By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/31/2025 6:56 PM
A pair of reptile wranglers in Australia came to the rescue of a yellow-tailed whip snake that found its way into a resident's backyard swimming pool. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/31/2025 6:51 PM
An Ohio man who forgot his $50 winning lottery ticket at home decided to buy another of the same Best of 7's scratch-off game and scored a $500,000 prize. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/31/2025 5:41 PM
A dog who went missing from her family's Mississippi home about five years ago was reunited with her owners after turning up in Florida -- about 520 miles away. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/31/2025 3:42 PM
A British farm celebrated legendary rock singer Ozzy Osbourne by breaking a Guinness World Record with a massive squash mosaic in the musician's image. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/30/2025 3:59 PM
A Virginia sheriff's sergeant came to the rescue of a deer he found with its body stuck between the bars of a metal fence in Williamsburg, York-Poquoson County. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/30/2025 2:02 PM
Ohio State University marked the 60th birthday of mascot Brutus Buckeye by breaking the world record for the most conical party hats worn at a single event. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/30/2025 1:59 PM
A Utah man said a final farewell to the 1991 Geo Metro he drove for 35 years by dropping a 1,917-pound pumpkin on it from a height of nearly 14 stories. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/30/2025 12:06 PM
A San Francisco Fire Department crew came to the rescue of a dog that fell about 40 feet over a cliff above Funston Beach in the Fort Funston area of the city. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/29/2025 6:00 PM
A stray dog picked up by a Florida police officer on a Tampa road was reunited with his owner 7 years after going missing during an apartment burglary. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/29/2025 5:41 PM
A nonprofit taking care of dogs in Ukraine's Chernobyl exclusion zone are trying to solve the mystery of why some of the canines have turned "completely blue." ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/29/2025 4:35 PM
An Austrian surfer spent 8 hours, 5 minutes and 44 seconds shredding on his board to break the Guinness World Record for the longest time spent surfing a wave. ... Read full Story
Students at nine high schools in northeastern Australia were supposed to learn about Julius Caesar, but were taught about Augustus Caesar instead. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/29/2025 3:38 PM
A pet monkey escaped from its owner at a Spirit Halloween store in Plano, Texas, and spent more than half an hour evading capture in the rafters and atop poles. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/28/2025 7:33 PM
A New Jersey zoo released the first photos of two baby capybaras born at the facility -- and a second female capybara is due to deliver in the coming days. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/28/2025 7:17 PM
A North Carolina man who stopped to get some cash to pay for a haircut ended up winning a $100,000 lottery prize during his brief visit to a convenience store. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/28/2025 6:22 PM
A message in a bottle found during a beach clean-up in Australia turned out to contain letters from two World War I soldiers authored 109 years earlier. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/28/2025 5:17 PM
British brothers who have been growing gargantuan gourds for over 50 years finally broke a world record with a pumpkin weighing 2,819 pounds, 4 ounces. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 10/28/2025 4:05 PM
A kite surfer in New Zealand ended up losing his kite during a recent outing -- and found a surfboard that had drifted nearly 1,500 miles from Australia. ... Read full Story
Rail passengers in Scotland faced major delays and cancellations during Monday evening's rush hour after a swan was found on the line at the country's busiest railway station. ... Read full Story
"Telling stories with affection and noodging, [comedian Sarah] Silverman has always been encouraged by her family, who embraced rather than ostracized her for revealing family secrets on the way to reaping howls of laughter." — Thelma Adams, The Boston Globe, 19 May 2025
Did you know?
In ancient Greece, citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice involving voters writing that person's name down on a potsherd—a fragment of earthenware or pottery. Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state. Ostracize comes from the Greek verb ostrakízein (itself from the noun óstrakon meaning "potsherd"), used in 5th century Athens for the action of banishing someone by way of such a vote. Someone ostracized today is not exiled, but instead is excluded from a group by the agreement of the group's members.