RAW: Santa Describes Child's Last Christmas Wish Before He Dies in his Arms

It couldn't have been a better Santa for the situation and you'll definitely shed a tear while watching this video. A very heartbreaking moment by a Santa describing a terminally ill boy's last wish before he died in his arms. A quoted video of the conversation is also included below...

Eric Schmitt-Matzen spreads Christmas cheer year-round and grants wishes as Santa Claus. His long white beard and curled mustache makes him perfect for the part.
He and his wife, who joins him as Mrs. Claus, even went to Santa school six years ago.
But a month and a half ago, he answered the call to grant what would end up being one child's final Christmas wish.
"He was more concerned about missing Christmas, than dying," Schmitt-Matzen recalled to WBIR 10News

MemoryHD

Santa Claus grants final wish to a dying child

The whole shtick is designed to spread joy and have fun.
Which it does – except for the role he played several weeks ago at a local hospital.
“I cried all the way home,” Schmitt-Matzen told me. “I was crying so hard, I had a tough time seeing good enough to drive.

USA TODAY

Woman dragged off a Delta Flight (like a ragdoll)...

So much drama in the skies lately. According to the uploader's website, a woman was dragged off Delta flight 2083 from Detroit to San Diego on December 12th, 2016 due to inappropriate check-in procedures...

“She didn’t check in with gate agent and walked right on. [The] woman blew by gate agent and didn’t check in because she wasn’t an early boarder and deserved overhead bin space. Colleague in back by her said she was mouthy and had a huge attitude. Police tackled her out of her seat and brought her to the ground. Not sure how she was subdued, some people speculated a taser.”

Rene deLambert

The woman was taken into custody following the incident.

“At approximately 8 this morning, Delta Air Lines contacted Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s police department requesting assistance with a passenger who would not comply with boarding and baggage check procedures at a McNamara Terminal gate,” Delta’s Erica Donerson said in a statement emailed to local station WWJ Newsradio 950. 

“When officers arrived, Delta Air Lines stated the woman could not remain on board. Despite repeated requests by officers, the woman refused to leave the aircraft and had to be removed. She was arrested and charges are pending.” 

- news.com.au/ "Woman dragged off plane like a ragdoll"

Salmon Crossing Flooded Road in Washington, USA (2 Videos)

Why did the salmon cross the road? To get to the other side - of the river.
Amazing. If this keeps up they'll need to put up a 'Salmon Crossing' sign. You can truly appreciate the strength and tenacity of these fish species after watching this...

This video was taken in November 2016 on the Skykomish Valley Road near Seattle, WA. Due to high rainfall, the river had burst its banks and was flooding over fields and roads. Migrating salmon - returning from a life in the ocean - seek the lower flow streams to spawn and die. These are following the stream wherever it goes - using great effort to overcome obstacles including roads.

Shannon A

Skokomish River salmon cross the road 2016/Part 2

Watch salmon battle through traffic on their way upstream to spawn. 11/14/2016

Terrence J Allison

Russia Could Run Out Of Money By 2017

Is Putin Leading Russia Into A Great Depression?
Several countries have imposed sanctions on Russia targeting the country's oil exports and economy. So could Russia run out of money?

Seeker Daily

Crazy car pileup in Montreal. Bus Police and Snowplow!

All we need now is that Bennie Hill theme (see 2nd vid) playing in the background and we're all set!
Wow. Where do we start with this one. They call it the mother of all pile-ups when it comes to slippery, snow-covered road collisions.
This street in Montreal was a challenge not only for cars and buses but for all those who came to the rescue - police cars, snowplows and trucks! And it was all caught on camera by uploader Willem Shepherd who had just settled into his office that morning. It began when he saw a bus sliding slowly down the hill...

Got to work and there was an insane pileup happening outside.
Accident happened at 10am on Dec 5, Beaver Hall and Viger in Montreal

Willem Shepherd

The bus sliding down the hill eventually crashes into a group of four cars at the bottom. Moments later, a taxi narrowly avoided hitting the bus, but a pickup truck was not so lucky, and the bus lurched forward under the impact.
That wasn't the end of the madness.
Not even close.
Another city bus made its way down the hill, but, like most of the other vehicles on this road, it soon lost control.
That bus crashed into the truck, forcing it out of the way, and then hit the first bus still at the bottom of the hill.
A police vehicle trying to come to the rescue followed, sliding into the second city bus.
A snow plow came next, but even that truck couldn't maintain control on the slippery hill.
"Get out of the car!" someone can be heard shouting in the video as a snow plow careers towards the police vehicle.
(It eventually hit the police car.) - thespec

kurbiekirk

Japanese skating rink causes uproar by freezing 5,000 dead fish in ice (2 Videos)

Owners of a skating rink at Space World amusement park in Kitakyushu, Japan, came under fire for what they called an "Ice Aquarium".

euronews (in English) 

First U.S.-Havana Commercial Flight in 55 Years Departs Miami

Let's hope it lasts...

The first regularly scheduled commercial flight between the U.S. and Havana in more than half a century arrived Monday morning at Cuba’s Jose Marti International Airport, just three days after the death of Fidel Castro.

'But the wheels didn't even hit the ground before the warming ties initiated by President Barack Obama were thrown into doubt by President-elect Donald Trump, who has tweeted that he might "terminate" the detente. The travel industry, among others, hopes otherwise.' - ctvnews

Wall Street Journal

US flight lands in Havana for first time in five decades

There are 110 flights a day from US to Cuba!....

CCTV News

Black man is forced into COFFIN by white South African

Numerous videos of a black man being forced into a coffin (for trespassing), by white South African men, have been viralling all over social media...

Black man is forced into a COFFIN and told he will be fed to a snake as he is interrogated by white 'South African landowner' about a crime. 

Distressing footage showing a South African man forcing a wailing black man into a coffin and threatening to set fire to it has gone viral across social media in South Africa, re-igniting the debate about racial conflict that continues to blight the ‘rainbow nation’.
Thousands of comments about the footage are split about who the real ‘victim’ is in the appalling scene – highlighting how divided the country remains more than two decades after the end of apartheid. 

In the 20-second clip, shot on a mobile phone, a white man – thought to be a farmer – is seen dropping a large stick in order to cram a clearly petrified black man into the wooden casket, ordering him to ‘get in, I want to throw some petrol.’

TheTrendingMaterial

From Newsweek:

South African political parties have rallied together to condemn two white men charged with assault after a video emerged showing a black man being forced into a coffin. 

The two men—named as Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson—appeared in the Middelburg Magistrate Court east of the capital Pretoria Wednesday morning. The pair were charged with kidnapping and assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm. They were denied bail and the case was postponed until January 25. 

They were charged in relation to a 20-second video that has been widely circulated on social media. It shows a black man, identified as Victor Rethabile Mlotshwa, lying inside a coffin as one white man attempts to close the lid. Mlotshwa whimpers and screams as the man tries to force the lid down, while the other white man threatens to put petrol and a snake inside the coffin.

Sexiest Man Alive 2016: How Dwayne Johnson Went From 'Rock Bottom' To Fame | SMA 2016 | People

Yay! Way to go Dwayne! You deserve it!
PEOPLE magazine has named Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, the world's highest paid actor, as this year's Sexiest Man Alive!...

“Sexiest Man Alive” Dwayne Johnson on how his failures “Became the most defining times” of his life.

PEOPLE

RUBIK'S CUBE WORLD RECORD 4.74 SECONDS - Mats Valk

WTF? And that's all we're gonna say about this because if you blink you'll miss it!...

The new Official Rubik's Cube world record single of 4.74 seconds was set today by 20 year old Mats Valk from the Netherlands.

Mats Valk

World's shortest flight celebrates 1-million (+ The world's shortest international flight)

Want to get a true sense of the actual flight? Watch the 2nd video below...

The world’s shortest flight, a tiny hop between two remote British islands, celebrated Monday taking its millionth passenger on the route.

The 2.7km (1.7-mile) flight between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkney islands, off mainland Scotland’s northeast coast, holds the Guinness World Record as the shortest scheduled service.

The Weather Network

Westray to Papa Westray flight

World's shortest scheduled air route - but this was a stunning summer's evening in Orkney and pure pleasure!

Andrew Brown

The world's shortest international flight is... | CNBC International
A new flight between Germany and Switzerland will be the world's shortest international flight at just around eight minutes.

CNBC International

By the way, as for us Canadians, Canada is home to North America's shortest commercial flight, at least according to CNN.

In September, Greater Toronto Airways, a small airline operating out of Billy Bishop on Toronto Island, began operating a flight to Niagara Falls. The flight takes just 15 minutes, with a return ticket costing $159.

Source(s): theweathernetwork | theguardian

Lonely (and Ultra-rare) ‘lefty’ snail seeks mate for love – and genetic study

Actually, his name is Jeremy. Jeremy the snail is looking for love. We've read the potential partner can be sent from Canada also but they'd prefer if you send a photo first since one of the things they're seeing is that people get really confused about left and right and how to identify them. It would be best to email or tweet them a photo...

Scientists at The University of Nottingham hoping to study the genetics of an ultra-rare garden snail are asking the public for its help in finding the lonely mollusc a mate.
The snail’s unique qualities make it a one in a million find - but also impossible for it to mate with its more common counterparts. 

At first glance, the brown garden snail may look like any other but closer inspection of the snail’s shell reveals exactly why this creature is so special. 

While the shells of this common species spiral in a right-handed, clockwise direction – known as dextral – the Nottingham snail is a sinistral, with a left-handed anti-clockwise spiralling shell. In essence, the ‘lefty’ snail is a mirror image of its other shell-dwelling friends.

University of Nottingham

Davison is asking people to be on the look out for lefty snails. "This is something which everyone can get involved with and which you can easily do on your own doorstep. It is an example of citizen science at its best. There is a chance, because it is such a rare thing, that anyone who can find and identify another of these sinistral snails may even find themselves named as a contributor on a research paper we publish in the future as a result of this." 

Anyone who finds a mate for Jeremy is asked to send pictures of it to angus.davison@nottingham.ac.uk or tweet it with the hashtag #snaillove.

Source: cbc

Find Jeremy the 'lefty' snail a mate | BBC News

Find Jeremy the 'lefty' snail a mate.
A rare garden snail with an anticlockwise shell - a "lefty" - has been discovered in London. It's an exciting discovery but sadly for "Jeremy", he can only mate with another unique lefty.

UnreadNews

Amazing baby! 4-year-old Bella from Moscow easily speaks 7 languages

4-years-old??? Unbelievable! She can not only speak 7 languages but appears to be able to read some of them too! Incredible!...

One comment hinted she would make a good spy for mother Russia someday, lol...


Amazing baby! 4-year-old Bella from Moscow easily speaks Russian, English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic!

Jalil Bouries

From RT:

The wunderkind had previously appeared on the Russian talent show ‘Amazing people’, shocking the judges. One of them, Evgeny, said: “When I saw what I’ve just seen, I understood how stupid I am.”
Bella speaks languages belonging to three different groups: Indo-European (Russian, French, English, Spanish, German), Semitic (Arabic) and Sino-Tibetan (Chinese) – which in short means that they are very, very different to each other and lack structural similarities.
That doesn’t stop Bella from thinking clearly in each language, however, and she correctly answered age-appropriate questions on the show, as well as some material from the school curriculum. School starts for Russian kids at the age of seven, which for Bella is still three years away.
Bella’s mother, Yulia, said that they started teaching her Russian and English when she was only two and noticed her interest in linguistics.
Gradually they started adding more languages to her schedule, and she now studies with native speakers.
Some internet users have accused Bella’s mother of stripping the girl of her childhood, but neuropsychologist Anna Semenovich told KP Daily there was nothing to worry about.
“If the girl is learning languages through curiosity, if her parents managed to build a schedule that works as a game – it will only benefit her. She’s not studying, she’s playing!” Semenovich said.
The specialist added that it’s too early to tell whether Bella is truly a polyglot or not, because it’s natural for children to pick languages up – it’s how they evolve with age that matters.
“In pre-revolutionary Russia, if a child from a noble family couldn’t speak three-four languages by the age of five or six, it was a shame to take him out. Then in school Latin and ancient Greek were added to those. So five-six languages were a standard package for an educated youth back in 19th-century Russia,” Semenovich said.

Rare Three-Way Tie on the Price Is Right (October 17, 2016)

Does anyone still watch this game?...

Watch as three contestants from this episode end up with a three-way tie, each spinning $1.00 - all of whom did so did it in a combination of two spins each!!! Needless to say - MIND BLOWN.
NOTE: This rarely ever happens - once on September 27, 1991 (and Bob Barker claimed that it happened once before), and again on October 30, 2003.

Douglas Allen

Massachusetts Police Release Hilarious Video Warning Against Clown Activity

The Dartmouth Police Department found a creative way to warn residents against partaking in the recent scary clown craze.

ABC News

Growing A Jungle In My New York Apartment: MAKING MAD

Great idea!, but just finding the time to water all those plants!...

A model has created an oasis in the middle of New York City by cramming 500 plants into her apartment. Self confessed “crazy plant lady” Summer Rayne Oakes decided to turn her Brooklyn apartment into a forest after her roommate moved out six years ago. Since then she has expanded the collection in her 1,200 square foot apartment and now has more than 150 plant species including a full forest wall, pineapple plants and even a banana tree.

Barcroft TV

Shocking Face Of Newborn Baby Who Looks 80-years-old

A real life ‘curious case of Benjamin Button’ has emerged following the birth of a baby boy who looks like an 80-year-old.

The baby was born in the district of Magura, Bangladesh, on Sunday. Local doctors, who have been left stunned, say the baby suffers from a rare condition called progeria.

The baby boy has wrinkles on the face, has a very shrunken body and hollow eyes.

Caters TV

World's largest aircraft the Airlander makes maiden flight in UK

A blimp-shaped, helium-filled airship considered the world's largest aircraft flew for the first time on Wednesday with a short but historic jaunt over an airfield in central England.

The Telegraph 

The Boy Who Looks Like An Old Man: BORN DIFFERENT

A four-year-old boy is unaware of the rare condition that makes him look like an elderly man. Just like any typical four-year-old, Bayzid Sikder loves playing football, eating his mum’s dinners and enjoying cuddles with his grandad. But his sagging skin and wrinkles make Bayzid, from Magura, Bangladesh, look more like an elderly man than a young boy who is yet to go to school.

Medical experts have been left stumped by his condition and despite Bayzid’s family taking him to numerous hospitals across Bangladesh, doctors have tried and failed to come up with either a diagnosis or treatment.Dr Debashish Biswas, a consultant at Magura hospital, believes Bayzid can eventually make a full recovery but admits the potentially expensive medication could hold up treatment.

Barcroft TV

The Trump Tower climber has been charged — watch the eerie video he released before the stunt

A 20-year-old man has been charged with criminal trespassing after trying to get Donald Trump’s attention by scaling 20 floors of the Trump Tower in Manhattan. He also released a video explaining why he did the climb before he attempted the stunt.

Business Insider