Free ice cream as relief from potholes

A suburban Detroit Michigan business is offering a treat for those who have had their driving disrupted by potholes in recent weeks.

The Detroit Free Press reports Farmhouse Coffee & Ice Cream in Franklin is offering a free scoop of Ashby Sterling Ice Cream’s “Michigan Pothole” for those who have replaced a tire or fixed other damage due to a pothole.

The newspaper says to get a scoop bring in a receipt and beyond detailing the repair.

The promotion runs until March 25. The ice cream flavour is described as “thick black tar fudge and chocolate ice cream with chunky chocolate cookie asphalt pieces.”

Road crews in Michigan have stepped up efforts to patch potholes that have become damaging and dangerous amid fluctuating winter temperatures.

Python devours deer that weighs four 4 lbs. more

Researchers in Florida came upon an 11-foot-long invasive Burmese python that had consumed an entire deer that weighed more than the snake itself.

The wildlife biologists tracking the slithery creatures stumbled upon the bloated snake in Collier Seminole State Park, and when they moved the creature it began regurgitating a white-tailed deer fawn. “We were sitting there just trying to process that an animal this size could get its head around what turned out to be a deer,” Bartoszek said. “It’s surreal to see that in the field.”

Bartoszek said the fawn weighed 35 pounds; the snake 31.5, the largest python-to-prey weight difference he had measured.

Burmese pythons, which can grow nearly 20-feet long, were brought to South Florida as pets in the late 1970s. They were released into the wild, and have become a problematic invasive species.

White-tailed deer are an important food source for Florida’s endangered panthers, so the researchers are concerned the pervasive snakes could also impact the health of the big cats.

If the snake had been left in the wild, it would have digested the entire deer, Bartoszek said.

Teen dances for 126-hours

A Nepal teenager danced her way to a Guinness World Record when she performed a solo dance routine for 126 hours.

Bandana Nepal, 17, began her record attempt Friday and stopped dancing Wednesday afternoon, when she was awarded the record by a Guinness adjudicator.

Nepal’s dance, performed at the Big Foodland restaurant located in Kathmandu, lasted for a total 126 hours, beating the previous record-holder, India resident Kalamandalam Hemlatha, who danced for 123 hours and 15 minutes in 2011.

“I am very glad to see my daughter being able to keep the world record,” the girl’s father, Ram Nepal, told Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. “This achievement is not just of hers, but she has also set the nation’s name at the global front. It’s a moment of pride for all of us.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 22nd, 2018