close
1
A palm-sized pet turtle and the golden retriever that gobbled it up survived the misadventure thanks to the quick actions of a 12-year-old girl, a veterinarian said.
The saga of Pepper the red-eared slider turtle and Bella the golden retriever started last week. Shelby Terihay, 12, moved her pet pond turtles indoors to protect them from a cold snap — a plan that worked well until Bella found some of the turtles in a bathtub, The Tampa Tribune reported.
A quick headcount confirmed Bella had swallowed one of the turtles. Shelby insisted on a rescue mission and, on the advice of a vet, her parents made Bella vomit. Out came Pepper, still alive despite a shattered shell and an estimated 10 minutes inside Bella's belly.
"This was definitely a first for me," veterinarian David Thomassy said.
Thomassy patched up Pepper's shell and credited Shelby with saving Bella, too.
"The turtle would definitely have caused an obstruction," Thomassy said. "Without cutting it out directly, it eventually would have killed the dog."
2
SYDNEY, Australia - A man who caught a 4-foot shark with his bare hands off an Australian beach said on Friday he only tried the feat because he was drunk on vodka.
Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at LouthBay, a town on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula 870 miles west of Sydney, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark swimming in the shallows, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
"I just snuck up behind him, and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him," Kerkhof said.
"He was just thrashing around in the water ... starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought 'well, it's amazing what vodka does'," Kerkhof said.
The shark bit a hole in Kerkhof's jeans, but he was uninjured.
"It's not something I'd recommend to do. When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, 'I'm a bit of an idiot for doing it'," Kerkhof said.
Many species of sharks are common in Australian waters, and there are an average of 15 shark attacks per year in the country — roughly one person each year is killed by a shark.
Last month, an abalone diver had an incredible escape after being almost swallowed head first by a huge shark off the New South Wales state coast.
3
being advised not to the leave a hospital, an Idaho woman allegedly pepper sprayed her way out. Police were called to St. Peter's Hospital early Saturday after Susan Kollars, 36, blasted employees there with pepper spray in an attempt to discharge herself from the facility, Police Chief Troy McGee said.
Kollars then fled the scene and ran toward Interstate 15. She caught the attention of a man driving a pickup and tried to spray him as well, McGee said.
Kollars was taken into custody, and officers returned her to the hospital, he said. McGee said he did not know why she had been in the hospital.
Kollars faces three counts of misdemeanor assault stemming from the incident.
4
As Wednesday's Valentine's Day approaches, postmaster Ann Carrasco is stamping thousands of letters with the postmark from her post office in the tiny western Texas town of Valentine.
She said she normally processes only about 100 letters and packages a day, but at this time of year volume soars in what she calls the "Love Station of Texas" because people want to send specially postmarked valentines to their sweethearts.
"It adds a little touch to their valentine," Carrasco said on Tuesday. "It's a little something extra, to make sure they know they care about them."
Carrasco said requests for the bright red Valentine postmark start arriving in December. The love-struck senders mail envelopes to her with their stamped envelopes containing valentines inside.
This year many of the estimated 10,000 letters she has received to send onward are going to U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.
Valentine, population 180, shares the name with several other towns around the country.
Locals say it got its name because workers building the Southern Pacific railroad arrived at the spot on Valentine's Day, 1882.
5
Cupid in the cubicle can be a problem for employers who are unprepared to deal with the fallout from workplace romances.
With Valentine's Day looming, experts warn that many employers are caught by surprise by the ripple effects of intra-office relationships, which can demoralize staff and spread envy and resentment.
The problems range from the serious, such as a messy breakup between a boss and a subordinate, to the less obvious, such an exchange of risque e-mails or a kiss in the hallway that can distract colleagues and hurt productivity.
"People are a little sloppier around Valentine's Day," said Debra Mandel, a psychologist and author on the subject of office relations. "They might let the relationship out of the box more."
Employers are not just at risk when a staff member becomes romantic with a supervisor, which can lead to claims of sexual harassment. A soured relationship between peers also puts the company at risk if it leaves one of the workers feeling harassed at work.
Companies may be at risk even if the office relationship ends well, said Shanti Atkins, president of ELT, which offers online ethics and legal compliance training. She cites the example of Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's single mayor who recently admitted having an affair with a married staff member, and the impact it could have on staff in city government.
She said it could create the impression "one has to sleep with the boss to get ahead," and an employee could sue, claiming it created a hostile working environment.
A recent poll by Spherion Corp., a workplace recruiter, shows that nearly 40 percent of U.S. workers have dated an office colleague.
The same survey also showed that 84 percent of U.S. workers said their employer did not have a policy covering office romance or they were not sure if such a policy existed.
In part, that reflects the difficulty employers face in balancing the need to maintain a comfortable work atmosphere with employees' right to privacy. Experts say many employers decide it is easier to do nothing.
"As long as people are professional in the office, it's no one's business what people do outside the office," says Barbara Pachter, who writes about business etiquette.
Enforcing a policy that forbids office dating could drive some staff to quit. Also, like decrees that ban Internet surfing at work, rules against dating co-workers risk being considered frivolous by staff and could undermine a company's authority.
"People don't follow the dress code so how will you get them to follow a romance code?" Pachter said.
Instead, experts suggest companies educate staff about what is considered appropriate behavior at the office and incorporate it into training.
"You want to set basic guidelines, such as keeping the interaction out of the office," said Ayana Brooks, an associate at Meyer Suozzi English and Klein, a law firm that specializes in sexual harassment claims.
Proper training can alert supervisors to issues that are born out of office romances but extend to more serious problems. The recent case of astronaut Lisa Nowak, accused of being obsessed with another astronaut to such an extent that she stalked and attacked a perceived romantic rival, might have been prevented if colleagues had been trained to tell supervisors about unusual behavior, Atkins said.
"My prediction on that case is that as news trickles out there will be reports of people knowing about a lot of cumulative behavior over time," she said. "There is a lack of reporting from employees on these issue. That's the high price of silence. The only way to get these addressed is to get at them early."
全站熱搜
留言列表
+ Announcement + (1)