And Finally...

I guess Bixby really isn’t dead after all.

A woman who "married" the River Avon said the event had changed her life.

Megan Ruth-Trump and her friends gathered for the ceremony in Bristol in 2023.

Her aim was to raise awareness about untreated sewage being pumped into the waterways, but she said the event had now grown into something "bigger".

"We put together a wedding event that would celebrate love for the river. It would bring people together - it started as a joke but quickly got attention," she said.

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Speaking about the wedding, she said: "It felt bigger than the event itself. It felt a bit sacrificial - people's reaction was strong, they thought it was weird and funny and powerful.

"Marriage is a human tradition meaning union, promising care. It was very moving. People were moved to act."

She added that the event "changed her life", saying: "I was brought together with a lot of strong women in film, science, and journalism.

"I was now connected to other river campaigns - all the rivers are connected.

"It's a huge inspiration for my poetry. I'll attempt to be a river bride poet in Bristol."

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Artist Kim Kaos has also been backing the campaign. He created a puppet representing a river goddess to draw attention to the issue and help people relate to the river as "a being".

Mr Kaos describes himself as an arts activist - he uses his art to "amplify campaigns".

"The river is a big thing for people to conceive - the puppet can embody the spiritual side of the river," he said.

The world's oldest living man has celebrated his 112th birthday at a care home in Southport today. John Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on August 26, 1912, the same year the Titanic sank.

He became the oldest man in the world in April this year and has said his long life is down to "luck". When John was asked how it felt to be turning the ripe old age of 112, he said: "In all honesty, no different.

"I don’t feel that age, I don’t get excited over it. That’s probably why I’ve reached it.

"I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.

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John was questioned as to what he thought the biggest difference in the world was from when he was born to now, more than a century apart. He said: “It’s no better in my opinion, or hardly any better, than it was then. Probably in some places it is, but in other places it’s worse.”

On the secret of his longevity, he told Guinness World Records it’s “just luck.” He added: "You either live long or you live short, and you can’t do much about it."

According to the Times Reporter, the documentary “Vampires in Gem City” was set to expose Dayton as having the second largest vampire coven in the United States and featured the missing person’s case of 26-year-old George Phillip Gall.

It is reported that Gall went missing on October 13, 1994 after getting off a bus near the goth-themed Asylum nightclub.

The bus driver told investigators that Gall walked toward the Asylum nightclub and was never seen again. He was declared dead by the state of Ohio in 2002.

According to Times Reporter, it wasn’t until 2008 that rumors of vampires started after a retired Dayton police officer told The Dayton Daily News that a bartender at the nightclub told him Gall was killed and beheaded for an occult ritual.

It is reported that after Gall’s disappearance in 1994, Williams went to the nightclub undercover and noticed it attracted a large “gothic, vampire-like” crowd. It was while he was undercover that a bartender confided in Williams that Gall’s head was sold inside the club.

Williams told the Dayton Daily News that the bartender gave enough intricate details to make the story believable. Williams also says that Gall’s body was placed in a storm sewer tunnel accessible inside the nightclub. Officers searched for the body but did not find any evidence of the crime, but they did find “occult markings.”

According to Times Reporter, the mystery behind Gall’s disappearance has led to the birth of an urban legend, with many Dayton residents claiming to have seen a headless man approaching them in tunnels to ask where his head was.

If they want to stop people parking in the gap, it should probably be a hatched area, with the double yellows just on the road?

People are theorizing why a utility box in San Francisco fell over. Some said it was due in part to dog urine.

Ken Khoury, the owner of Castro Coffee Company, said the AT&T-owned telephone junction box has been a popular destination for dogs to urinate on. The box's base is now corroded.

"Now, over time, it's deteriorated as you can see, probably dog pee most of the time, the elements," Khoury said.

Khoury, whose business is in front of the box, said he's noticed pets taking a potty break at the box for 15 years. Now, it has corroded enough that it has separated from the concrete foundation.

It wasn't until last week that a wood and rope structure resembling a gallows was erected to help keep the utility box upright.

A sight on Auburn Ravine Road might cause you to slam on the brakes if you’re not expecting it. About a half mile off Interstate 80, around a seemingly ordinary bend, appears a group of 40-foot-tall figures, mostly nude, in dramatic poses: a man ripping chains off his enormous frame, an Amazon woman bent back with a bow, another with a spear.

As astonishing as these statues are, the story behind them — involving a dentist, a controversial school bus route and a battle with the county — is even stranger.

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He did incur the wrath of at least one more person, though. In a 2004 oral history recorded with Fox and kept by the Placer County Historical Society, he was asked if anyone “commented on the fact that your giant Amazons are nude.” Fox recalled that after he erected the statues outside his office, some school district workers “got upset.” To keep the human form away from young eyes, they began rerouting the school buses.

“Someone wrote a letter to the editor saying whoever changed the route should be thrown out of the school system,” Fox said. “The next week, the school buses were back.”

A Lenovo computer salesman has found himself in a swirl of trouble, fired from his job after he says a bladder condition forced him to relieve himself in a lobby of his Times Square hotel.

Richard Becker, 66, is seeking at least US$1.5 million from the American subsidiary of the Chinese computer giant after being dismissed for the wrongful wee, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in New York State Supreme Court.

He accused the company of “discrimination on the basis of disability in violation of New York State and New York City human rights laws”.

According to the suit, Becker was returning to his hotel near New York’s Times Square after a work dinner in February when he found himself “overwhelmed” and forced to answer nature’s call in a vestibule located on a separate floor from the main lobby.

“A coworker noticed Becker urinating, and – out of apparent spite and malice – promptly reported him to HR, even though Becker’s conduct caused no harm to anyone whatsoever,” the lawsuit said.

Becker said he has been dealing with a chronic bladder condition since 2016 and is under the treatment of a urologist. The court filing said Lenovo colleagues and managers were aware of his condition.

A would-be burglar in Rome was caught after stopping to read a book on Greek mythology in the middle of a robbery, Italian media report.

The 38-year-old reportedly gained access to a flat in the Italian capital's Prati district via the balcony but became distracted after picking up a book about Homer's Iliad on a bedside table.

The 71-year-old homeowner is said to have awoken and confronted the alleged thief, who was engrossed in the book.

News of the failed robbery attracted the attention of the book's author, who told local media he wanted to send the man a copy so he could "finish" his read.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16582730

A World War Two wreck in the Thames estuary is a ticking time bomb, an expert has warned, as it has not been dealt with 80 years after the vessel first sunk.

The SS Richard Montgomery was carrying 7,000 tonnes of explosives and weapons when it grounded on the sandbank close to the Isle of Grain in August 1944.

A rescue effort took place to try and unload the ship’s cargo but a crack appeared in its hull and only half of the explosives were salvaged.

Professor David Alexander of University College London told the Standard the ship remains a “serious threat” and in a worse case scenario it could explode creating a five-metre tsunami up the Thames.

An Alaska Airlines pilot who attempted to shut off the engines of a passenger plane mid-flight after ingesting magic mushrooms said his actions were “unfathomable”, in some of his first public remarks after he was indicted on 83 counts of reckless endangerment.

In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Joseph Emerson described the events of 22 October as “30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, and I can’t”.

Emerson, who as an off-duty pilot was authorized to ride in the cockpit’s jump seat, tried to disable the plane’s engines by deploying the fire-suppression system, according to the federal complaint.

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After his arrest in Oregon on state counts of attempted murder, Emerson told police he believed he was having a nervous breakdown, thought he was dreaming when he pulled fire handles in the cockpit, and said he had experimented with psychedelic mushrooms recently as his mental health had worsened.

Emerson said he had taken psychedelic mushrooms two days earlier while commemorating the death of his best friend, thinking they might help with his depression.

He said he believes he was still hallucinating and that “nothing felt real” as he was sitting on the plane. “There was a feeling of being trapped, like: ‘Am I trapped in this airplane?’” he said. “This is not real, I need to wake up.”

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The crew was able to able to subdue Emerson and remove him from the flight deck, but even as the plane descended he said he tried to grab another lever operating the cabin door. According to an affidavit, Emerson warned a flight attendant: “You need to cuff me right now, or it’s going to be bad.”

A winner at the Kentucky State Fair miniature contest nearly lost his title after fair officials found out one of his entries was based on a porn set.

Preston Poling, also known as The Bearded Miniaturist, won the white ribbon last week for his “simple design”, but by Tuesday evening was getting messages from friends telling him his piece had been removed from the fair’s exhibition.

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The piece is a miniature replica of the high-profile porn set, “The Casting Couch” – complete with gray carpet, brown leather sofa and a desk with a monitor sat on it showing camera footage aimed at the couch.

It was one of four pieces Poling submitted for the contest, with his miniature scene based on a set from award-winning The Walking Dead getting him the best in show title, and another much more family-friendly one based on the children’s book Goodnight Moon winning a craftsmanship award.

Poling, according to LPM News, claimed state fair officials considered disqualifying him completely and removing his other entries from the competition as well.

However, thankfully, the state fair has allowed him to keep his winning ribbons and the remaining miniatures on display at the fair.

“It was more of a tongue-in-cheek, kind of humorous, if you get it, you get it kind of thing,” he said per LPM News reporting.

“It gets people talking,” he added. “That’s what art is supposed to do.”

Scientists have trained an inanimate lump of goo to play the video game Pong.

As reported in New Scientist and described in a research paper from scientists at the University of Reading, researchers took a lump of hydrogel and ran an electric current through it while hooked up to a computer that could play Pong. After some trials, the goo got about 10 percent better at playing Pong.

The goal of all this is to learn more about how biological neural networks (BNNs) work. BNNs are an approximate model of biological consciousness and the basis for the construction of artificial neural networks (ANNs) which systems like ChatGPT and Grok are based on.

The paper noted that ANNs are limited by their hardware. “As approximations of BNNs, ANNs are not capable of the learning found in their biological inspiration,” it said. “Learning behavior, in biological systems, is dependent on the ability of a system to remember the outcomes and consequences of previous iterations within a task.”

One solution to the problem might then be to build a computer with a physical structure similar to that of a living organism. Enter the goo.

Peta has urged the paint manufacturer Farrow & Ball to rename colours that “normalise exploiting animals”.

Citing the colours Dead Salmon, Smoked Trout and Potted Shrimp, Peta said in a letter to Farrow & Ball’s colour curator that “renaming animal product-monikered paints would be a fun way to appeal to more conscious consumers”.

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The letter also states that the colours Au Lait and Skimmed Milk White normalise the exploitation of cows, who on dairy farms are taken from their mothers within 36 hours of birth.

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Crediting Farrow & Ball for having a range that is entirely cruelty-free and mostly vegan, Taylor said that making these changes would “make the range even more inclusive”.

The Christmas-themed card was delivered to Swansea Building Society’s Cradock Street branch last week even though it was originally sent in 1903 - so only just over a century too late.

Staff say they hope to find relatives of a Miss Lydia Davies, who previously lived at the address and who the card was addressed to, to reunite them with it.

The Royal Mail said it is likely the postcard was "put back into" its system, rather than "being lost in the post for over a century".

Smugglers disguised $5 million worth of methamphetamine as watermelons and tried to truck them across the border from Mexico, US border agents said.

More than 4,500 pounds (2,000 kilograms) of the addictive drug were wrapped in paper packages painted to look like the juicy fruit and hidden amongst other cargo.

Border agents pulled over the produce-laden tractor-trailer at Otay Mesa in California on Friday and got in amongst the cargo for a closer look.

There they discovered more than 1,200 watermelons were actually bundles of the synthetic drug wrapped in colored paper, US Customs and Border Protection said this week.

A man has appeared in court accused of stealing a packet of crisps worth £1.25.

Patrick McDonagh (37) of Erne Park, Kesh, appeared at Enniskillen Magistrate's Court on Thursday.

He is facing a single charge of theft, whereby he is accused of stealing crisps to the value of £1.25 from Lakeside Service Station on April 30 of this year.

Translation: "crisps" are what Americans call "chips".

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16522692

King Charles has an ongoing fascination with UFOs and the possibility of alien life, a new documentary has sensationally claimed.

The documentary 'The King of UFOs' also explores reports of the monarch's inherited secret library of books and files on the phenomena plus other subjects such as crop circles and the paranormal.

It also suggests the late Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II communicated with UFO believers several times.

And now King Charles is exploring his own interest in the fascinating topic, according to the documentary.

One of the most bizarre claims made in the new production is that the then Prince Charles was seen piloting an experimental "UFO-style craft" in Canada in 1975.

Ufologist and filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee said: "Retired Police CID detective, and now owner of The Great British UFO Learning Centre, John Hanson had regular correspondence with Prince Phillip and The Queen and states that they had their own library of UFO and paranormal books."

He told Express.co.uk: "Letters between Hanson and the Queen and Prince Phillip, shown in the film, say they will 'add the book that John sent to them to their own collection/library'."

Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) until 2009, said: "The Royal Family has been interested in UFOs for decades, but this was also a matter of extreme sensitivity as in some ways, the situation was almost counter to the government's position on this, or it was difficult to gel with it.

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"Prince Philip was very much at the forefront of royal interest in this, although arguably, he was introduced to this by Earl Mountbatten, his uncle.

"(Prince Philip) had a large collection of UFO books. He subscribed to Flying Saucer Review and a number of other publications, but it was all done carefully, so not to take a subscription and say 'please send to Buckingham Palace.'

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"As well as looking at an alleged UFO landing and alien visitation on Lord Louis Mountbatten’s estate in England (allegedly witnessed by one of his own employees), the film investigates the late Queen and Prince Phillip’s interest in UFOs and crop circles.

"The film has exclusive access to unreleased archives and interviews with witnesses and also explores the extraordinary claims that the then Prince Charles piloted an experimental UFO craft in Canada in 1975.

Archive

Previously: Wild claims King Charles 'flew UFO to save lives' in secret military mission

A karate expert in Japan who broke a haunted house worker’s jaw with a kick in 2011 has lost his lawsuit against an amusement park.

The man, who admitted to drinking before entering the haunted house at Toei Kyoto Studio Park in Kyoto in 2011 while travelling with his colleagues, had argued that the park should have warned visitors that humans acted as ghosts and it should have protected its staff better.

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The karate expert was startled when a park worker, dressed as a ghost, stepped forward to frighten him. The man, who has not been named, kicked the “ghost” in the face and later said it was a reflex.

A 42-year-old data analyst has said he is "over the moon" after finally getting his maths GCSE.

Mike Coles picked up his exam result from City of Portsmouth College, more than 20 years after failing it the first time.

He joined hundreds of thousands of teenagers getting GCSE, BTec Tech Awards and other Level 2 results across England, Wales and NI.

When asked how he became a data analyst without a maths GCSE, he said it was down to "modern technology".

"A lot of the systems I use do it for me," he told the BBC.

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His next goal is to pass his English GCSE, and he also hopes to continue into further education.

Royal Mail have alerted police after postboxes in Kent were vandalised just six months after they were spray-painted like Mr Blobby and Creme Eggs.

Orthodox priests brought an icon to the scene of a huge fuel depot fire in southern Russia sparked by a Ukrainian drone attack in the hope it would help tame its flames, the local diocese said on Wednesday.

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The icon of the Unburnt Bush is considered by Christians in Russia as a talisman against fire.

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An image released on Wednesday showed two Orthodox priests standing in a field on either side of a wooden stand holding the large icon as a thick plume of black and grey smoke rose into the sky from the depot behind them.

"The (priests) spoke with the firefighters and blessed all the fire equipment," the local Volgodonsk eparchy told Reuters in emailed comments.

Looks like PE requirements have gone up a bit, seeming that being an olympian is not sufficient.