lady Antebellum calls police lip sync of its song ‘amazing’
An Ohio police department’s entry in a lip sync challenge sweeping the nation has gotten rave reviews — including from the country music group whose song is featured. Middletown police Chief Rodney Muterspaw says he’s “overwhelmed” by the response to a video his department created as part of a national lip sync challenge among police departments. The Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News reports among fans of the video is the band lady Antebellum, which tweeted that the police department’s cover of its song ‘Need You Now’ is “amazing.” Since its posting on Wednesday the video has been viewed more than two million times. The police chief says it took about an hour to shoot the video. He says some officers were reluctant at first but everyone seemed to enjoy the experience.
Man finds treasures in storage locker
A New York City art dealer who bought the contents of a New Jersey storage locker filled with paintings for $15,000 says he got more than he bargained for. He found half a dozen paintings he believes were done by artist Willem de Kooning, whose works have sold for millions of dollars at auction. The New York Post reports David Killen bought the contents of the Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, locker last year. The paintings were originally from the studio of art conservator Orrin Riley, who died in 1986, and his partner, Susanne Schnitzer, who died in 2009. The paintings aren’t signed, but Killen reached out to an expert who’s confident they were done by de Kooning, an abstract expressionist from the Netherlands who moved to the US and died in 1997.
‘Serial offender’ koala rescued from metal fence
A hapless koala was rescued for the third time when it managed to get its head stuck in a metal fence at a power station. SA Power Networks tweeted a photo showing the koala with its head stuck in between the metal bars of a fence at the Happy Valley substation in St Marys, South Australia. The tweet said the crew at the station contacted Fauna Rescue SA to free the koala, which animal rescuers said was familiar to them. Sally Selwood of Fauna Rescue SA said the koala “wasn’t too bright” and has been rescued by the group twice before. “When the guys got in they discovered this serial offender stuck in the fence,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “He’s already known to us because he’s already been rescued before, he’s got a yellow ear tag.
“He seems to be one that likes to get into trouble,” she said. “He’s been caught in yards with dogs before, he just seems to find himself in poor situations.”
Banking error makes woman a millionaire for 10 minutes
A Boston woman is looking back on her 10 minutes as a millionaire after a banking error was made in her favor and quickly corrected. Ellen Fleming, 26, said she received a voicemail from a TD Ameritrade financial consultant saying a deposit had been made in the account she had opened months earlier with only $50. Fleming said she looked at the TD Ameritrade app and discovered her account now contained $1.1 million. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, wow, how neat would this beIJ’” Fleming told the Boston Globe. “I could quit my job, do whatever I wanted to do, pay off my student loans.”
“You need to take every opportunity that’s handed to you,” she said. “But that seemed like an opportunity that could lead me to federal prison, so it didn’t seem worth it.” Fleming called the financial adviser back to tell him a mistake had been made. She said the money had apparently been intended for a different Ellen Fleming. “There’s some Ellen Fleming out there, living in some alternate universe life in Florida,” she said.
Fleming posted a screenshot of her inflated account balance to Twitter. “I was rich for 10 mins and I can tell you, life was in fact better,” she wrote. Fleming said her account balance now stands at $63. “Being a millionaire really was a dream come true for 10 minutes,” she said. “I am very humbled that I lost my money and my family stood by me.”
Astronaut plays duet from space
Kraftwerk fans are used to hearing otherworldly tunes, but the German electronic music pioneers took it to another level at a gig in Stuttgart. Video posted Saturday by the European Space Agency shows German astronaut Alexander Gerst “dropping in” for a live performance from the International Space Station. Using a tablet computer with a virtual synthesizer, Gerst played a duet of Kraftwerk’s 1978 song ‘Spacelab’ with the band Friday night to cheers from the audience. He’s not the first space musician. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ and played a duet with the Barenaked ladies while 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth in 2013.