GIRl USES HUNGER GAMES TO RESCUE FRIEND WITH WOUND
A 12-year-old Massachusetts girl used what she learned about creating a tourniquet from The Hunger Games to rescue her friend.
The Gloucester Times reports Mackenzie George was playing in a Gloucester marsh with friends June 3 when she slipped and cut her calf open. Megan Gething jumped in to action and tied a pair of shorts around her friend’s leg to slow blood loss, using a tip she learned from the young adult science fiction novels.
Megan says all that was going through her mind was helping “Kenzie.” The injured girl was transported to a hospital, where doctors were able to rule out muscle or nerve damage following surgery. Mackenzie’s father says doctors expect a complete recovery in a month. The Georges say they’re thankful for Megan’s help.
(AP)
GEESE DUMP DROPPINGS ON DISNEYlAND GUESTS
Disneyland visitors got more adventure than they bargained for when a flock of geese let go in flight, fouling the guests. Anaheim police and fire officials say 17 people, including six children, were hit by bird droppings just before 9 p.m. Friday.
A hazardous materials team was sent to Main Street near the Sleeping Beauty Castle after a report that feces had been thrown on people.
It was quickly determined the real culprit was a flock of geese flying overhead.
Authorities say the smeared visitors were taken to a private restroom to clean up and were given with clean clothes. Police reported that the guests were “healthy and happy” after the event.
(AP)
WOMAN FINDS RARE AlBINO PORCUPINE
A Connecticut woman captured video of a rare version of a common animal — an albino porcupine. Megan Giles said she was on her back deck in Center Conway when she spotted the unusual white animal. She used her phone to capture photos and video of the animal, which turned out to be an albino porcupine. Albinism is a condition that results when an animal’s cells are unable to produce melanin, the chemical that causes pigment in skin, eyes, hair, nails and scales.
(UPI)
TWITTER USERS BlOCKED BY TRUMP CRY CENSORSHIP
US President Donald Trump may be the nation’s tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say he’s violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed after they posted scornful comments. lawyers for two Twitter users sent the White House a letter Tuesday demanding they be un-blocked from the Republican president’s @realDonaldTrump account. “The viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional,” wrote attorneys at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The tweeters — one a liberal activist, the other a cyclist who says he’s a registered Republican — have posted and retweeted plenty of complaints and jokes about Trump.
They say they found themselves blocked after replying to a couple of his recent tweets. The activist, Holly O’Reilly, posted a video of Pope Francis casting a sidelong look at Trump and suggested this was “how the whole world sees you.” The cyclist, Joe Papp, responded to the president’s weekly address by asking why he hadn’t attended a rally by supporters and adding, with a hashtag, “fakeleader.”
Blocking people on Twitter means they can’t easily see or reply to the blocker’s tweets. Although Trump started @realDonaldTrump as a private citizen and Twitter isn’t government-run, the Knight institute lawyers argue that he’s made it a government-designated public forum by using it to discuss policies and engage with citizens. Indeed, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the president.”
(AP)
INMATE PlANNED TO FlEE, GETS BURIED IN SAWDUST
An inmate at a maximum-security prison claimed he repeatedly practiced a daring escape plan involving a coffin-like box hidden under tons of sawdust and that guards never noticed what he was up to.
Gordon “Woody” Mower, who is serving a life sentence without parole for killing his parents two decades ago, told The Post-Standard of Syracuse that he practiced escaping Auburn Correctional Facility 50 times before guards discovered his plan in April 2015 — two months before two convicted killers cut their way out of a different maximum-security prison in upstate New York.
Mower said his plan involved being buried alive in a bottomless 3-foot by 4-foot wooden box under a big mound of sawdust produced by the prison’s woodworking shop, where furniture is made. The sawdust is hauled away regularly in a tractor-trailer by a local farmer who uses it as horse bedding. Mower said the plot failed when another inmate tipped off guards.
The newspaper reported Monday that the planned escape was confirmed by prison records sent to Mower’s lawyers at Prisoners legal Services. Karen Murtagh, executive director of the Albany-based agency, said Mower approved the records release to the newspaper.
(AP)