快猫短视频

High office

A CONGRESSIONAL candidate in Florida who claims to have been abducted by aliens says she doesn鈥檛 want to be defined by the experience. City councillor Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera claims that blond, Christ-like aliens took her aboard a UFO as a child, where she learned that Africa was the energy centre of the world, and a cave in Malta hid thousands of non-human skulls. Since then, she has remained telepathically in touch with aliens.

Florida is well-known for its weirdness, which may explain why the Miami Herald endorsed Rodriguez Aguilera ahead of eight other candidates. Although her head may be in the clouds, an editorial praised her 鈥渂oots on the ground experience鈥�. After all, stranger ideas endure in Congress, such as American exceptionalism and trickle-down economics.

This old banger

CAR-MAKER Volkswagen is under a cloud after installing hail cannons at its plant in Puebla, Mexico. After factory-fresh cars were damaged by hail storms, VW installed large cannons in the car lots. These emit loud bangs every 6 seconds during threatening weather, with the sonic wave said to break up hailstones.

鈥淚n the Czech Republic, falling water levels have exposed 鈥渉unger stones鈥� in the river Elbe, where people recorded earlier droughts. Inscribed on one stone is the message: 鈥淚f you see me, weep鈥濃��

But local farmers claimed the cannons were to blame for a recent drop in rainfall, and demanded $3.7 million in damages. There is no evidence that sound cannons can disrupt rainfall, and even less evidence that they can shatter hailstones.

VW has replaced the cannons with nets, but Feedback thinks the farmers may still have a case. Having famously cheated on their emissions tests, might VW bear some responsibility for a changing climate?

Red sky at night

NAPOLEON鈥橲 defeat at Waterloo might be down to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia two months earlier. According to Matthew Genge at Imperial College London, volcanic eruptions can shoot electrified volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere, leading to increased cloud formation and changing the climate on a global scale.

That could be why an unseasonable June downpour the night before the battle left the ground so muddy that it had to start late, allowing time for the Prussian army to arrive and fight alongside the British. A reminder to always check with your volcanologist when drawing up battle plans.

Cats dog Kiwis

A REGIONAL council on New Zealand鈥檚 South Island has proposed a ban on domestic cats, in an effort to preserve local wildlife. Claws are out for the housepets, which are blamed for killing huge numbers of birds.

Aside from two species of bat, New Zealand has no native land mammals, and the cat ban is part of an ambitious project to make the island free of all non-native predators by 2050. The ban would not apply to existing pets, but no new cats would be permitted, gradually reducing the population to zero.

Some citizens were alarmed by the impending cat-astrophe. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not even regulating people鈥檚 ability to have a cat. It鈥檚 saying you can鈥檛 have a cat,鈥� Omaui cat owner Nico Jarvis told the Otago Daily Times. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a police state.鈥�

Close call

A JAPANESE rail company has been criticised for making employees sit next to bullet trains passing at 300 kilometres per hour. The training exercises were introduced at JR West following an accident in 2015, when a plate fell off the outside of a train and damaged the car behind. Employees must now huddle in a safety trench next to the tracks as the train flies past.

鈥淚t is to give employees who work with train cars an opportunity to experience and understand the importance of their work,鈥� a spokesperson told The Mainichi newspaper. Graduates of the demonstration have compared the experience to public flogging.

Despite pleas from the workers鈥� union, the company said it had no plans to suspend the petrifying programme.

In hot water

THE mayor of a French seaside town closed the beach following a spate of advances by an amorous dolphin. Zafar, as the animal is known, has been pestering bathers in the Brittany town of Land茅vennec.

Zafar is a familiar presence in the area, and was previously well-behaved. But since coming into season, he has been rubbing himself against boats and bumping into swimmers. After one woman was lifted out of the water by the dolphin, the town鈥檚 mayor Roger Lars issued a decree that forbade approaching the animal or entering the water when it was present.

The ban was lifted, reports the Associated Press, after the frustrated Zafar left Land茅vennec to find relief elsewhere.

Sour note

WHEN life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But what if life doesn鈥檛 give you any lemons? That question was answered by a 69-year-old man in Thermal, California, who was discovered with about 360 kilograms of , allegedly stolen from a nearby farm. NBC San Diego reports that the arrest was part of a wider police investigation into fruit rustling. Feedback notes the alleged lemon thief was apprehended on Grapefruit Boulevard.

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