Firefighters rescue woman trapped by 6 feet of snow
A New York state fire department was summoned to the home of a woman who was trapped in her house by six feet of snowfall. The lorraine Volunteer Fire Company posted photos to Facebook showing firefighters digging the woman out of her home after six feet of snowfall barricaded her inside the house. The fire company called on residents to make sure their neighbours weren’t also stranded by the snow.
“Residents in the Town of lorraine and Worth, please check on your neighbours. We were called to this residence this morning on French Settlement Road, where the resident couldn’t get out of her home. Over 6 feet of snow fell yesterday in parts of the area,” the post said.
(UPI)
Taiwan recalls passports with image of US airport
Taiwan’s foreign ministry is recalling hundreds of passports mistakenly printed with an image of Washington, DC’s Dulles International Airport. Internet users spotted the misprint featuring an image of the Dulles airport instead of Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, prompting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday to announce plans to recall 285 passports that have already been issued.
More than 200,000 of the misprinted passports have been printed and will be returned to the printing company.
Central Engraving and Printing Plant, the contract printer responsible for producing the passports said it will bear the cost of reprinting the passports. The first print cost about $2.67 million.
Those who received the misprinted passports will be issued first-generation e-passports from the country’s remaining stock. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially denied the error stating the passports featured “100 percent Taiwanese scenery.”
The ministry later admitted the mistake, and Agnes Chen, Taiwain’s head of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, stepped down and took responsibility for the error. “On behalf of BOCA, I apologise to the public for the major oversight and will take full administrative responsibility for the incident,” Chen said.
(UPI)
Does the Pentagon still have a UFO programmeIJ
The Pentagon acknowledged on Saturday that its long-secret UFO investigation programme ended in 2012, when US defense officials shifted attention and funding to other priorities. But as to whether the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has continued to investigate UFO sightings since its funding ended five years ago could rank as an unexplained phenomenon.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the hush-hush programme, tasked with investigating sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, ran from 2007 to 2012 with $22 million in annual funding secretly tucked away in US Defense Department budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Its initial funding came largely at the request of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat long known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena, the newspaper said. Yet according to its backers, the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon openly acknowledged the fate of the programme in response to a Reuters query. “The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe,” Pentagon spokeswoman laura Ochoa said in an email. “It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,” she said.
But the Pentagon was less clear about whether the UFO programme continues to hover somewhere in the vast universe of the US defense establishment. “The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed,” Ochoa said.
What is less in doubt is former senator Reid’s enthusiasm for UFOs and his likely role in launching the Pentagon initiative to identify advanced aviation threats. “If you’ve talked to Harry Reid for > 60 seconds then it’s the least surprising thing ever that he loves UFOs and got an earmark to study them,” former Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said in a message on Twitter. Or as Reid himself said in a tweet that linked to the Times’ story: “The truth is out there. Seriously.”
(Reuters)
Florida state park is looking for mermaids
A Florida state park is seeking some new employees with a highly specialised set of skills — that is, mermaid skills. Weeki Wachee Springs State Park announced auditions will be held January 13 to fill new positions on its mermaid squad, which currently consists of 17 performing mermaids and three princes. The park said it is seeking performers who can portray convincing mermaids underwater — and officials cautioned that its harder than it sounds.
“It’s not easy what they do, and a lot of girls find that out [during the audition],” park public relations manager John Athanason told the Tampa Bay Times. Those auditioning will be required to complete a timed, 300-yard endurance swim that features laps both with and against the current. The aspiring mermaids must then tread water for 10 to 15 minutes.
Athanason said it’s important for the mermaids to be stronger than average swimmers. “It’s an inherently dangerous job, and you need to be able to not only save yourself, but save a colleague,” Athanason said.
(UPI)