Tuesday, July 14, 2020

A Man facing a dozen charges for ‘doing donuts’ in cemetery

A 43-year-old man in Paragould, Arkansas faces multiple charges after police say he drove through a cemetery damaging several gravestones. The incident happened at Linwood Cemetery in Paragould.  According to a news release from the Paragould Police Department, emergency services received a call about a black SUV doing donuts in the cemetery. As officers were responding, the SUV stopped and the driver ran from the scene. Witnesses provided officers with a description of the man and told them the direction that had seen him running. Officers quickly located and arrested the suspect. The next day, a judge found probable cause to charge him with 12 counts of destruction/removal of a cemetery or grave marker, leaving the scene of an accident with property damage, and driving on a suspended driver’s license. He’s being held in the Greene County Jail on a $125,000 cash-only bond awaiting his next court appearance. (KAIT)

Teenager paralyzed in arm, hand after binge-playing computer games

A 15-year-old boy in China was paralyzed in the left arm and hand after losing sensation for playing video games of the computer for about 22 hours a day for a month. The incident took place in Nanning city of China where the teenage boy was shifted to the Jiangbin Hospital in Guangxi province after losing consciousness at home. It emerged that he faced the terrible situation for being indulged in video games continuously for 22 hours a day at his home during the coronavirus lockdown. His mother said that he spent most of his time in his bedroom during the school closure and always told his parents for taking online classes. The boy shut the windows and locked the doors and the parents have no idea what he was doing in there. During the period, the boy reportedly slept only for two hours a day for the whole month which was discovered by his mother after searching his online conversation with friends. The medics have diagnosed after a CT scan that the teenager suffered cerebral stroke and lost sensation in his left arm and hand. The brain specialist at the hospital blamed the irregular sleeping and eating patterns, as well as his parents for tolerating too much for the boy’s behaviors. Their doctor said that the cerebral stroke was caused due to the lack of nutrition and reset which led to a reduced amount of blood and oxygen. The young gamer has since been receiving rehabilitation treatment at the Nanning hospital. A chief therapist at the facility said that it was difficult to determine whether he could ever fully recover. (Ary News)

Our final words to loved ones may not fall on deaf ears

As humans lay dying, new research suggests that one crucial sense is still functioning: The brain still registers the last sounds a person will ever hear, even if the body has become unresponsive. The study suggests that hearing is one of the last senses to disappear during death. Scientists found that the brains of “actively dying” patients in palliative care (some unresponsive, some still responsive) still registered activity in response to sounds. The patterns of activity were similar to those seen in a sample of healthy controls, suggesting that people still hear as they die. This study is based on the brain activity seen in 17 healthy control patients, eight responsive hospice patients, and five unresponsive hospice patients. Each patient was presented with two kinds of 5 note songs. One version was just five repeated notes, whereas others had changes in tones or differing patterns of tones. The healthy and the responsive hospice participants were asked to count the number of songs where those patterns changed. As participants listened, the scientists looked for patterns of activity linked to those tone changes – which would signal that the brain had picked up on them. The scientists were searching for two very specific types of brain signals, which were actually identified in a 2009 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study on non-responsive patients, and conscious patients. (Nature)

Female Mountie keeps her job after groping a fellow B.C. officer twice

A British Columbia, Canadian Mountie who fondled the genitals of one of her fellow constables, groped his thigh and made inappropriate sexual comments to him has lost 20 days of pay and 10 vacation days. Because of her discreditable conduct, she will also be ineligible for promotion for two years, has to work under supervision for one year, and is restricted from working in the same detachment as the man she groped, according to a decision from the conduct board. At the time of the sexual violations, she was a new recruit in the Vernon detachment and worked alongside the male victim. She groped him without his consent on two separate occasions between late 2009 and early 2010, according to the decision. The first incident happened on an unknown date while the two constables were observing serious crimes officers interviewing the suspect in a sex crime. The second took place when the Vernon RCMP entered a team in a community broomball tournament. The woman has no previous discipline record, according to the decision, and she denied assaulting her fellow officer. (CBC)

Baby owl webcam banned by Facebook over sex and nudity rule

Video of nesting baby owls was temporarily removed by Facebook for apparently breaking rules on nudity and sexual activity, the page’s owner said. The live stream was set up by a man, who started sharing cute pictures of the owls in his garden during the coronavirus lockdown. He claimed his Brockholes Wildlife Diary’s page was blocked despite having no inappropriate content. While the page has been reinstated Mr Moss has yet to receive an explanation. Facebook said it was “currently investigating the removal of this post”. A spokesman added: “If people believe their content has been removed in error, they can appeal be clicking the ‘Request Review’ option.” More than 500 people had been enjoying his stream and footage, and described its temporary removal as “ridiculous”. The live stream was removed twice, for about 48 hours each time. He said he had tried to contact Facebook but had not been able to reach anyone. (BBC)

Mysterious blob-like creature washes up on Queensland beach

Mystery surrounds an unknown creature that washed up on a Queensland beach. A Facebook user said she found the unusual-looking animal, which resembles a blob of jelly, on Urangan Beach in Hervey Bay. “Wondering if it’s a stone fish washed up?,” the woman wrote. But fellow social media users didn’t agree. “Definitely not a stone fish. They have spikes,” one person said. “That’s not a stonefish. to me it looks like soft coral,” another person said. Other theories suggested it could be a jellyfish, the body part of whale or shark, or ambergris – a solid substance produced and ejected by sperm whales. Ambergris is used by some perfume manufacturers and can be worth a lot of money. “If it’s ambergris it’s worth a lot of money but I think it’s harder than that looks but sure worth exploring,” one person wrote. One woman said the sight of the creature was enough to stop her swimming at the beach. (7 News)

Alabama jail refuses inmates COVID-19 masks because ‘they’re going to eat them’

Madison County, Alabama inmates still aren’t being given masks or allowed to wear their own. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, cited safety concerns among the reasons inmates aren’t allowed masks. Inmates could harm themselves or others with masks that have metal nose pieces, he said, while other masks that don’t have metal pieces could be tied together to make ropes. “You give them face masks (with) a nose piece — metal pieces in them — they’re going to eat them,” he said. “They’re going to swallow them.” If that happened, the public would question why inmates were given potentially dangerous weapons — face masks. Outside the walls of the jail, a coronavirus health order now requires most people in Madison County to wear face coverings in public. That order doesn’t appear to apply to the jail, which houses inmates arrested by the sheriff’s office, Madison police and other agencies in the county. (AL.com)

Americans’ credit card debt is shrinking rapidly during the coronavirus recession

The amount of consumer revolving credit, which is mostly credit cards, plunged by another $24 billion in May, the Federal Reserve said recently. This costly form of debt is down more than $100 billion since hitting a record high in February and is now below $1 trillion for the first time in nearly three years. The dwindling pile of credit card debt is yet more evidence of how drastically consumer behavior is changing during the pandemic and this period of financial insecurity. In many ways, it makes perfect sense that Americans are swiping the plastic less. The health crisis, forced the widespread shutdown of restaurants, bars and professional sports. (CNN)

Sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. breaks record for most expensive game ever sold

Super Mario Bros. keeps breaking records three and a half decades after release. A mint copy of a US version of the 1985 game just sold for $114,000 at Heritage Auctions, breaking the previous record set by a copy of Super Mario Bros. in similar condition that sold for $100,150 at an auction last year. That makes it the most expensive game ever sold to date. What makes this particular version so coveted is that it’s graded at a 9.4 out of 10, which means it’s in near-perfect condition, with everything sealed in the original packaging. It’s also a particular version of the US retail edition, which went through quite a few iterations over time. Here’s Heritage with a neat explanation of the so-called cardboard hangtab that makes this unit so rare. Heritage also outlines the broader picture in terms of the game’s value and nostalgia factor: it is the highest-selling game on the original NES console of all time, in addition to being the first entry in the Super Mario Bros. series and marking the first appearance of series villain Bowser. (The Verge)

Millions are on the move

About one in five U.S. adults has either moved during the pandemic or know someone who has. According to research data, young adults 18 to 29 were the most likely to move during the crisis, with 23% looking for housing after their college campuses shut down, and 28% moving to reduce the risk of contracting the virus. A majority who moved say they are now living with a family member, and many consider their new housing situation to be temporary. (Pew Research Center)

Florida woman takes job as dishwasher at nursing home to be near husband with Alzheimer’s

A Florida woman took a job as a dishwasher at a nursing home so she could spend time with her husband who has Alzheimer’s. The woman was by her husband side daily, helping tuck him in at night and watching TV with him until coronavirus restrictions prohibited her from visits to his nursing home, Rosecastle at Deerwood, Florida. The couple went an excruciating 114 days without seeing each other until she got a call from the nursing home offering her a job as a dishwasher. “I told them, ‘I’m gonna be the best dishwasher you’ve ever had, because I want to be here, because I need to be with him,'” she said. In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an emergency order prohibiting visitors to nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other long-term care facilities with certain exceptions. The order was renewed for another 60 days last week. The couple’s time apart was stressful, maybe more so on her husband. His behavior changed over that time, she said. He got into a fight with another resident, something he had never done. She started working on Friday, July 3rd. Her husband knew it was her, even while she wore a mask. “I walked into his room and he said my name which was also a relief,” she said. “He gave me the biggest hug, I mean, we both cried.” The new job also seems to have helped him relax. (CBS News)

Pandemic sees rise of the machines

Lower-paying jobs in meatpacking and agriculture are increasingly at risk from automation as the pandemic hastens robot development. U.S. meatpacking giant Tyson Foods is rapidly embracing robotics to debone livestock and slice up chickens following factory outbreaks that killed 91 workers, infected 17,300 and threatened meat supplies. In Europe, engineers from Fieldwork Robotics are working with German tech giant Bosch to perfect a machine with flexible arms to compete with humans to pick fruit. A study from Oxford Economics predicted robots could take over 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030. (CNBC)

Tuesday Comes With:

• Bastille Day
• Chick-fil-A’s Cow Appreciation Day (2nd Tuesday)
• International Nude Day
• Grand Marnier Day
• Macaroni and Cheese Day
• Shark Awareness Day
• Tape Measure Day
• Victims of The Nice, France Attack Day