequately immunized with polio vaccines, it will be protected from both wild polio and circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses.

“Africa has demonstrated that despite weak health systems, significant logistical and operational challenges across the continent, African countries have collaborated very effectively in eradicating wild poliovirus,” said Dr Pascal Mkanda, Coordinator of WHO Polio Eradication in the African Region.

“With the innovations and expertise that the polio program has established, I am confident that we can sustain the gains, post-certification, and eliminate cVDPV2,” added Dr Mkanda.

Thanks to the dedication of governments, the WHO, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, polio cases have been reduced worldwide by 99.9% since 1988. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan still have cases of the wild virus.

“The expertise gained from polio eradication will continue to assist the African region in tackling COVID-19 and other health problems that have plagued the continent for so many years. This will be the true legacy of polio eradication in Africa,” said Dr Moeti.

[Fatima99]

Humped to death by pet camel



A randy camel has killed its woman owner after apparently trying to mate with her. The ten-month-old animal, weighing 150kg (23st 8lb), knocked exotic pet lover Pam Weaver to the ground before trying to straddle her.

Husband Noel, who gave her the camel as a 60th birthday present in March, returned home to discover his wife’s body on Saturday. Mrs Weaver, who has a daughter, was in the middle of cooking dinner and there was a cup of tea on the table.

The camel was wandering loose in the back yard. The animal had a history of erratic behaviour, often trying to straddle other species including the family’s pet goat. Det Craig Gregory said: ‘I would say it had probably been playing or it may even be a sexual sort of thing. Mrs Weaver had a love of exotic pets. ‘The family had considered buying her a llama or alpaca but found they were too expensive.’

But camel expert Chris Hill said he had no doubt its behaviour was sexual. Mr Hill, who has been offering camel rides to tourists for 20 years, said young camels were not aggressive but could be dangerous if treated as pets. The bizarre tragedy happened at the Weaver family’s sheep and cattle ranch near Mitchell, 600km (350 miles) west of Brisbane. Australia has a huge wild camel population which has grown since their introduction as pack animals in the 1800s.

Oops! British Aristocrat Accidentally Bought Stolen, 7th-Century Sculptures As 'Garden Ornaments'


Dutch art detective Arthur Brand poses with two limestone Visigoth reliefs from the seventh century in London on Jan. 20, 2019.

In 2004, two chunky limestone reliefs depicting Catholic saints were stolen from a medieval church in Burgos, Spain. The reliefs dated to the seventh century, weighed about 110 lbs.(50 kilograms) apiece and were thought to be worth many millions of dollars. Earlier this week, professional art detective Arthur Brand found them — moldering in the dirt and leaves of a British country garden.

"The thieves wanted to sell [the reliefs] and make a lot of money, but soon found out they stole world heritage that would be extremely difficult to sell," Brand told the French news site AFP (Agence France-Presse). "So, they decided to sell them as garden ornaments." [30 of the World's Most Valuable Treasures That Are Still Missing]

According to AFP, those "ornaments" were purchased several years ago by a well-off British aristocrat who had no idea about their true provenance. Brand, who spent eight years tracking the reliefs from dealer to dealer across Europe, estimates that the unwitting aristocrat probably spent about $65,000 (50,000 pounds) apiece to add the artifacts to his estate's garden north of London.

Sounds expensive for a trumped-up lawn gnome — but the buyer actually got an epic deal. The true value of the reliefs, Brand told AFP, is "priceless."

"You can imagine how horrified they were to learn that their garden ornaments were in fact priceless stolen Spanish religious art," Brand said. "They got quite nervous, because these priceless 1,300-year-old artifacts that were made for the Spanish sun were in their garden, exposed to the English rain."

Following this revelation, the artifacts were safely returned to the Spanish embassy in London on Monday (Jan. 21), AFP reported. They will be restored to Spain's Santa Maria de Lara church, which was declared a national monument in 1929. The church was built more than 1,000 years ago by Visigoths — a Germanic culture that ruled much of France and the Iberian peninsula between the fifth and the eighth centuries — and is thought to be one of the oldest Catholic churches in Spain, the director of the nearby Burgos Museum told Spanish news site El Pais.

https://www.livescience.com/64591-price ... arden.html

Not one, not two, but three! Paris zoo enjoys rare baby boom

The Paris Zoological Park has seen an unusual animal baby boom in recent weeks, with the birth of a Patagonian sea lion, an Amazon bush dog, and a little puma.

The zoo, located in the Vincennes forest east of the French capital, said all three births were rare events. In Europe, only two other Patagonian sea lion babies were born this year, both in a zoo in Valencia, Spain.

"The three pups were are all born to first-time mothers. We are so happy that they have found their maternal instinct, which shows that they feel well enough in their enclosures to reproduce," the zoo's chief veterinarian, Alexis Lecu, told Reuters television.
The sea lion, born on July 24, already swims and dives with her mother in their glass-walled pond.

"This is quite amazing in itself, because contrary to what one might think, baby sea lions are afraid of water and can drown if they are not taught properly," Lecu said.

Called Naya, the sea lion already weighs 22 kilos (48.5 lb). She will be gradually introduced to two bigger male seals.

This is the first birth of a sea lion of Patagonia in a zoo in France.The baby puma was born on Aug. 21 in the viewing bay in front of zoo visitors. The little cat has not yet opened its eyes and is staying close to its 10-year old mother. Visitors are kept at a distance so as not to disturb the animals.

The zoo said in a statement the father and another female puma in the enclosure were getting along well. The male was captured in Chile after it had taken to attacking livestock and brought to the zoo as it could not be reintroduced to the wild.

The oldest of the three is a bush dog, born the day before the sea lion, and the sole survivor of a litter of three. It is part of a breeding programme with 150 dogs in about 40 zoos.

(Reporting by Clotaire Achi and Geert De Clercq, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Source: Reuters and copied from inkl.