Author: Katie Mettler
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Five acrobats of famed Wallenda troupe injured falling 25 feet during pyramid stunt
Five members of the famed Wallenda acrobat troupe plummeted 25 feet Wednesday while practicing their signature pyramid stunt – a precise and dangerous feat that involves balancing eight people atop a thin high-wire without a safety net. Two people were hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Sarasota Memorial Hospital and a third required surgery…
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Harry Potter-loving scientists find spider that looks like the Sorting Hat, naming it Eriovixia gryffindori
Before they traipsed through the sacred Indian grove or studied the hat-shaped spider, before they realized it was a new species or assigned it a peculiar name, scientific researchers Javed Ahmed and Rajashree Khalap discovered Harry Potter. Ahmed first cracked open the books in his teens. For Khalap, it was in adulthood. They anxiously awaited…
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After 11 seasons, ‘Duck Dynasty’ to say goodbye
After 11 seasons, filled with beards, camo and controversy, the cast of A&E’s popular reality television show “Duck Dynasty” announced Wednesday night during its season premiere that this one would be their last. “We’ve got an unbelievable announcement for y’all,” Uncle Si Robertson says enthusiastically to the camera. “After five years, we’ve decided as a…
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A California man in body armor ‘attempted to assassinate’ two officers at Starbucks, police say
The police officers from Northern California were taking a coffee break Sunday at a Starbucks in Vallejo, a town in the Bay Area, when they saw a man emerge in the doorway, with an “assault-style” weapon in his hands. He was also wearing body armor. When the man tried to shoot, authorities said, the gun,…
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Five dead teens, a stolen police car and the ‘most horrific’ crash in decades
The first 911 call came at 11:43 p.m. Saturday, a report from a concerned motorist about a Toyota truck barreling down Interstate 89 on the wrong side of the road. More calls followed, and more after that. Vermont state and local police dispatched cruisers, hoping to intercept the erratic driver, to stop the truck before…
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Striking new study links birth control to depression
“Today in vindication,” wrote a woman on Twitter on Tuesday, summarizing the way many have received a striking new study that found those who use birth control — especially teenage girls — may be at a significantly higher risk of experiencing depression. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has been…
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Woman fatally shot by cop role-playing as ‘bad guy’ during citizen police academy
Mary Knowlton arrived at the Punta Gorda, Fla., police station Tuesday night to learn how to be a community steward. The 73-year-old was there as a student in the citizen police academy, a two-hour course intended to give an intimate look at what makes the department in the quaint Florida town work. On this night,…
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Walmart employees charged with fatally crushing suspected shoplifter
It was the middle of the night on Feb. 7, at a Florida Walmart Supercenter, when a man attempted to steal $380.74 worth of DVDs, police said. Pushing a shopping cart stacked high with them, the man tried to leave the store, but when employees noticed — and then confronted him — the man ran,…
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While the rest of the world got taller, Americans plateaued. Here’s why.
Being tall has its perks — and it has nothing to do with machismo or the size of Donald Trump’s hands. Taller people have been found to earn more money, studies show, and find greater success in school. They are less likely to have a difficult pregnancy or develop heart or respiratory diseases. Those with…
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Girl, 9, finds sunburned newborn baby abandoned in back yard, police say
At first, 9-year-old Elysia Laub thought the pink limbs she saw wriggling in her grassy Indiana back yard were those of a little pig. “We have two pigs,” the girl told WISH-TV. “I thought they had a baby or something.” It was late Monday morning, the summer heat already climbing. Still unsure what she’d stumbled…