Thursday 30 April 2015

Florida Couple Stuffed $300 Worth Of Meat In Woman's Pants: Cops

DeLAND, Fla. (AP) — A man and woman have been arrested in central Florida after police say they stole more than $300 worth of meat from a grocery store.

Deputies told The Daytona Beach News-Journal (http://bit.ly/1bh9GQ8) 48-year-old Doris Rowe and 54-year-old Kenneth Edwards drove 26 miles to a Winn-Dixie store in DeLand where a store manager saw Rowe stuffing meat products and other items into her pants.

Deputies say the manager stopped Rowe and she hit the manager in the neck, dropping pork ribs, two packs of detergent and three water filters. Rowe fled the store and got into Edwards' truck. Deputies apprehended them at a traffic stop. Both were charged with grand theft and robbery.

Deputies found ribeye steaks, ground beef, bacon, pork ribs and a gallon of bleach in the car valued at $361.00.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/doris-rowe-kenneth-edward_n_7185598.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird+News and provided by entertainment-movie-news.com

Tabloid Wildly Overstates Story Finding Cocaine On 'Kate Middleton's Hospital Toilet'

What has the Daily Mirror been snorting?

In a story already going viral, the Mirror reports that traces of cocaine were found on the surface of a toilet cistern just "yards away" from the hospital ward where Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is expected to give birth to the next royal baby any day now.

There are a few reasons you might not want to get excited.

The traces of cocaine were found in a wing of St. Mary’s Hospital where the duchess is not staying -- not on "Kate Middleton's hospital toilet," as the Mirror headline claims. The duchess is in a separate maternity ward.

Reporter Martin Bagot conducted the cocaine test by himself, with an over-the-counter, drug-testing surface wipe. The results haven't been confirmed by a lab, the Mirror reports.

And, perhaps most important of all, traces of cocaine can be found on every public surface you touch.

A 2011 study, conducted in the New Haven, Connecticut, metro area, also used cocaine-detecting surface wipes and found that 35 of 45 public surfaces tested had traces of cocaine. According to the study:

Fuel pump buttons (for credit card authorization) caused 100% positive results. Ten different service stations were tested. Similarly, ATM machines for cash withdrawal resulted in a 100% positive rate. From shopping carts, there were seven out of 10 positives (70%). Academic building entrance doors showed the lowest positive frequency at 30%. Shopping mall entrance/exit doors tested positive in every instance.


In fact, you don't have to search further than your own pocket or purse to find traces of cocaine. A 2009 study found that 90 percent of all U.S. currency has traces of cocaine, according to CNN.

What other harmful substances can be found on our money? CNN reported:

Disease-causing organisms such as staphylococcus aureus and pneumonia-causing bacteria have been detected in paper bills. According to a 2002 study published in the Southern Medical Journal, 94 percent of the tested bills had potentially disease-causing organisms.

Adam Negrusz, an associate professor of forensic sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he isn't worried about the cleanliness of money in terms of public health.

"I never think about this as a source of danger. We have more things which can be potentially harmful," said Negrusz, who was not involved in [the 2009] study.


Tabloids in the United Kingdom have a history of exaggerating the facts or running with news tips without verification. But even the tabloids know the "Kate Middleton's toilet" story is ridiculous. In 2011, The Telegraph reported that cocaine could be found on nine out of 10 baby changing stations in public toilets. That could be more worrisome for the royal baby -- if the baby's diapers are ever changed in a public toilet.

Really, Daily Mirror, why not go the whole nine yards? Run headlines like "WHITE HOUSE INDEED! Cocaine Found Yards Away From Obama's Office" or "Cocaine Found Just Inches Away From This Reporter's Nose."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/cocaine-kate-middleton-toilet_n_7182954.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird+News and provided by entertainment-movie-news.com

14 One-Liners That Sum Up Marriage In A Nutshell

In the big picture, marriage is about love, commitment, partnership, sacrifice and selflessness. But on a day-to-day basis, marriage isn't always about all of those high-minded things. It's about deciding what the hell to eat for dinner or learning to deal with your partner's weird bathroom habits.

We turned to the Twittersphere to find some more honest definitions of marriage. Below are 14 tweets that perfectly encapsulate what it means to be married in less than 140 characters.

























































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Man Stuffed $300 Bribe Into City Worker's Pants: Prosecutors

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia man is facing a bribery charge after prosecutors say he stuffed $300 into a city worker's pants during a property reassessment.

Ri Quang Wu was charged Thursday with bribery in official and political matters and obstructing the function of government.

Court records with bail information or a lawyer for the 59-year-old Wu were not posted online.

Prosecutors say Wu passed the bribe during a May 2014 assessment at a property in South Philadelphia.

They say the evaluator tried to give the cash back, but Wu refused and the evaluator turned it over to his bosses at the Bureau of Revenue and Taxation.

District Attorney Seth Williams says the case shows that the city is not for sale and that employees won't tolerate dishonest behavior.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/30/ri-quang-wu_n_7184640.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&ir=Weird+News and provided by entertainment-movie-news.com

Maybe This Is Why You Have A Terrible Uber Rating

"Drivers rating me? Why would they do that?"

For certain people, it's a tough break when someone finally informs them that yes, Uber drivers can now rate passengers. Thanks to a hilarious new video from sisters Danielle and Laura Kosann of The New Potato, we now know several reasons why your Uber rating may not be top notch.

So buckle your seat belts and try to learn a thing or two from the video above. And remember: eating a pizza pie in an Uber car without offering the driver a slice has its consequences.

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Stay Off Social Media (Or Risk Divorce), New Survey Says

Want to keep your "in a relationship" or "married" status on Facebook? You might want to log off Facebook.

One in seven people said they'd considered divorce because of their spouses' questionable activity on Facebook, Skype, Snapchat, Twitter or What’sApp, a recent survey of 2,000 married Brits found.

Almost a quarter of those polled by the law firm Slater and Gordon said they had at least one argument a week related to social media use, with 17 percent admitting they fought about it every day. (Those numbers are high, but in all honesty, there's endless fodder for arguments with this: "Was it really necessary to friend request an ex-girlfriend from freshmen year?" "We saw 'Taken 3' together -- why'd you just check yourself in at AMC?")

Also interesting to note: Fifty-eight percent of those polled said they knew their partner's passwords, even if their spouse was unaware of it.

Meanwhile, back here in the states, divorce attorneys agree that social media has increasingly played a part in marriage breakdowns. In 2010, 81 percent of divorce attorneys surveyed by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers said they'd seen an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence in the five years prior. The attorneys said Facebook was the number one source for finding online evidence, with 66 percent admitting they'd found evidence by combing the site.

Way to ruin marriages, Mark Zuckerberg.

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Cannabis-Themed Restaurant's Sign Is On Point

A Denver location of Cheba Hut, a chain of marijuana-themed sandwich shops, threw down the gauntlet recently with a sign poking fun at a neighboring health food store.

Natural Grocers' billboard advertises its chickens are free from antibiotics and genetically modified feed. "Our chickens don't do drugs or GMOs," it says.

Cheba Hut, which sells toasted subs in sizes like "nug," "pinner" and "blunt," fired back on its sign with: "Our chickens do drugs."

The sandwich shop location opened several weeks ago, according to The Denver Post, and briefly had a sign posted during its construction that said, “THIS S**T IS TAKING FOREVER." It was replaced after 12 hours with a sign reading, “SO CLOSE YOU CAN SMELL IT.”

Marijuana activist Sean Azzariti tweeted the photo of the billboard above on Thursday. Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran, was the first person to buy legal pot in Colorado.

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Tennessee School District Served 6-Year-Old Pork To Students

If you're looking to try aged meats, head to your local steakhouse. Hawkins County School District in Tennessee ages its prime cuts for a little too long.

A county commissioner who's also a parent was floored when a Joseph Rogers Primary School lunch worker sent him a photo of the pork roast that the district was feeding kids. The meat in the photo looked unappetizing enough, but the date on the packaging prompted a district-wide change in school lunch policies, according to WBIR.

Some of the pork roast was dated 2009.

old meat

"These high-schoolers -- they understand if they see something they are not going to like, they don't eat it," Hawkins County Commissioner Michael Herrell told the local station. "But when you get to these kindergartners, first- and second-graders, do they really know if the meat is bad or not?"

The six-year-old pork roast wasn't served at Joseph Rogers, but several other schools did offer it to kids on April 22, the Associated Press reports. One school's cafeteria workers made gravy to cover up the foul taste, Herrell said.

It's unclear whether the meat -- which was frozen all those years before it was thawed and served -- had become tainted, and there were no reports of sick children, according to WATE.

Hawkins County Director of Schools Steve Starnes told WBIR that they tested the old meat after he found out about it on April 23, and the tests didn't find anything harmful.

"There were some meats with dates of 2009, '10, '11 in the freezer," Starnes said. "Our child nutrition supervisor had the cafeteria managers look at the meat, do the tests, and see if it was OK."

Nonetheless, he said, the district has thrown out all the offending lunch meat and will strictly follow USDA guidelines for storing and serving food in the future.

USDA guidelines recommend that frozen roasts be thrown out after four to 12 months.

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73-Year-Old California Man Punches Black Bear In The Face To Save His Dogs

Bears of the world, beware: If he has to, Carl Moore will punch you in the face.

Moore, a 73-year-old man who hails from the foothills near Sacramento, California, says a black bear threatened his dogs outside his home last Monday. When yelling failed to scare the bear, he challenged it to a game of fisticuffs.

"The man or beast that I run from ain't been born," Moore told CBS Sacramento while clutching one of his dogs, Lacy.

In Moore's defense, his first choice wasn't a fistfight. "I raised both hands in the air and I cussed at him, ‘Rrraaaaaaa! Get out of here you bastard," he said. But when the bear ignored him, Moore ran at the animal and landed a punch known as a "whirling haymaker."

The bear didn't appreciate Moore's knuckle sandwich, and ran off down the road.

Witnesses were happy to corroborate the story, and described the animal as being about 5 1/2 feet tall and 300 pounds.

“I know I’ll never see that one again,” Tyler Silva, an employee at Moore's contracting business, told the Auburn Journal. “He definitely connected. The bear took a breath out like it had been struck in the stomach and then it took off down the road.”

Another employee, John Sargent, seemed somewhat less surprised.

"He has the hands and he’s an old 1st Recon Marine," Sargent told the paper. "He’s no joke and a tough old soul for 75."

In 2011, a 22-year-old woman in Alaska also punched a bear in the face to save her dog, in that case a dachshund named Fudge.

Anecdotal evidence aside, experts say the first reaction to encountering a black bear should not be to start throwing punches. The National Park Service recommends first trying to distance yourself from the animal by slowly backing away, or talking loudly and shouting at it aggressively if it attempts to follow you. Only fight back as a last resort if you are being physically attacked.

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Pastor Defends Homophobic Billboard: 'I See A Homosexual Just Like A Murderer'

Far from the steps of the Supreme Court, a pastor in Milledgeville, Georgia, is using the marriage equality case as an opportunity to denounce homosexuality.

Pastor Robert Lee of the Ten Commandments Church unveiled a new billboard earlier this week calling homosexuality a "death worthy crime." The message has already drawn the ire of one Milledgeville resident, who worries the marquee could incite violence against LGBT people.

death worthy

"This is the first time that I have ever seen anything that actually crossed the line and was inferring death upon a group," Robert Owens told local TV station WGXA News.

But Lee is standing by his billboard. He told The Huffington Post it's his job to "teach people against evil." He said he didn't condone violence against the gay community, but called for a judicial statute condemning homosexuality.

"Homosexuality is a terrible thing, it's an abomination, so we are trying to inform people exactly what scripture says about it," he said. "Homosexuals are destroying this society."

Lee said he'll continue to post the signs -- another of which called gays and lesbians "disgraces to humanity" -- outside his church. The pastor told WGXA he'd "die" before accepting gay members into his congregation.

This week the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case expected to determine whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Same-sex couples can legally marry in 37 states and the District of Columbia.

death worthy 2

"Homosexuality has to be at least as heinous as murder," Lee told HuffPost. "My way of thinking comes from scripture, it does not come from any political view. I see a homosexual just like a murderer."

H/T Daily Kos.

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Cameras Catch Brazen Bra Bandits Robbing Penn. Victoria's Secret (VIDEO)

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Newly released surveillance video shows two women were behind the latest bra heist at a northeast Pennsylvania mall.

The women can be seen brazenly stuffing bras into a bag at the Victoria's Secret store at the Wyoming Valley Mall last week. Twenty-five bras were stolen.

It's the first time police in Wilkes-Barre Township have been able to lay eyes on the suspects.

They say the store never turned over video of three previous thefts that netted nearly 150 bras.

Police say 94 bras were taken from display drawers on Feb. 17, and 39 bras were stolen on Feb. 25.

They say 12 more bras were taken from a rear display on March 7.

The stolen bras are valued at more than $7,700.



INFORMATION REQUESTEDIncident #: 15-155204/21/15Victoria's SecretRetail Theft (Bra Theft)Wilkes-Barre Twp. Police has obtained surveillance video of 2 female suspects regarding the theft of 25 bras from Victoria's Secret on 04/21/15. Anyone with information regarding the identification of these females is asked to contact Det. Mike Amditis at (570) 208-4635 Ext. 870 or by sending a message to this page or by emailing to us at crimetips@twp.wilkesbarre.pa.us.326

Posted by Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department on Tuesday, April 28, 2015

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Jeff Bezos' Rocket Looks Like A Penis

Ground control to Major Johnson.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, successfully launched the New Shepard spaceship on Wednesday, bringing the company one step closer to commercial space flight.

The rocket reached speeds of Mach 3 and an altitude of 307,000 feet before safely landing, the company wrote in a blog post.

Those are some impressive stats that any man would be proud of ... but as Mashable rightly notes, the only thing that anyone really noticed was that New Shepard looks like a penis.

Mashable wasn't the only one who pointed the similarity out:

















The rocket was unmanned this time, but the plan is for it to carry up to six people, according to the BBC.

When reached for comment, Blue Origin declined to contribute to the penis discussion.

"Thanks for the opportunity to respond, but Blue Origin has nothing to contribute at this time," the company said in a statement.

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Cow Born With Two Faces

A calf was born in northern Florida on Monday with two faces, stunning the farm's owners.

"It was just like a surprise, because no one has ever seen anything like this around here," Carolyn Crews told WTSP news.

The calf, named Annabel, has two heads, four eyes and two mouths, noses and ears. When one mouth feeds from a bottle, the other mouth suckles at the same time, News4Jax reported.

"You know, I don't think she's going to make it," Crews told WTSP. The animal can't walk or lift its head, and can't feed from its mother.

The condition of having more than one head, Polycephaly, is an incredibly rare genetic mutation. Although the odds of a two-headed calf are extremely small, another one was born in Virginia in March. In that case, the calf was stillborn.

The Crews family could not be reached Thursday for additional information about the calf or its current condition.

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'Peter Pan' May Have A Dark Secret You Didn't Know About

One year ago, Disney put "Peter Pan" back in the vault. It'll be a few years before it's released again to a new generation, but in the meantime, it's hard not to look back on it with fond memories ... or is it?

The truth is that J. M. Barrie's original story, which inspired Disney's tale, may have a dark secret. After hearing it, you can't really blame Peter's shadow for wanting to get the heck out of there.

The Dark Truth: Peter Pan was killing the Lost Boys.





Image: Disney/LiveJournal

When it comes to the Internet, a lot of fan theories can be categorized as crazy town. This one, however, has enough evidence to make a Lost Boy wet his onesie. Though it's easy to miss, one line in the story basically reveals the Lost Boys' fate:

The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.


Yep, you read that right. When the Lost Boys get too old, Peter "thins them out." But what does that mean? Redditor crusty_the_clown sums it up pretty well:



Maybe Pan isn't that specific with how he gets rid of the Boys, but you get the point. So could he really kill them off?

More Evidence:

tv show gifs

Image: Tumblr



A variety of things suggest Peter Pan is capable of offing his compatriots. For one, Peter hates adults (like, he really hates them), which you can see in the story:

As soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.



Jeez, Peter, tell us how you really feel.

With his clear distaste for grown ups, it's reasonable to think that Pan would have a lot of contempt for the boys as they grew up.

Also, the original story was just dark in general, which gives the theory even more plausibility. Grim moments include Wendy nearly dying after being shot by an arrow, Peter being attacked by Hook and left to drown and Hook being eaten by the crocodile.

The Case Against:



Image: Giphy



You can't take everything at face value in a story about children. The "thins them out" line could just be a metaphor, or, as one commenter points out on PainInTheEnglish, perhaps it means something entirely different:

It could just as likely refer to them being killed by pirates, or leaving Neverland upon growing up, or being banished or shunned, etc.



The story can definitely be open to interpretation, but even Disney's toned down version isn't without its dark moments. If true, could Disney's Pan be capable of killing the Lost Boys, too?

Think happy thoughts, people! Just think happy thoughts.



Image: Tumblr

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Scientists Finally Figure Out Why Lobsters Turn Red When Cooked

Cooking lobster always feels a little magical: You drop a blue shellfish into a pot of boiling water, and a few minutes later, you take out a bright red shellfish.

Even scientists have long been at a loss to explain the chemistry underpinning this alchemy. One team of chemists from the University of Manchester in England believed they had an explanation way back in 2002, but later work indicated that their hypothesis only explained a third of the color change.

Now that same team of chemists thinks they've solved the other two-thirds of the mystery.

Their new research affirms their earlier idea that a chemical called astaxantin is involved in the color change; it has a red hue and is found in the shells of raw lobsters as well as cooked ones. But in raw lobsters, the redness of the astaxantin is obscured by the dark blue color of another chemical, crustacyanin, that is also present in the shell.

But when you cook a lobster, the blue crustacyanin molecules become denatured, or lose certain biological structures. This allows the red astaxantin, which is not denatured by the boiling water, to shine through. In this way, the changing color of a lobster shell is distantly related to the changing color of tree leaves in autumn. Leaves always contain the pigments that make them red, orange and yellow, but for most of the year, those pigments are masked by the bright green color of chlorophyll. Only in autumn, when the temperature cools and the sun's light starts to dim does the level of chlorophyll wane enough to make these warm-hued pigments visible.

This new research takes a little of the magic out of the color-changing lobster shell, but nothing will ever dim the splendor of the taste of a claw dipped in melted butter.

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The Universe Might Be A Giant Hologram. Cue The Existential Crisis...

Is the world around us really just a trick of the eye?

Scientists have long believed the universe could be a giant hologram -- a two-dimensional realm that only seems to be three-dimensional -- and now a group of Viennese researchers have done the math to prove that such a scenario isn't quite as far-fetched as it seems.



The idea that the universe is a 3-D "projection" onto some sort of flat, cosmic surface arises from the "holographic principle." It states that all the data needed to fully describe a region of space can be encoded in just two dimensions. It was first proposed in the 1990's by physicists Dr. Gerard 't Hooft and Dr. Leonard Susskind as a way to solve a fundamental inconsistency between quantum physics and general relativity.

"If you know Plato's Allegory of the Cave, then a way to understand the holographic principle is by saying that the information provided by the shadows is equivalent to the information provided by the objects that generate the shadows," Dr. Daniel Grumiller, a professor at the Vienna University of Technology's Institute for Theoretical Physics and a co-author of a paper about the new research, told The Huffington Post in an email. "This principle, if correct, explains a number of puzzles in black hole physics pioneered by Stephen Hawking."

Though previous research showed that the holographic principle holds in theoretical worlds (anti-de Sitter spaces, anyone?), evidence suggesting that it holds under the conditions found in our own universe has been limited, according to Grumiller.

"Our main interest is to test the generality of the holographic principle," he said in the email. "If it is correct, it must also work in flat space-time."

For the new research, the physicists used two theories of flat space-time to calculate a physical measure known as "entanglement entropy." The term describes the amount of entanglement -- where particles are linked and exert influence on each other across a distance -- in a quantum system.

“If quantum gravity in a flat space allows for a holographic description by a standard quantum theory, then there must by physical quantities, which can be calculated in both theories –- and the results must agree," Grumiller said in a written statement.

Indeed, they found that the value of the entanglement entropy in both theories was the same, which means it's possible the holographic principle does apply to our universe -- and by extension, our universe could be holographic.

But if that finding leaves you feeing flat, take heart. It's still not proof that we live in a hologram.

The research was published online on March 19 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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Charlie The Cat Stuck In Tree For 3 Days, Planet Keeps Spinning

What a pussy!

A South Carolina cat named Charlie was stuck in a tree. How long was Charlie stuck in a tree? About three days.

Charlie, who was most likely in the tree because he wanted to be in the media spotlight, was largely ignored by people sick of his constant need for attention.





The feline eventually came down, probably after finally realizing that not everyone else's world revolves around him.





Your fifteen minutes are over, cat. Sorry, Charlie.



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Watch Josh Sheehan Nail First Triple Backflip On A Motocross Bike

It's been hailed as the world's first triple backflip on a motocross bike.

But the stunt pulled off by Josh Sheehan of the Nitro Circus daredevil tour Tuesday doesn't require any milestone label for anyone to see that it's spectacular. And dangerous.

The trick required more than a year of preparation, according to the YouTube description.

Time well spent.

H/T Viral Viral Videos

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Warren Buffett, Drinker Of Five Cokes A Day, Sings Ukulele Ode To The Soda

"I think that calls for a song."

Billionaire Warren Buffett took to his ukulele to sing an ode to Coke in honor of the 100th anniversary of the beverage's contoured bottle. The avid strummer played his own version of the popular "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" commercial from the 1970s, as part of a new ad celebrating the brand's iconic container.

Buffett, 84, made headlines earlier this year when he told Fortune's Patricia Sellers he was "one quarter Coca-Cola," and eats "like a six-year-old." He said he drinks at least five, 12-ounce servings of the beverage every day: regular Coke at the office and Cherry Coke at home.

Buffett may imbibe massive amounts of cola — and appear in their commercials — but he hasn't always been a fan of the company's decisions. Coca-Cola was reportedly pressured to change what Buffett called an "excessive" executive compensation plan after facing criticism from shareholders, The Wall Street Journal reported last May. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, holds $16 billion in Coca-Cola stock, about 9 percent of the company.

Business aside, the quirky anthem is a fitting serenade to the brand.

"I'd like to buy the world a coke and keep it company," Buffett sings. He adds, "Of course, I could buy the world a coke, but I'm not sure my shareholders would go for that."

OK, WARREN.

H/T MarketWatch

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Feisty 5-Year-Old Insists She's 'Moving On' And Leaving Home

Five-year-old Saige is fed up with her messy house and her mean brother Tanner.

In this viral video Saige's mom posted on YouTube earlier this month, the little girl announces with steadfast conviction that she's "moving on!"

"I've been in this house way too long ... For, like, five years!" she shouts, adding that she wants to move in with her mom's best friend. "I'm moving on. I'm going to Jen's!"

We've all been there, Saige.

And in case anyone is worried, Saige and her mom appeared on "Inside Edition", where they confirmed that the 5-year-old has simmered down and remains at home.



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Model Cassandra Bankson Discovers She Has 2 Vaginas

Like most women, Cassandra Bankson has two eyes, two ears, two arms and two legs.

Bankson, 22, also has two vaginas, two wombs and two cervixes, a fact she discovered last year when she went to see a doctor about nagging back pain.

“When we got the test results back the doctor said I only had one kidney and flippantly added that I have two vaginas -- as she suspected," Bankson told Barcroft TV. “There is one vaginal opening but inside there are two vaginas, two uteri, two cervixes and two fallopian tubes."

Typically, a vagina is one large cavity, but Bankson's was completely separated into two different cavities, a condition known as uterus didelphys.

"I was shocked and the doctor explained to me that it was like an upside nose," she told Barcroft TV. “I didn’t really know what to make of it –- I was just in shock but I don’t really let it get in the way of my life."

Uterus didelphys reportedly affects less than 100 women around the world, according to India Today. According to doctors, the condition represents a uterine malformation, where the uterus is present as a paired organ.

Bankson said discovering she had two vaginas helped explain a lot of issues she had growing up.

“Ever since I was younger I would go to the doctor because I was bleeding for 28 days or I would have two periods a month -– but they never suspected I had a second vagina," she said, according to the Mirror. “It is extremely difficult to deal with because you don't know whether your period is going to last a week or three."

The condition may affect Bankson's ability to have children. Chances of miscarriage, premature labor and underweight babies are high in women with uterus didelphys.

However, in 2011, Rinku Devi, 28, of West Champaran, India, gave birth to twins, one in each uterus.

WATCH: Cassandra Bankson explains how she learned she had two vaginas



As surprised as Bankson was to learn of her unique condition, her family was twice as shocked.

"I kind of walked in and said, 'Guess what, mom. I'm twice the woman -- I have two vaginas,'" Bankson told the Daily Mail. "She really didn't know what to say and my dad was really shocked. He's a math guy so was trying to figure out how this would even be possible, but they're cool with it."

So are Bankson's buddies.

"It's no real issue for my friends," she said, according to Cosmopolitan.co.uk. "I just tell them that I'm pretty special but they just see me as Cassy -- not Cassy with the two vaginas."





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Hotels Consider Eliminating Check-In And Check-Out Times

Flexible check-in and check-out times have traditionally been reserved for only the most important of hotel guests. But now, some hotels are starting to extend that luxury to all customers. According to Yahoo Travel, a "24-hour check-in/check-out policy" is one of the newest, greatest trends in the travel industry.

“Early check-in and late check-out used to be something reserved for VIP hotel guests, but more and more luxury hotels are introducing flexible check-out as a general amenity to make guests feel special and give them more for their money,” Travelocity's senior travel editor Courtney Scott told Yahoo.

hotel

In addition to guests getting more bang for their hotel buck, flexible time windows also make travel less stressful. Having less of a deadline to get to a hotel makes it easier on those facing cancellations, delays or other setbacks in their schedules. It's also just plain good news for the people who want to sleep in a little bit longer.

While a number of posh individual properties have begun relaxing check-in and check-out times for everyone, it will be interesting to see which major hotel chain is the first to institute this new trend across the board.

In the meantime, if you'd like to figure out other ways to make traveling less stressful, follow these four tips:

  1. Do your research: Compare prices on hotels, airfare, etc. before you go, so you don't find yourself wondering if you got "ripped off" on your trip or vacation.


  2. Mediate: Take 10 deep breaths to calm yourself and think clearer.


  3. Eat something: Nothing's going to get accomplished if you're hangry. Listen to your body and fill it with something good!


  4. Have a "Plan B": Just in case something goes wrong, prevent panicking by always having a backup.



H/T Yahoo Travel

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Polygamous Marriage Is Linked To Higher Rates Of Literal Heartache For Husbands

By: Tia Ghose

Published: April 28, 2015 06:39pm ET on LiveScience.



Having more than one wife may cause some serious heartache.





Men who are polygamous face more than quadruple the risk of having blocked heart vessels, compared with men married to one woman, new research suggests.





"We found an association between an increasing number of wives and the severity and number of coronary blockages," study co-author Dr. Amin Daoulah, a cardiologist at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said in a statement. This link could be due to the burden of maintaining several households, which can be costly both financially and emotionally, Daoulah said.





According to the Koran, men in polygamous marriages must treat each household fairly and equally. "It seems likely that the stress of doing that for several spouses and possibly several families of children is considerable," Daoulah said.





In the study, the more wives a man had, the greater his risk of heart disease, according to the findings presented today (April 29) at the Asian Pacific Society of Cardiology Congress 2015. [Life's Extremes: Monogamy vs. Polygamy]





However, the study does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between polygamy and heart woes. It's possible that other, hidden factors, such as the level of intimacy in a marriage, eating habits or genetic factors, could play a role in polygamy and heart disease risk, Daoulah said.





Monogamy versus polygamy





A study published earlier this year in the journal Biology Letters suggests that men and women both fall on a continuum from monogamous to promiscuous, with slightly less than half of men, and slightly more than half of women, preferring to have only one serious partner at a time.





However, some scientists have argued that polygamy makes evolutionary sense for men, but not women. That's because polygamous men can have many more children than monogamous men during a given period, whereas women can have only one child every nine months, no matter how many partners they have during that span.





However, the children of monogamous couples don't have to share the father's time and resources with the children of other women. And studies show that wives of polygamous men tend to have fewer children on average than wives with monogamous husbands.





Moreover, polygamy may not be such a great deal for men, or society, either. Adding more people to the marital equation increases the potential for interpersonal conflict and requires more resources. A 2012 study in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B found that across time, societies that permit polygamy have higher rates of violence, poverty and gender inequality.





Heart problems with wives





To understand how the dynamics of polygamy may affect men's health, Daoulah and colleagues looked at men in the Middle East, where polygamy is more culturally accepted. In Islam, men are allowed to marry up to four different women, as long as they can support all of them and treat each wife and her children equally. (Each wife typically lives in a separate household in Islam.)





Daoulah's team followed 687 men who were referred for heart disease testing at five hospitals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Among the men, 68 percent had one wife, 19 percent had two wives, 10 percent had three wives and 3 percent had four wives.





The men were 59 years old on average. More than half had high blood pressure and diabetes, and nearly half had a prior history of heart disease. Men who were polygamous tended to be older and to live in more rural areas, the researchers noted.





Compared with their monogamous counterparts, the polygamous men in the study had 4.6 times the risk of having narrowed coronary arteries, and 2.6 times the risk of having multiple narrowed arteries, according to the study.





Dr. Michel Komajda, a past president of the European Society of Cardiology who was not involved in the new study, said that stress may play a role in the link.





"We know that long-term stress in family life increases the risk of coronary heart disease," Komajda said in a statement. It would be interesting to see what effect polygamy had on wives' risk of coronary heart disease, he said.





People with psychological and social problems are less likely to take their heart medicine, which could also play a role in the problem, Komajda said.





Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.





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Scientists Finally Figure Out Why Lobsters Turn Red When Cooked

Cooking lobster always feels a little magical: You drop a blue shellfish into a pot of boiling water, and a few minutes later, you take out a bright red shellfish.

Even scientists have long been at a loss to explain the chemistry underpinning this alchemy. One team of chemists from the University of Manchester in England believed they had an explanation way back in 2002, but later work indicated that their hypothesis only explained a third of the color change.

Now that same team of chemists thinks they've solved the other two-thirds of the mystery.

Their new research affirms their earlier idea that a chemical called astaxantin is involved in the color change; it has a red hue and is found in the shells of raw lobsters as well as cooked ones. But in raw lobsters, the redness of the astaxantin is obscured by the dark blue color of another chemical, crustacyanin, that is also present in the shell.

But when you cook a lobster, the blue crustacyanin molecules become denatured, or lose certain biological structures. This allows the red astaxantin, which is not denatured by the boiling water, to shine through. In this way, the changing color of a lobster shell is distantly related to the changing color of tree leaves in autumn. Leaves always contain the pigments that make them red, orange and yellow, but for most of the year, those pigments are masked by the bright green color of chlorophyll. Only in autumn, when the temperature cools and the sun's light starts to dim does the level of chlorophyll wane enough to make these warm-hued pigments visible.

This new research takes a little of the magic out of the color-changing lobster shell, but nothing will ever dim the splendor of the taste of a claw dipped in melted butter.

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Puppy Has Zero Idea Where His Hiccups Are Coming From

A scare is one of the easiest ways to get rid of the hiccups. But what do you do when it’s the hiccups that scare you?!

Buck the pup has a case of them, and he has no idea what’s going on. He is very puzzled by the strange sounds coming out of his tiny puppy mouth, and tries to spook them away with even tinier growls and barks.

Just relax, sweet little Buck, and fret not. They’ll go away on their own. But these are for sure the cutest case of the hic-pups we’ve ever heard!

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Playing 'Tetris' Can Change Your Brain. Here's How

All that time spent on your Game Boy might actually have been worth something.

A new video from BrainCraft, an educational show from PBS Digital studios, explains what "Tetris" does to your brain -- and a lot of it is good news.

According to the video, studies have shown that playing enough "Tetris" (think 1.5 hours a week for three months) can ...

• Make parts of your cerebral cortex thicker.

• Make other areas of your brain more efficient.

• Reduce flashbacks for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.


The smartest kid in the world. (Source)


Of course, this all comes with some caveats. The video explains that doing any task for three months could potentially change your brain structure.

What makes "Tetris" so addictive, the video explains, is that it "appeals to our natural desire to organize things, complete tasks and achieve goals." The game gives you a constant stream of "incomplete tasks" -- there's always a new block to consider and place in the game, which keeps your brain hooked.

Of course, no two people are the same, and "Tetris" impacts everyone differently. For more detail, watch the video above or on YouTube.

"Tetris" has long fascinated scientists. A 2009 study from the Mind Research Network examined the impact of the game on the human brain, and in 2000, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that it can change how people dream. Others have written about how the game can be habit-forming and change how we think about the world around us -- a notion that's now referred to as the "Tetris effect."

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New Hampshire Court Rules Hiker Must Pay His Own Rescue Bill

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The New Hampshire Supreme Court says a Michigan man must pay for the cost of his rescue from the White Mountain National Forest.

Edward Bacon of Northville, Michigan, was on a five-day solo hike in September 2012 when he dislocated his hip and had to be carried for almost four miles over rough terrain in heavy rain. The state Fish and Game department charged him $9,300 after a judge found him negligent, but Bacon appealed that ruling to the high court, which rejected his argument Thursday.

Bacon argued he was prepared for the conditions, physically capable and had adequately planned his hike. But the state said his training was insufficient and that he was negligent in trying to jump over a ledge after having dislocated his hip five other times.

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Rhode Island Woman Comes Home To Wild Turkey In Her Bathroom

WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island woman thought a pipe burst when she returned home to find water pouring from her garage ceiling. But the culprit turned out to be an unusual houseguest that dropped in.



WLNE-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1P9elks ) Nancy Page went upstairs to find the source of the running water and discovered a wild turkey had crashed through a bathroom window and somehow turned on the sink. Page says she immediately realized it was a turkey, which left behind its own mess.



Police and a Department of Environmental Management officer caught the turkey and released it.



Page was forced to throw out the bathroom sink. She says it had been running for two to three hours. Page estimates the turkey caused thousands of dollars in water damage to her Warwick home.



___



Information from: WLNE-TV, http://www.abc6.com

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Truly Bizarre Crimes Linked To Flakka

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — One man ran naked through a Florida neighborhood, tried to have sex with a tree and told police he was the mythical god Thor. Another ran nude down a busy city street in broad daylight, convinced a pack of German shepherds was pursuing him.

Two others tried separately to break into the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. They said they thought people were chasing them; one wound up impaled on a fence. The common element to these and other bizarre incidents in Florida in the last few months is flakka, an increasingly popular synthetic designer drug. Also known as gravel and readily available for $5 or less a vial, it's a growing problem for police after bursting on the scene in 2013.

It is the latest in a series of synthetic drugs that include Ecstasy and bath salts, but officials say flakka is even easier to obtain in small quantities through the mail. Flakka's active ingredient is a chemical compound called alpha-PVP, which is on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's list of the controlled substances most likely to be abused. It is usually made overseas in countries such as China and Pakistan.

Flakka, a derivative of the Spanish word for a thin, pretty woman, is usually sold in a crystal form and is often smoked using electronic cigarettes, which are popular with young people and give off no odor. It can also be snorted, injected or swallowed.

"I've had one addict describe it as $5 insanity," said Don Maines, a drug treatment counselor with the Broward Sheriff's Office in Fort Lauderdale. "They still want to try it because it's so cheap. It gives them heightened awareness. They feel stronger and more sensitive to touch. But then the paranoia sets in."

Judging from the evidence being seized by police around Florida, flakka use is up sharply. Submissions for testing to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's crime labs have grown from 38 in 2013 to 228 in 2014. At the Broward Sheriff's Office laboratory, flakka submissions grew from fewer than 200 in 2014 to 275 already, in just the first three months of this year, according to spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion.

"It's definitely something we are watching. It's an emerging drug," said Chad Brown, an FDLE supervisory special agent.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reports of flakka or gravel also have surfaced in Ohio, Texas and Tennessee, but Florida appears to be the nation's hot spot.

In one recent case, 22-year-old Jaime Nicole Lewis was charged in a DEA complaint with conspiracy to distribute flakka after DEA agents based in London intercepted U.S.-bound packages of the drug that were made in Hong Kong. An undercover DEA agent posing as a delivery company employee then brought the packages to Lewis' home in Palm Beach County, according to a court affidavit.

"Synthetic drugs are illegal and present a grave danger to our community, particularly our children," said Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer.

Lewis is being held without bail and is due to enter a plea next week. Her attorney, Paul Lazarus, said prosecutors will have to prove she knew the packages contained illegal drugs. A man believed to be the flakka ringleader in this case also is charged, but has not been arrested.

James West, a 50-year-old homeless man, was caught on surveillance video in February trying to kick in the heavy glass front door of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, finally cracking it with large rocks. Bleeding above one eye, West told officers that he was desperate for help from police because "he was being chased by 20-25 individuals and he didn't know why." He later told police he had smoked flakka.

In March, Shanard Neely got impaled through the buttocks on the department's 10-foot-high security fence while trying to climb over, convinced he was being pursued and that "he needed to go to jail or they would kill him," police said. Neely, 37, also told officers he had smoked flakka. It took hours for rescuers to cut him down.

And in Palm Beach County, a SWAT team had to talk Leroy Strothers, 33, off a rooftop in January. He had fired a shot from up there, claiming he was being followed by a Haitian gang that had threatened his family. Strothers, who was charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, told officers he had smoked flakka and could not remember how he got on the roof.

"I'm feeling delusional and hallucinating," Strothers said, according to a sheriff's report.

The FDLE's Brown said his agency is training police to better recognize flakka and the symptoms it can cause.

One challenge is that flakka manufacturers make subtle changes to its chemical makeup, foiling efforts to test for the drug, and it is frequently mixed with other substances, such as crack cocaine or heroin, with unknown effects, said Maines, of the Broward Sheriff's Office.

With prolonged use over as little as three days, behavioral changes can be severe.

"It actually starts to rewire the brain chemistry. They have no control over their thoughts. They can't control their actions," Maines said. "It seems to be universal that they think someone is chasing them. It's just a dangerous, dangerous drug."

___

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Man Pulled Overboard By Hungry Sea Lion 'Thought He Was Going To Die'

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Dan Carlin's wife told him to smile for a picture on their 29-foot boat as he held up one of the yellowtail fish they had caught that day. Then a sea lion leaped 7 feet out of the water, bit into his hand and yanked him overboard.

The animal, weighing hundreds of pounds, smashed the 62-year-old San Diego accountant against the boat's side and sent his legs flying into the air like a rag doll's before it dragged him some 20 feet underwater, Carlin said Wednesday, more than three weeks into his recovery after the April 5 incident.

dan carlin

Photo: Trish Carlin via AP

Underwater, the sea lion whipped Carlin side to side.

"After 15 seconds, I thought I was going to die," Carlin said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I continued to struggle, but thought this is the way I was going to die. It was unbelievable to me."

Then, as quickly as the attack happened, Carlin was released. He swam toward the surface as the sea lion bit his foot, puncturing a bone.

He managed to make his way back to his boat that was in a bay off San Diego. He and his wife moved it closer to land while his hand gushed blood and he struggled to breathe because of his battered chest. At one point, Carlin said, he lost his vision.

Carlin spent two days in the hospital. The gash on his hand required 20 stitches.

Carlin hopes his hand will have healed enough so he can go back out fishing next week. An experienced surfer, scuba diver and fisherman, Carlin said he and his wife, Trish Carlin, always took precautions to properly dispose of any guts or carcasses to ensure they did not go in the water.

Still, his experience shows just how dangerous sea lions can be, despite the fact that people often do not fear them, Carlin said.

"So many times, you see videos of cute seals, sea lions, but I'm sharing what happened to me because I want parents to realize these are wild aggressive animals that can take you down," he said. "They should be given a wide berth. At least a small child should do that, but also just about anybody should."

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Tiny Dinosaur Discovered In China Had Wings Like A Bat--Or Did It?

A newly discovered bat-like dinosaur has given paleontologists a fascinating new puzzle to solve.

Fossils of the tiny dino, unearthed recently in China's Hebei Province, date back about 160 million years. And a new study of Yi qi, as the creature is known, suggests that the pigeon-sized prehistoric creature had featherless wings.

It's the only such dinosaur ever discovered.

"This is the most unexpected discovery I have ever made, even though I have found a few really bizarre dinosaurs in my career," Dr. Xing Xu, a paleontologist at Linyi University in China and a co-author of the study, told Live Science.

For the study, the researchers examined the fossils, piecing together the dinosaur's unique forelimbs. They discovered patches of membranous tissue preserved between the rod-like bones that extend from each wrist, which is evidence for the wings, the Associated Press reported.

(Story continues below image.)

dinosaur

An illustration of the dinosaur, Yi qi, which is Mandarin for "strange wing."

But just because Yi qi may have had wings like a bat doesn't necessarily mean it flew like a bat. Some scientists think it did, but others argue that the dinosaur might have been more of a glider than a flapper. Some scientists aren't sure Yi qi flew at all, arguing that the membranous structures weren't wings but possibly embellishments displayed during courtship rituals.

"The temptation to associate these membranes with flight may be misleading," Dr. Thomas Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, who was not involved in the study, told Nature. “This is one of the strangest animals that I’ve seen in the fossil record in years... It’s raising a lot more puzzles than it’s solving."

The study was published online in the journal Nature on April 29, 2015.

How much do you know about dinosaurs? Check out the "Talk Nerdy To Me" video below for five other scientific findings that just may change the way you think about the prehistoric beasts.

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