the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

another gift from 2020

[URL unfurl="true"]https://us.yahoo.com/news/rare-half-male-half-female-144804118.html[/URL]

Wonder what brand of vacuum they used?

[HEADING=2]Crews vacuum ‘murder hornets’ out of Washington nest[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2020/10/24/crews-vacuum-murder-hornets-out-of-washington-nest/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2020/10/24/crews-vacuum-murder-hornets-out-of-washington-nest/')

By Deb Hardy October 24, 2020

BLAINE, Wash. — Heavily protected crews in Washington state worked Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called murder hornets discovered in the United States.

The state Agriculture Department had spent weeks searching, trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.
[[IMG alt="Murder_Hornets_Nest_45369"]https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Murder_Hornets_Nest_45369.jpg[/IMG]]('')
A Washington State Department of Agriculture workers holds two of the dozens of Asian giant hornets vacuumed from a tree Saturday, Oct. 24 in Blaine, Wash. Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

The nest found in the city of Blaine near the Canadian border is about the size of a basketball and contained an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.

Crews wearing thick protective suits vacuumed the invasive insects from the cavity of a tree into large canisters Saturday. The suits prevent the hornets’ 6-millimeter-long stingers from hurting workers, who also wore face shields because the trapped hornets can spit a painful venom into their eyes.

The tree will be cut down to extract newborn hornets and learn if any queens have left the hive already, scientists said. Officials suspect more nests may be in the area and will keep searching. A news briefing was planned Monday on the status of the nest.
[[IMG alt="Murder_Hornets_Nest_55657"]https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Murder_Hornets_Nest_55657.jpg[/IMG]]('')
Sven Spichiger, Washington State Department of Agriculture managing entomologist, displays a canister of Asian giant hornets vacuumed from a nest in a tree behind him Saturday in Blaine, Wash. Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

Despite their nickname and the hype that has stirred fears in an already bleak year, the world’s largest hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asian countries, and experts say it is probably far less. Meanwhile, hornets, wasps and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

The real threat from Asian giant hornets — which are 2 inches long — is their devastating attacks on honeybees, which are already under siege from problems like mites, diseases, pesticides and loss of food.

The invasive insect is normally found in China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia are the only places the hornets have been found on the continent.

The nest was found after the state Agriculture Department trapped some hornets this week and used dental floss to attach radio trackers to some of them.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://us.yahoo.com/news/lies-told-american-story-103051030.html[/URL]

:mad:

[HEADING=1][[COLOR=rgb(184, 49, 47)]'I drive better when I drink': Driver swigs beer and brags on Facebook Live - moments before smashing into a pickup truck and killing three people including his girlfriend[/COLOR]]('https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8886501/Video-shows-man-drinking-wheel-saying-drive-better-drunk-moments-crash.html')[/HEADING]

:mad:

[HEADING=1][[COLOR=rgb(184, 49, 47)]'I drive better when I drink': Driver swigs beer and brags on Facebook Live - moments before smashing into a pickup truck and killing three people including his girlfriend[/COLOR]]('https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8886501/Video-shows-man-drinking-wheel-saying-drive-better-drunk-moments-crash.html')[/HEADING]

asshole (not you - the driver)

asshole (not you - the driver)

Crash happened at 7:30am there, prime drinking time. ?

If the gal still had her feet on the dashboard, the last thing she saw was her kneecaps going through her face. Unreal.

Holy CRAP!!! One fine dining source takes out another!!

[HEADING=2]Sharks Wash Up on Beaches, Stabbed by Swordfish[/HEADING]
The discovery of impaled sharks on Mediterranean shores backs up old fishermen’s tales of the marine predators dueling with swordfish.

Evidence suggests sometimes a swordfish really is a fish with a sword. Credit...Paulo Oliveira/Alamy
By Joshua Sokol
[LIST]
[*]Oct. 27, 2020
[/LIST]
The first victim washed up in September 2016. The police in Valencia, Spain, saw a blue shark dying in the surf along a tiny stretch of beach. They lugged the eight-foot corpse to the yard behind the police station. Then they called Jaime Penadés-Suay, who soon [suspected foul play]('https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/hcmr-med-mar-sc/article/viewFile/13659/12994.pdf').

The shark had what looked like a bit of wood embedded in her head. He pulled. Out slid a broken fragment from a swordfish sword that had lanced straight through her brain.

“I thought it was crazy,” said Mr. Penadés-Suay, a graduate student at the University of Valencia and a founder of LAMNA, a Spanish consortium that studies sharks. “I was never sure if this was some kind of joke.”

But since then at least six more sharks have washed up on Mediterranean coasts, each impaled with the same murder weapon, and almost always in the head. In the latest example, an adult 15-foot thresher shark — itself equipped with a whiplike tail capable of stunning blows — washed up in Libya. Inside was a foot of swordfish sword that had broken off near its heart.

Taken together these cases offer what may be preliminary scientific evidence of high-speed, high-stakes underwater duels that had previously been confined to fisherman’s tales.

[IMG alt="Top, an x-ray of a blue shark with a sword fragment in its head. Bottom, a C.T. scan of the same shark and fragment."]
Top, an x-ray of a blue shark with a sword fragment in its head. Bottom, a C.T. scan of the same shark and fragment. Credit...Fundació Oceanogràfic - Associació LAMNA

Historically, whalers, fishermen and scholars saw swordfish as stab-happy gladiators. But modern scientists were skeptical. Sure, swordfish sometimes impale boats, whales, submarines and sea turtles. But perhaps these swordfish had aimed for smaller prey, and rammed something else by mistake.

Or maybe not. When sharks die, their bodies typically sink to the bottom of the sea. So a published record of half a dozen stranded sharks with suspiciously precise wounds could indicate that these encounters are common — and that a swordfish sword is sometimes exactly what it sounds like.

“Now at least we have evidence that they might use it really as a weapon, intentionally,” said Patrick Jambura, a graduate student at the University of Vienna.

Mr. Jambura led a study of the recent dead thresher shark, which turned up this April. Sara Al Mabruk at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Libya had spotted a video posted by local citizen scientists. In the video, a man approaches a shark on the beach, then pulls a sword from its back like a bizarre twist on Arthurian legend. “I was like, ‘Oh come on Sara, we have to do something about this. That’s just incredible,’” Mr. Jambura said.

It’s also puzzling, [their team reported]('https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10228-020-00787-x') this month in the journal Ichthyological Research. Fishermen often catch swordfish with mangled swords, so breaking one isn’t fatal, but they do help their owners swim faster and feed. And they don’t seem to grow back, at least not for adults. So why do some swordfish risk losing them?

Most victims of swordfish stabbings in the Mediterranean have been blue or mako sharks. Both of those species prey on young swordfish, suggesting one explanation: Maybe juvenile swordfish had felt like their lives were threatened and fought back.

But this time the sword fragment looked as if it had come from an adult swordfish, which typically are not eaten by a thresher shark.

Instead, they argue, the swordfish might have been taking out an ecological rival. In the overfished Mediterranean, the swordfish might have fought to ensure a larger share of the remaining scraps.

Mr. Penadés-Suay doubts competition would be enough of a motive given the risks involved in taking on a big, whip-tailed shark. Instead, he thinks, the swordfish might have felt attacked and tried to protect its territory.

Either way, scientists know little about the behavior. Or about swordfish in general, despite how plentiful they are in restaurants and at grocery store fish counters. “Commercial species are only studied for commercial purposes, and that’s a problem,” Mr. Penadés-Suay said.

After partnering with a seafood company, he is now working to measure both a thousand swords and the overall size of the fish that wielded them. That should help scientists extrapolate from the little crime-scene shards left in sharks to the full swordfish that did the deed.

Scientists searching for these rare incidents also want to hear from the public. “Maybe a fisherman for 13 years has been catching sharks, and every year he finds this,” Mr. Penadés-Suay said. “We need everybody to be looking into this.”

it’s not a sword fish sword, it’s called a “BILL”... cellfish...
.

Cellfish,...

A sword fish, is not a billfish.

[MEDIA=youtube]_TWmeMPGo9c[/MEDIA]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billfish[/URL]

Cellfish,...

A sword fish, is not a billfish.

If a Swordfish Sword is not called a BIll, what then would Cellfish be called, ( nutin derogatory please )

Here's a "Cel" of a fish!!

Only in America's newly found, warped sense of values can a allow a worthless clan like the Kardashian/Jenners to be role models. I do hope this major faux pas sets more than a few of her friends minds' right...

[HEADING=2]Kim Kardashian West's clueless birthday party[/HEADING]
(CNN)
Kim Kardashian West, [you may have heard]('https://www.cnn.com/style/article/kim-kardashian-birthday-party-island-scli-intl/index.html'), turned 40 this week. To celebrate, the television personality threw herself a big party on a private island and invited along a few dozen friends. As part of the celebration, she shared the event with her 190 million and 67 million followers on Instagram and Twitter, respectively, because sharing is what Kardashian West does. Sharing, with few boundaries, is how she built her brand. And, now, it appears sharing may be how she undoes it, too.

Not surprisingly, the reality star and mogul is facing considerable backlash ("Your life seems taxing. @KimKardashian People are struggling in our country and you parade your wealth. Enjoy your cake," [wrote one person]('https://twitter.com/FrazierNicholas/status/1321471792423251975') on Twitter) for what many have considered a cruel and insensitive display of privilege during a time of global crisis.

It's not so much that the party seemed unsafe at a time when Covid-19 infections and deaths are rising in many parts of the world. Kardashian made a point to note that her friends were asked to quarantine for two weeks before the event. Nor was the event even accidentally ill-timed -- one's birthday is, after all, a fixed date.

The problem is that she chose, apparently without much awareness or acknowledgment, to share the extravagance of that birthday while so millions around the world are sick, out of work and going nowhere.

It's maybe a little easy to understand how Kardashian West -- a woman who lives a rarified life -- could be so very tone deaf, so slow to grasp this larger reality. In pre-pandemic times, her "fans" would have gobbled up with delight such details as her dancing on the beach and swimming with whales. They would have expected her "[closest inner circle]('https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21538544/kim-kardashian-private-island-birthday-twitter-tahiti')" to be bigger than the average American's Facebook friend list. Kardashian's fame, after all, was built on the public's appetite for seeing how the other half live, even if how they live is often fairly unfathomable to most.
https://nyangler.com/javascript%3Avoid(0)
Now, however, as desperation and fear have grown exponentially and there seems to be no end in sight for a global contagion that will affect lives for decades to come, Kardashian West's display is akin to Marie Antoinette's famous declaration, "Let them eat cake."

Sure, she recognized her advantages, writing in a Twitter thread that, "I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is." But such words ring pretty hollow against the backdrop of Kardashian West and her sisters posing beneath a palm tree in tiny bikinis, flaunting bodies made perfect partly by [pricey nonessential medical procedures]('https://www.harpersbazaar.com.au/beauty/kardashian-surgery-17663').

Those fans who perhaps delighted in her ridiculous levels of extravagance before may now have had quite enough.

And yet Kardashian West, evidently, didn't see this coming. Which is surprising, if not for a human being then for a heretofore savvy businesswoman. To willfully alienate those who have made you seems unthinkable. A far better bet would have been to donate to a charity in honor of her 40th in lieu of, or even in addition to, a (more modest) party.

Or, how about this? To have kept the private island party private.

Everyone deserves some moments of happiness right now. We should not all be forced to suffer at all times and in all ways just because others are suffering. But a famous person flaunting privilege in this way, right now, is not necessary.

But like it or not, Kardashian West may be one of the world's most recognized people; at the very least part of a short list that also includes President Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and a handful of other major celebrities. As such, she has a responsibility to think about her messaging.

Instead, she has shown that her need to be known and envied can't be tamed even in a pandemic -- final proof, perhaps, that her identity does not exist without validation. Which, ironically, might be the most relatable thing about her. The problem is, it may turn out that far fewer people after this will be willing to care.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://us.yahoo.com/news/keith-richards-catching-covid-im-211945521.html[/URL]

On the 3 times I witnessed a bullfight, I rooted for the bull. Never thought I root for a cock at a cockfighting den raid...

[HEADING=2]Rooster Kills Police Officer in Covid-19 Lockdown Raid[/HEADING]
The Philippine lieutenant was slashed by a razor-sharp spur attached to the bird’s leg during a raid on an illegal cockfighting den.

[HEADING=2]I stepped into a skunk tunnel once...[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2][/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]New York Nightmare: Man Falls Through Sidewalk Into Rat-Filled Chasm[/HEADING]
“Rats crawling on him, he can’t move,” said the brother of the man, who was rescued after about 30 minutes and remains hospitalized in stable condition.

On Saturday just past noon, Leonard Shoulders strolled up to a bus stop in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx. A handful of people stood around, waiting for their rides or looking down at their phones — an unremarkable scene.

But then a hole suddenly opened up on the sidewalk and Mr. Shoulders, 33, plunged into it. Stunned bystanders who rushed to the edge of the chasm faced a ghastly sight: Mr. Shoulders had dropped 12 to 15 feet into an underground vault teeming with rats.

“Rats crawling on him, he can’t move,” his brother, Greg White, [told CBS New York]('https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/10/26/bronx-sidewalk-collapse-video-greg-white/'). “He didn’t want to yell because he was afraid there were going to be rats inside his mouth.”

For about 30 minutes, Mr. Shoulders remained in the vault as firefighters tried to pull him out of the hole. Videos of the scene show him eventually being wheeled away on a stretcher by emergency workers. He suffered injuries to his head and arm, Mr. White said.

On Thursday, Mr. White and other relatives of Mr. Shoulders declined to talk about Mr. Shoulders’s fall, saying that he was considering legal action and directing questions to a lawyer, Nicolas Bagley.

Mr. Bagley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cindy White, Mr. Shoulders’s mother, [told NBC New York]('https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/like-a-suction-man-hospitalized-after-being-swallowed-by-bronx-sidewalk-sinkhole/2688355/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_wnbc_twt_shr'): “He’s traumatized. He said he went straight down, and he was falling, falling, but the debris was falling and hitting him in the head.”

A spokesman for St. Barnabas Hospital, where Mr. Shoulders was taken on Saturday, said he remained hospitalized on Thursday in stable condition.

The episode brought together two sources of perpetual anxiety for many New York City pedestrians: the general danger posed by malfunctioning infrastructure and the city’s robust rat population.

People have tried poisoning, trapping and [even drowning New York City rats]('https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/nyregion/rats-new-york.html'). Still, some scientists have said that [rats may have become more aggressive]('https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/us/cdc-coronavirus-rats.html') during the pandemic.

And it was [not the first time a sidewalk]('https://gothamist.com/news/woman-seriously-injured-after-sidewalk-collapses-beneath-her') collapsed into a vault underneath it, and storage space under sidewalks is common in the city. Since July 2019, the city has received at least 35 reports of sidewalk cave-ins, according to a review of 311 data.

[IMG alt="The corner of 183rd Street and Third Avenue where a man fell into the ground on Saturday."]
The corner of 183rd Street and Third Avenue where a man fell into the ground on Saturday.Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

As news of Mr. Shoulders’s plight spread this week, many people on social media found the bizarre and terrifying episode to be an almost poetic representation of the severe hardships posed by the year 2020.
For others, including local community leaders, it was yet another reminder that public officials should do more to improve local infrastructure.

“We need to be inspecting our sidewalks,” said John Sanchez, district manager for Community Board 6 in the Bronx, who lives close to the bus stop where Mr. Shoulders fell. “What happened was unacceptable.”

Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings, said inspectors found that a portion of the sidewalk had collapsed into a vault below, which was “in a state of disrepair.

He said inspectors were trying to figure out who owned the vault to determine who should be legally responsible for its maintenance.

A temporary fence blocks the area where the sidewalk collapsed. Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

The vault was next to a five-story building at the corner of Third Avenue and 183rd Street in Belmont. The building was mostly empty except for a dentist’s office on the ground floor.

Mr. Rudansky said the department ordered the building be vacated after the incident because of the danger posed by the sidewalk.

The department also ordered the building owner to set up a fence around the area and to hire an engineer to determine the stability of the vault, he said.

The company listed on city records as the owner of the building, Eh & Hd 183rd Realty, did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Shoulders’s brother, Mr. White, said the family was still stunned by what happened to him, but relieved he was recovering.

“It was like a one out of million chance of that happening,” Mr. White told CBS New York. “I was shocked. I was surprised. But you know, he’s breathing.”

[HEADING=2]I stepped into a skunk tunnel once...[/HEADING]
[HEADING=2][/HEADING]
[HEADING=2]New York Nightmare: Man Falls Through Sidewalk Into Rat-Filled Chasm[/HEADING]
“Rats crawling on him, he can’t move,” said the brother of the man, who was rescued after about 30 minutes and remains hospitalized in stable condition.

On Saturday just past noon, Leonard Shoulders strolled up to a bus stop in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx. A handful of people stood around, waiting for their rides or looking down at their phones — an unremarkable scene.

But then a hole suddenly opened up on the sidewalk and Mr. Shoulders, 33, plunged into it. Stunned bystanders who rushed to the edge of the chasm faced a ghastly sight: Mr. Shoulders had dropped 12 to 15 feet into an underground vault teeming with rats.

“Rats crawling on him, he can’t move,” his brother, Greg White, [told CBS New York]('https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/10/26/bronx-sidewalk-collapse-video-greg-white/'). “He didn’t want to yell because he was afraid there were going to be rats inside his mouth.”

For about 30 minutes, Mr. Shoulders remained in the vault as firefighters tried to pull him out of the hole. Videos of the scene show him eventually being wheeled away on a stretcher by emergency workers. He suffered injuries to his head and arm, Mr. White said.

On Thursday, Mr. White and other relatives of Mr. Shoulders declined to talk about Mr. Shoulders’s fall, saying that he was considering legal action and directing questions to a lawyer, Nicolas Bagley.

Mr. Bagley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cindy White, Mr. Shoulders’s mother, [told NBC New York]('https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/like-a-suction-man-hospitalized-after-being-swallowed-by-bronx-sidewalk-sinkhole/2688355/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_wnbc_twt_shr'): “He’s traumatized. He said he went straight down, and he was falling, falling, but the debris was falling and hitting him in the head.”

A spokesman for St. Barnabas Hospital, where Mr. Shoulders was taken on Saturday, said he remained hospitalized on Thursday in stable condition.

The episode brought together two sources of perpetual anxiety for many New York City pedestrians: the general danger posed by malfunctioning infrastructure and the city’s robust rat population.

People have tried poisoning, trapping and [even drowning New York City rats]('https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/nyregion/rats-new-york.html'). Still, some scientists have said that [rats may have become more aggressive]('https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/us/cdc-coronavirus-rats.html') during the pandemic.

And it was [not the first time a sidewalk]('https://gothamist.com/news/woman-seriously-injured-after-sidewalk-collapses-beneath-her') collapsed into a vault underneath it, and storage space under sidewalks is common in the city. Since July 2019, the city has received at least 35 reports of sidewalk cave-ins, according to a review of 311 data.

[IMG alt="The corner of 183rd Street and Third Avenue where a man fell into the ground on Saturday."]
The corner of 183rd Street and Third Avenue where a man fell into the ground on Saturday.Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

As news of Mr. Shoulders’s plight spread this week, many people on social media found the bizarre and terrifying episode to be an almost poetic representation of the severe hardships posed by the year 2020.
For others, including local community leaders, it was yet another reminder that public officials should do more to improve local infrastructure.

“We need to be inspecting our sidewalks,” said John Sanchez, district manager for Community Board 6 in the Bronx, who lives close to the bus stop where Mr. Shoulders fell. “What happened was unacceptable.”

Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings, said inspectors found that a portion of the sidewalk had collapsed into a vault below, which was “in a state of disrepair.

He said inspectors were trying to figure out who owned the vault to determine who should be legally responsible for its maintenance.

A temporary fence blocks the area where the sidewalk collapsed. Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

The vault was next to a five-story building at the corner of Third Avenue and 183rd Street in Belmont. The building was mostly empty except for a dentist’s office on the ground floor.

Mr. Rudansky said the department ordered the building be vacated after the incident because of the danger posed by the sidewalk.

The department also ordered the building owner to set up a fence around the area and to hire an engineer to determine the stability of the vault, he said.

The company listed on city records as the owner of the building, Eh & Hd 183rd Realty, did not respond to requests for

[URL unfurl="true"]https://us.yahoo.com/news/walked-around-nycs-spookiest-places-222400335.html[/URL]

Please, keep your Cityots and their stupid human tricks down there. WTF gets in a kayak without wearing a PFD, or better yet, what non-swimmer with little to no kayaking experience hops into a kayak without wearing a PFD???

I resent spending my tax dollars on cleaning up messes that never should happen.

[HEADING=2]Game wardens search for likely drowning victim in Oxford County[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2020/11/01/game-wardens-search-for-likely-drowning-victim-in-oxford-county/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2020/11/01/game-wardens-search-for-likely-drowning-victim-in-oxford-county/')
By Rob WolfeStaff WriterNovember 2, 2020

Maine game wardens are searching for a New York man who they say likely drowned Sunday in a pond in the Oxford County town of Woodstock.

Yohanna Milad Israel Rizk, 28, of New York City was paddling on Bryant Pond around 1:30 p.m. Sunday when his kayak flipped, dumping him into the 47-degree, 40-feet-deep water.

Rizk was an inexperienced kayaker, didn’t have a life jacket and couldn’t swim, game wardens said in a news release Sunday night. He struggled to grab the kayak before going under the water, according to friends who watched from shore.

Two friends went onto the pond in their own kayaks to look for him, but were unsuccessful. A game warden later found a glove of Rizk’s that had washed ashore.

The Maine Warden Service and Woodstock Fire Department searched with boats Sunday afternoon, but did not find Rizk. The warden service plans to send its dive team into the pond at 8 a.m. Monday, using sonar to aid the search.