Grandma is a centrefold: Rest home bares all for calendar
The stars of a charity calendar are in their 80s and 90s, but that didn’t stop the men and women from an assisted living facility in Ohio from showing a little skin. Miss March, who’s 88, wears a green top hat and not much else in the calendar from Pleasant Pointe Assisted living, and the centrefolds are two women in their 90s who seem to be playing poker with strategically placed oversize cards. Flip to February and you’ll see a smiling, white-haired Dottie Rutter soaking in a bubble bath and flower petals, with chocolates and lingerie nearby.
At 87, she’s the same age as the youngest of three models standing in the cover photo, where their bare feet and shoulders peek out from behind a banner they hold advertising the Barberton facility and the affiliated Pleasant View Health Care Center. It reads: “Pleasant View, Pleasant Pointe.” Another resident in the calendar is covered only by a large exercise ball. Administrator Teresa Morris told The Akron Beacon Journal that the residents were clearly having fun the morning the photos were taken.
(AP)
US officials might use dogs to shoo goose
The US Park Service is weighing using dogs to drive off Canada geese that each foul the US capital’s National Mall with up to three pounds (1.4 kg) of droppings a day, the agency said last week. The Park Service is considering using border collies to harass the large and growing population of Canada geese from tourist draws like the lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument grounds and John F Kennedy Hockey Fields.
With the dogs, “the geese will be encouraged to abandon the lawns and water in these areas, and relocate elsewhere”, it said in a statement. The geese, known as the Branta canadensis, produce up to two or three pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kg) of feces a day per bird. The droppings damage pumps and filters of the Reflecting Pool, degrade the park and are a potential public health hazard, the Park Service said in a statement.
No birds will be physically harmed. The park-like Mall area stretches from the Capitol to the Potomac River and is lined by monuments and museums. The agency is accepting public comment through April 22, it said. The US Fish and Wildlife Service said that local populations of Canada geese were increasing rapidly throughout the lower 48 US States. “Many populations now are at levels where agricultural depredations and urban conflicts are common,” it said on its website. The agency said it has tried to use increased hunting to deal with nuisance geese, but that can be impractical, especially in urban areas.
Even as Canada geese that reside in the United States are booming, migratory populations of the same species, that nest in Arctic or sub-Arctic regions are stagnant or in decline, the Fish and Wildlife Service said.
(Reuters)
Elephants rescue 18-wheeler stranded on louisiana road
When an 18-wheeler truck became stranded by the side of a louisiana road, two elephants inside came to the rescue. Sheriff’s deputies in Natchitoches Parish received a call about a stuck truck early last week. Upon arriving on the scene, they saw two elephants preventing the vehicle from overturning.
The truck’s driver, also an elephant trainer, walked the elephants out of the cargo compartment and directed them to help prop up the vehicle, sheriff’s Captain Tony Moran said in an interview. “It’s creative,” said Moran, who said the responding deputies were “just astonished to see it”.
leaning side by side, the elephants pushed with their weight against the truck, the sheriff’s photos showed. The truck was carrying three elephants from Florida. After a stop in New Orleans, they were on their way to a circus near Dallas. The truck had pulled over on an interstate shoulder near Powhatan, louisiana, about an hour south of Shreveport. The ground was soft after recent rains, the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
After summoning aid to right the truck, the driver walked the elephants back onto the truck, using spoken commands, Moran said. The elephants were unharmed and continued on their way. Authorities did not issue any citations in the incident.
(Reuters)
Girl tries to poison mother twice for taking her iPhone
Authorities in Colorado said a 12-year-old girl was taken into custody on allegations that she tried to poison her mother twice for taking away her iPhone. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said the girl’s mother noticed the smell of bleach coming from her smoothie shortly after she took her daughter’s iPhone.
“It’s pretty scary,” Cmdr Heidi Prentup told KDVR-TV. “She thought that her daughter had maybe just cleaned the glass and that there was still bleach left in it. Then she started feeling sick.” Prentup said the woman’s sickness passed, but a couple weeks later she discovered bleach odour coming from a carafe of water in her bedroom. “When she smelled the bleach in the carafe, she confronted her daughter, who told her that she was trying to kill her for taking her iPhone,” Prentup said, adding that the girl was booked into the Boulder County juvenile centre on two charges of attempted first degree murder.
(UPI)