No one wants their car broken into, but sometimes you gotta give credit where credit is due. Consider, for example, this mother raccoon, who climbed through a plastic window cover and tumbled into the backseat of a parked convertible at an auto shop so she could safely give birth to her kits. She was later relocated by Devon of Wildlife, Inc. Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Manatee, Florida. SEE ALSO: Pelican in a cop car wants you to know this isn't what it looks like "I captured the mother, then 2 caring employees and I searched the entire car for her babies," Devon wrote in a Facebook post. "Once they were both accounted for, I relocated them to some woods where she can continue to raise them." According to the
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
, the second kit — who is good at sneaking around, just like its mom — was hidden in the trunk. Raccoon litters are usually between three and five kits, so there's a good chance the mother was still pregnant when she was relocated. Perhaps she'll choose a less, er, spoken-for place next time. Might we suggest a nice tree cavity? WATCH: An iceberg the size of Delaware broke off Antarctica
When a Canadian construction team came across a giant cannonball as they excavated a building site in Quebec, they did what anyone else would do in this age of Snapchat and Instagram. They moved the 200lb projectile into better view and posed with it for photographs. It was only later, when an archaeologist was studying the missile, the workers learned of their lucky escape: The cannonball was still live, packed with a charge and gunpowder just as it would have been when fired by British gunners during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Construction workers found the cannonball in Old Quebec Credit: Lafontaine/Facebook A team of army bomb disposal experts was hurriedly called in to make the artefact safe. "With time, humidity got into its interior and reduced its potential for exploding, but there's still a danger," Master Warrant Officer Sylvain Trudel, a senior munitions technician, told the Canadian broadcaster CBC. They are now working out whether they can make the cannonball safe - for display in a museum - or whether it must be destroyed. "Old munitions like this are hard to predict," said Mr Trudel. "You never know to what point the chemicals inside have degraded." It had lain buried for more than 250 years in what is now known as Old Quebec, the historic quarter of Quebec City. Historians believe it was fired during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a pivotal moment in the war between Britain and France for control of the land that would become Canada – and a small part of the wider Seven Years War as Europe’s two most powerful nations fought each other around the world. Cannon Shot at Refrigerator 01:51 In 1759, British forces defeated the French and seized Quebec City forming what would become known as Britain’s “annus mirablis”. The battle lasted no more than an hour – and cost the lives of the commanding officers on either side - but came at the end of a three-month siege. The cannonball was most likely fired at Quebec City from the far side of the St Lawrence River where British gun batteries were based. Army munitions experts must decide whether they can make the cannonball safe or whether it must be destroyed Credit: Lafontaine/Facebook Although cannon generally fired solid iron balls, armourers also designed projectiles equipped with timed charges or fashioned into crude incendiary devices. Mr Trudel said such the newly discovered ball was designed to set fire to the buildings it penetrated. “The ball would break and the powder would ignite, setting fire to the building,” he said.
Donald Trump regrets the “bizarre mistake” of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, Sir Richard Branson has said. Speaking in Brooklyn on Friday, the Virgin Group founder said businesses and cities were firmly behind a transition to low-carbon energy, which made Trump’s decision to exit the Paris deal “very, very strange”. “With climate change, it’s America first and our beautiful globe last, and that seems incredibly sad,” said Branson.
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