Bird battle

They may look a bit like birds of a feather, but when crows and ravens flock together, havoc ensues. Researchers at the University of British Columbia blame crows for the animosity between the two bird species. In a study published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances on July 4, researcher Ben Freeman found that in 97 percent of interactions between crows and ravens, crows were the aggressive party. Teamwork, Freeman says, “gives crows the upper hand” against the larger ravens. Freeman argues that the highly sociable crows, working in small platoons of between two and five, are forcing ravens to remain in confined geographic territories across the United States.

Home on the road

Police in Dover, Del., in late June were looking for movers who decided to abandon a house on a two-lane public road. Police discovered the prefabricated home on June 26, but couldn’t arrange for movers to clear the road until the next day. According to police, the home was simply abandoned in the roadway, still bearing the yellow oversized load tape and caution flags.

Flying under the influence

Firefighters in South West England have a request for late-night beach revelers: Pour out your drinks when you are finished. In June, an animal welfare charity called firefighters to the coastal town of Lyme Regis to deal with what appeared to be drunken seagulls. “When we arrived [one] had already fallen off the roof,” firefighter Virgil Turner told DevonLive. “He was sitting shaking his head and he then tried to fly and he nearly hit me in the face, I caught him and he threw up all over me and he reeked of beer.” After getting the bird to a vet, the firefighters discovered several birds had already been thrown into a drunk tank. It wasn’t clear whether the seagulls were gulping leftover booze from the beach or getting tipsy from ingesting some other substance.

Height of bureaucracy

A Chinese woman studying to become an English language teacher has been disqualified from the teaching profession because she is too short. Shaanxi provincial government guidelines demand that male teachers be at least 5-foot-1 and that female teachers be at least 4-foot-11. Officials in Shaanxi waited until the end of the teacher’s four-year education program in 2018 to deliver the news. The Chinese press identified the would-be teacher only as Ms. Li and listed her height at 4-foot-7. Government officials have defended the height restrictions, arguing that teachers may need to reach high on blackboards in order to teach students properly.

Kit Kat story

One former WORLD reporter has learned there’s really no wrong way to eat a Kit Kat. Back in May, a picture of former WORLD Digital reporter Evan Wilt holding a partially eaten Kit Kat candy bar went viral on Twitter. Wilt’s girlfriend, Weekly Standard reporter Haley Byrd, had snapped the picture after Wilt—who claimed it was the first time he’d eaten a Kit Kat—took a large bite out of the bar, failing to first break the chocolate-covered wafers apart. The online teasing was merciless, with CNN’s Jake Tapper joking to Byrd that Wilt’s faux pas should be a relationship deal-breaker. But the folks in Kit Kat’s marketing department saw opportunity both to educate Wilt on Kit Kat eating etiquette and to help make the couple’s relationship long-lasting: They helped Wilt create a 3D-printed plastic Kit Kat bar, inside of which was a hidden compartment just large enough to hold an engagement ring. Kneeling in front of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, Wilt broke open the bar and popped the question. Byrd said yes.

Bill it to the bird

A Polish charity is on the hook for a nearly $2,700 phone bill after a bird flew away with one of the organization’s cell phone SIM cards. Environmental charity EcoLogic Group attached a tracker to a white stork in 2017 to study the bird’s migratory problems. And the tracking program went well—until the organization suddenly lost contact with the tracker in eastern Sudan earlier this year. Then recently, the charity got a $2,700 bill when the tracker’s SIM card, originally designed to store cell phone data, was used to make about 20 hours of international phone calls. According to the charity, the most likely explanation is that the tracker fell off the bird over the Blue Nile Valley in Sudan and a local took the SIM card, placed it in his own phone, and began making calls.

Climate of suspicion

Decrying a supposed international conspiracy, an Iranian general claimed that Israel is stealing rain clouds from Iran. Speaking at a July 2 press conference, Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali complained of Iran’s changing climate. “Foreign interference is suspected to have played a role in climate change,” said the general, who heads the nation’s civil defense organization. “Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain.” Later, Jalali accused Israel of snow theft. In 2011, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Western countries had schemed to cause a drought in Iran.

Making tracks

A motorist in Minnesota blitzed through 1,000 feet of fresh concrete before finally deciding to stop. The June 28 incident prompted the Minnesota Department of Transportation to post a picture of the quick-setting tire tracks as a warning to other motorists. “This is why work zones are blocked with barricades, signs, cones, etc.,” the department post read. State authorities said they filed an insurance claim and gave the driver a ticket for driving through the wet concrete.