A clear sky. Low 48F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..
A clear sky. Low 48F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese state media say a man has been found safe after he spent two days aloft in a hydrogen balloon, traveling about 320 kilometers (200 miles), after it became untethered and flew away while he was using it to harvest pine nuts from a tree.
The man, identified only by his surname, Hu, and a partner were collecting pine nuts on Sunday in a forest park in Heilongjiang province in northeastern China when they lost control and the balloon sailed off.
The other person jumped to the ground, and a search was launched for the escaped balloon and Hu.
State broadcaster CCTV said rescuers were able to contact the man by cellphone the following morning and instructed him to slowly deflate the balloon to land safely. It took another day before he reached the ground about 320 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast in Fangzheng region, close to the border with Russia.
Hu was in good health, apart from a pain in his lower back, possibly from standing the entire time he was in the air, CCTV said.
An official who gave only his surname, Fu, at the publicity department of the Hailin Forestry Administration Co. on Thursday confirmed the balloon incident and described Hu as being in his 40s. He said Hu was recovering in a hospital but declined to give further details.
Pine nuts are found inside pine cones and are a frequent ingredient in dishes served in the northeast, formerly known as Manchuria.
Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A Colorado man shared security camera footage of a bear effortlessly opening the door of an unlocked SUV and climbing inside in an apparent search for food.
Dylan Faflick shared video filmed in Allenspark that shows the black bear approach the parked SUV and quickly use the handle to open an unlocked back door.
The bear is then seen climbing into the vehicle.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said bears are particularly active in the late summer and early fall months because they need to consume about 20,000 calories a day to prepare for winter hibernation.
Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A Virginia man who visited a state lottery office to claim a $600 prize was shocked to learn his ticket was actually worth $1 million.
Jose Flores Velasquez of Annandale told Virginia Lottery officials he picked up a 20X the Money scratch-off ticket from the Safeway store in Annandale when he stopped to buy some soft drinks.
Velasquez said he thought the ticket was a $600 winner, so he took it to the Virginia Lottery's customer service center in Woodbridge to claim his modest prize. The player said he was stunned when employees at the center looked at his ticket and told him it was a $1 million winner.
The winner chose to take his winnings as a one-time, lump-sum payment of $759,878 before taxes. He said the prize money will go toward taking care of his family and potentially starting his own business.
Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Sanitation workers in Nova Scotia spent more than two hours digging through piles of trash at a dump to recover five rings that were accidentally thrown out with a paper towel.
Alexandra Stokal of Cape Breton said she had put her rings in a paper towel to dry after a cleaning, and her husband later threw the paper towel away without realizing there was jewelry inside it.
Stokal said the rings included her wedding rings and other sentimental pieces.
"When my father died, my mother bought us all a ring to commemorate that, a ring from my grandmother, so it was a big mix of things that meant a lot to me," she told CTV News.
Stokal contacted the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Solid Waste transfer facility when she realized the rings had been carted away with the trash by sanitation workers.
"The odds are very slim that we could recover something that small, but we said we'd give it a shot for her," CBRM Foreman J.B. O'Brien said.
O'Brien and five other workers spent more than two hours digging through approximately a thousand bags of trash until they found the garbage from Stokal's home.
"Chris Ward was the guy that found the rings on the floor for us. As soon as we found them, the lady started crying and was all happy and didn't know what to do," O'Brien said.
Stokal said she is grateful to the workers.
"I'm very seldom at a loss for words, but when we found the rings, I was speechless," she said.
Waste collection workers for Republic Services in Lorain County, Ohio, rallied to the assistance of a family with a similar problem last year, when an envelope containing $25,000 was accidentally thrown in the trash.
Operations supervisor Gary Capan said the family's grandmother had been storing the envelope in the freezer and it was accidentally thrown out during a clean-out of the appliance. Dan Schoewe, the operations manager at the recycling center, said workers were able to find the envelope after about 10 minutes of searching.
Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A pair of boaters off the British Columbia coast received a shock when their small vessel was nearly capsized by a sea lion fleeing from killer whales.
Ernest and Viesia Godek said they cut their engine when they spotted a trio of killer whales near their boat while fishing at Pedder Bay, near Victoria.
The pair said they soon heard a banging on the bottom of the boat, followed by the appearance of a sea lion at the side of their craft.
The sea lion then jumped onto the side of the boat in an apparent attempt to escape the killer whales.
"It tipped the boat over to the point where we had to hang on to the gunnels, the water started pouring into the boat ... I was just hoping that we wouldn't totally tip over," Ernest Godek told the Times Colonist.
The boat righted itself and the sea lion plunged back into the water. The couple said it continued to follow them as they headed back to shore.
Photos and video of the encounter were captured by passengers on a nearby whale watching boat.
Mark Malleson, the vessel operator, estimated the California sea lion weighed 700-800 pounds.
"If that animal had landed in the boat, somebody could have gotten seriously hurt, just from the sheer size or from the teeth," Malleson told CTV News.
BOLTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Someone is dumping human waste in the woods in Bolton. Now, the town and state officials are looking for whoever is responsible -- not to punish them, but to get them help.
Back in May, Green Up Day volunteers with the Green Mountain Club discovered trash bags that had been discarded in the woods next to the Winooski River. After taking a closer look, they discovered that the bags were filled with human waste -- upwards of 400 pounds of feces and toilet paper tossed over a guard rail next to Duxbury Road.
According to Bolton officials, some of the bags had been ripped open by animals and their contents spread onto nearby properties. Ten volunteers spent hours cleaning up the mess. But throughout the summer, the dumping has continued.
"This should be everyone's space," said Mark Stater of Burlington, who enjoys recreating in the area. "It's not too complicated to come out fish and hike or camp and then leave without leaving stuff in the bushes and in the trees."
Town officials say they are not looking to prosecute whoever left the bags, they just want the dumping to stop, and for whoever's responsible to receive help
"Our goal is to help get the system fixed and make sure that people have a safe clean environment to live in," said Megan Cousino with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.
Town officials suspect whoever is doing the dumping has a failed septic system. The state has a program to help low and middle-income Vermonters replace failed septic systems. "The regulatory landscape can be difficult to navigate sometimes. Access to resources aren't always equal and then the cost can be pretty costly depending on what's needed," Cousino said.
A new system can run as high as $40,000. The program has two income brackets which determine how much is covered -- up to $20,000 for people making under $65,000 annually and up to $10,000 for those making more than $65,000.
When the application opened last fall, 1,200 people applied for help. The state is now doling out $3 million to 250 Vermonters and a new round of funding is opening in November.
Officials hope that it will make an impact and prevent messes like those in Bolton from happening anywhere else.
(Yahoo) A trip to San Francisco in the past has involved enjoying the "eternal spring" weather, seeing The Rock, and maybe grabbing a tasty sourdough treat. However, the famous island is increasingly becoming a testbed for radical social policies, including testing out fully-autonomous cars. With its proximity to Silicon Valley and well-mapped grid of streets, its an obvious place to test out what tech evangelists claim will be a future utopia, but incidents like this one where an empty autonomous car ran from some San Francisco cops shows the dark underbelly of these flighty claims.
It seems police officers pulled the Chevy Bolt over for not having its headlights turned on at night. We expect such behavior from a newbie driver or maybe someone who's intoxicated, so that doesn't speak well for the Cruise fleet vehicle, which is part of a self-driving taxi service. The thought of having EVs like this one just driving themselves around cities without their lights on, running from the cops, and probably crashing into Mustangs as they leave car meets just sends shivers down our spines.
In the video, which was taken by a bystander, the all-electric Chevy Bolt only ran from the police for a short distance. Some tech apologists are arguing the car was moving to a safer spot. Yeah, you try pulling over in one area, then moving your car once an officer gets out and tries to approach, then explain you were doing that for everyone's safety.
As a total aside, we can't believe the police in San Francisco are still running Crown Vics. Seriously, if there's any evidence the department there is underfunded, this is it. Someone should buy a bunch of autonomous Bolts for the cops to chase down other autonomous Bolts.
The cops seem genuinely confused that there's nobody inside the car. Even with the different autonomous fleets running around San Francisco, that shows these officers aren't encountering them that much, if at all. Now, you could read that one of two ways, depending on what you think about the possibilities of an autonomous future. Whichever way you want to think about it, these kinds of incidents could be on the rise as fully-autonomous technology becomes more common, especially in cities like San Francisco. We just can't wait for the first fully-autonomous high-speed freeway chase.
(Sky News) A cow was re-mooved from a tree by firefighters after the animal got stuck in a tight spot.
A crew from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue joked the incident was "udderly ridiculous", after they spent over an hour trying to free the cow.
The animal's head got stuck in a tree on Chilbolton Common in Hampshire on Wednesday evening.
The fire service was called at about 7.40pm and worked with an animal rescue adviser to cut the tree and free the cow - but it took three hours.
Handout photo taken with permission from the Twitter feed of @HantsIOW_fire of a cow with it's head stuck in a tree in Chilbolton, Hampshire. Firefighters had to "re-moove" a cow's head from a tree after it got stuck. A crew from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) spent more than an hour trying to free a cow, which got its head stuck in a tree on Chilbolton Common, Hampshire, on Wednesday evening. Issue date: Friday September 2, 2022.
Mark Compton, who is the fire service's animal rescue tactical adviser, said: "The animal rescue crew from Winchester worked to release the cow by enlarging the hole and manipulating the animal's head until it was free from the tree."
Seeing the punny side, the fire service said on Twitter: "The crew worked to re-moove the animal from the willow tree."
Two photos of the animal were shared by the fire service and showed front and rear views of the trapped cow. In one picture, the cow looked pretty disappointed with herself.
NEW YORK (AP) — The 31,000-year-old skeleton of a young adult found in a cave in Indonesia that is missing its left foot and part of its left leg reveal the oldest known evidence of an amputation, according to a new study.
Scientists say the amputation was performed when the person was a child — and that the "patient" went on to live for years as an amputee. The prehistoric surgery could show that humans were making medical advances much earlier than previously thought, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Researchers were exploring a cave in Borneo, in a rainforest region known for having some of the earliest rock art in the world, when they came across the grave, said Tim Maloney, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia and the study's lead researcher.
Though much of the skeleton was intact, it was missing its left foot and the lower part of its left leg, he explained. After examining the remains, the researchers concluded the foot bones weren't missing from the grave, or lost in an accident — they were carefully removed.
The remaining leg bone showed a clean, slanted cut that healed over, Maloney said. There were no signs of infection, which would be expected if the child had gotten its leg bitten off by a creature like a crocodile. And there were also no signs of a crushing fracture, which would have been expected if the leg had snapped off in an accident.
The person appears to have lived for around six to nine more years after losing the limb, eventually dying from unknown causes as a young adult, researchers say.
This shows that the prehistoric foragers knew enough about medicine to perform the surgery without fatal blood loss or infection, the authors concluded. Researchers don't know what kind of tool was used to amputate the limb, or how infection was prevented — but they speculate that a sharp stone tool may have made the cut, and point out that some of the rich plant life in the region has medicinal properties.
Also, the community would have had to care for the child for years afterward, since surviving the rugged terrain as an amputee wouldn't have been easy.
This early surgery "rewrites the history of human medical knowledge and developments," Maloney said at a press briefing.
Before this find, the earliest example of amputation had been in a French farmer from 7,000 years ago, who had part of his forearm removed. Scientists had thought that advanced medical practices developed around 10,000 years ago, as humans settled down into agricultural societies, the study authors said.
But this study adds to growing evidence that humans started caring for each other's health much earlier in their history, said Alecia Schrenk, an anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was not involved with the study.
"It had long been assumed healthcare is a newer invention," Schrenk said in an email. "Research like this article demonstrates that prehistoric peoples were not just left to fend for themselves."
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