By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/9/2025 12:23 PM
Wildlife officials in Colorado said a mysterious creature caught on camera outside a resident's home might be a raccoon with mange -- but they aren't sure. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/8/2025 4:37 PM
An animal rescue group in Ohio had to call for help when one of five kittens abandoned outside the facility climbed a nearby tree and became stranded. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/8/2025 4:18 PM
A North Carolina man waiting at a lottery office to claim a $50,000 prize received a Keno ticket as a birthday gift from his daughter -- and won another $100,000. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/8/2025 1:59 PM
The owners of a Kentucky restaurant in the path of the Ohio river floods shared their unusual strategy for keeping the dirty water out: intentionally flooding the building with clean water. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/8/2025 1:20 PM
Uber released its annual "Lost & Found Index," an accounting of items left behind in ride-share cars including a mannequin head with human hair, a live turtle and a 5-gallon bucket of beans. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/7/2025 4:27 PM
Sanitation officials in Anchorage, Alaska, put their bear-resistant trash bins to the test with the help of some product testing experts: the Alaska Zoo's bears. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/7/2025 4:13 PM
A New Hampshire police officer called out on a report of a loose animal ended up wrangling a small goat wandering through a neighborhood. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/7/2025 4:04 PM
A Maryland man helping his mom move some furniture found a stash of scratch-off lottery tickets that had been intended as Christmas stocking stuffers -- and one turned out to be a $50,000 winner. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/4/2025 4:20 PM
The Philadelphia Zoo announced the hatching of four critically endangered Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoises, the first of their species to hatch at the facility in its history. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/4/2025 4:08 PM
A Maryland woman bought a pair of identical tickets for the same Pick 5 drawing using numbers from her car's odometer and ended up winning a total $100,000. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/4/2025 1:42 PM
A Harris' hawk's reign of terror was brought to an end after being captured by a resident of the English village where it was blamed for an estimated 50 dive-bombing attacks on locals. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 4/3/2025 1:53 PM
A Pennsylvania police sergeant came to the rescue of a petite pony spotted running loose on a busy highway -- and he decided to adopt it. ... Read full Story
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 30, 2025 is:
insouciance \in-SOO-see-unss\ noun
Insouciance is a formal word that refers to a feeling of carefree unconcern. It can also be understood as a word for the relaxed and calm state of a person who is not worried about anything.
// The young actor charmed interviewers with his easy smile and devil-may-care insouciance.
“Gladiator II is OK when Denzel’s off-screen, but sensational when he’s on it. ... What makes the performance great is its insouciance; it’s both precise and feather-light. And it’s what a great actor can do when he’s set free to have fun, to laugh at himself a little bit. ... Denzel’s Macrinus is gravitas and comic relief in one package.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 22 Nov. 2024
Did you know?
If you were alive and of whistling age in the late 1980s or early 1990s, chances are you whistled (and snapped your fingers, and tapped your toes) to a little ditty called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, an a cappella reggae-jazz-pop tune that took the charts by surprise and by storm. An ode to cheerful insouciance if ever there was one, its lyrics are entirely concerned with being entirely unconcerned, remaining trouble-free in the face of life’s various stressors and calamities. Such carefree nonchalance is at the heart of insouciance, which arrived in English (along with the adjective insouciant), from French, in the 1800s. The French word comes from a combining of the negative prefix in- with the verb soucier, meaning “to trouble or disturb.” The easiness and breeziness of insouciance isn’t always considered beautiful, however. Insouciance may also be used when someone’s lack of concern for serious matters is seen as more careless than carefree.