OGN Thursday

Editor OGN Daily
15 hours ago
4 min read

A smorgasbord of tasty news nuggets to put a spring in your step.

Frida Kahlo wearing a red shawl — Credit: fridakahlo.org

Museo Casa Kahlo

A new museum dedicated to the early life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is opening in Mexico City. Located in the city’s historic Coyoacán district, the Museo Casa Kahlo will tell the Mexican painter’s story through letters, toys, artworks and other personal items. “This museum isn’t just about her work - it’s about her world,” Frida Hentschel Romeo, Kahlo’s great-grand-niece, told Vogue. “It’s about how the people closest to her shaped who she became. And it’s also about the living family - those of us who carry her legacy forward.” The museum will occupy a building known as Casa Roja, a home belonging to the Kahlo family. It’s next door to the already famous Casa Azul, the family home built by Kahlo’s father in 1904.

Fugitive Flamingo

Have you seen this bird? In 2005, an African flamingo escaped from Kansas’ Sedgwick County Zoo during a stormy night. The escape artist, known as flamingo No. 492 or 'Pink Floyd', did not have its feathers clipped sufficiently and flew the coop. Twenty years later, the flamingo’s story continues as Pink Floyd has been spotted in Texas numerous times in spring and summer, sometimes with other wild flamingos. The last confirmed sighting (photographed above) was in 2023 when members of the Audubon Texas team spotted No. 492 during an annual waterbird survey. If you do happen to spot Pink Floyd, don’t worry about alerting the authorities - the zoo has no plans to recapture it.

Credit: stackofsuitcases | Instagram

Sports Bra

The world’s first women’s sports bar announced it’s expanding to four more cities. After opening in Portland in 2022, The Sports Bra’s first four franchise locations are opening in Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and St. Louis, all locations with professional women’s sports teams.

Au Revoir, Cigarettes

Visitors to France this summer might notice something different - or shall we say, cleaner - in the air: Starting July 1, the country of love and croissants is banning smoking in all outdoor places that can be frequented by children (e.g., beaches, parks, sports venues, and bus stops), and failure to comply could result in a fine of about $153. “Tobacco must disappear where there are children,” the Health Minister said, adding that the freedom to smoke “ends where children’s right to breathe clean air begins.”

gray wolf in a snowy forest — Repopulating California

Remarkable Comeback

Though native to California, after 1924, a gray wolf was not documented in California until 2011, when a wolf known as OR-7 famously crossed the state line from Oregon. Since then, wolves have steadily reclaimed a presence in the state. In 2015, wildlife officials documented the first pack in California in nearly a century. Now, three new packs have been discovered in a remote region in the Sierra Nevada.

The Power of Predators on Yellowstone's Eco-System: Study highlights the predators’ slow yet steady role in bringing an ecosystem back into balance - all the way down the food chain, from elk populations to plants.

Wildfire-Resilient

One of America's largest homebuilders has created a California community of entirely wildfire-resilient homes to help reduce homebuyers’ risks of loss if another horrendous fire comes roaring by.

With nothing flammable on the exterior or the roofs and curated desert foliage around the gardens and lawns, the homes aren’t necessarily fireproof, but the design of the entire community was informed by identifying and eliminating the most common causes of homes catching fire. KB Homes are priced at around $1 million - consistent with disaster-proof housing around the country.

Identical twins Bill Casey (right) and Jack at 100 — Jack and Bill (right) Casey | SWNS

Centenary Twins

A pair of identical twins have just celebrated their 100th birthday. Bill Casey and his twin brother Jack celebrated their centenary together with cake, drinks, and friends at a retirement home in Oxfordshire, England. Bill is the oldest of the twins by ten minutes and enjoys an artistic life, having taken up painting in retirement. And he always makes time for his health, with 20 minutes of exercise daily. When asked what he credits for helping him reach this impressive milestone, he credited “clean and healthy living, staying active, sheer determination, and good genes.” Adding: “I always intended to reach 100 and now it’s here, I’m looking forward to the next 100!”

“What counts is not the things that happen, but what we do with them.” Annie Ernaux