The Daily Drift

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Carolina Naturally is read in 195 countries around the world daily.   

Oh, the Horror ... !

Today is - Awkward Moments Day

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Paramaribo, Suriname

Bogota and Medellin, Colombia

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Ottawa, Calgary, Montreal, Britannia, Thunder Bay, Steeles, Vancouver, Vaughan, Guelph, Pikangikum, Saint John's, Scarborough, Sioux Lookout and Edmonton, Canada

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Tipitapa, Nicaragua

Valdivia and Santiago, Chile

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Spanish Town, Jamaica

Europe

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Fier, Albania

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Pancevo, Serbia

Square, Northern Ireland

Chester, England

Ruse and Sofia, Bulgaria

Reykjavik, Iceland

Basel, Switzerland

Zagreb, Croatia

Dublin, Ireland

Deva, Romania

Minsk, Belarus

Asia 

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Kabul, Afghanistan

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Tehran, Mashhad, Iran

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Africa 

Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Randburg, South Africa

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Nairobi and Kapsabet, Kenya

Tunis, Tunisia

Tripoli, Libya

Pacific

Niugan, Pasay and Makati, Philippines

Homebush, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia

Today in History

37		The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
1692		William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.
1863		Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1865		The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
1874		Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.
1881		Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.
1911		Theodore Roosevelt opens the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the United States to date.
1913		Greek King George I is killed by an assassin. Constantine I is to succeed.
1916		On the Eastern Front, the Russians counter the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lose 100,000 men and the Germans lose 20,000.
1917		The Germans sink the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.
1922		Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India.
1939		Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.
1942		The third military draft begins in the United States.
1943		Adolf Hitler calls off the offensive in the Caucasus.
1943		American forces take Gafsa in Tunisia.
1944		The Russians reach the Rumanian border.
1950		Nationalist troops land on the mainland of China and capture Communist-held Sungmen.
1953		The Braves baseball team announces that they are moving from Boston to Milwaukee.
1965		Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to spacewalk when he exits his Voskhod 2 space capsule while in orbit around the Earth.
1969		President Richard M. Nixon authorizes Operation Menue, the'secret' bombing of Cambodia.
1970		The U.S. Postal Service is paralyzed by the first postal strike.
1971		U.S. helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
1975		South Vietnam abandons most of the Central Highlands to North Vietnamese forces.
1981		The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.
1986		Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.

Non Sequitur

The Apocalypse Not Scheduled for This Week After All

In case you’ve received frightening email forwards about an asteroid impact on March 21st, or you’ve seen alarmist headlines like “Asteroid hurtles toward Earth,” you should know that there’s nothing to worry about (at least in this century). Dr. Phil Plait debunks the stories of asteroid 2003 QQ47. Sure, it will pass near us, but "near" in astronomical terms means some millions of miles. So despite what you've heard, it won't be impacting Earth.

Let me be very clear right away: Nope. It won’t. This story is totally wrong! Well, the asteroid does exist, but it won’t hit us next week, and in fact can’t hit the Earth for at least a century. The truth is the asteroid will safely pass us on Mar. 26 of this year, never getting closer than 19 million kilometers (nearly 12 million miles)—about 50 times farther away than the Moon!

He then goes on to explain how the alarming (but inaccurate and dated) story got started. But even though there’s nothing to worry about, asteroid QQ47 is an interesting celestial body, which you can read about at Bad Astronomy.

Hemp, Tea and Gluten-Free

Gluten-Free Crackers Made with Hemp Flour and Decaffeinated Green Tea Leaves

A team of food scientists from University of Novi Sad […]

Did you know ...

That what's really offensive about Paul Ryan's remarks

Just why should we work hard and play by the rules when the rich don't?

Hey, tens of people showed up for the white man march

Parallels to 1914?

What History Teaches Us About the Ukraine Crisis

by Christopher Clark

On the 100th anniversary of World War I, it is tempting to compare events in Ukraine to 1914. But the current crisis bears little resemblance to the geopolitical situation of the time. The answers history provides are anything but singular and absolute.  More

The republicans Ignorance and Stupidity Hits a New Low With Attacks on Neil de Grasse Tyson

It is a sad fact in 21st Century America the world leader in technology and scientifically-based advancements is also home to a substantial number of citizens who suffer from willful ignorance and stupidity…

 

Ignorance is a state of being uninformed or lacking knowledge, and is often used as an insult to describe individuals who deliberately ignore or disregard facts, whereas stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, or sense and may be innate, assumed, or reactive. It is a sad fact in 21^st Century America the world leader in technology and scientifically-based advancements is also home to a substantial number of citizens who suffer from ignorance and reactive stupidity and, tragically, are having deleterious effects on the entire population. One very intelligent and educated man took stock of this nation’s people and said, “I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge,” and that “the good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
The intelligent man assessing the segment of America’s population deliberately embracing ignorance is world-renowned astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson, and his remark about science’s veracity was in response to attacks from the religio-wingnuts over the 21^st Century version of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.” One seriously believed the science program would have been embraced by all but the most cognitively-challenged members of the religio-wingnuts, but the reaction from the religiously-inclined was revealing in their complete lack of understanding of what science is on a very basic level and their dependence on unsubstantiated mythos they highly regard as facts. There is a monumental disconnect among the religio-wingnuts and reality for failing to comprehend that the explanations in their religious text  was man’s attempt to explain the world without having access to information that could be readily verified or refuted, and unfortunately they are controlling large swathes of America to the detriment of the whole country.
Tyson said that “One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear just because it suits their worldview—not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it; people prefer reassurance to research.” Now, no-one denies people accepting false information as fact are free to live their lives steeped in ignorance, but repubgicans are perpetuating and making good use of ignorance to benefit the dirty energy industry, decimate education, punish women, and abridge equal rights of other Americans because they know ignorant people vote against their own best interests and elect repugicans who adversely affect the entire population.
The kind of person that eschews science, or any fact-based information, for blind faith in archaic mythology is self-centered with an incredibly restricted worldview and it is not because they lack intellect and cognitive abilities to think, explore, and learn, it is because they are frightened and inherently lazy. It is much easier to read one verse in the bible explaining the origin of the world than a one page scientific description of evolutionary theory, or why the universe is more than a 6,000 year old planet full of beings blinked into existence in six literal days. In fact, the type of person that bases their entire worldview on late Stone Age mythology are willing prisoners to their blind faith and unfortunately they reside in great numbers not in some remote location untouched by modern civilization, but in the Southern region of the United States.
For example, in the third most christian state (56% of residents) and second most religious state according to the Pew Research Center, Alabama repugicans recently proposed a state constitutional amendment to put the ten commandments in public buildings. According to repugican DuWayne Bridges, school shootings and violent crimes are “due to the ten commandments not being displayed.” Bridges and all repugicans know that Alabamans have more faith in god than man and it prevents any attempt to address the real cause of school shootings and violent crime; the proliferation of guns, poverty, lack of jobs, and drug abuse among many others. To exacerbate the situation, repugicans have successfully convinced ignorant Americans that Democrats and President Obama are coming for their guns, robbing them of their religious liberty, and supplanting god by attempting to assuage the environmental devastation of global climate change. People clinging to ignorance due to religion welcome the repugicans’ message because it fits their limited worldview and they reward the repugican cabal by voting against their own, and all Americans, best interests; not out of ignorance, but out of religious fervor.
That religious fervor was on display as attacks on de Grasse Tyson, liberals, atheists, President Obama, and science in general exploded directly after “Cosmos” aired last week. What was telling in the rants against the show was the abject rejection of scientific facts and history that every seventh and eighth grade student learns before they advance and enroll in high school. Some of the comments by adherents of the christian religion equated scientific facts as lies perpetrated by President Obama they claim were blatant attacks on christianity and “a propaganda piece for militant Anti-Creator Evolutionists.” They also asserted that “Cosmos is re-writing history for an anti-christian agenda,” and that the entire program was “another Obama lie and anti-christian propaganda.” President Obama simply pre-recorded a 33-second introduction and said “America has always been a nation of fearless explorers who dreamed bigger and reached farther than others imagined. Today we’re doing everything we can to bring that same sense of possibility to a new generation because there are new frontiers to explore and we need Americans eager to explore them; there are no limits.”
To any American not steeped in ignorance or suffering from a religious persecution complex, it is impossible to see how the President lied or attacked christians, but that is precisely what repugicans have convinced the religio-wingnuts President Obama has spent the past five years doing. Although there is not a shred of truth, or evidence, that the President is attacking fundamentalists, they will show up at the polls to support repugican cabal and teabagger candidates who promise to battle Obama and restore religious liberty for beleaguered christians to dominate other Americans.
There is a saying that “ignorance is bliss,” but fundamentalist christians are not blissful and, in fact, are always angry and more dangerous than most Americans are willing to admit. However, when Americans finally realize those angry fundamentalists elected the repugicans that took everything they had, perhaps then they will see the inherent danger in the religio-wingnuts' willful ignorance, but by then it will be too late. It leads one to wonder how many Americans shrugging off warnings the religio-wingnuts are dangerous and an existential threat to democracy are themselves willfully ignorant.

Homework is eating American schoolkids and their families

Here's a report from the front lines of the neoliberal educational world*, where homework has consumed the lives of children and their families without regard to whether it is improving their educational outcomes. The average California kid in a recent study was doing 3.1 hours' worth of homework per night, at the expense of sleep, time for family and friends, and activities ranging from grandma's birthday to "everything I used to do."

Ms. Pope suggests asking teachers and schools to provide homework packets that a student can spread out over a week, rather than springing large assignments due tomorrow that can derail family plans. Schools and teachers can also help by building in time for students to get started on homework and ask any questions they might have.
Looking at the larger picture, she said, things are changing. “These students are already averaging an hour more than what’s thought to be useful,” she said, and teachers, schools and parents are beginning to think harder about what kinds of homework, and how much of it, enhance learning and motivation without becoming all-consuming.
It might be easier than you think to start the conversation at your student’s school. “Load doesn’t equal rigor,” Ms. Pope said. “There are other developmental things students need to be doing after school, and other things they need to be learning.”

*The school is a business that produces educated children as products. The teachers are employees. The administrators are managers. The government is the board of directors. The tax-payers are the shareholders. School-businesses must be "accountable," which means producing quarterly reports in which numbers -- test scores, attendance -- go up, regardless of whether that reflects any underlying educational merit.

Homework’s Emotional Toll on Students and Families

Voice Recognition Failure

(YouTube link)

Markus Johansen is Norwegian, but he is speaking English in this Audi, which is either a  rental car or a demo. The car speaks English but has a definite problem with accents. The general consensus is that the car will do anything to avoid playing Nickleback.

But it makes you think: How useful is voice recognition technology globally? Besides the many different languages, there are many accents within each language even among native speakers. And those who speak whatever language is used as a second language are often just plain out of luck.

Florida set to delete Hampton, a town with a questing, rent-seeking, corrupt wang

Hampton, Florida is a town so corrupt that it offends the Florida Legislature, a body with a notoriously high tolerance for sleaze. With fewer than 500 inhabitants, Hampton's major source of revenue is a diseased, questing wang that it has protruded from its main mass onto a 0.2 mile stretch of Highway 301 -- a stretch where the speed limit dips from 65 to 55. Hampton's hard-working traffic cops write an average of 17 tickets a day against out-of-towners, clearing $419,624 in 2011 and 2012. However, the town also operated at a deficit during this time.
There are lots of reasons for small towns to go into the red and sometimes it's hard to put your finger on exactly why a town can't make ends meet, but in Hampton's case, the cause is pretty clear. It's probably down to the (now incarcerated) ex-mayor Barry Moore, or possibly his three staffers who resigned in February, or maybe it was the police chief, who also resigned, along with 17 "employees." But if they're not the cause, it might be the town's water manager, whose business records were all "lost in a swamp."
All this has gotten beyond the pale for the state legislators, including the local representative, who was (perhaps unwisely, in hindsight) ticketed by a Hampton cop. They've given the town 30 days to clean up its sleaze or they're going to dissolve it.

The investigation also involves water, which is the one utility controlled by town government. Not only did it do a poor job of supplying water, the utility's financial records evidently left something to be desired. "The reason ... that no water meter logbooks before April 2012 could be found," the Times reported, "was that they were 'lost in a swamp,' the result of a car accident involving the water utility operator." (He forgot to file an accident report, it turns out, probably due to swamp trauma.) According to the sheriff, some residents said they were threatened with having their water turned off if they made trouble.
The town apparently has about 30 days to come up with a plan, or else the legislature is likely to dissolve it, which would make it part of surrounding Bradford County. That would presumably take care of the speed-trap tentacle, which is currently non-functional anyway due to lack of police "officers" to staff it.
"We are just trying to fix things that happened," said one of the five city councilmen, ironically (or not) named "Frantz Innocent." (Nobody's really to blame, you see—once again it's the fault of these things that keep happening. When will someone do something about the things?! They are getting away with murder.) "If you want to go poking around looking for something," Mr. Innocent continued, "you can always find something wrong." (It's the pokers' fault, too.)

Good Riddance to Hampton, Florida? 

Winchester Mystery House gets permit for overnight stays and on-site booze

The Winchester Mystery House is San Jose, CA's legendary tourist attraction, built by Sarah Winchester, widow of the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, who believed that she was haunted by the spirits of Native Americans who'd been murdered with the guns and designed and ordered the construction of over 160 rooms that she designed by means of automatic writing in a special seance room.
It's just been granted a permit to allow for overnight stays in the house, along with the right to sell booze throughout the property. Now I know what I'll be doing the next time I'm in northern California.

A special use permit approved March 5 by the San Jose planning department would allow overnight guests at the city landmark, but it doesn't look like the existing bedrooms in the structure are included in the permit. Instead, a staff report singles out certain structures on the site, including the pump house, caretaker's residence, and foreman's quarters as lodging possibilities.
The target market won't be traditional travelers, but rather those who want the full Winchester Mystery House experience.
"It wouldn't be a hotel type of thing," said Kristinae Toomians in the city's planning department. "Some people just have a fascination with it."
In addition, the city approved converting the existing cafe (a humble affair) to a bona fide restaurant open to the public, not just guests at the attraction. Winchester Investments LLC, the owner of the business, was also granted approval to allow the consumption of alcohol across the entire site (except the parking lot). That will presumably boost the attraction's events business.

Winchester Mystery House, Silicon Valley's haunted mansion, wins approval for overnight stays

Ziggy

Suicidal man threatening to jump from bridge inadvertently saved another man from drowning

A man threatening to leap into the Thames from London Bridge inadvertently saved a stranger from drowning. Lifeboat crew were called out around 11pm on Wednesday, and were stood down when police on the bridge talked down the distressed man.When lifeboats had arrived on the scene, police officers had stopped the man on the bridge from jumping and helped him to safety.

But after being alerted by a passer-by pointing at the river, volunteers with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution spotted the head of a person bobbing in the water not far from the bridge. “It was clearly a person underwater,” said Tower RNLI crew member Toni Scarr. “We brought him aboard the lifeboat and found he was wearing a large duffel coat that had weighed him down.

“He was struggling to keep his face above the water. Although he seemed alert and spoke to the crew, he was apologetic and wasn’t sure who he was or how he came to be in the river.” Back at Tower lifeboat station, waiting ambulance crew found the man was suffering hypothermia, with a body temperature of 33.1C.Ms Scarr said the incident had been recorded as a “life saved”.

“Chances are if it hadn’t been for the lifeboat crew launching to the original incident, which was resolved by police before we were needed, he would never have been spotted and would have drowned,” she added. “He was incredibly fortunate in that respect. We still don’t know how he came to be in the water but due to an unusual twist of fate we managed to avoid one more fatality on the River Thames last night. That first person who was threatening to jump from London Bridge but didn’t probably has no idea that, all things considered, he saved another man’s life.”

Man chained himself to place he was conceived after Phil Collins concert to protest at demolition

On Friday morning an Illinois man chained himself to a door of a Tollway Oasis rest stop that will always be in his heart to protest at its planned demolition on Sunday.

"It is a weird story, I must admit. About 21 years ago, my parents were at a Phil Collins concert here in Chicago, and one thing led to another. They ended up at the oasis … and I was conceived there," Kevin Walters said.

The 21-year-old from Crystal Lake, went on to explain that this little titbit about his parent's love at the Des Plaines Oasis on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway just came up in conversation one day.

"They were like, 'Oh yeah, hey, we never really told you how you were born, or your conception,' and my parents are weird people, so it's not that surprising," he said. Walters said the oasis is part of his life, and he hates to see it close. The Des Plaines Oasis will be torn out as part of a plan to widen the Addams Tollway.

Woman driving Mercedes convertible showered with manure

A woman driving a convertible car was showered with manure when a spreader being towed by a tractor burst open in front of her on Wednesday.

The manure sprayed across the road, covering the 26-year-old and her convertible Mercedes. Police described the incident at around midday in Traunstein, southern Bavaria, as "particularly tragic”.

 

The road was closed while 25 firefighters and specialist cleaners went about clearing up the mess caused by the manure shower.

According to police, the trail of manure stretched back for one kilometre. Train travel was also affected as a platform near the road had to be closed while it was cleaned.

16-year-old told he was too young to buy a pack of teaspoons

A 16-year-old boy was told he was too young to buy a pack of teaspoons by a supermarket in Lancashire. Liam Whelan was sent by his stepmother to their local Tesco in Haslingden to buy replacements for the spoons he keeps losing.
But staff refused to sell the 57p pack of teaspoons to Liam, from Deardengate, because he was not 18. His stepmother Yvette Whelan said the decision was "daft". Mrs Whelan said she sent Liam out to buy the spoons because he and his brother, Josh, keep losing them.

She admitted she thought he was lying about the incident at first and he had not been to the store. "Knives, forks I can understand but teaspoons? No," she said. "There's just no common sense." Mrs Whelan said Liam was "really embarrassed" by being sent home empty-handed.

A Tesco spokesperson said: "We do include a till prompt for proof of age on our self-service tills for some items. We ask our colleagues to use their judgment as to whether this should be applied. In this instance, this was not followed and we apologise to our customer for any inconvenience caused."

Bullied schoolboy told to leave his My Little Pony bag at home

A mother and her 9-year-old son say school officials in North Carolina won't let him take a My Little Pony bag to school. The boy and his mother say he's getting shoved around because bullies think his pick of a favorite toy is for girls.

My Little Pony fan Grayson Bruce,says: "They're taking it a little too far, with punching me, pushing me down, calling me horrible names, stuff that really shouldn't happen." Grayson picked a Rainbow Dash bag out this year, which he says has intensified the attacks against him.

Grayson's mother Noreen Bruce, says: "It's promoting friendship, there's no bad words, there's no violence, it's hard to find that, even in cartoons now." But Noreen says on Thursday the school asked him to leave the bag at home because it had become a distraction and was a "trigger for bullying." Noreenn added: "Saying a lunchbox is a trigger for bullying, is like saying a short skirt is a trigger for rape. It's flawed logic, it doesn't make any sense."

YouTube link.

Noreen wants punishment for the students involved. Buncombe County Schools said in statement: "An initial step was taken to immediately address a situation that had created a disruption in the classroom. Buncombe County Schools takes bullying very seriously, and we will continue to take steps to resolve this issue." So Grayson is using a different bag to carry his lunch to school, but he and his mother say they don't believe it's right to force him to leave the My Little Pony bag at home.

Random Photos

The Incredible Shrinking Mercury

The Incredible Shrinking Mercury

An obsolete theory of the Earth works better than ever on Mercury, where new data reveals how much the hot little planet has shriveled since it first formed.

Scientists May Get Best View Yet Of A Black Hole In Action

By observing this galactic snack fest, astronomers should be able to figure out what's going on in the black hole's immediate vicinity and potentially even witness some gas disappear into the massive objects maw. What they see may help scientists solve a decades-old puzzle about why our galaxy's central black hole is so quiet.

Daily Comic Relief

Pygmy Tyrannosaur Found in Arctic

A new dinosaur that was a small but close relative of T. rex has been found in Alaska, of all places. Nanuqsaurus hoglundi was only about 20 feet long (shown in blue in the above graph) and lived about 70 million years ago. Paleontologist Tony Fiorillo was part of a team that gathered the bones in 2006 while looking for a different dinosaur in the Prince Creek formation, and only later examined them.

In N. hoglundi's day, northern Alaska—then part of an ancient subcontinent called Larimidia—had weather like modern-day Seattle: seasonally cold but not frigid. The dinosaur likely would have wandered in the valleys beneath majestic snow-capped peaks and hunted other dinosaurs, including a duck-billed species, amid towering sequoias and flower-studded coastal plains, said Fiorillo, who received funding from the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program.

Unlike Seattle, though, the Arctic was still a rough place, with long periods of darkness and light, as well as distinct seasons in which food wasn't readily available. For instance, prey species likely would have exploded in number during the summer, but then fallen off in the dark winter, leaving predators with little to eat.

The name Nanuqsaurus is derived from Nanuq, the Alaska Inupiat word meaning polar bear. Read more about the discovery at National Geographic News.

Doctors removed live leech lodged in girl's windpipe

Doctors in China have removed a live 5-centimetre leech from the windpipe of a 7-year-old girl.

The girl from the city of Zhaotong in Yunnan province is recovering after being rushed by her parents to Kunming Children's Hospital on Monday having difficulty breathing.

The family usually drink water straight from the tap, her parents said. Their daughter had been suffering throat pain for more than two months.

"We thought she might have caught a cold," the mother said, "but never thought it was a leech or it could stay there so long." The girl must have suffered as leeches grow larger by sucking on blood, a doctor said.

Horse airlifted to safety from ravine

For a brief time, a horse was flying over southern California on Wednesday night.

The animal was lifted by helicopter to safety after falling 50 feet at Angeles National Forest.

Veterinarians tranquilized and blindfold the horse so it would stay calm and not spin the chopper during the 3 mile flight.

YouTube link. Original BBC News video. Longer video of horse in flight.

It touched down without any trouble and was treated for injuries. Its female rider was also rescued.

Lurking in the darkness of Chinese caves ...

Lurking in the darkness of Chinese caves 5 new species of armored spiders come to light

Armored spiders are medium to small species that derive their […]

Police seek Chihuahua-carrying bank robber

Police in Tucson, Arizona are asking for the public's help in identifying a man who allegedly robbed a bank with his little dog by his side.

The suspect targeted a Chase Bank inside a Fry's grocery store at around 10:40am on Friday morning.

TPD Sgt. Pete Dugan said the suspect approached the teller and put a basket holding a white Chihuahua on the counter. He then demanded money and fled from the store on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash and the dog.
No weapon was seen or mentioned and no one was hurt, police said. Authorities described the suspect as white or Hispanic, about 35 years old, stands around 5'10" tall and weighs about 180 pounds.

Rescued puppy credited with saving family's life two weeks after adoption

A puppy who was adopted from the Michigan Humane Society is credited with saving the lives of his new family members. Hunter, a 3-month-old Husky-mix alerted them to a gas leak at their Grosse Pointe Woods home in the middle of the night, hours after a burner was inadvertently left on enough to emit gas, but not enough to light it.

Hunter, who was adopted just two weeks prior, woke his adoptive mother, Jill McLarty, by whining non-stop. Thinking that Hunter needed to go outside, Jill let him out. She was surprised that Hunter simply sat outside and continued to whine. Jill let him back in and brought the pup back into the bedroom, where she and her husband were sleeping.

YouTube link.

Hunter wouldn’t stop whining and eventually began running in circles in the hallway before leading Jill into the kitchen. When she turned the light on, she saw Hunter sitting next to the stove, and noticed that one of the gas stove burners was on low, without a flame, causing gas to leak into the house.

The McLartys estimate that the gas had been on since they had cooked dinner, nearly six hours before Hunter woke them up. “He is the first dog we ever adopted and I would recommend it to anybody,” said Tim McLarty, Jill’s husband. McLarty said the family nearly opted to adopt Hunter’s sibling, but the puppy won them over at the first glance. He said he strongly believes that decision saved his family. “As cliché as it sounds, the life you save may save yours,” he added.

Blue marlin is not blue

Fishermen in Costa Rica caught (and then released) what appears to be an albino blue marlin. But experts say you have to look closer. The not-blue marlin isn't albino, either. Instead, it's probably leucistic. What's the difference? Albino animals carry mutations that prevent their cells from producing pigment. Leucistic animals, in contrast, seem to have normal pigment cells, but something prevents those cells from being expressed through the skin. You can tell an albino animal from a leucistic one by the eyes — if the eyes are colored, rather than pink, the animal is leucistic.

Animal Pictures