What better way to start the weekend than with some uplifting news?
Comedy Wildlife
One of OGN's favourite submissions to the 2024 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards. Keep an eye out for tomorrow's OGN Sunday Magazine if you would like to enjoy another half dozen of this year's comedy wildlife photograph entries.
Win or Loos
Olympics-bound sprinter Kendall Ellis almost missed out on her chance at Games glory, after getting locked in a portaloo at the US track trials. With less than an hour to go before she was due to compete in the 400-metre semi-final, the 28-year-old was "banging on the door, screaming for someone to let her out", after the lock jammed on the loo at the trials in Eugene, Oregon, said Associated Press. Fortunately, her cries were heard, and Ellis went on to win the race in a personal-best time of 49.81 seconds, before also claiming victory in the final. "Crazy things happen right before something great is about to occur, so maybe I needed that to get all the nerves and adrenaline out," she said.
Oldest Known Grapes
If you’ve ever snacked on raisins or enjoyed a glass of wine, you may, in part, have the extinction of the dinosaurs to thank for it. In a discovery described in the journal Nature Plants, researchers found fossil grape seeds that range from 60 to 19 million years old in Colombia, Panama, and Peru. One of these species represents the earliest known example of plants from the grape family in the Western Hemisphere. These fossil seeds help show how the grape family proliferated following the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes
Elvis Presley's blue suede shoes have sold for $150,000 at auction. Alan Fortas, Elvis' close friend, has owned the shoes ever since the singer gave them to him shortly before he shipped off for the army, after an all-night party at Graceland. Though Blue Suede Shoes was originally written by Tennessee singer-songwriter Carl Perkins, Elvis performed and popularized the song, including its famous lines, "But don't you step on my blue suede shoes / Well you can do anything but / Lay off of my blue suede shoes." The song appears on track one, side one of Elvis Presley, the singer's debut studio album.
Top Price Titian
A painting described as a masterpiece which was found in a plastic bag after being stolen has sold for £17.6m ($22.5) at auction. Rest On The Flight Into Egypt, painted by Venetian master Titian when he was aged just 20 in 1510, was sold by London auction house Christie's.
The work was stolen from the drawing room of stately home Longleat in Wiltshire in 1995, but was found seven years later without its frame in a plastic carrier bag in London. Its sale sets a new world auction record for the artist, auctioneers said.
EU Renewables
Wind and solar power increases combined with a sharp drop in fossil fuels pushed renewables into the lead in Europe last year. Renewable energy was the leading source of electricity in the EU in 2023, according to preliminary data from Eurostat, accounting for 44.7 percent of all electricity production - a 12.4 percent increase from 2022. Electricity from fossil fuels overall fell by 19.7 percent in comparison, contributing 32.5 percent of the EU’s power.
"Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news." Ethel Waters
On This Day
6 July 1957: With her defeat of Darlene Hard, American Althea Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win the Wimbledon singles championship.
Today's Articles
Mood Boosting Video
Magical Moment: Blue whale mother nursing her calf caught on film for the first time ever.