Album of Endangered Bird Songs Soars Above Taylor Swift to Number 3 in Music Chart:
An album of Australia’s most endangered birds and their calls has sold its way into the No.3 spot on Australian national pop charts, beating Taylor Swift and ABBA in its flight path. The album is called Songs of Disappearance is a 24-minute collection of endangered birdcalls recorded by Australia’s best wildlife sound recordist, David Stewart. Its genesis came when Stephen Garnett, a conservation professor at Charles Darwin University, finished the 2020 Action Plan for Australian Birds, a set of recommendations that found 1 in 6 native species are threatened with extinction. He then worked with the two-person multimedia company Bowerbird collective which was run by his Ph. D student cellist Anthony Albrecht and violinist Simone Slattery to make the album a reality. When it was released it sold over 2,000 copies and demonstrates the love of Australians who want to help their native species with all proceeds going to the conservation of our feathered friends. All the proceeds of the album were donated to BirdLife Australia who helped with the production.
Working at His Father’s NYC Motel, Actor Now Gives Free Rooms to Those in Need – And Has Fun Along the Way:
On the New Jersey side of the Lincoln tunnel, one compassionate motel worker is making sure people have a roof over their heads by offering free rooms to folks in need. After the onset of the pandemic, Brian Arya, a worker in his family-owned motel named North Bergen’s Lincoln Tunnel Motel, saw a rising need for affordable places to stay. He told CBS news “People started getting quarantined, lockdowns started happening, and then we started seeing an influx of unhoused people. You know, they just couldn’t afford rent anymore and so, they’d come to our motel.” Brian had created a comedy page previously on TikTok that already had a large following of over 880,000 people and saw an opportunity to do some good on his platform. He then started the Free Room for You program, and the good deed snowballed from there with donations of food, toiletries, and funding pouring in. Arya estimates he’s given away in the neighborhood of between 50 to 60 free rooms so far. He notes that those long-term guests whose housing evaporated at the pandemic’s onset have formed a bond that’s akin to family. With new coronavirus variants in the picture there may still be dark days ahead, but for this motel, they firmly believe in their slogan “We’ll leave the light at the end of the tunnel on for you.”
Determined ‘Lassie’ Dog Leads New Hampshire Police Back to Scene of Owner’s Car Crash Down a Hill:
A real-life Lassie saved the lives of two men who had overturned their Ford pickup truck and were lying injured in the cold. Tinsley, a Shiloh Shepherd, attracted the attention of the police as she was loitering on an embanked stretch of I-89 connecting New Hampshire to Vermont. Trooper Sandberg and other officers of the Lebanon Police Department made attempts to corral her and get close, but she kept running away, eventually leading them to a damaged section of guardrail. When they followed her lead they saw a badly damaged overturned pickup truck with two injured occupants nearby who had been ejected from the vehicle. At the scene, Trooper Sandberg and the Lebanon Police Officers called for medical assistance and found the two men to be suffering from hypothermia. It was then they learned that the German Shepard, named Tinsley, belonged to one of the injured occupants of the truck. Dan Baldassare who was one of the New Hampshire Police on the scene said “This was almost like a real-life Lassie situation, It’s really quite remarkable. This dog definitely saved their lives. I don’t think they would have survived the night given the temperatures.” Reports are saying she is being treated to venison and back-scratches—a fitting reward for the faithful canine who braved the cold and high-speed traffic to save her owner.
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