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Tag: Oddities

  • Hiker mired in quicksand in Utah’s Arches National Park is rescued unharmed

    Getting trapped in quicksand is a corny peril of old movies and TV shows, but it really did happen to one unfortunate hiker in Utah’s Arches National Park.

    The park famous for dozens of natural, sandstone arches gets over 1 million visitors a year, and accidents ranging from falls to heat stroke are common.

    Quicksand? Not really — but it has happened at least a couple of times now.

    “The wet sand just kind of flows back in. It’s kind of a never-ending battle,” said John Marshall, who helped a woman stuck in quicksand over a decade ago and coordinated the latest rescue.

    On Sunday, an experienced hiker, whose identity wasn’t released, was traversing a small canyon on the second day of a 20-mile (32-kilometer) backpacking trip when he sank up to his thigh, according to Marshall.

    Unable to free himself, the hiker activated an emergency satellite beacon. His message got forwarded to Grand County emergency responders and Marshall got the call at 7:15 a.m..

    “I was just rolling out of bed,” Marshall said. “I’m scratching my head, going, ‘Did I hear that right? Did they say quicksand?’”

    He put his boots on and rendezvoused with a team that set out with all-terrain vehicles, a ladder, traction boards, backboards and a drone. Soon, Marshall had a bird’s-eye view of the situation.

    Through the drone camera he saw a park ranger who’d tossed the man a shovel. But the quicksand flowed back as soon as the backpacker shoveled it away, Marshall said.

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    The Grand County Search and Rescue team positioned the ladder and boards near the backpacker and slowly worked his leg loose. By then he’d been standing in near-freezing muck, in temperatures in the 20s (minus 6 to minus 1 Celsius), for a couple of hours.

    Rescuers warmed him up until he could stand, then walk. He then hiked out on his own, even carrying his backpack, Marshall said.

    Quicksand is dangerous but it’s a myth total submersion is the main risk, said Marshall.

    “In quicksand you’re extremely buoyant,” he said. “Most people won’t sink past their waist in quicksand.”

    Marshall is more or less a quicksand expert.

    In 2014, he was a medic who helped a 78-year-old woman after she was stuck for over 13 hours in the same canyon just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from where Sunday’s rescue took place.

    The woman’s book club got worried when she missed their meeting. They went looking for her and found her car at a trailhead. It was June — warmer than Sunday but not sweltering in the canyon’s shade — and the woman made a full recovery after regaining use of her legs.

    “Both had very happy endings,” Marshall said.

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  • Buddhist monks resume 2,300-mile walk for peace after accident near Houston

    HOUSTON (AP) — A group of Buddhist monks in the middle of a 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) walk across the U.S. to promote peace planned to resume their journey after two of them were injured during a traffic accident near Houston, a spokesperson for the group said Thursday.

    The collection of about two dozen monks began their walk on Oct. 26 from Fort Worth, Texas, to “raise awareness of peace, loving kindness, and compassion across America and the world,” according to the group, Walk for Peace. The monks planned to travel through 10 states before reaching Washington, D.C.

    So far, the monks have visited various Texas cities on their trek, including Austin and Houston, often walking along roads and highways while being escorted by law enforcement or by a vehicle trailing behind them, said Long Si Dong, a spokesperson for the group. The monks are being accompanied on their journey by their dog Aloka.

    At around 6:13 p.m. Wednesday, the monks were walking along the side of U.S. Highway 90 near Dayton, Texas, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Houston, when their escort vehicle, which had its hazard lights on, was hit by a truck, said Dayton Interim Police Chief Shane Burleigh.

    The truck “didn’t notice how slow the vehicle was going, tried to make an evasive maneuver to drive around the vehicle, and didn’t do it in time,” Burleigh said. “It struck the escort vehicle in the rear left, pushed the escort into two of the monks.”

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    One of the monks has “substantial leg injuries” and was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Houston, Burleigh said. The other monk with less serious injuries was taken by ambulance to another hospital in suburban Houston.

    In a video posted on Walk for Peace’s Facebook page, an unidentified spokeswoman for the group said the most seriously injured monk was expected to have a series of surgeries to heal a broken bone, but his prognosis for recovery was good. The group said the monk’s surgery on Thursday went well.

    “He’s in good spirits. He’s giving us thumbs-up,” the spokeswoman said. The condition of the other monk was not immediately known.

    The monks, who camped overnight near Dayton, planned to resume their walk “with steadfast determination,” Walk for Peace said.

    “We kindly ask everyone to continue keeping the monks in your thoughts and prayers as healing begins and the journey toward peace continues,” the group said in a post on Facebook.

    After the accident, the monks do not plan to change how they conduct their walk, which takes place along highways but also through open fields, Dong said. Walk for Peace plans to continue working with local law enforcement in the areas they travel through to ensure the safety of the monks, he said.

    “Right now, everything is still as planned,” Dong said.

    The driver of the truck that hit the monk’s escort vehicle is cooperating with the investigation, which is still ongoing, Burleigh said.

    “Right now, we’re looking at this as driver inattention,” said Burleigh, who added that police will determine at the end of the investigation if any charges will be filed.

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    Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

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  • All roads in ancient Rome stretched far longer than previously known, study shows

    WASHINGTON — As the saying went, all roads once led to Rome — and those roads stretched 50% longer than previously known, according to a new digital atlas published Thursday.

    The last major atlas of ancient Roman road networks was published 25 years ago. Since then, advances in technology and other newly accessible sources have greatly expanded researchers’ ability to locate ancient roadways.

    Over five years, a team of archaeologists combed through historical records, ancient journals, locations of milestones and other archival data. Scientists then looked for clues in satellite imagery and aerial photography, including recently digitized photos taken from planes during World War II.

    When ancient accounts hinted at lost roads in a certain area, researchers analyzed the terrain from above to spot subtle traces — things like faint differences in vegetation, soil variations or shifts in elevation, as well as traces of ancient engineering like raised mounds or cut hillsides — that revealed where Roman lanes once ran.

    “It becomes a massive game of connecting the dots on a continental scale,” said Tom Brughmans, an archaeologist and co-author of the study published in Scientific Data.

    The data and an interactive digital map are also available online for scholars, history teachers or anyone with an interest in ancient Roman history.

    Earlier research had focused on “the highways of the Roman Empire” — the large thoroughfares most often mentioned in familiar historical accounts, said Brughmans.

    The updated map fills in more obscure details about “secondary roads, like the country lanes, that connected villas and farms” and other locations, said Brughmans, who’s based at Aarhus University in Denmark.

    Researchers previously tallied the extent of Roman roads as covering around 117,163 miles (188,555 kilometers). The new work shows nearly 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of roads across the extent of the Roman Empire, allowing travel from Spain to Syria.

    The study added a lot to archaeologists’ knowledge of ancient roads in North Africa, the plains of France and in the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece.

    “This will be a very foundational work for a lot of other research,” said archaeologist Benjamin Ducke of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, who was not involved in the project.

    But one caveat, he said, is that it’s still not clear if all the roads were ever open and active at the same time.

    Being able to visualize the ancient routes that Roman farmers, soldiers, diplomats and other travelers took will provide a better understanding of key historical trends that depended on the movement of people during Roman times, said Brughmans, including the rise of Christianity across the region and the spread of ancient outbreaks.

    “The Romans left a huge impact with this road network,” which created the blueprint for many roads still in use today, said study co-author and archaeologist Adam Pažout of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

    Roman engineering feats to build and maintain roads — including arched stone bridges and tunnels through hillsides — still shape the geography and economy of the Mediterranean region and beyond, he said.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Costumed canines get their chance to trick-or-treat at ‘Howloween’ event

    LANSING, Mich. — LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Dogs dressed up as everything from Elvis Presley to Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine went trick-or-treating in Michigan’s capital Friday as part of the annual Howloween event organized by a local pet store.

    The costumed canines made a loop through Lansing’s Old Town arts district, stopping outside restaurants, gift shops and jewelry stores, where owners were waiting to provide treats and a scratch behind the ears.

    Wendy Beck’s pooch, Bella, “got filled up on biscuits” and had to stop along the route for a power nap.

    It was the 9-year-old St. Bernard’s first Howloween, but Alicia Town’s dog, Mojo, is a veteran in more ways than one. The 13-year-old Pomeranian was a tank driver, rolling around in a little green tank – an ode to Town’s husband serving in the Army.

    “There are so many dogs and so many people. You see the cutest things,” Town said. “People go above and beyond on their costumes, and you get everything. It’s amazing.”

    Makenzie Smith-Emrich accompanied her pit bull, Sadie, who was dressed up as a kissing booth pumpkin.

    “This is something we wait for all year, because it’s something that we can do with our dogs that they absolutely adore,” the Lansing resident said. “And they get to dress up, and people give them attention.”

    The event is organized each year by Preuss Pets, an Old Town fixture. The number of dogs is capped at 200, and their owners have to preregister. It is all part of an effort to keep the numbers down for safety’s sake.

    General manager Kirbay Preuss said Howloween is “joyous” and “a very good thing.”

    “I think right now with everything going on in the world we need more joyous events, and that’s what this is,” she said.

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  • Some other critter likely created Chicago’s ‘rat hole’

    Ah, rats!

    Researchers think they have debunked the origin of Chicago’s so-called “rat hole,” one of the Windy City’s weirdest local landmarks.

    Hold on. The rat hole wasn’t what you think. It wasn’t some back alley bar that served as a speakeasy for the city’s notorious gangster clientele or a tenement stuffed to the brim with junk. It was actually a full-body impression of an unlucky critter that got trapped in wet sidewalk cement in the city’s Roscoe Village neighborhood about 20 or 30 years ago. The imprint closely resembles that of a spread-eagled rat, complete with outlines of what appear to be tiny claws, arms and legs and even a tail.

    The rat hole went viral early last year after comedian Winslow Dumaine posted a photo of it on X. The post drew curious tourists to the site at all hours, with some leaving coins and other odd objects around the impression as a tribute.

    The constant traffic drew complaints from neighbors, though, and in April 2024 someone filled the impression with a substance resembling plaster. City workers eventually removed that slab of sidewalk and took it to the City Hall-County Building. A plaque honoring the rat hole remains at the actual site.

    Researchers hailing from the University of Tennessee, New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine and the University of Calgary published a paper Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters that concludes the rat hole was most likely created not by the titular rodent but a squirrel or a muskrat.

    The researchers studied online photos of the rat hole and compared measurements of the imprint to museum specimens of animals commonly found in the Chicago area. The presence of arms, legs and a tail excluded birds, snakes, frogs and turtles, shrinking the possibilities to a mammal. The claw outlines further reduced the field to rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks and muskrats, the study said.

    The creature’s long forelimbs, third digits and hind paws were too large for a rat but fell into the measurement ranges for Eastern gray squirrels, fox squirrels and muskrats. The most probable suspect is the Eastern gray squirrel given how abundant that creature is in the Chicago area, the study concluded.

    Other researchers have theorized that a squirrel created the imprint, the study acknowledged. Cement is typically wet during the day, and rats are nocturnal and the creature didn’t leave any tracks, suggesting a squirrel misjudged a leap or slipped from a branch and landed in the wet cement, the study noted.

    The imprint didn’t show any sign of a bushy tail, but hair often lacks the rigidity to create deep, well-defined impressions, and it would have been surprising to find such an imprint, the study said.

    “We therefore propose that the specimen be rechristened the ‘Windy City Sidewalk Squirrel’ — a name more fitting of its likely origins and more aligned with the evidence at hand,” they wrote.

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  • Long-lost ancient Roman artifact reappears in a New Orleans backyard

    NEW ORLEANS — NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans family cleaning up their overgrown backyard made an extremely unusual find: Under the weeds was a mysterious marble tablet with Latin characters that included the phrase “spirits of the dead.”

    “The fact that it was in Latin that really just gave us pause, right?” said Daniella Santoro, a Tulane University anthropologist. “I mean, you see something like that and you say, ‘Okay, this is not an ordinary thing.’”

    Intrigued and slightly alarmed, Santoro reached out to her classical archaeologist colleague Susann Lusnia, who quickly realized that the slab was the 1,900-year-old grave marker of a Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus.

    “When I first saw the image that Daniella sent me, it really did send a shiver up my spine because I was just floored,” Lusnia said.

    Further sleuthing by Lusnia revealed the tablet had been missing from an Italian museum for decades.

    Sextus Congenius Verus had died at age 42, of unknown causes, after serving for more than two decades in the imperial navy on a ship named for the Roman god of medicine, Asclepius. The gravestone calls the sailor “well deserving” and was commissioned by two people described as his “heirs,” who were likely shipmates since Roman military could not be married at the time, Lusnia said.

    The tablet had been in an ancient cemetery of around 20 graves of military personnel, found in the 1860s in Civitavecchia, a seaside in northwest Italy about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Rome. Its text had been recorded in 1910 and included in a catalog of Latin inscriptions, which noted the tablet’s whereabouts were unknown.

    The tablet was later documented at the National Archeological Museum in Civitavecchia prior to World War II. But the museum had been “pretty much destroyed” during Allied bombing and took several decades to rebuild, Lusnia said. Museum staff confirmed to Lusnia the tablet had been missing for decades. Its recorded measurements — 1 square foot (0.09 square meters) and 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) thick — matched the size of the tablet found in Santoro’s backyard.

    “You can’t have better DNA than that,” Lusnia said.

    She said the FBI is in talks with Italian authorities to repatriate the tablet. An FBI spokesperson said the agency could not respond to requests for comment during the government shutdown.

    A final twist to the story suggests how the tablet made its way to New Orleans.

    As media reports of the find began circulating this week, Erin Scott O’Brien says her ex-husband called her and told her to watch the news. She immediately recognized the hunk of marble, which she had always seen as a “cool-ass piece of art.” They had used as a garden decoration and then forgot about it before selling the home to Santoro in 2018.

    “None of us knew what it was,” O’Brien said. “We were watching the video, just like in shock.”

    O’Brien said she received the tablet from her grandparents — an Italian woman and a New Orleans native who was stationed in the country during World War II.

    Perhaps no one would be more thrilled by the tablet’s rediscovery than Sextus himself. Grave markers were important in Roman culture to uphold legacies, even of everyday citizens, Lusnia said.

    “Now Sextus Congenius Verus is being talked about so much,” Lusnia said. “If there’s an afterlife and he’s in it and he knows, he’s very happy because this is what a Roman wants — to be remembered forever.”

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    Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Once-secret Emperor Commodus’ passage to Rome Colosseum opens to public for 1st time

    ROME — ROME (AP) — For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, visitors to Rome’s world-renowned Colosseum will have the opportunity to walk through a hidden imperial passage that once allowed Roman emperors to reach the ancient amphitheater unseen.

    The once-secret corridor — known as the “Commodus Passage” and named after the Roman emperor turned into a pop icon by Ridley Scott’s movie “Gladiator” — opens to the public on Oct. 27, marking an extraordinary milestone in archaeological preservation and access.

    Archaeologists at the Colosseum Archaeological Park explained that Roman emperors would use the passage to enter the arena unseen and protected, leading them directly to their reserved honor box overlooking the games.

    The passage was named after Emperor Commodus, who lived between 180 and 192 A.D., when it was initially discovered in the 1810s. Commodus was known to be passionate about gladiators’ games and history relates that while he was passing through the tunnel, someone attempted to assassinate him, but was unsuccessful.

    At the passage entrance, archaeologists discovered remnants of decorative elements directly related to arena spectacles, including depictions of boar hunts, bear fights and acrobatic performances. These artistic elements provided a fitting prelude to the brutal entertainments that awaited beyond, they noted.

    The corridor is shaped as an ’S’ and continues outside the Colosseum arena, but its final destination remains uncertain.

    “Visitors can now have a taste of what it was like to be an emperor entering the arena,” said Barbara Nazzaro, the architect who oversaw the restoration works. “With a little effort of imagination and the help of a virtual reconstruction, they can appreciate the decorations, stuccoes, frescoes and marbles that covered the walls.”

    The project — completed between Oct. 2024 and Sept. 2025 — included structural conservation, restoration of decorative stuccoes and plasters and the installation of a new walkway.

    A new lighting system recreates the natural light that once filtered through small vault openings, and a digital reconstruction helps visitors visualize the passage’s original appearance.

    A second restoration project, expected to begin in early 2026, will involve the section of the tunnel extending beyond the perimeter of the Colosseum.

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  • Eeyore the dog helps Florida deputy find missing 86-year-old woman, video shows

    DESTIN, Fla. — DESTIN, Fla. (AP) — A dog named Eeyore turned into a rescuer, leading a Florida sheriff’s deputy to where a missing 86-year-old woman had fallen while walking him, bodycam footage shows.

    The woman’s husband reported her missing on the night of Sept. 25 after she didn’t return from her walk.

    “She just takes that dog, but she never takes more than 10 or 15 minutes,” the worried husband told an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy, according to the footage released Monday. “It’s almost an hour now. It’s over an hour now.”

    The responding deputy drove around the neighborhood until she spotted Eeyore in the middle of the road. The dog trotted up to the deputy, who responded: “Hi! Where’s your mommy?”

    The dog then led her to the nearby spot where the woman had fallen.

    The woman, who was alert and later taken to a medical facility, was astonished that Eeyore had guided the deputy to her, noting that it wasn’t even her dog.

    “He came up to your car?” the woman asked the deputy. “Oh, sweetheart. … Oh Eeyore, you’re such a good boy. Grandma loves you.”

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  • Missing Virginia store cat found after hitching a ride to another state

    Francine the calico cat is back home at a Lowe’s store in Virginia after going missing for a few weeks, hitching a ride on a truck that turned up at a sister facility in another state.

    Two employees from a Lowe’s in Richmond made the 90-minute drive early Monday to pick up Francine, who disappeared in September and recently was discovered at the company’s distribution center in Garysburg, North Carolina.

    She was back on the job Tuesday, playing with customers, posing for photos and soaking in affection.

    “Francine is one of us,” store supervisor Wayne Schneider said in a telephone interview. “She’s just amazing. What she means here to the store and the employees, you really can’t imagine the outpouring that the employees and also the customers give her daily.”

    Francine spends much of her time either at the customer service desk or in the store’s seasonal area. But things went awry in September as the store brought in items for the upcoming Christmas season. Store general manager Mike Sida said that disruption may have prompted Francine to seek comfort elsewhere.

    After store employees hadn’t seen Francine for a few days, they reviewed past surveillance video. There were glimpses of her in the appliance section and then the receiving department, where she darted into a truck. An overnight manager is then seen shutting the truck’s door and off it went to Garysburg, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) to the south.

    “And then, of course, when she got down to the distribution center, she shot off the truck,” Sida said. “That’s when we found out where she was and she was missing.”

    An animal control office set up humane traps at the distribution center, where photos of Francine were posted throughout. The center had dozens of monitoring cameras, and Lowe’s brought in thermal drones to survey the area. An Instagram account unaffiliated with Lowe’s dedicated to finding Francine grew to more than 34,000 followers.

    On Saturday, Francine was spotted on camera near the distribution center. After more humane traps were installed, a volunteer checked each trap throughout the night. Finally, one of the traps triggered and Francine’s meows could be heard.

    Schneider and Sida got in a car early Monday and drove to get Francine.

    “That ride going down, knowing that we were going to get her, was just heartwarming. Knowing she’s safe and that she’s coming back to the store to get off her two-week vacation,” Schneider said.

    Francine was a stray when she started living at the Lowe’s store more than eight years ago. Cats are common sightings around feed stores and garden centers, which contain large amounts of grain and seed that can be attractive to mice and rats. In New York City, cats are beloved fixtures of the city’s bodegas and delis.

    At the Lowe’s store, Francine “just showed up,” Sida said. “We had a bit of a mice problem. So, of course, I’m like, wow. I like this cat a lot because it’s helping me.”

    Lowe’s doesn’t have an official policy about cats in stores. Asked why Francine wasn’t taken to someone’s residence after showing up, Sida said she is loved by employees and the community.

    “Francine picked us. We didn’t pick her,” Sida said. “Later, we would embrace her being our store cat. But at the end of the day, she came to us. Where she’s at is where she wants to be. She does whatever she wants.”

    Unlike Lowe’s employees, Francine does not wear a vest. She had been previously outfitted with several collars but escaped them all. Now they plan on fitting her with a harness that includes identifying information.

    A local brewery will host a “Francine Fest” community event on Wednesday to celebrate the homecoming, while the store is planning its own team party.

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  • California police pull over a self-driving Waymo for an illegal U-turn, but they can’t ticket

    SAN FRANCISCO — Police in Northern California were understandably perplexed when they pulled over a Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn, only to find no driver behind the wheel and therefore, no one to ticket.

    The San Bruno Police Department wrote in now viral weekend social media posts that officers were conducting a DUI operation early Saturday morning when a self-driving Waymo made the illegal turn in front of them.

    Officers stopped the vehicle, but declined to write a ticket as their “citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’.”

    “That’s right … no driver, no hands, no clue,” read the post, which was accompanied by photos of an officer peering into the car.

    Officers contacted Waymo to report what they called a “glitch,” and in the post, they said they hope reprogramming will deter more illegal moves.

    The department’s Facebook post has generated more than 500 comments, with many people outraged that police didn’t ticket the company. People also wanted to know how police got the car to pull over.

    But San Bruno Sgt. Scott Smithmatungol said they can only ticket a human driver or operator for a moving violation, unlike parking tickets that can be left with the vehicle.

    A new state law that kicks in next year will allow police to report moving violations to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is figuring out the specifics, including potential penalties, the Los Angeles Times reports.

    Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina told the LA Times that the company’s autonomous driving system is closely monitored by regulators. “We are looking into this situation and are committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience,” Ilina said.

    Waymos currently operate in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco and in areas south of the city, including the suburb of San Bruno.

    “It blew up a lot bigger than we thought,” Smithmatungol said of the viral post to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “We’re not a large agency like San Francisco.”

    San Bruno has about 40,000 residents and a sworn police force of 50 officers, he said.

    Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

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  • A raptor with no qualms about eating its opponents wins New Zealand’s annual bird election

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand ’s annual bird election is contested by cheeky parrots, sweet songbirds and cute, puffball robins. This year’s winner was a mysterious falcon that wouldn’t think twice about eating them.

    Kārearea, the Indigenous Māori name for the New Zealand falcon, was crowned Bird of the Year on Monday. But the annual poll, run by conservation group Forest & Bird, is no ordinary online vote.

    The fiercely fought election sees volunteer (human) campaign managers apply to stump for their favorite bird. Feathers fly as avian enthusiasts seek to sway the public through meme battles, trash-talking poster campaigns and dance routines performed in bird costumes.

    “Bird of the Year has grown from a simple email poll in 2005 to a hotly contested cultural moment,” said Forest & Bird Chief Executive Nicola Toki. “Behind the memes and mayhem is a serious message.”

    The contest draws attention to New Zealand’s native bird species, with 80% designated as being in trouble to some degree. But it attracts passionate fandom because New Zealanders are bird-obsessed.

    In a country with no native land mammals except for two species of bat, birds reign supreme. They appear in art, on jewelry, in schoolchildren’s songs, and in the name New Zealanders are known by abroad, “kiwis.”

    Beloved birds include alpine parrots that harass tourists and pigeons which get so drunk on berries that they sometimes fall out of trees.

    “This is not a land of lions, tigers and bears,” said Toki. “The birds here are weird and wonderful and not what you would expect to see perhaps in other countries.”

    The first contest two decades ago attracted fewer than 900 votes. More than 75,000 people in the country of 5 million cast ballots this year.

    It was the highest-ever voter turnout apart from an episode when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver volunteered as a campaign manager in 2023, prompting mostly joking accusations from New Zealanders of American interference. Perhaps inevitably, Oliver’s bird, the pūteketeke or Australasian crested grebe, won in a 290,000-vote landslide.

    Other controversies have struck the poll. In 2021, there was mild uproar when a bat won the title, despite not being a bird.

    The vote was ruffled by a foreign influence scandal in 2018 when self-styled comedians in Australia cast hundreds of fraudulent votes for a bird that shares its name with an Antipodean slang term for sex. Voters must now verify the email addresses used to cast their votes.

    Forest & Bird said 87% of the votes in this year’s poll came from New Zealand. The falcon’s more than 14,500 votes appeared to have been won fair and square.

    The majestic kārearea can fly at speeds of more than 200 km (124 miles) per hour and swoops to capture its prey, often smaller birds. The endemic species is threatened in New Zealand, vulnerable to electrocution on wires and loss of their forest habitats.

    “They’re a mysterious bird and that’s partly because they’re cryptic, they’re often well-hidden,” said Phil Bradfield, a trustee of Kārearea Falcon Trust in Marlborough, on New Zealand’s South Island.

    Official figures suggest between 5,000 and 8,000 New Zealand falcons remaining, although the true number is unknown. Bradfield said the “fast and sneaky and very special” raptor was a deserving Bird of the Year winner.

    Other campaigns knew victory on Monday would take a miracle. Birds that are ugly — but not ugly enough to be funny — unknown or perceived as boring face an uphill slog.

    That doesn’t deter bird lovers. The year 2025 was the first that all 73 bird competitors attracted campaign managers, with some electing to stump for contenders they knew would lose.

    One was Marc Daalder whose scrappy, grassroots campaign for the tākapu, or Australasian gannet, drew 962 votes — about a 15th of the falcon’s.

    “Running a campaign for one of the less popular birds is a more satisfying experience because you know the votes your bird received are a result of your hard work,” said Daalder, who is a (human) political journalist and three-time (bird) campaign manager.

    Despite the near-record voter turnout, Toki from Forest & Bird said she feared New Zealanders would give up on some of the most threatened species as they grew more costly to protect, particularly from predators such as cats, rats and stoats.

    “Successive governments in New Zealand have cumulatively reduced investment in conservation, which is the cornerstone of New Zealand’s economic prosperity,” she said, referring to tourism campaigns promoting the country’s scenic landscapes.

    “People come here to see our native birds and the places they live in,” she said. “They’re not coming here to see shopping malls.”

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  • Maine wardens rescue moose trapped for hours in abandoned well

    PEMBROKE, Maine — A bull moose that fell into an abandoned well in Maine was pulled to safety during an elaborate five hour rescue.

    The operation happened Wednesday after Cole Brown, whose family owned the forested land in northern Maine, spotted a pair of antlers. He heard a noise and initially thought it was turkeys but, upon, closer inspect, realized it was something a lot bigger.

    “He walks over and, through the thick alders and bushes, he saw the antlers, just the antlers peeking out,” said Delaney Gardner, Brown’s stepsister who videotaped the rescue. “He knew that an animal of the size, he was going to need some back up just in case it was, you know, injured or just stuck there.”

    The family alerted the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. They sent a biologist who sedated the moose and then wardens put straps on the animal. Using an excavator provided by the family, they gingerly lifted the moose out of the 9-foot deep well.

    “Once the sedation wore off, the moose took off running, no worse for wear other than perhaps his bruised ego,” the agency said on its Facebook page.

    Gardner said the successful rescue left her with a mix of “relief and happiness.”

    “This is a majestic giant animal in such a precarious situation,” she said. “So to be able to see everyone come together in all these different ways that they needed to was absolutely incredible. And then seeing it work out was just so satisfying and heartwarming.”

    Gardner said the family didn’t know the well — which is likely decades old — was on their 100 acres of land until the moose fell into it. Since then, they have capped the well and are considering their options, including digging it out and utilizing it since it there may a water source nearby.

    “For now it’s covered and no more animals or people will be falling into it,” she said.

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  • Ancient spear-throwing tool brings fun and history to Vermont competition

    ADDISON, Vt. — Celine Thouin learned a lot as a student at Franklin Pierce University, and one of the skills she has held onto the longest is how to use an ancient spear-throwing tool.

    She got to share that skill with fellow Vermonters on Saturday. Thouin, 38 and a veteran of the Franklin Pierce atlatl team, was one of a few dozen participants in the Northeast Open Atlatl Championship in Addison, Vermont.

    Humans invented the atlatl thousands of years ago for use as a spear-throwing hunting tool. They were used to hunt massive animals such as woolly mammoths in the days long before recorded history.

    Now, they are the passion of a group of hobbyists and anthropology lovers who see the atlatl as a way to learn about history and have fun.

    “I think it’s just a low-pressure sport. Really, really fun,” said Thouin, who won the 2020 competition and whose children are also atlatl enthusiasts. “It’s also experimental archaeology, which is incredibly fun. We get to use the same weapons that were used 15,000 years ago all over the world.”

    The competition took place at Chimney Point State Historic Site in Addison, near Lake Champlain and the New York state border. It was the thirtieth annual event and a part of Vermont’s Archaeology Month, organizers said.

    The contest was open to all ages and allowed participants to shoot for accuracy and distance. Throws of more than 800 feet (244 meters) have been recorded, though even a much shorter throw than that takes a good degree of skill.

    For Douglas Bassett, a past president of the World Atlatl Association and another participant in Saturday’s event, the history of the atlatl is as interesting as its use. He described it as “a stick by which you can throw another stick,” and he said it was used all over the ancient world.

    Bassett confessed to having no idea how to pronounce the name of the tool. Most sources say it is aht-LAHT-l, but the exact pronunciation might be lost to the mists of time, he said.

    “The language is gone as the people are gone, so I don’t know much about the pronunciations,” Bassett said. “But all kinds of languages, all around the world. It may pretty much have been on every continent. Even when Antarctica melts, maybe we’ll find evidence of people throwing spears there, too, with the atlatl.”

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  • Meth burn by FBI smokes out Montana animal shelter

    BILLINGS, Mont. — A cloud of smoke from two pounds of methamphetamine seized by the FBI and incinerated inside a Montana animal shelter sent its workers to the hospital, city officials in Billings said.

    The smoke started to fill the building during a drug burn on Wednesday, apparently because of negative pressure that sucked it back inside, Billings Assistant City Administrator Kevin Iffland said Friday. A fan was supposed to be on hand in such situations to reverse the pressure so smoke would flow out of the building, but Iffland said it wasn’t readily available.

    The incinerator is used primarily to burn carcasses of animals euthanized or collected by the city’s animal control division. But every couple of months local law enforcement or FBI agents use it to burn seized narcotics, Iffland said.

    Fourteen workers from the nonprofit Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter evacuated and went to the hospital. The shelter’s 75 dogs and cats were relocated or put into foster homes, said Iffland and shelter director Triniti Halverson.

    The shelter shares space with Billings’ animal control division. When smoke started filling parts of the building, Halverson assumed it was from burning carcasses because she said they had never known about the drug burns.

    Halverson said she had a very intense headache and sore throat, and others had dizziness, sweating and coughing.

    “Not a party,” she said.

    The workers found out it was methamphetamine smoke through a call from a city official while they were the hospital, Halverson said. Most of the staff spent several hours in an oxygen chamber for treatment.

    Symptoms have lingered for some workers, Halverson said.

    They also were closely monitoring four litters of kittens that got more heavily exposed because they were in a closed room with lots of smoke, she said.

    The FBI routinely uses outside facilities to conduct controlled drug evidence burns, agency spokesperson Sandra Barker said. She referred further questions to Billings officials.

    A city animal control supervisor who was present for Wednesday’s burn declined to go the hospital, Iffland said. The FBI agents were told to go to the hospital by their supervisor.

    The incinerator is meant to operate at a certain temperature so it doesn’t emit toxins. Iffland said officials were trying to determine if it was at the appropriate temperature Wednesday.

    The shelter will remain closed until it can be tested for contamination. Shelter workers were tested for potential exposure, and Iffland said he did not know the results.

    Billings resident Jay Ettlemen went to the shelter on Friday to donate dog food and said he was angry when he found out about the drug burns.

    “Why the hell are they destroying drugs inside the city limits?” Ettlemen asked. “There’s so many other places in the middle of nowhere.”

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  • Fans bid farewell to beloved California octopus Ghost as she cares for eggs in final stage of life

    LOS ANGELES — A dying octopus in a Southern California aquarium is receiving an outflowing of love and well wishes as she spends her final days pouring her last energy into caring for her eggs — even though they will never hatch.

    Many on social media have reminisced about seeing the giant Pacific octopus named Ghost when they had visited the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Some shared that they had a tattoo of Ghost or would wear a sweater emblazoned with the beloved cephalopod in her memory.

    “She is a wonderful octopus and has made an eight-armed impression on all of our hearts,” the aquarium said on Instagram.

    Ghost laid eggs earlier this week and entered the last phase of her life cycle, known as senescence. During this period, the octopus will neglect her own basic needs like eating, instead focusing on protecting her eggs and aerating them to prevent bacteria or other harmful agents from growing on them.

    Ghost’s eggs are unfertilized and will never hatch, however. In the wild, giant Pacific octopuses spend their whole lives alone and only come together for a brief instance to reproduce.

    “You really can’t combine males and females for any period of time because they don’t naturally cohabitate,” said the aquarium’s vice president of animal care, Nate Jaros. “They’re at high risk or aggression or even potentially death.”

    Ghost is originally from the waters of British Columbia, Canada, and arrived at the aquarium in May 2024 from a scientific collector. She was only 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) then but now weighs more than 50 pounds (22.7 kilograms).

    The average giant Pacific octopus lives for three to five years. Ghost is estimated to be between two and four years old, Jaros said.

    Ghost was a “super active and very physical octopus” who enjoyed spending time with humans, Jaros said.

    She was trained to voluntarily crawl into a basket so staff would weigh her and monitor her diet. Sometimes, she would push aside food her caregiver was offering just to interact with them more, Jaros said.

    “Octopus in particular are incredibly special because of how charismatic and intelligent they seem to be, and we really form tight bonds with these animals,” Jaros said.

    Her caregivers engage her in enrichment activities multiple times a day, putting food inside of toys and puzzles with moving parts to simulate what a octopus would do to hunt live crabs and clams in the wild.

    One time, staff spent hours building a large acrylic maze for Ghost to explore.

    “She mastered it almost instantly,” Jaros said.

    While Ghost receives special attention in a private tank during her last days, the aquarium has already received a new octopus that will carry on her mission of educating the public. Staff will name the 2-pound (900 gram) octopus after spending some time assessing its personality, but it is already “super curious” and “seems to be a very outgoing animal,” Jaros said.

    Marine biology student Jay McMahon, of Los Angeles, said he was glad he was able to visit the aquarium in the last few weeks and see Ghost one more time. He said he was inspired to pursue his studies after his parents brought him to the aquarium when he was 4.

    “When you make a connection with an animal like that and you know they don’t live for that long, every moment means a lot,” he said. “I just hope she encourages people to learn more about the octopus and how important they are.”

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  • How to use 8 arms? Octopuses tend to explore with their front limbs

    WASHINGTON — Humans may be right-handed or left-handed. It turns out octopuses don’t have a dominant arm, but they do tend to perform some tasks more often with their front arms, new research shows.

    Scientists studied a series of short videos of wild octopuses crawling, swimming, standing, fetching, and groping — among other common activities — to analyze how each of the eight arms were moving.

    “All of the arms can do all of this stuff – that’s really amazing,” said co-author and marine biologist Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

    Octopus limbs aren’t specialized as many mammal limbs are. However, the three octopus species in the study showed a clear preference for using their four front arms, which they did about 60% of the time. The back arms were used more frequently for stilting and rolling that help move the octopus forward.

    “The forward arms do most of the exploring, the rear arms are mostly for walking,” said Mike Vecchione, a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History zoologist who was not involved in the study.

    Researchers analyzed video clips taken between 2007 and 2015 in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. It was the first large study to examine precise limb actions in the wild.

    Unlike previous research of octopus behavior in a laboratory setting, the new work showed that octopuses did not show a preference for right or left arms in their natural environment.

    Results were published Thursday in Scientific Reports.

    “I’m in awe that the researchers managed to do this,” said Janet Voight, an octopus biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, who had no role in the study.

    Octopuses are shy and elusive creatures. The species studied spend most of their time hidden in dens — meaning that filming them required patience and perseverance over many years.

    Octopus limbs are complex — used for mobility and sensing the environment. Each arm contains between 100 and 200 suckers – complex sensory organs “equivalent to the human nose, lips, and tongue,” said Hanlon.

    If an arm is bitten off by a predator, as often happens in the wild, octopuses have multiple backups.

    “When you’ve got eight arms and they’re all capable,” Hanlon said, “there’s a lot of redundancy.”

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Ned is a perfectly nice snail, but a rare shell means a doomed love life

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Ned is a perfectly nice snail. If he had a dating profile, it might read: good listener, stable home, likes broccoli, seeks love.

    But he’s already exhausted his local options and it’s not because he’s picky or unappealing. Instead, he’s a common garden snail with an uncommon anatomical problem that’s ruining his love life.

    Ned’s shell coils to the left, not the right, making him the 1 in 40,000 snails whose sex organs don’t line up with those of the rest of their species. Unless another lefty snail is found, the young gastropod faces a lifetime of unintentional celibacy.

    That dire prospect prompted a New Zealand nature lover who found the snail in her garden in August to launch a campaign to find his perfect match. But Ned’s quest for true love, perhaps predictably, is slow.

    Giselle Clarkson was weeding her home vegetable patch in Wairarapa on the North Island when a snail tumbling out of the leafy greens caught her eye. Clarkson, the author and illustrator of a nature book, “The Observologist,” has an affection for snails and had long been on the lookout for a sinistral, or left-coiled shell.

    “I knew immediately that I couldn’t just toss the snail back into the weeds with the others,” she said. Instead, she sent a photo of the snail, pictured alongside a right-coiled gastropod as proof, to her colleagues at New Zealand Geographic.

    The magazine launched a nationwide campaign to find a mate for Ned, named for the left-handed character Ned Flanders in “The Simpsons,” who once opened a store called The Leftorium. That explains the male pronouns some use for Ned, although snails are hermaphrodites with sex organs on their necks and the capacity for both eggs and sperm.

    “When you have a right-coiling snail and a left-coiling snail, they can’t slide up and get their pieces meeting in the right position,” Clarkson said. “So a lefty can only mate with another lefty.”

    The fact that romantic hopefuls need not be a sex match should have boosted Ned’s prospects. But his inbox has remained empty except for photos of “optimistically misidentified right-coiling snails,” Clarkson said.

    “We’ve had lots of enthusiasm and encouragement for Ned, a lot of people who can relate and really want the best for them, as a symbol of hope for everyone who’s looking for love,” she said. “But as yet, no lefties have been forthcoming.”

    Ned’s relatable romantic woes have attracted global news coverage, but New Zealand’s strict biosecurity controls mean long-distance love probably isn’t on the cards. Other left-coiled snails have gotten lucky through public campaigns to find mates before, however, so Clarkson remains optimistic.

    In 2017, the death of British sinistral snail Jeremy — named for left-wing politician and gardening lover Jeremy Corbyn — prompted a New York Times obituary after his eventful two-year life.

    A quest to find left-coiled mates for Jeremy prompted the discovery of two prospective matches, who initially preferred each other. But Jeremy got the hang of it eventually, and by the time of his death had 56 offspring — all of them right-coiled.

    It was a fascinating chance for scientists to investigate what produces left-coiled snails, with the cause most likely a rare genetic mutation. Studies of snail farms in Europe prompted researchers to estimate about 1 in every 40,000 snails is a lefty.

    Back in Wairarapa, Ned’s constant presence in a tank in Clarkson’s living room has kindled a life of quiet companionship and existential questions.

    “Maybe snails don’t have a concept of loneliness,” Clarkson found herself thinking. What if Ned didn’t mind being single?

    However the young snail feels about his prospects, Ned probably has time. Garden snails live for two to five years and his shell suggests he’s about 6 months old, Clarkson said.

    Still, she feels pressure to see him romantically fulfilled.

    “I have never felt this stressed about the welfare of a common garden snail before,” she said. “I check on Ned almost obsessively.”

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  • ‘Legend dairy’ man carries ice cream, dry ice up Colorado peak as treat for hikers

    DENVER — Hikers who climbed a Colorado mountain got more than just a sweeping view at the top. A man in an ice cream cone costume unexpectedly was handing out frozen treats.

    No one seemed to know the man who carried ice cream sandwiches and dry ice in a 60-pound (27-kilogram) pack up Huron Peak over the Labor Day weekend. But word of him spread quickly to hikers still making their way up the more than 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) mountain that’s one of Colorado’s tallest.

    Blaine and Katie Griffin were about three-quarters of the way up Huron Peak when other hikers told them about the man. They worried he would run out of ice cream by the time they got there.

    “Eventually we got up to the top of the mountain and, tired, hot, thirsty and didn’t know it, but ice cream was just kind of what we wanted,” Blaine Griffin said.

    He and his wife enjoyed their ice cream sandwiches, which still were surprisingly very cold, with some leftover pizza they carried with them.

    Christopher Whitestone said his two children, Olivia, 11, and Owen, 8, went straight to the ice cream man as soon as they reached the top.

    “It definitely leaves a lasting impression for my kids as a very positive experience,” Whitestone said.

    But he warned them not to expect that every time they climb a mountain.

    Photos on social media show the man in a camping chair, a beer nestled in the armrest, wearing sunglasses with a fake mustache attached to it. Members of a Facebook group for people dedicated to climbing the state’s “14ers” called him a hero, with one declaring him “legend dairy.”

    Some also marveled at his ability to climb the mountain with such a heavy pack.

    Blaine Griffin said the man later zoomed past them on the way down the mountain, this time without his costume, making him think he had climbed it many times.

    The ice cream had just run out by the time Ric and Sara Rosenkranz of Las Vegas made it to the top. But Ric Rosenkranz said he was just happy to be able to witness the quirky stunt, which he said was a good antidote to the tendency to focus on racking up achievements in the outdoors.

    “He provided a nice reminder of just enjoying the moment,” Rosenkranz said, “just really making it fun, not taking it more seriously than it needs to be and just spending time with his fellow hikers.”

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  • Snake on a plane delays a flight in Australia

    MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian domestic flight was delayed for two hours after a stowaway snake was found in the plane’s cargo hold, officials said on Wednesday.

    The snake was found on Tuesday as passengers were boarding Virgin Australia Flight VA337 at Melbourne Airport bound for Brisbane, according to snake catcher Mark Pelley.

    The snake turned out to be a harmless 60-centimeter (2-foot) green tree snake. But Pelly said he thought it could be venomous when he approached it in the darkened hold.

    “It wasn’t until after I caught the snake that I realized that it wasn’t venomous. Until that point, it looked very dangerous to me,” Pelley said.

    Most of the world’s most venomous snakes are native to Australia.

    When Pelley entered the cargo hold, the snake was half hidden behind a panel and could have disappeared deeper into the plane.

    Pelley said he told an aircraft engineer and airline staff that they would have to evacuate the aircraft if the snake disappeared inside the plane.

    “I said to them if I don’t get this in one shot, it’s going to sneak through the panels and you’re going to have to evacuate the plane because at that stage I did not know what kind of snake it was,” Pelley said.

    “But thankfully, I got it on the first try and captured it,” Pelley added. “If I didn’t get it that first time, the engineers and I would be pulling apart a (Boeing) 737 looking for a snake still right now.”

    Pelley said he had taken 30 minutes to drive to the airport and was then delayed by security before he could reach the airliner.

    An airline official said the flight was delayed around two hours.

    Because the snake is native to the Brisbane region, Pelley suspects it came aboard inside a passenger’s luggage and escaped during the two-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne.

    For quarantine reasons, the snake can’t be returned to the wild.

    The snake, which is a protected species, has been given to a Melbourne veterinarian to find a home with a licensed snake keeper.

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  • From Stephen King to New Jersey diners, History Press books cover local lore around the US

    NEW YORK (AP) — With deep knowledge of Stephen King’s books and curiosity about their inspirations, writer Sharon Kitchens began a journey around Maine. As she learned about the real-life settings and people behind such fiction as “IT” and “Salem’s Lot,” she arranged them into an online map and story she called “Stephen King’s Maine.”

    “It was amateur hour, in a way,” she says. “But after around 27,000 people visited the site one of my friends said to me, ‘You should do something more with this.’”

    Published in 2024, the resulting book-length edition of “Stephen King’s Maine” is among hundreds released each year by The History Press. Now part of Arcadia Publishing, the 20-year-old imprint is dedicated to regional, statewide and locally focused works, found for sale in bookstores, museums, hotels and other tourist destinations. The mission of The History Press is to explore and unearth “the story of America, one town or community at a time.”

    The King book stands out if only for its focus on an international celebrity. Most History Press releases arise out of more obscure passions and expertise, whether Michael C. Gabriele’s “The History of Diners in New Jersey,” Thomas Dresser’s “African Americans of Martha’s Vineyard” or Clem C. Pellett’s “Murder on Montana’s Hi-Line,” the author’s probe into the fatal shooting of his grandfather.

    A home for history buffs

    Like Kitchens, History Press authors tend to be regional or local specialists — history lovers, academics, retirees and hobbyists. Kitchens’ background includes writing movie press releases, blogging for the Portland Press Herald and contributing to the Huffington Post. Pellett is a onetime surgeon who was so compelled by his grandfather’s murder that he switched careers and became a private investigator. In Boulder, Colorado, Nancy K. Williams is a self-described “Western history writer” whose books include “Buffalo Soldiers on the Colorado Frontier” and “Haunted Hotels of Southern Colorado.”

    The History Press publishes highly specific works such as Jerry Harrington’s tribute to a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor from the 1930s, “Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall.” It also issues various series, notably “Haunted” guides that publishing director Kate Jenkins calls a “highly localized version” of the ghost story genre. History Press has long recruited potential authors through a team of field representatives, but now writers such as Kitchens are as likely to be brought to the publisher’s attention through a national network of writers who have worked with it before.

    “Our ideal author isn’t someone with national reach,” Jenkins says, “but someone who’s a member of their community, whether that’s an ethnic community or a local community, and is passionate about preserving that community’s history. We’re the partners who help make that history accessible to a wide audience.”

    The History Press is a prolific, low-cost operation. The books tend to be brief — under 200 pages — and illustrated with photos drawn from local archives or taken by the authors themselves. The print runs are small, and authors are usually paid through royalties from sales rather than advances up front. History Press books rarely are major hits, but they can still attract substantial attention for works tailored to specific areas, and they tend to keep selling over time. Editions selling 15,000 copies or more include “Long-Ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee,” by Lloyd Arneach, Alphonso Brown’s “A Gullah Guide to Charleston” and Gayle Soucek’s “Marshall Field’s,” a tribute to the Chicago department store.

    The King guide, which has sold around 8,500 copies so far, received an unexpected lift — an endorsement by its subject, who was shown the book at Maine’s Bridgton Books and posted an Instagram of himself giving it a thumbs-up.

    “I was genuinely shocked in the best possible way,” Kitchens says, adding that she saw the book as a kind of thank-you note to King. “Every choice I made while writing the book, I made with him in mind.”

    Getting the story right

    History Press authors say they like the chance to tell stories that they believe haven’t been heard, or were told incorrectly.

    Rory O’Neill Schmitt is an Arizona-based researcher, lecturer and writer who feels her native New Orleans is often “portrayed in way that feels false or highlights a touristy element,” like a “caricature.” She has responded with such books as “The Haunted Guide to New Orleans” and “Kate Chopin in New Orleans.”

    Brianne Turczynski is a freelance writer and self-described “perpetual seeker of the human condition” who lives outside of Detroit and has an acknowledged obsession with “Poletown,” a Polish ethnic community uprooted and dismantled in the 1980s after General Motors decided to build a new plant there and successfully asserted eminent domain. In 2021, The History Press released Turczynski’s “Detroit’s Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood That Touched a Nation.”

    “All of the journalist work that followed the story seemed to lack a sense of closure for the people who suffered,” she said. “So my book is a love letter to that community, an attempt for closure.”

    Kitchens has followed her King book with the story of an unsolved homicide, “The Murder of Dorothy Milliken, Cold Case in Maine.” One of her early boosters, Michelle Souliere, is the owner of the Green Hand Bookstore in Portland and herself a History Press writer. A lifelong aficionado of Maine history, her publishing career, like Kitchens’, began with an online posting. She had been maintaining a blog of local lore, “Strange Maine,” when The History Press contacted her and suggested she expand her writing into a book.

    “Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State” was published in 2010.

    “My blog had been going for about 4 years, and had grown from brief speculative and expressive posts to longer original research articles,” she wrote in an email. “I often wonder how I did it at all — I wrote the book just as I was opening up the Green Hand Bookshop. Madness!!! Or a lot of coffee. Or both!!!”

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