[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
SATURDAY MARCH 13
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 may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only 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 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

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

IN OTHER NEWS

[hija]

One of the world’s rarest toads bred in captivity in UK for the first time



One of the world’s rarest toads has been successfully bred in captivity for the first time outside its country of origin scientists at Manchester Museum revealed this week.

This first successful captive breeding of the Variable Harlequin Toad outside Panama is the culmination of three years of painstaking work since six of the amphibians arrived at the museum in 2018.

The museum’s Vivarium team, who are world renowned experts in amphibian husbandry, recreated with boulders and rocks the turbulent tropical stream where this toad naturally lays its eggs.

Prof Amanda Bamford from The University of Manchester, which the museum is part of, said she was “particularly proud” of the collaboration with conservationists in Panama.

[Fatima99]

Council pleads with villagers to stop leaving erotic books in phone box library

Cheeky villagers have been ordered to stop leaving X-rated books in a communal library.

Officials complained after several saucy books were removed from the converted public telephone box in the quaint village of Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hants.

The whodunnit mystery has gripped the village - as it still remains unclear which sly local has been adding the books to the kiosk, which sits next to a school playground.

Now the unknown owner of the books has been warned to 'find another outlet' for their collections of erotic fiction.

Hurstbourne Tarrant Parish Council issued a plea to residents earlier this week on Facebook, writing: "We love our red phone box library on Church Street ... but we don't love salacious adult literature being left in there.



"So if whoever is doing so is reading this, please don't keep leaving inappropriate books - the majority of visitors to the phone box are children. And some of them are tall enough to reach the shelves where the books for grown-ups are.

"Please find another outlet for your collection."

The authority added that any offensive books were being "removed as soon as they're found" and appealed for residents to keep an eye on the library's contents.

[BigGlen]

Oklahoma Places $2.1 Million Bounty On Bigfoot's Head



An Oklahoma state lawmaker has introduced a bill to establish a Bigfoot hunting season. The bill would require hunting licenses and comes with a $25,000 reward for capture. The legislation is meant to increase tourism near the Ouachita Mountains. According to the Bigfoot Research Organization, there have been 106 Bigfoot sightings in Oklahoma. So, Bigfoot, if you're listening, time to get out of town.

Tourism officials in Oklahoma — hoping this generates some buzz — say Bigfoot needs to be captured unharmed — stressing bounty hunters can't break any laws during the hunt.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST NPR:

Good morning. I'm Scott Detrow. Need a quick $2 million? You could try the lottery, maybe invest in Bitcoin or head to Oklahoma and capture Bigfoot. They placed a bounty on Bigfoot's head there - $2.1 million. But some rules - you can't bring Bigfoot in cold. Oklahoma tourism officials hoping this generates some buzz say Bigfoot needs to be captured unharmed and stress bounty hunters can't break any laws during the hunt. Good luck. It's MORNING EDITION.

Missouri angler reels in 112-pound invasive black carp



March 12 (UPI) -- Wildlife officials in Missouri said a man fishing for catfish in the Osage River was surprised to reel in a massive black carp instead.

The Missouri Department of Conservation said Jesse Hughes, of Bonnots Mill, Osage County, was fishing for catfish with friends when he caught something big.

"We hooked into it and knew it was something big, but I originally thought it was a catfish," Hughes said. "It was the first I'd heard of a black carp. I didn't know anything about it, so this has been quite the learning experience."

Hughes' black carp weighed in at a staggering 112 pounds.

The Missouri Department of Conservation lists black carp as a prohibited species, as the fish are not native to the state and pose a danger to the local population of mollusks, including some critically endangered species.

The department asks anyone who catches a black carp in the state's rivers to alert authorities. The fish have been found in Missouri before, and in 1994, about 30 black carp entered the Osage River after escaping from a fish farm during a high-water event.

"If anglers happen to catch black carp, or any invasive fish, while fishing in Missouri waters, it's imperative to contact their local conservation agent," MDC Fisheries Programs Specialist Andrew Branson said.

"That way, our fisheries

[PennySerenade]

♥️Game of cards leads to surprise lockdown romance for two Ontario seniors♥️



TORONTO -- One year ago today, the cards were dealt.

Nancy Gallacher and Lorne Orser met over a game of euchre and by the end of the day, they were living together.

"We're 80 you know,” Gallacher said. “We didn't want to lose any time."

Actually, Gallacher is 81, and Orser is 85.

Back on March 12, 2020, each were living in separate condo buildings that were joined by a parking lot in Whitby, Ont.

Gallacher decided that she wanted learn uchre at an afternoon gathering in her condo's party room. Orser was the instructor.

"Just something drew me to her chair,” Orser said.

Gallacher said when Orser came over to his chair it was “thrilling.”

“A chill went down my spine,” she said.

Within an hour, the lesson had ended, Gallacher did not want it to end there.

“Being a slow learner, invited him up to my unit for further lessons,” she says.

Orser agreed to the private lesson, thinking, "I'm a pretty cool cat I can handle that," he said.

In the middle of this budding romance, the pandemic hit.

Each received an e-mail from the property manager saying residents could no longer have visitors because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gallacher made an offer to Orser, saying, "Why should we be living alone when we could be living with one another?"

Orser moved in that day.


For the past year, they have been together, at a time when so many were alone, right up to getting being vaccinated together just two days ago.

"It's a blessing during a pandemic when we could be in separate units, separate condos all by ourselves,” Gallacher says.

Both Gallacher and Orser know what it's like to be alone.



Each are widows, each losing a spouse over a decade earlier. They say both of their families are supportive.

Today, in a most unlikely year, they celebrate being together and they continue to play cards.

Gallacher says with a smile, "still learning, we've had other distractions."

Happy that they have been dealt a good hand.

[goldie0608]

Yale Scientists Successfully Repair Injured Spinal Cords Using Patients’ Own Stem Cells



Intravenous injection of bone marrow derived stem cells in patients with spinal cord injuries led to significant improvement in motor functions, researchers from Yale University and Japan have reported.

For more than half of the patients studied, substantial improvements in key functions—such as ability to walk, or to use their hands—were observed within weeks of stem cell injection, the researchers report. No substantial side effects were reported.

The patients had sustained non-penetrating spinal cord injuries, in many cases from falls or minor trauma, several weeks prior to implantation of the stem cells. Their symptoms involved loss of motor function and coordination, sensory loss, as well as bowel and bladder dysfunction.

The stem cells were prepared from the patients’ own bone marrow, via a culture protocol that took a few weeks in a specialized cell processing center. The cells were injected intravenously in this series, with each patient serving as their own control. Results were not blinded and there were no placebo controls.

Yale scientists Jeffery D. Kocsis and Stephen G. Waxman were senior authors of the study—which was carried out with investigators at Sapporo Medical University in Japan—with the results published last month in the Journal of Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Kocsis and Waxman stress that additional studies will be needed to confirm the results of this preliminary, unblinded trial. They also stress that this could take years. Despite the challenges, they remain optimistic.

“Similar results with stem cells in patients with stroke increases our confidence that this approach may be clinically useful,” noted Kocsis. “This clinical study is the culmination of extensive preclinical laboratory work using MSCs between Yale and Sapporo colleagues over many years.”

“The idea that we may be able to restore function after injury to the brain and spinal cord using the patient’s own stem cells has intrigued us for years,” Waxman said. “Now we have a hint, in humans, that it may be possible.”

[HogwartsExpress]

Did you hear that? Another mystery boom leaves San Diego grasping for answers


Everybody loves a mystery. But we like them solved too, and so far an answer has been elusive for the Big Border Boom.
It rattled windows and shook doors across a large swath of San Diego and Tijuana late Wednesday afternoon, jangling the nerves of residents who’d experienced a similar noisemaker last month, and one a year earlier.

What was that?

The region joined a list of communities from coast to coast that are defined in part by unexplained goings-on. “Mysterious Shaking Rattles San Diego County AGAIN,” the website Strange Sounds trumpeted in a headline this week.

It isn’t always aural. Thirty years ago, thousands of San Diegans were drawn to what some believed was the apparition of a slain girl on a blank billboard in Chula Vista. But unexplained loud, shaking noises are the most common, sometimes falling under the general term “skyquakes.”

On the East Coast, enigmatic booms are known as “Seneca Guns,” the name drawn from a lake in upstate New York, the setting for a short story, “Lake Guns,” written in 1850 by James Fenimore Cooper.

“It is a sound resembling the explosion of a heavy piece of artillery that can be accounted for by none of the known laws of nature,” he wrote. “The report is deep, hollow, distant and imposing. The lake seems to be speaking to the surrounding hills, which send back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply. No satisfactory theory has ever been broached to explain these noises.”

After Wednesday’s boom here, the first thought of many people — this being California — was “earthquake.” But the United States Geological Survey said no. Their seismic-activity sensors recorded nothing.

This being San Diego, longtime home to military jets, a lot of folks thought “sonic boom” too. “That wasn’t one of ours,” said Cmdr. Zachary Harrell, a Navy spokesman, who noted that planes breaking the sound barrier are required to do it far off the coast.

The Marines? They didn’t respond to a request for comment. Local defense contractors testing some kind of newfangled weapon? Mum was the word there too, as it usually is with classified military projects.

In 2012, when a similar boom rattled windows and doors along the local coastline, initial “not us” denials from the military gave way to an admission: The pilots in two Navy F/A-18 aircraft had been showing off for guests aboard the carrier Carl Vinson during a family cruise.

“Those two aircraft went supersonic about 35 miles from the coast,” a Navy spokesman said at the time. “Usually you don’t hear the side booms travel that far. It was kind of surprising to us.”

This time around, Humberto Mendoza Garcilazo, a researcher at the Center of Scientific Research and Higher Education in Ensenada, said supersonic airplanes may have been responsible for the “rumble.” But he also suggested it could have come from the day’s stormy weather and drastic changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure.

Brandt Maxwell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, was skeptical about ties to the weather. He said there weren’t thunderstorms in the area at the time of the boom, about 5 p.m., and “even with a strong cold front, you won’t get that kind of rumbling.”

So, for now, a mystery.


source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-13/big-boom-mystery-noise

[lush]

For the First Time in 170 Years, Asia’s Longest-Missing Bird is Seen in Indonesia



M. Suranto

In the birdwatching equivalent of discovering the site of the city of Troy, Asia’s longest-missing bird has been found in Indonesia.

For 170 years, the only known specimen of the black-browed babbler, found in Borneo, (thereby making it “Borneo’s black-browed babbler,”) was gathering dust at a Netherlands natural history museum.

Curious of the identity of a very much alive, small grey-brown bird flitting between the trees of South Kalimantan Province, Muhammad Suranto and Muhammad Rizky Fauzan—birdwatchers from a club called BW Galetus—managed to hold and photograph the avian for a closer look.

As the bird soared through the air, it had the appearance of a Horsfield’s babbler, but the tentative identification never sat right with the pair: a hunch that birders among readers will know all too well.

Sending the pictures of the bird to another member of their bird club ended with word of the unusual bird getting around, and some with nose to the floor, thanking God for the good fortune.

They went to another BW Galetus member, then on to a professional ornithologist, Dr. Ding Li Yong, conservationist at BirdLife International in Singapore.

“It took me a while to come to grips with this thing,” Dr. Yong told the New York Times. Once he realized the photos were legitimate, he said, “I had a tear in my eye.”

“This is a really big deal for Indonesian ornithology—as shocking as rediscovering the passenger pigeon or Carolina parakeet. But this is closer to home, a bird from the part of the world I live in.”

Everyone involved in the discovery, including BW Galetus, hopes this will increase local interest in nature and wildlife, as well as bring tourist revenue to the region, especially in the form of birdwatchers.

For Suranto and Fauzan, the discovery yielded them new jobs—as professional birding guides. Java-based birding group Birdpacker hopes to launch an expedition to study the bird once COVID-19 restrictions ease, as basically everything about this special bird is still worth exploring.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/borneos-black-browed-babbler-found-after-170-years/

German police fear the wurst as legal snag scuppers sausage DNA burglary breakthrough
The statute of limitations on the burglary has expired, so the suspect is unlikely to be extradited to Germany if arrested.



German police have solved a nine-year-old burglary after DNA found on a half-eaten sausage matched that of a man detained in France.

Police in the western town of Schwelm said the snack belonged to the victim, and the suspect, a 30-year-old Albanian, appeared to have helped himself to a bite during the March 2012 break-in.

It was not clear what type of sausage, known in Germany as wurst, the burglar had nibbled, though police said it was a hard variety.

Investigators were recently alerted that French police had taken a matching DNA sample from a man involved in a violent crime.

But Schwelm police said the suspect remains free and he may yet escape punishment.

The statute of limitations on the burglary has expired, meaning he is not likely to be extradited to Germany if arrested.

https://news.sky.com/story/german-polic ... h-12243003

[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
SUNDAY MARCH 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 may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only once a day
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -5)
2:00 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 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

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

IN OTHER NEWS

[Fivetide]

Spanish police sink drug smugglers’ submarine plans


In this photo provided by the Spanish National police on Friday March 12, 2021, a homemade semi submersible submarine sits outside a warehouse in Malaga, Spain. Spanish police say they have seized a homemade narco-submarine able to carry up to 2 metric tons (2.2 tons) of cargo. Police came across the 9-meter-long (30-feet-long) craft being built in Málaga, on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, during a broader international drug operation. Police said Friday it has two 200-horsepower engines, which are operated from the inside. (Police Nacional via AP)

Spanish police announced Friday that they seized a homemade narco-submarine able to carry up to 2 metric tons (2.2 tons) of cargo.

Police came across the 9-meter-long (30-feet-long) craft last month while it was being built in Málaga, on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, during a broader international drug operation involving five other countries and the European Union crime agency Europol.

The 3-meter-wide (10-feet-wide) semisubmersible craft is made of fiberglass and plywood panels attached to a structural frame, has three portholes on one side and is painted light blue. It has two 200-horsepower engines operated from the inside.

Rafael Perez, head of the Spanish police, said the vessel had never sailed.

“We think it was going to go into the high seas to meet a mother ship (to) take on board the drugs,” probably cocaine, before returning to Spain, Perez told reporters.

“It is like an iceberg,” he said of the vessel’s structure. “In practice, nearly all of it goes under water apart from the top, which is the only part of it that would be seen from another ship or a helicopter.”

Similar drug-smuggling vessels have in the past been discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, especially off Central and South America. They sit low in the water to escape detection and rarely are able to fully submerge.

The wider police operation against the alleged international smuggling ring netted hundreds of kilos of cocaine, hashish and marijuana in various places in Spain, with 52 people arrested.

Spanish police said in a statement that police in Colombia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Portugal also were involved in the operation.

[BigGlen]

Daylight Saving Time: Why we have it


(CNN)It's that time of year again. This weekend, you'll sacrifice an hour of sleep in exchange for a few months of extra daylight.

Benjamin Franklin first thought up the idea of daylight saving in 1784. It wasn't instituted until World War I, when it went into effect to save energy used for lights.

The Standard Time Act established time zones and daylight saving in 1918, but it was short-lived. Daylight saving was repealed the following year.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established Daylight Saving Time throughout the United States and gave states the option to exempt themselves. Hawaii and most of Arizona do not follow Daylight Saving Time. Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa also skip out on the clock-changing fun. In 1974 and 1975, Congress extended daylight saving to save energy during the energy crisis.

In 2007, Daylight Saving got a few weeks longer, running from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. About 70 countries around the world observe daylight saving, but many countries near the equator do not.

It's not universally popular, though. Farmers note that their livestock don't live by a clock, and complain that they have to adjust their working hours to deal with the animals. Also, any parent will tell you -- babies and pets don't quite get it either.

[Fatima99]

Terrifying ‘ghost bird’ with giant eyes and humongous mouth spooks woman


The strange creature was caught on camera by a woman who had initially mistaken it for a piece of wood then got the fright of her life.

This is the moment a terrifying 'ghost-bird' spooks a woman with its gigantic features - after she mistook the weird creature for a strange-looking piece of wood.

Video footage of the bizarre looking bird shows it sitting quietly on top of a fence post.

It barely moves, that is, until the woman gets a little too close for comfort.

The woman said she began filming after noticing the piece of 'wood' had opened its eyes.

The clip then shows the bird becoming more wary as she approaches.

Feathers on its back appear to stand up on end.



But it's only when the bird opens its gigantic mouth that you see how truly bizarre it looks.

It's at this point that the woman jumps back in shock.

The bird is actually a great potoo, a nocturnal species which preys on large insects and small vertebrates.

Its most well known characteristic is the growling, moaning cry it makes throughout the night.

The great potoo is usually found in a forest habitat in South America.



In this case, the woman filmed it sitting on top of a fence post at a farm in Chibolo, Colombia.

According to the Mail, the woman said: "The first time I saw him I thought it was a stick but he moved and I approached him.

"The bird opened its eyes and mouth and scared me a lot but being so strange I decided to take pictures and record videos. When I got closer I raised my hand, and he opened his mouth in reply."

[hija]

A scheme that ‘pampers’ NHS workers reached a 1,000 box-milestone



Pamperaid, an initiative that supports NHS workers by sending them boxes of treats, has created 1,000 such boxes since the scheme launched in the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

It was launched by Rebecca Broad, who runs Pamperaid alongside her full-time job in the charity sector. Businesses donate to the scheme, which began with 100 boxes being distributed locally near Broad’s home in London. They were so well received that she continued the project, and now boxes have gone to scores of NHS hospitals, hospices, GP surgeries and walk-in centres across the UK.

Each contains items – from beauty to wellness products, and from art to confectionary – to help recipients take some time out from their stressful jobs.

“We didn’t want to hang up our pampering gloves and end what we thought was beneficial to so many people,” Broad told Positive News.