[Zbignieww]

Remains of 35-million-year-old turtle discovered in ruins of Christchurch church
A rare 35-million-year-old turtle fossil has been discovered in the quake ruins of a Christchurch church.



“As soon as I saw it, I recognised it immediately as, undoubtedly, a turtle,” a senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum, Dr Paul Scofield, said.

“It's big - it's two or three metres long ... The shell would have been on this outside and it hasn't survived and then you've just got one of the vertebrae surviving.”

The limestone once formed the pillars of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church when the 2011 earthquakes shook the secret free.

"We wouldn't have found the fossil. It would have still been in the Corinthian column at the front of the Baptist church," he said.

An artist was planning to use the broken pillar in his garden when he made the accidental discovery.

“It chipped away easily from that and I thought, ‘Righto, keep on going until there wasn’t any more'. I thought, ‘That has got to be a bone’,” Christchurch sculptor Paul Deans said.

He then alerted the Canterbury Museum. And there's a twist - the museum already had a part of a turtle fossil gifted to it in 1880.

It turns out the find is likely to be the rest of it.

“It sat here in the museum for 140 years awaiting its counterpart,” Scofield said.

The church where the discovery was made has since had a complete rebuild but some of the pillars have been restored and still remain.

It's more than likely they contain more fossils.

The near-complete fossil will now undergo studies and testing, but it's hoped it will go on display in the museum the future.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zea ... rch-church

[PennySerenade]

18 years after helping deliver baby in Starbucks bathroom, man reunites with kid

Nearly two decades after he was born in a Starbucks bathroom, Jonathan Celner was shocked to discover a message from the barista who helped deliver him.


"I mean like, I wanted to know more about this kid for so long and then finally I got to meet him and it was just this very exciting moment," said former Starbucks barista Griffin Baron.

Nearly two decades after he was born early in a Starbucks bathroom in suburban Chicago, 18-year-old Jonathan Celner was shocked to open his rarely-used Facebook to discover a message from the man who helped deliver him all those years ago.

Griffin Baron was 21 and working as a Starbucks shift supervisor when Celner's mother stopped at a Starbucks near the highway in Wilmette, Illinois, on her way home. She went into labor while she was there — three weeks early, Celner said — and ended up giving birth in the bathroom.

It was an experience Baron would never forget, he told TODAY Food, and he spent years wondering what became of the baby. Then, this past spring, he stumbled upon a GoFundMe for the now-teen and his older brother. They had lost their mother, Lisabeth Rohlck, years earlier and their father died recently.

Baron said he donated and looked up the Celner on Facebook. Before he decided to send him a message, he verified that the teen was the right kid and then he got "goosebumps everywhere."

"I was like, 'Oh my god,'" Baron said. "I was the barista, the day you were born, and I have always wondered, what, like, what came of you after you were born?"

The two chatted for a few minutes and decided to meet up — where else? — at the very Starbucks in Wilmette where it all went down, as first reported by The Record North Shore.

The shop itself even has a small memento from the surprise birth on the window by the door, both Celner and Baron confirmed: a sticker of a stork carrying a baby marks is a cheeky nod to Celner's arrival on Earth.

Baron told TODAY that in 2002, he'd been sitting in the back room at work eating when he heard screaming coming from the women's bathroom.

A female customer, identified in local media at the time as Tricia Monico, went in to check and discovered Rohlck giving birth.

By the time Baron got there to help — with the only thing he could think of to bring: hot towels — Celner was apparently on his way out.

"The customer's holding her hand and she's huffing and puffing ready to go and there is a baby coming up," Baron said.

"And I was like … frozen. Like, 'Here's your towels?' I don't know what's going on," he laughed. "So we're cheering her on, she's doing great, holding on to her hand, and the next thing you know, an extra person comes out of the bathroom."

It was a chaotic few minutes, Baron said, and EMTs arrived in time to cut the umbilical cord. The happy mom and son were taken to the hospital to get checked out and held a press conference there later for local news outlets — part of which even aired the following day on TODAY.



After Rohlck and Celner left, Baron said the store looked like "a complete war zone," to the point where the company had to bring in a hazmat team to clean up overnight.

In the meantime, he laughed, customers kept coming, saying, "Oh, that was crazy. Can I get a grande Frappuccino?' and I'm like, 'No! Get out! We're closed, you can't come in here!'"

Celner said he grew up knowing the chaotic way he entered the world, but his mom died when he was fairly young. Meeting Baron helped him "fill in the gaps" in the story.

"He remembers stuff like my mom was waving to like all the people as she was getting rolled out on this stretcher with me in her arms," he chuckled, adding that his mom had told him the story but didn't go "too in-depth with it."

Baron, now a father of two young kids himself, added that Celner's birth ended up being one of the most memorable moments of his life.

"I've thought about you a million times," he said, explaining that even when his own son was born, he was reminded of the first time he'd witnessed childbirth in that Starbucks bathroom. "It's bonkers. I mean like, I wanted to know more about this kid for so long and then finally I got to meet him and it was just this very exciting moment … I think about him all the time."

Despite his origin story, Celner's go-to drink at the coffee chain is usually a hot chocolate or the occasional cold brew.

"I'm not, like, super crazy about coffee, considering I was born in a Starbucks," he laughed.

[prokroustis]

Mystery as hundreds of sheep seen silently standing in 'unnerving' circle formation

A cyclist was forced to jump off his bike and do a double take after he spotted an unsual livestock formation – which the internet has hilariously dubbed a "ewe-FO".

A cyclist feared he had encountered a flock of sheep under alien mind control when he saw hundreds of them standing in an unnatual circular formation.

Christopher Hogg, 47, was cycling through Rottingdean in East Sussex when he spotted the fleeced beasts acting unusually.

Photos he took of the unsually quiet grazers showed them standing in a near perfect geometric shape.

At first glance it evokes memories of the mysterious crop circles of the 1990s, which left Brits fearing an alien invasion or that extraterrestrials were trying to communicate with them.

Christopher said: "I was on my daily cycle and came over the hill and saw this magnificent circle.

"At that point I was about half a mile away, which made me think that whatever it was, it was huge.

"It was saucer-shaped, like an alien ship. It was beautiful, but also in 2021 a bit too weird for comfort.



The Royal Holloway University lecturer was also unnerved by their "weird" behaviour.

He said: "The sheep are usually noisy, I go past them every day, but this day they were very still and calm.

"It was so quiet, like they were in a trance. It was very eerie."

Suddenly consumed with a desire to get away from the sheep, he rapidly pedalled home and showed the photos he had taken to his wife Victoria and son Louis who both thought it was 'nuts'.

He also shared the snaps to Facebook where other users tried to figure out what was happening in the shot.

Chris added: "There was lots of debate whether it was a crop or flock circle or if the sheep were being summoned by a strange force. Others thought they might be pranking the farmer.

"We all agreed it was a mystery that warranted the recall of Mulder and Scully!"

If The X Files' super sleuths had come to check out what the "flock" was going on, one line of enquiry might have been if the sheep were grazing on or near a ley line.



These are mystical invisible lines of energy that criss-cross the Earth, and are regarded as important points of worship and healing by New Age practitioners and Druids.

The mystery solvers also might have looked in to the ancient standing stones of the area which are seeped in folklore – some of them involving sheep survivng the mysterious deaths of their shepherds.

But it turns out there was a far simpler explanation. The sheep were merely following the pattern of a 'sheep snacker' which had left their food in a circular trail.

[goldie0608]

Nearly-Retired Couple Adopts 7 Siblings Who Just Lost Their Parents: ‘If not us, then who?’



While the prospect of an empty nest is bittersweet, most parents look forward to some uninterrupted couple time when their kids finally fly the coop. But for one California husband and wife, rather than a cozy retirement, they found themselves feathering their nest all over again—with seven adopted kids.

The odyssey began back in January 2019, as Pam Willis was scanning Facebook. She says a post titled ‘Seven Siblings in Need of Forever Home’ “hit her like a ton of bricks.”

The story revealed that after the children’s mother and father perished in a car accident a year earlier, the siblings had been placed in foster care. “In that instant, their sweet smiling faces jumped off of the screen and into my heart,” she posted to Instagram.

Pam tagged her husband Gary on the post. By day’s end it was decided—they wanted to adopt them all.

“We knew deep inside that this mission was being placed before us,” Pam wrote. “If not us, then who? Who would keep them all together? Who would have the space for them? Who would have the time, and the love, and the patience for their trauma? The answer was clear…

“We would. Why else did we have a six-bedroom house that was about to have its last child’s bedroom vacated? Why else would our nest that had raised our first five babies be empty just in time? It was only to make room for our new babies.”

Two months after making initial contact with the foster care agency, Adelino, 15, Ruby, 13, Aleecia, 9, Anthony, 8, Aubriella, 7, Leo, 5, and Xander, 4 were placed with Pam and Gary.

With fears were founded on past experience, feeling truly safe did not come easily to the eldest children. Even prior to losing their parents, their lives had been far from ideal: Their mother and father were sometimes indigent and also struggled with substance abuse. As a result, they were sometimes unable to provide a stable environment for their kids.

“I think it’s so hard to trust when so much has been taken from your life,” Pam Willis told TODAY. “One night, my then-7-year-old came into our room. I asked her, ‘Did you have a bad dream?’ And she replied, ‘No, I just wanted to make sure that you were still here.’”

The Willises knew it would take time and patience for them to earn the children’s trust but they were willing to do whatever it took. Last August, Pam and Gary made the adoption official.

The virtual ceremony was attended by the couple’s biological children, Matthew, Andrew, Alexa, Sophia, and Sam—whose ages range from 20 to 32. “It was awesome,” Pam told TODAY. “We brought a big TV screen out to the park so everybody could watch and cheer and be safe during COVID. There was so much love.”

Though a second family hadn’t been in their plans, the outcome of the story came as no surprise to the Willises. “They were ours from the minute we saw their faces on the news story,” Pam posted on Instagram.

“If you ask my friends, one moment we were reposting their heart-wrenching news story and calling attention to their plight, the next minute we were meeting them, falling in love, and starting the adoption process… WE are their forever home, and this is our second chance with SEVEN! ❤️”

[prokroustis]

'World's biggest rabbit' stolen from Worcestershire garden

The rabbit's owner has pleaded for his safe return and says he is now too old to breed.



A £1,000 reward is being offered after a rabbit said to be the biggest in the world was stolen from its Worcestershire home.

Police believe the Flemish giant rabbit was taken from its enclosure in Stoulton on Saturday night.

Named Darius, the rabbit is recognised by Guinness World Records as being the longest alive at 4ft 3in (129cm).

Owner Annette Edwards is offering the reward and said the theft of her pet was a "very sad day".

She said on Twitter that Darius is now too old to breed and pleaded for the thieves to bring him back.

A West Mercia Police spokesman said: "We are appealing for information following the theft of an award-winning rabbit from its home in Stoulton, Worcestershire.

"It is believed the Continental Giant rabbit was stolen from its enclosure in the garden of the property of its owners overnight on Saturday April 10 to April 11."

The force have asked anyone with information to contact PC Daren Riley via 101 quoting reference 00286_I_11042021.

[lush]

Dressed-up dummies race down ski slope at Oregon resort
April 12, 2021 / 4:38 PM *

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hObFFGoJAK0 [video]


April 12 (UPI) -- A ski resort in Oregon held an annual event for more than 20 unusual skiers -- dummies competing to earn their creators a free season pass.

The Mt. Ashland ski resort held its annual Dummy Downhill event Sunday, featuring 20 dummies created by members of the public to race down a slope featuring a large jump to win a free season pass.

The rules required each dummy to weigh under 125 pounds and be mounted on either two skis or a snowboard.

"We judge them on creativity, and then we're going to judge them on their run, their craft, their air time," Mt. Ashland General Manager Hiram Towle told KOBI-TV.

Towle said there were more than 20 entries, a new record for the annual event that was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"People love it, it's great for the kids, you don't even have to be a skier or a snowboarder, you can just come to watch us demolish these dummies off of this big jump," Towle said.

A dummy titled "The Flying Ace" was declared the winner this year, earning a free season pass for creator Margaret Shaughnessy.

[Governor3]

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
TUESDAY APRIL 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 -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
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

[Zbignieww]

Two dozen monkeys break out of German zoo
About two dozen monkeys broke out of a southwestern German zoo and spent the day lolling in the sun near a forest before being recaptured, authorities said.



The Barbary macaques, commonly known as Barbary apes, escaped from the zoo in Loeffingen, southwest of Stuttgart and not far from the Swiss border.

It was not entirely clear how they got away, but construction work at the zoo might have been a factor, police said.

The primates were spotted roaming the area in a pack, but zoo employees were unable to recapture them and eventually lost track of them.

A few hours later they were spotted, recaptured and returned to their cages without incident, police said.

“The animals apparently took advantage of the nice weather and spent the afternoon on the edge of a forest near the zoo,” police said.

The Barbary macaque is native to the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and has a small but famous presence across the water in Europe in the British territory of Gibraltar.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/two-dozen-monkeys-break-german-zoo

[BigGlen]

1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
1204 – Constantinople falls to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
1612 – Miyamoto Musashi defeats Sasaki Kojirō at Funajima island.
1613 – Samuel Argall, having captured Native American princess Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia, sets off with her to Jamestown with the intention of exchanging her for English prisoners held by her father.
1742 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces are ambushed and defeated in the Battle of Bound Brook, New Jersey.
1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 gives Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom the right to vote and to sit in Parliament.
1849 – Lajos Kossuth presents the Hungarian Declaration of Independence in a closed session of the National Assembly.
1861 – American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.
1865 – American Civil War: Raleigh, North Carolina is occupied by Union Forces.
1870 – The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.
1873 – The Colfax massacre, in which more than 60 black men are murdered, takes place.
1909 – The military of the Ottoman Empire reverses the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 to force the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
1919 – Jallianwala Bagh massacre: British Indian Army troops lead by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer killed approx 379-1000 unarmed demonstrators including men and women in Amritsar, India; and approximately 1,500 injured.
1941 – A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.
1943 – World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.
1943 – The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.
1944 – Relations between New Zealand and the Soviet Union are established.
1945 – World War II: German troops kill more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.
1945 – World War II: Soviet and Bulgarian forces capture Vienna.
1948 – In an ambush, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital, and a British soldier, are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah. This event came to be known as the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.
1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra.
1958 – American pianist Van Cliburn is awarded first prize at the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
1960 – The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world's first satellite navigation system.
1964 – At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American male to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.
1970 – An oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed "Odyssey") while on route to the Moon.
1972 – The Universal Postal Union decides to recognize the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese representative, effectively expelling the Republic of China administering Taiwan.
1972 – Vietnam War: The Battle of An Lộc begins.
1975 – An attack by the Phalangist resistance kills 26 militia members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
1976 – The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
1976 – Forty workers die in an explosion at the Lapua ammunition factory, the deadliest accidental disaster in modern history in Finland.
1992 – Basements throughout the Chicago Loop are flooded, forcing the Chicago Board of Trade Building and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to close.
1997 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.
2003 – A bus near the Vale of Tempe, Greece is involved in a major vehicle accident with a truck and multiple cars, leaving 21 students in the tenth grade of Makrochori, Imathia High School dead and nine injured during their return to their homes from a trip to Athens.
2017 – The US drops the largest ever non-nuclear weapon on Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

[Fatima99]

They Counted Endangered Rhinos in Nepal And the Population Has Grown By 16%

A third country has announced some good news for rhinos this year. Populations of the endangered one-horned rhinoceros in Nepal have increased by 16% over the past six years.



The new National Rhino Count 2021 estimates the current number stands at 752 individuals up from 645 in 2015. Rhinos were counted across the country between March 22 and April 10, including within four national parks, including Chitwan.

In the 1960s there were only around 100 left in the country.

The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation used 57 elephants in their search for rhinos, along with 350 trained personnel who swept the jungle areas to document a species headcount.

During the process, they also collected data on habitat conditions, invasive species in the area, and human activities in the region.

“The overall growth in population size is indicative of ongoing protection and habitat management efforts by protected area authorities, despite challenging contexts these past years,” said Ghana Gurung, Country Representative of WWF Nepal.

“This achievement is yet another milestone in Nepal’s conservation journey.”

Meanwhile, in Africa, 2020 was a remarkable year for rhino protection in Kenya where not one single rhino lost its horn or its life last year—a feat not achieved since 1999.

And in South Africa, which contains 80% of all African rhinos, 2020 was the sixth consecutive year that rhino poaching incidents dropped in the massive Kruger National Park. Since 2017, deaths have plummeted by 60%.

[PennySerenade]

Councillor wants Torontonians to be able to consume beer and wine in parks



TORONTO -- A midtown city councillor wants the city to introduce a pilot project to permit the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public parks and at beaches this summer.

Ward 12 Coun. Josh Matlow has written a letter to the infrastructure and environment committee asking that they consider implementing a pilot project that would allow members of the public to consume some alcoholic beverages in parks and at beaches with bathroom facilities between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m.

The proposed pilot project would run from May 21 until October 31 and would be largely geared towards beer, wine and cider with the city continuing to prohibit the public consumption of any beverages with an alcohol percentage exceeding 15 per cent.

“As we approach the second summer of the pandemic, public health officials recognize the reality that, especially after a year in isolation, people need to socialize,” Matlow said in the latter. “It is up to us as policy makers to create environments where those connections with friends and family can be made in the safest way possible way.”

Last summer Vancouver introduced a pilot project of its own to allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages in nine city parks and that initiative is expected to be expanded this summer.

A number of other cities, including Montreal, have also long allowed residents to consume alcohol beverages in parks al fresco.

But in Toronto the practice remains strictly forbidden and anyone found in a public park with an open liquor container can be issued a $300 fine.

In an interview with Newstalk 1010 on Monday morning, Matlow called the ongoing prohibition “tone deaf” given what we know about the enhanced risk of COVID-19 transmission indoors.

He said that that while many Torontonians “have the privilege to be able to have a drink in their backyard or on their balcony,” not everyone is so lucky and shouldn’t be left with the option of congregating indoors “or doing something illegal.”

“If you remember a year ago the city was taking really dramatic measures to address the impending pandemic. We were keeping people off all the playground equipment and telling people not to sit on benches. But in the last year we have learned a lot and we understand now much more about the transmission of the virus than we did then and now the city is actively encouraging people to be outdoors. In fact, we know that being outdoors is far safer than being indoors,” he said. “In other words if one is going to have a drink and if you are choosing to do that with others it is far safer to do it outdoors with the ventilation that you have than congregating inside somewhere.”

The infrastructure and environment committee will consider Matlow’s motion at a meeting scheduled for April 28.

[goldie0608]

A Marvel of Engineering, Girl Receives Pet Dragon Through the Make-a-Wish Foundation



An out-of-the-ordinary request made to the Make-a-Wish Foundation saw a teenage cancer survivor get a trip to a medieval castle to train a dragon.

Belle Cress was even able to take the dragon home with her, since it was built and designed specifically to respond to her touch, face, and voice.

Make-a-Wish Denver teamed up with Arrow Electronics to create the robotic dragon, which Belle named “Dusk,” after the 14-year-old battled back from a rare form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma, for which she required several surgeries and 10 months of intensive chemotherapy.

“Excited … like a feeling that I can’t really explain in my chest … sort of nervous.. excited,” Belle said to CBS, recounting the magic meeting. “I’ve loved dragons ever since I can remember,” she said.

The initial meeting took place in virtual reality courtesy of a video created by emergeStudios, which transported Belle to a fantastical place far, far away from where she first laid eyes on her dragon. After removing the VR headset, Dusk was there by her side in the Cherokee Ranch castle in Colorado—a modern construction of 15th-century castle building techniques.

Consisting of individually printed 3D scales, 26 motors, and several computer boards, it’s a marvel of engineering and robotics. Dusk has the ability to see and recognize Belle’s face, respond in different ways to touch, and freely express itself with dragon-like movements such as stretching its marvelous wings.

“Why we’re building a robotic dragon for just one kid, is because it’s for just one kid,” says Victoria Pea, the project manager at Arrow. “We want her to be happy, and if a robotic dragon is going to make her happy I say ‘why not build it?'”

Make-a-Wish has been steaming ahead during COVID-19, not allowing the pandemic-sized radar blip distract them from completing 8,800 wishes from kids across the States.

[hija]

Reindeer viaducts: the latest wildlife bridges that connect fractured habitats



Sami reindeer herder Tobias Jonsson faces a challenge that his ancestors never did: chaperoning his animals over Sweden’s busiest motorway.

The herdsman and his reindeer are typically given a small window to cross the E4 by the authorities, which close the road briefly in the small hours during migration season.

“The reindeer don’t have a schedule – they want to move when they want to move,” said Jonsson. “It’s a huge effort.”

The spring migration from coast to mountains is made so onerous by the E4 that Jonsson and his reindeer do the return autumn migration by lorry. For indigenous herders like Jonsson, it is a break with a centuries-old way of life.

But plans for a series of bridges over roads and railways in Sweden could help the Sami and their herds migrate freely again. Up to a dozen ‘renoducts’ (reindeer viaducts) are proposed, with work on the first one – over the E4 near the city of Umeå – due to start this summer.

“I’m excited,” said Jonsson. “Finally, something is happening. We’ve been stuck like this for as long as I can remember.”

The pressure on reindeer and their herders in Scandinavia has been increasing since the 1950s, when commercial forestry and mining began eating away at grazing habitats in earnest. Then came motorways and railways, fracturing the remaining grazing sites.

Linking those lands has been made more urgent by the climate crisis, which forces reindeer to roam further for food.

Helping to plan Sweden’s wildlife bridges is Per Sandström, a landscape ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who previously helped to create ecological corridors for bears in Montana, US.
“We want to see green bridges with vegetation on that are not just places to squeeze through, but places where you can graze your way across,” Sandström said, noting that authorities could be tempted to cut corners to save money.

Similar efforts are being ramped up globally. US engineers are designing what will be the world’s largest wildlife bridge over Highway 101 near LA. It will allow isolated populations of mountain lions to mix, which is essential to prevent inbreeding. The Netherlands is also part-way through a programme of wildlife bridge building.
Wildlife bridges have proven effective elsewhere. An overpass in Banff national park (main image, above) helps black and grizzly bears in the Canadian Rockies. On Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, overpasses help red crabs migrate across roads, and in Mexico, underpasses help jaguars to avoid highways.

“It’s not just for reindeer, but all animals in the forest,” said Jonsson, about Sweden’s renoducts. “I’m going to be crying the day they are finished.”

[prokroustis]

The custom coffins being made to suit your personality, even after death



A Kiwi man is taking the “one size does not fit all” theory quite literally, and designing custom coffins for people’s final farewells.

And when we say custom, we mean custom.

Ross Hall has made coffins adorned with doughnuts, lego, blocks of chocolate – whatever it is that will perfectly capture the spirit of the coffin’s owner.

Hall told RNZ he thought of the concept while writing his will – the last thing he wanted was to be farewelled in a plain ol’ brown box.

He wanted a bright red casket with flames on it.

And thus, Dying Art was born.



Hall said they now get up to five requests a week for custom caskets. And given the nature of the business, those requests need to be turned around very quickly.

“For me, I get so much enjoyment out of making a tragic day a little bit lighter for families,” said Hall, who works out of Auckland.

“We get some fantastic responses back from families about what a difference the casket made, because when they looked at it they saw their loved one within there and that’s what they were all about you know … They just put a whole different twist to a sad moment.”

Hall finishes the deal by driving his customer to their funeral in a 1991 Cadillac hearse.

[Fivetide]

Off-duty Italy art cops find looted statue in Belgian shop


This image released on Monday, April 12, 2021 by the Carabinieri (Italian paramilitary police) art squad’s archaeological unit, shows a headless Roman statue wearing a draped toga recovered in Brussels on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. Italian police say they have recovered a 1st century Roman statue that was stolen from an archaeological site in 2011 and found in a Belgian antiques shop by two off-duty Italian art squad police officers. The Carabinieri art squad said Monday that an Italian businessman who used a Spanish pseudonym has been referred to prosecutors for further investigation into allegations he received and then exported the statue abroad. The statue has been valued at 100,000 euro. (Carabinieri via AP)

Italian police say they have recovered a 1st century Roman statue that was stolen from an archaeological site in 2011 and found in a Belgian antiques shop by two off-duty Italian art squad police officers.

An Italian businessman who used a Spanish pseudonym has been referred to prosecutors for further investigation into allegations he received and then exported the statue abroad, the Carabinieri art squad said in a statement Monday.

The “Togatus” statue, featuring a headless Roman wearing a draped toga, has a value of 100,000 euro. It was stolen in November 2011 from the Villa Marini Dettina archaeological site on the outskirts of the capital, the statement said.

Two members of the art squad’s archaeological unit were on assignment in Brussels when they took a walk after work in the Sablon neighborhood that is known for its antiques shops. They spotted a marble statue in a shop that they suspected was from Italy, and confirmed their suspicions when they cross-referenced the work with a database of known stolen antiquities, the statement said.

Italy for decades has worked to recover looted antiquities that have ended up in private collections, famous museums and commercial antique shops around the world.