Tasmania Police via Facebook
SEAL CAUSES STIR IN TASMANIA
A large Australian fur seal roamed the streets of Newstead in Tasmania on Monday. The seal, nicknamed Mr. Lou-seal, appeared to be looking for a good place to nap when he crawled up on the hood of a Toyota. When the heavy seal climbed on to the car’s roof, it did considerable damage. Officers from the Parks and Wildlife department arrived to find the seal asleep. They tranquilized it and took it for a medical exam before a planned release. Newstead is about 30 miles from the ocean; it’s the first time a seal has been reported that far inland in Tasmania.
SANTA CLAUS HAD TO PROVE HIS IDENTITY ON FACEBOOK
Santa Claus is a member of the North Pole City Council in Alaska. Everyone in town knows him, and knows he legally changed his name to Santa Claus years ago. But Facebook didn’t know that, so his Facebook account was suspended on Christmas Day.
Claus said he was never given a reason for being blocked and was asked to verify his identity multiple times.
“They just don’t believe my name is Santa Claus or I live in North Pole,” he said in an interview hours before his access was restored.
Claus said he sent multiple forms of proof of identity, including copies of his passport, Alaska driver’s license and his letter of appointment to the North Pole City Council. Claus also provided Facebook a letter of appointment to the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission signed by Gov. Bill Walker.
On Tuesday, Facebook reinstated Claus’s Facebook page with apologies. Claus has around 300,000 followers.
MAN FALLS ASLEEP WATCHING ROGUE ONE, IS LOCKED IN THEATER
Most Star Wars fans were too excited to even think of falling asleep during Rogue One, but Justin Haworth of Cornelius, Oregon, had already had a few drinks. He went to a late showing of the movie last Friday and nodded off about 20 minutes into the feature. When he awoke, it was 1 a.m., the theater was locked, and no one was around. He tripped the burglar alarm and waited for the police, but no one came. He called the police’s non-emergency number, but no one answered. Then Haworth called 911. The police, after failing to contact the theater owner, directed him to an emergency exit, where they were waiting for him. Officers were surprised that the theater staff did not find Haworth, but agreed that no crime had been committed.
DOCTOR DISCOVERS BABY’S LEGS PROTRUDING FROM MOTHER’S WOMB
Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Bouet was astonished when he saw the scan of his pregnant patient at 22 weeks along. The baby’s legs were seen sticking out of the uterus into the mother’s torso on her side. It appears as if the baby had kicked a hole in the side of the womb! How could she suffer such a rupture without pain and bleeding? The Washington Post had an image and the story:
“The fetal legs did not cause the rupture,” Bouet said. Instead, the woman’s history of five C-sections likely led to a tear, in the obstetrician’s view. Because of scarring from the previous births, parts of the uterus remained atypically rigid instead of enlarging during the woman’s latest pregnancy. The uterine wall ruptured when it was unable to expand, causing an inch-long tear (pictured above, marked by the arrows).
The mother was unaware of the rupture and displayed no symptoms. Women with uterine ruptures usually feel pain, Bouet told The Post, brought about by internal bleeding. But the hernia “compressed the walls of the uterine rupture,” he said, “and acted as a hemostatic effect.” That is, the position of the amniocele and baby legs plugged the rupture, preventing blood loss.
Despite the precarious situation, the parents decided to continue with the pregnancy, and the infant was delivered by cesarean section at 30 weeks. Six months later, the baby is doing well.
6-YEAR-OLD BUYS POKEMON TOYS WITH SLEEPING MOM’S THUMBPRINT
Ashlynd Howell of Little Rock, Arkansas, knows more about using the internet than you’d expect of a 6-year-old. Her mother Bethany was napping on the couch when Ashlynd leapt at the opportunity to order some toys. She took Bethany’s hand and pressed her thumb against the screen of her phone to unlock her Amazon app, then ordered $250 in Pokemon merchandise. When Bethany awoke and found 13 receipts for the purchases, she thought she’d been hacked. But Ashlynd readily told her mother that she had been shopping. The family was able to return only four of the items.
December 31, 2016 – 1:00am