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An aquarium and shark lab in Hendersonville is expecting a miracle birth any day -- with some exciting new additions. The Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in downtown Hendersonville has an expectant stingray named Charlotte. But this pregnancy isn't just any normal pregnancy -- and because of that, staff thought the swelling they started to see in Charlotte in September might be cancer. Why? Because there was no possible way for her to have become pregnant -- or so they thought -- as there were no male sting rays in the tank. 'Miraculous birth' expected from stingray with...

It's National Pizza Day - so let's wrap ourselves in the warm, gooey embrace of cheese, settle into a heavenly array of toppings and chomp down on some delectable crust. The celebration comes every February 9, but it's hardly the only pizza-positive spot on the calendar. Still to come: National Cheese Pizza Day (September 5), National Pepperoni Pizza Day (September 20), National Pizza Month (October) and National Sausage Pizza Day (October 11). There's no doubt about it - folks do love their pizza in all its forms. Here are some absurd pizza facts, helpful tips and strong opinions to fuel...

Expect to taste up to 12 pizzas, 24 cheese samples a weekIf you possess a passion for pizza, cheese and all things dairy, your taste buds may be in luck. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Dairy Research is looking to hire a descriptive sensory panelist - in other words, a dairy taste tester - to join "a group of expert tasters" who can talk about their sensory experience, according to the job posting. The center wants someone to describe the taste of dairy foods "on the basis of appearance, texture, taste and aroma attributes" for product development and research...

2024 is the Year of the DragonAsian American communities around the U.S. will ring in the Lunar New Year on Feb. 10 with community carnivals, family gatherings, parades, traditional food, fireworks and other festivities. In many Asian cultures, the Lunar New Year is a celebration marking the arrival of spring and the start of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. It's the most important holiday in China where it's observed as the Spring Festival. It's also celebrated in South Korea and Vietnam. It begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ends 15 days later on...

Chita Rivera, who appeared in more than 20 Broadway musicals over six decades has died, according to her daughter, Lisa Mordente. The three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway legend created indelible roles — Anita in West Side Story, Rose in Bye Bye Birdie, Velma Kelly in Chicago, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. She was 91. Rivera "was everything Broadway was meant to be," says Laurence Maslon, co-producer of the 2004 PBS series, Broadway: The American Musical. "She was spontaneous and compelling and talented as hell for decades and decades on Broadway. Once you saw her, you never forgot her." You...

Television is a staple in most American homes, allowing people to receive the news and catch up with the latest entertainment. Yet, in 1987, citizens of Chicago were subjected to something completely different — a bizarre pirate broadcast interrupting scheduled programming. Known as the Max Headroom signal hijackings, the incident is objectively quite humorous and harmless. However, the surprise broadcast would’ve terrified many viewers at the time, who had no idea that, in the comfort of their own living room, they’d be subjected to a strange video of a man wearing a Max Headroom mask. What made the video so...

An international academic consortium has identified 13 biomarkers that significantly improve the ability to accurately predict cardiovascular disease risk in people with type 2 diabetes. The analysis, conducted by 23 experts from 11 countries, was led by The Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, and Lund University in Sweden. Although people with type 2 diabetes are two times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than those without diabetes, it is a challenge for clinicians to predict who in this population is most at risk. Traditional risk scores, which reflect risk...

Libmeldy, the world’s most expensive drug which costs €2.8 million, will be available in Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Health services in the three countries have approved the groundbreaking gene therapy Atidarsagene autotemcel – sold as Libmeldy – Ireland’s Health minister Stephen Donnelly announced. With a price tag of €2.8 million per one-off dose, the drug developed by Orchard Therapeutics treats metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), a rare and life-threatening inherited disease that affects the metabolic system in children. Libmeldy took 20 years to develop, with a 10-year interval between the first human trials and approval from the European Medicines Agency which...

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...

John McKivison, 49, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma “after using Roundup on his property for 20 years,” his attorneys said. Bayer plans to appeal the verdict.A Pennsylvania man who said his cancer was caused by Bayer's Roundup weed killer was awarded a $2.25 billion verdict by a Philadelphia jury. John McKivison, 49, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma "after using Roundup on his property for 20 years," his attorneys Tom Kline and Jason Itkin said in a joint statement. He sued the Monsanto Company, which is owned by Bayer, in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. On Friday, the jury handed...

A congressman with links to ‘The Squad’ who proudly voted to defund Austin police has been slammed after he requested enhanced patrols outside his home in the Texas city. Democrat Rep. Greg Casar was a prominent voice in the defunding of the Austin Police Department as a member of the city council in 2020 following the Black Lives Matter movement. Last week he also criticized the force for alleged racist practices. Now, he has submitted a request through the United States Capitol Police in Washington, DC, for a police patrol at his house - the request was forwarded to Austin...

A group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to disrupt Christmas weekend shopping in San Francisco’s Union Square on Saturday in the latest attack on the Christian holiday, seen by radical leftists as an example of bourgeois complacency. The San Francisco Chronicle reported: Hundreds of protesters gathered among holiday crowds in San Francisco’s central shopping district Saturday to call for an end to hostilities between Hamas and Israel, as well as for charges to be dropped against demonstrators who shut down the Bay Bridge last month.

A headline in the newspaper edition of The New York Times claims that the estimated 20,000 deaths in Gaza during its war with Israel have surpassed the tolls of "any Arab war" in the past 40 years, appearing to discount the more than 306,000 civilians believed to have been killed in the 10-year Syria conflict between 2011 and 2021. The article, bearing the headline “Gaza Deaths Surpass Any Arab War Losses in 40 Years,” appeared in Friday’s paper edition of The Times. The article’s headline on The Times’ website, however, specifies "wars with Isreal." The entire digital headline reads, “Gaza...

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said Saturday on MSNBC’s “American Voices” that former President Donald Trump intentionally uses language that “led to the Holocaust.” Beschloss said, “Absolutely, and provide Hitler with an easy way to blame the many ills of Germany 1924 after World War I, one group which was Jewish people as well as some others but it was mainly Jews. And for Donald Trump as a former president and possible future president to use that language, knowing that that language led to the Holocaust, he knows what he’s doing, and he thinks it works.”

CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa said Sunday “Face the Nation” that he had noticed on the campaign trail that Republican voters support for former President Donald Trump was “noticeably soft.” Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: To the campaign trail. Bob Costa, I know you’ve been out there a fair amount. What are you taking away from what people across the country are hearing? They’ve already written off Washington as broken a long time ago, right? But what are they focused on and concerned about?

Frustration that President Biden is trailing former President Trump in polls despite a growing economy is building at the White House. Biden’s approval ratings have been low for more than a year, but recent polls have found him trailing Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, in a head-to-head match-up and in key swing states.

Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s onetime fixer and personal lawyer, predicted Saturday that Trump will try to capitalize on the indictments he faces for “as long as he can.” “What he’s doing is he’s inciting his base. That’s really what it’s about, because the more he incites them, the more money that they raise,” Cohen said in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday. “He will continue to ride this grift as long as he can,” Cohen added.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Colorado’s ruling disqualifying former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot “chilling” and a “political decision” rather than a ruling based in law. Asked on ABC News’s “This Week” where he stands on the ruling, Graham said, “It’s not a rule of law based ruling, it is a political decision.” In a 4-3 bombshell ruling last week, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which bars people who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking the oath of office...

What was supposed to be an innocent sip of a drink turned into a disgusting and hilarious moment for the Avalanche broadcast team. In a video posted by Altitude TV’s Vic Lombardi from a recent broadcast, television analyst Mark Rycroft reached down, likely to clear his throat, for a sip of his beverage. At the first gulp, it was evident that this was the wrong cup. Instead of it being a refreshing drink, it was the tobacco spit cup of his partner, play-by-play announcer Marc Moser. Rycroft, 45, quickly ripped off his headset to find his own drink, taking several...

The city’s most thrilling new restaurant is a narrow, 28-seat spot on Avenue A where kangaroo’s the name of the game. Foxface Natural opened last spring, and its wild-and-woolly menu has been polarizing. Most critics and diners have loved it, but some have been quite negative, likening dishes to “elaborate jokes.” In addition to kangaroo tartare, there is sometimes soup of wild snapping turtle and gooseneck barnacles. But there’s no exoticism for its own sake, as was the case at the ghastly, long-gone New Deal in the West Village, which served lion and giraffe. Foxface Natural serves no endangered species;...