Boys killed by python died from asphyxiation

Updated 09 August 2013
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Boys killed by python died from asphyxiation

TORONTO: The mother of two small boys strangled by a 100-pound (45-kilogram) python in their sleep earlier this week in Canada had posted photos on Facebook last year of the boys playing in and cleaning her neighbor’s snake enclosure.
Mandy Trecartin’s Facebook page has hundreds of photos of her sons, including a few showing Noah Barthe, 4, and Connor Barthe, 6, happily scrubbing the glass enclosure, which she identified as an anaconda habitat. It was not clear whether the enclosure is the one that held the python.
Preliminary results from autopsies performed on the boys show they died from asphyxiation, officials said Wednesday. Hundreds of people in the shocked community of Campbellton, New Brunswick, gathered for a candlelight vigil Wednesday evening in a show of support for the family.
The snake, an African rock python, apparently escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilation system and fell through the ceiling into the room where the young boys were sleeping, authorities said. They had been visiting the apartment of a friend whose father owned an exotic pet store on the floor below.
A snake expert said it was possible that the python was spooked and simply clung to whatever it landed on.


China snow village apologizes for fake cotton snow

Updated 18 February 2025
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China snow village apologizes for fake cotton snow

HONG KONG: A tourist village in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan famed for its scenic snow landscape said it was sorry for using cotton wool and soapy water to create fake snow after online criticism from visitors went viral.
In a post on its official Wechat account on February 8, the Chengdu Snow Village project said during the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January, the weather was warm and the snow village did not take shape as anticipated.
China is facing hotter and longer heat waves and more frequent and unpredictable heavy rain as a result of climate change, the country’s weather bureau has warned.
“In order to create a ‘snowy’ atmosphere the tourist village purchased cotton for the snow...but it did not achieve the expected effect, leaving a very bad impression on tourists who came to visit,” the Chengdu Snow Village project said in the statement.
After receiving feedback from the majority of netizens, the tourist area began to clean up all the snow cotton.
The village said it “deeply apologizes” for the changes and that tourists could get a refund. The site has since been closed.
Photos on Wechat showed large cotton wool sheets strewn about the grounds, only partially covering leafy areas. A thick snow layer appeared to blanket the houses in the zone but as you got closer, it was all cotton, said one netizen.
“A snow village without snow,” said another user.
“In today’s age of well-developed Internet, scenic spots must advertise truthfully and avoid deception or false advertising, otherwise they will only shoot themselves in the foot.”


France finds smuggled dinosaur teeth in parcels bound for Italy

Updated 15 February 2025
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France finds smuggled dinosaur teeth in parcels bound for Italy

  • The teeth, probably from Morocco, were found during a routine check
  • They included the tooth of a long-necked marine reptile called a zarafasaura oceanis, a type of plesiosaurus at least 66 million years old first discovered in Morocco

NICE: French customs officers seized nine dinosaur teeth last month from a courier truck transiting through the country from Spain on its way to Italy, they said on Friday.
The teeth, probably from Morocco, were found during a routine check along a highway running along France’s Mediterranean coastline near the Italian border, customs official Samantha Verduron said.
Using sniffer dogs and opening some parcels at random, inspectors have been known to find cannabis or even cocaine among such truckloads of hundreds of parcels traveling from Spain to Italy, she said.
But on January 27, officials from the French border town of Menton found nine enormous teeth in two parcels that were destined for addresses near the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan, French customs said.
An expert at the Menton prehistory museum helped identify the fossils as probably dating back tens of millions of years and originating from what is now Morocco.
They included the tooth of a long-necked marine reptile called a zarafasaura oceanis, a type of plesiosaurus at least 66 million years old first discovered in Morocco.
Some people believe plesiosauruses, which lived in different parts of the globe, inspired the legend of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland.
Three other teeth would have once belonged to a mosasaurus, an extinct aquatic lizard with a long snout.
The remaining five teeth were thought to belong to a dyrosaurus, an ancestor of the crocodile.
Fossils must be authorized for export and without such a license are usually returned to their country of origin.
An investigation is under way to identify the receivers and decide how to proceed, Verduron said.
In 2020, France returned 25,000 items including fossils, minerals, stones and art objects to Morocco after intercepting them in 2005 and 2006.
Most had been found during illegal excavations.
In 2015, customs officers in the French city of Lyon found part of the skeleton of a tarbosaurus bataar, a land dinosaur that walked on its hind legs, that had been illegally excavated in Mongolia.
Dinosaur remains have become a hot-ticket item in recent years, with paleontologists voicing concern that museums are losing out to private bidders.
A hedge fund CEO last year spent a record $44.6 million to buy a stegosaurus fossil at a New York auction.
Dinosaurs first appeared at least 230 million years ago, while the first humans are believed to have appeared on Earth only around six million years ago.


Spanish tourist hotspot Malaga to ban horse-drawn carriages

Updated 15 February 2025
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Spanish tourist hotspot Malaga to ban horse-drawn carriages

MALAGA: A pair of tourists admire the shimmering Mediterranean from their horse-drawn carriage on the seaside promenade in Spain’s southern port of Malaga — a postcard image whose days are numbered.
The city wants to ban horse-drawn carriages from its streets this year to protect the animals after years of criticism of the trade.
The decision to follow in the footsteps of other tourist hotspots such as Rome and Chicago dismayed visitors including Anastasia, a chef who had traveled from Britain.
“It’s really nice, I was impressed — seeing Malaga like this is completely different,” said the 47-year-old as she dismounted from a carriage.
Fellow British tourist Robert agreed, expressing his wonder at his “amazing” trip with a “beautiful” horse.
“I am sure it helps the city attract more tourists,” added the 46-year-old business owner.
Animal rights activists criticize horse-drawn carriages for tourists because of the strain they put on the animals, especially during the searing summer heat.
Summer temperatures in Malaga can soar to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), said Concordia Marquez, founder of a nearby shelter called “Todos los Caballos del Mundo” (All the Horses in the World).
“Horses and horse-drawn carriages have to cover a lot of ground, both to get to where they spend the night, where they sleep, and to get back to their place of work,” added Marquez.
“That’s inhumane to make a horse work like that.”
Malaga city hall had announced in 2015 that it aimed to ban horse-drawn carriages from its streets by 2035, but it now wants to bring the ban forward to this year.
Officials are in talks with the holders of the last 25 licenses to reach an agreement.
“We have been negotiating for a long time, we have met 99 percent of the demands of carriage owners,” Malaga’s city councillor for mobility, Maria Trinidad Hernandez, told AFP.
“What we are looking for is animal welfare, but it is also the case that they used to have more places to circulate,” she added.
“With the building works that have gone on for the last 20 years, there is hardly any left. There is the park and a little bit of the promenade left.”
Horse-drawn carriages will not totally disappear — they will still be allowed as part of festivals and traditions like Malaga’s annual fair in August.
“What there won’t be are municipal licenses, the tourist horse-drawn carriage, the one you take and pay for as if it were a street taxi,” said Hernandez.


A humpback whale briefly swallows kayaker in Chilean Patagonia — and it’s all captured on camera

Updated 15 February 2025
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A humpback whale briefly swallows kayaker in Chilean Patagonia — and it’s all captured on camera

  • While whale attacks on humans are extremely rare in Chilean waters, whale deaths from collisions with cargo ships have increased in recent years

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile: A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed. The incident, caught on camera, quickly went viral.
Last Saturday, Adrián Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell, in Bahía El Águila near the San Isidro Lighthouse in the Strait of Magellan when a humpback whale surfaced, engulfing Adrián and his yellow kayak for a few seconds before letting him go.
Dell, just meters (yards) away, captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to stay calm.
“Stay calm, stay calm,” he can be heard saying after his son was released from the whale’s mouth.
“I thought I was dead,” Adrián told The Associated Press. “I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me.”

He described the “terror” of those few seconds and explained that his real fear set in only after resurfacing, fearing that the huge animal would hurt his father or that he would perish in the frigid waters.
Despite the terrifying experience, Dell remained focused, filming and reassuring his son while grappling with his own worry.
“When I came up and started floating, I was scared that something might happen to my father too, that we wouldn’t reach the shore in time, or that I would get hypothermia,” Adrián said.
After a few seconds in the water, Adrián managed to reach his father’s kayak and was quickly assisted. Despite the scare, both returned to shore uninjured.
Located about 1,600 miles (3,000 kilometers) south of Santiago, Chile’s capital, the Strait of Magellan is a major tourist attraction in the Chilean Patagonia, known for adventure activities.
Its frigid waters pose a challenge for sailors, swimmers and explorers who attempt to cross it in different ways.
Although it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures in the region remain cool, with minimums dropping to 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) and highs rarely exceeding 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius.)
While whale attacks on humans are extremely rare in Chilean waters, whale deaths from collisions with cargo ships have increased in recent years, and strandings have become a recurring issue in the last decade.
 


Ukranians mark Valentine's Day with tears

Updated 15 February 2025
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Ukranians mark Valentine's Day with tears

  • "I gave this book to him as a wedding anniversary present. A month later, he was gone," Natalia said through her tears as she gazed at the tombstone
  • Vassyl was a writer, a lover of literature. As he did not have time to enjoy her latest present, Natalia brought it with her to the cemetery, "to read it to him"

LVIV: All Natalia has for Valentine's Day is the grave of her husband, Vassyl, a Ukrainian soldier killed at the front and now buried in the western city of Lviv.
That and a purple book of poems she clutches tightly in her hands.
"I gave this book to him as a wedding anniversary present. A month later, he was gone," Natalia said through her tears as she gazed at the tombstone.
Natalia and Vassyl spent 21 years of their lives together. They had three children, the youngest of whom is just six.
Vassyl was a writer, a lover of literature. As he did not have time to enjoy her latest present, Natalia brought it with her to the cemetery, "to read it to him".
Swaddled in a black puffer jacket, her eyes red with emotion, Natalia recited "So no one has loved," a poem she had learned by heart.
Between the pages of the poetry book she had slipped the dried petals of a yellow rose, the same colour as the roses on Vassyl's grave.
Natalia was not the only soldier's widow at the cemetery in western Ukraine on Friday, where the tombstones were decorated with red heart-shaped balloons, cuddly toys and the yellow and blue national flag.
Maria lost her husband, Andrey, on Christmas Eve last year.
They had never celebrated Valentine's Day, she said, calling it "just a marketing ploy".
"But I don't know. Today I wanted to come," she said.
"It's all very painful. And unfair, really," she added. "Instead of having a good, beautiful life, like we had before this war, now you only have a grave in the cemetery and that's it."
Another widow, also called Natalia, was busy pinning a little heart to the flowers on the grave of her spouse, who was killed when a drone hit his car.
"I can't get used to the fact that he is no more, that I will never hear him again, never see him again," she said.
"My husband loved me very much. He always called me constantly. He loved me. He would have congratulated me today too, if he were alive."
On the other side of the country in Kramatorsk, at the heart of the fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk, 30-year-old combat medic Yaroslav was preparing Thursday to spend a third Valentine's Day in a row without his wife.
Despite the distance, he has resolved to keep the faith. "Let it be a holiday. That's it. War is war. there will always be hard times," he said.
He showed AFP the goodies in his khaki bag -- macaroons oozing with chocolate sent to him by his spouse, who knew they were his favourite treat.
He and his comrades had sent back flowers and sweets by post or courier.
Yaroslav has not seen his wife for three months, and would probably have to wait another three.
"I feel sad to leave her. It is sad to come back here," he said quietly, lowering his bright blue eyes.
If they had been together on Valentine's Day, "I think we wouldn't talk. We would just be hugging."
A little way off, Olga Volodiuk, a florist, waited for the lovers who did not turn up.
"The market is empty," Volodiuk said, wrapping herself tightly in her pink puffer jacket.
She blamed the increasing attacks on Kramatorsk, a major army base near one of the few remaining cities in the east under Ukrainian control.
The shops were full of cuddly bears and coloured decorations for Valentine's Day but this year there were fewer customers, Volodiuk said.
"There were explosions today," she said. "There is no line to buy bread so to buy flowers, even less so."