National Post

[nationalpost-blog]

Rob Ford has died of cancer at the age of 46. Rest in peace http://natpo.st/1Ui5nJa

[nationalpost-blog]

[nationalpost-blog]

Mr. Apoplectic: Jonathan Franzen is one very angry clown

Photo: Andrew Barr/National Post

[nationalpost-blog]

While scientists squabble, Africa’s only penguins at risk of extinction as weakened birds abandon chicks

As shoals of anchovies and sardines have migrated south into cooler waters, the population of African Penguins that feeds on the fish has plummeted by 90 per cent since 2004 along South Africa’s west coast, once the stronghold of Africa’s only penguin species.

In the 1930s, South Africa’s largest penguin colony had 1 million African Penguins, and there were many other colonies. Now, only 100,000 of the birds remain.

This decline, recorded by South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, led to four key fishing grounds being declared off limits seven years ago in an experiment to see if the measure could help save the penguins. But scientists are still debating whether fishing has helped push the species to the brink of extinction.

The debate has gotten so acrimonious that the Island Closures Task Team, which oversaw the experiment and determined management actions, disbanded last year. Meanwhile, the fishing bans remain in place.

If effective management of the situation is not carried out, the black-and-white seabirds could soon disappear, experts say.

Photo: AP Photo / Schalk van Zuydam & Stephane De Sakutin / AFP / Getty Images

[nationalpost-blog]

Donald Trump swears his ‘hair is not a toupee,’ has woman touch it as proof

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says his trademark hairdo is for real. He told 1,800 people in South Carolina Thursday: “It’s my hair … I swear.”

The billionaire developer waved a copy of The New York Times shortly after taking the stage, saying the newspaper accused him of wearing a toupee.

Then he called a woman onstage from a front table and instructed her to tug on his hair. As she pulled, he asked her to confirm that it’s real. She said, “I do believe it is,” to laughter and applause, and Trump tossed his copy of the Times into the crowd.

Photo: AP Photo/Richard Shiro

[nationalpost-blog]

La Tomatina marks 70th anniversary with 175 tons of ripe fruit and 20,000 people

Photos: AP Photo/Alberto Saiz & David Ramos/Getty Images

[nationalpost-blog]

‘Oh my god’: Live TV captured 15 shots, dropped camera, and screams as reporter, cameraman killed

Reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot to death during a live television interview Wednesday by a gunman who recorded himself carrying out the killings and posted the video on social media after fleeing the scene.

Authorities identified the suspect as a journalist who had been fired from the station earlier this year. Hours later and hundreds of kilometres away, he crashed a vehicle and troopers found him suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He died at a hospital later Wednesday, authorities said.

The suspect was identified as Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, of Roanoke, by the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office. Flanagan appeared on WDBJ as Bryce Williams.

Jeffrey Marks, WDBJ’s president and general manager, said Flanagan had to be escorted by police out of the station when he was fired. Marks described him as “an unhappy man” and “difficult to work with,” always “looking out for people to say things he could take offence to.”

“Eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. He did not take that well,” Marks explained.

Photos: Twitter & Andrew Barr/NP

[nationalpost-blog]

Twelve-year-old boy trips and punches hole through painting worth $1.5 million

Moments before losing his balance, his mother likely warned him “don’t touch anything,” as he strolled through the gallery of famed European art. And now, in a nightmarish blunder, he’s gone and punched a hole through a centuries old masterpiece.

The 12-year-old boy was visiting the Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius exhibition in Taipei when he somehow tripped and caught his fall on the 350 year-old Paolo Porpora oil painting Flowers worth $1.5 million.

In the video footage that captured the gut-wrenching moment, the boy appears to play it cool at first before being escorted away by a woman who looks to be a gallery guide.

Focus Taiwan News Channel reported: “According to (the exhibition organizer), the boy was very nervous, but (Andrea) Rossi (curator of the exhibition), asked that the boy not be blamed and that the family not be asked to pay for the cost of the restoration… the organizers will ask the insurance company to cover restoration costs and compensate the owner of the painting.”

[nationalpost-blog]

Here’s an incredible first look at the largest heart ever preserved: It weighs 400 pounds

For over a year, the giant, 400-pound heart of a blue whale sat tucked away — frozen — in a warehouse two hours east of Toronto.

Just last month, scientists at the Royal Ontario Museum removed the heart from its icy chamber so they could begin preserving it long-term. 

The heart weighs 180 kilograms (400 pounds), is about 1.5 metres, and — when in action — pumped about 230 litres of blood with every single heartbeat. It took a total of four people to push the heart through a hole they had carved into the chest cavity.

[nationalpost-blog]

Who was the real bully in The Karate Kid – Daniel or Johnny?

J. Matthew Turner, the proud creator of such viral video hits as “Mortal Kombat and Enter the Dragon Are the Same Movie“, which spanned over 100,000 views in its first 48 hours, has now brought us his analysis of The Karate Kid.

In the video, Turner suggests that Daniel (Ralph Macchio) is “a violent sociopath who picks every fight” and is the actual bully, not Johnny (William Zabka), who is the real hero.

The YouTuber makes a compelling case, particularly for all those who have called this out before. So maybe grab a box of tissues and prepare to reevaulate your entire life.

[nationalpost-blog]

Novelist Jonathan Franzen says he considered adopting an Iraqi war orphan to better understand the youth

As the story goes, Franzen’s career and relationship were thriving, but he felt frustrated and angry with the younger generation and there was only one logical solution. “Oh, it was insane, the idea that Kathy [his partner] and I were going to adopt an Iraqi war orphan,” he said in an interview with The Guardian. “The whole idea lasted maybe six weeks.”

He added: “One of the things that had put me in mind of adoption was a sense of alienation from the younger generation. They seemed politically not the way they should be as young people. I thought people were supposed to be idealistic and angry. And they seemed kind of cynical and not very angry. At least not in any way that was accessible to me.”

But before committing to the adoption process out of the goodness of his heart, Franzen’s New Yorker editor, Henry Finder, suggested he spend some time with some new university graduates, which apparently quenched his thirst to hang with the youth: “Part of what journalism is for me is spending time with people who I dislike as a class. But I became very fond of them… It cured me of my anger at young people.”

So hey, the next time you’re experiencing an existential crisis, you can apply Franzen logic, and adopt a baby!

Photo: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

[nationalpost-blog]

This 100-year-old message in a bottle washed up on a German beach — and it could be the oldest ever found

Tossed into the North Sea sometime between 1904 and 1906, the bottle washed up on the beach on the German island of Amrum, and was found by a couple in April. Inside they found a postcard asking that it be sent to the Marine Biological Association of the U.K. — which they did.

“We were very excited,” Guy Baker, a spokesman for the group, said Friday. “We certainly weren’t expecting to receive any more of the postcards.”

Baker said the bottle was one of some 1,000 released into the North Sea by researcher George Parker Bidder, who later became the association’s president. The bottles were weighed down to float just above the sea bed, and used as part of a study into the movement of sea currents.

Inside each bottle was a postcard promising a “one shilling reward” to anyone who returned it to the association, along with information about where and when they found the bottle. Most bottles were trawled up by fishermen and returned decades ago, Baker said.

An old shilling has been sent to the couple who found the bottle.

Photo: Marine Biological Association of the U.K. via AP

[nationalpost-blog]

‘It was a hell storm’: Three Washington firefighters killed as flames engulf truck

[nationalpost-blog]

Cecil who? There’s a new lion in town and thanks to The Great British Bake Off, he’s made of bread

In last night’s bread-themed episode of The Great British Bake Off, contestant Paul Jagger concocted a yeasty treat in the likeness of a lion. The prison guard-turned-baker dubbed it “King of the Jungle”, complete with a white bread head, wholemeal tail and a fig and walnut-filled body and eyes that will see right through your soul.

The bread fest resulted in an upset, with the 49-year-old ultimately losing the crown to a bready flower pot concoction of all things.

Judge Paul Hollywood declared, “That is one of the best things I’ve seen in bread – ever!” Twitter concurred, and went into an appropriately lionesque uproar over the majestic dessert.

Photos: BBC, Twitter

Would you eat it?

[nationalpost-blog]

What happens when ‘the blob’ meets Godzilla El Niño? Climate chaos and more hot, dry weather for B.C.

This June 19, 2015 aerial photo shows a white heron taking flight over revealed fish nests, normally inches below the waterline in the La Plata reservoir in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. Thanks to El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects global weather, less rain fell to help refill the reservoir, as well as the La Plata river in the central island community of Naranjito.

The El Niño is expected to bring another warm, dry winter to southern B.C., and experts are watching to see how it combines with a warm-water phenomenon called “the blob” already being observed off the coast of the Pacific North West.

“This is where it starts to sound really science fiction, but how these two worlds are coming together … we haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Peter Chandler, an oceanographer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on Vancouver Island.

Photo: Ricardo Arduengo/AP Images

[nationalpost-blog]

Puny sea, you are no match for Vladimir Putin: Russian president plunges below waves in submersible

[nationalpost-blog]

Conditions on the Greek island of Kos are so chaotic the government is housing thousands of Syrian migrants on a docked ship that is to house and process them in a bid to ease conditions onshore.

Several thousand migrants are staying in hotels on the island if they can afford it, but more often sleep in tents, abandoned buildings or in the open.

Approximately 2,300 people have died crossing the Mediterranean this year, in what Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Migration Commissioner, described as the “worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.”

In this photo, newly arrived Syrian migrants wait in the port of Kos to be registered on the Eleftherios Venizelos liner.

Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP / Getty Images