What better way to kick off the weekend than with some upbeat news?
Raining Teddy Bears
Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum was filled with excitement and generosity as the Portland Winterhawks hosted their 25th annual Teddy Bear Toss. The event, a beloved holiday tradition, saw a sellout crowd cheering on their junior ice hockey team as they faced the Vancouver Giants. As the Winterhawks scored their first goal, a sea of 16,973 stuffed animals rained down onto the rink, marking a new record for the event. Fans of all ages participated, filling the ice with teddy bears, plush animals, and holiday spirit. The toys, collected and sorted after the game, will bring joy to children and families in need this holiday season through various local charities.
MVT
American football team, the Philadelphia Eagles are now the most valuable sports team in the US after the sale of a minority stake, valuing it at $8.3 billion, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The Clovis People
When Earth was frozen over during the Pleistocene epoch, early humans crossed the Bering Strait from the Asian continent to North America. These groups, known as the Clovis people, entered the continent around 13,000 years ago and became the ancestors of Indigenous Americans. During their heyday in the Ice Age, they enjoyed a bounty of game among the megafauna that were unaccustomed to humans, a novel kind of predator. Now, new research points to a preferred food source of these early humans: woolly mammoth protein. “The focus on mammoths helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years,” study co-author James Chatters, an archaeologist at McMaster University in Canada.
Time Off With Baby
Almost all American corporations - 96 percent - now offer maternity leave. A decade ago, only about half did. 93 percent now offer paternity leave.
Animal Rights
Mexico has written animal rights into its Constitution, giving the federal government power to issue laws on animal welfare and protection. Previously, animal welfare was left up to local and state authorities. The constitutional reforms also include farmed animals, which are usually excepted in animal welfare laws.
Reintroduction
The rare ʻalalā Hawaiian crow has successfully been reintroduced into the wild in Maui more than 20 years after being declared extinct, officials have announced. "ʻAlalā are found nowhere else on Earth, and their existence is essential in Hawaiʻi," says a statement from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which worked to reintroduce the crows. "As they fly from tree to tree, these corvids disperse seeds that help grow new trees and restore native forests." The ʻalalā are sacred in Hawaiian culture and regarded as spiritual family guardians.
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.” Mark Twain
On This Day
14 December 1911: One of the greatest figures in the history of polar exploration was Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who left Norway for Antarctica in June 1910 and on this day in 1911 became the first person to reach the South Pole.
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