FIND FACTS- MONDAY-4/30/12- CAR CRASH

An out-of-control SUV barreled across several lanes of traffic on a highway overpass Sunday, then plunged more than 50 feet off the side of the road and landed in a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, killing all seven people aboard, including three children, authorities said. The 2004 Honda Pilot apparently flipped over a 4-foot-high iron fence before landing upside-down on the property of the nation's largest city zoo. The cause of the crash was unclear, and police haven't yet said how fast the SUV was traveling. A city official said the guardrail's height would be one of the safety issues investigated. Police identified the dead adults as Jacob Nunez, 85, and Ana Julia Martinez, 81, both from the Dominican Republic, and their daughters, Maria Gonzalez, 45, and Maria Nunez, 39, and three grandchildren. Police say Gonzalez was driving. The children were identified as Jocelyn Gonzalez, 10, the daughter of the driver, Niely Rosario, 7, and Marly Rosario, 3, both daughters of Nunez. The SUV was headed south on the Bronx River Parkway that cuts through a working-class neighborhood when it bounced off the median, crossed three southbound lanes and hit the curb, causing the vehicle to become airborne, continue over the guardrail and plunge 59 feet, police said. "Obviously, the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed," FDNY deputy Chief Ronald Werner said. "It hit something that caused it to become airborne." The SUV landed in a wooded area on the edge of zoo property that's closed to the public and far from any animal exhibits, zoo spokeswoman Mary Dixon said. The vehicle lay mangled hours later, its right doors ripped off and strewn amid the trees along with items from the car. Next to the heavily wooded area are subway tracks and a train yard. What if this was your family, would you survive? What should be done for these victims? Please use complete sentences and don't forget spell check.

SPECIAL FIND FACTS -FRIDAY4/27/12 DRINKING HAND SANITIZER

Would you drink hand sanitizer? The idea may sound repulsive to most people, but California doctors are warning parents of what may be a fast-growing dangerous trend after six local teenagers were hospitalized in separate incidents with alcohol poisoning from drinking the soapy stuff. The Los Angeles Times reported some of the teenagers used salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer using instructions found online. If a liquid hand sanitizer contains 62 percent ethyl alcohol, that means a "drink" can be as high as 120 proof, whereas a shot of hard liquor such as whiskey or vodka is typically 80 proof. "All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager," Dr. Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. "There is no question that it is dangerous." Teens who were presented to the emergency room had symptoms such as slurred speech and a burning sensation in the stomach. Some teens were so drunk they needed to be monitored in the emergency room. Rangan said although there have been only a handful of cases, the practice could become a nationwide problem since hand sanitizers are cheap and easily available, and teens can easily look up how to extract alcohol from a bottle. KTLA in Los Angeles reports there were no such cases last year, and the recent spate of cases in recent weeks is surprising. "It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor," Rangan said. What do you think of this situation? Would you do something like this if no adults were around? Would you do it on a dare? Please write in complete sentences and don't forget spell check.

FIND FACTS-WEDNESDAY-4/25/12 BRAIN DEAD TEEN LIVES

They were told there was no chance of their son surviving after he suffered devastating injuries in a car crash. But Steven Thorpe’s parents refused to give up hope – despite four specialists declaring that the 17-year-old was brain dead. Convinced they saw a ‘flicker’ of life as Steven lay in a coma, John and Janet Thorpe rejected advice to switch off his life support machine. They begged for another opinion – and it was a decision that saved him. A neurosurgeon found faint signs of brain activity and two weeks later, Steven woke from his coma. Within seven weeks, he had left hospital. And four years on, the trainee accounts clerk says he owes everything to the persistence of his parents. From his home in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Steven, 21, said: ‘I feel so lucky that my parents wouldn’t take no for an answer.’ The schoolboy was travelling in a Rover with two friends in February 2008 when a stray horse ran into the path of the car in front of them. His friend Matthew Jones, 18, was killed in the accident. Steven suffered serious injuries to his face, head and arm, and was declared brain dead two days later. He said: ‘The doctors were telling my parents that they wanted to take me off the life support. The words they used to my parents were “You need to start thinking about organ donations”. ‘I think that’s what gave my dad energy. He thought “No way”. They still believed I was there. When they sat around the bed they had the feeling I was there and some words they said to me I reacted to. ‘I think if my dad had agreed with them then I would have been off the life support machine in seconds.’ Accountant Mr Thorpe, 51, contacted private GP Julia Piper, known for her work in traditional and alternative medicines. Moved by their story, she asked a neurosurgeon whom she knew to visit Steven at University Hospital in Coventry. What do you think about this situation? Would you have given up? Would your parents do something like this for you? Please use complete sentences and don't forget spell check.

4/23/12-MONDAY-WORLD'S 2ND TALLEST BUILDING

Tokyo Tower Skytree, set to open on May 22, has been making headlines over its pricey ticket to get in. But now operators Tobu Railway Co., Ltd., Tobu Tower SkytreeCo., Ltd. and the companies that have invested in Tokyo’s tallest tourist attraction are pushing Skytree as a high-end brand all over the Japanese capital—with gift shop prices that rival the entrance tickets.


According to Tobu Tower Skytree, the stores will sell 600 different items ranging from food and beverages – Tokyo Skytree chocolates and Skytree bottled water – to mugs, towels and pen holders.

Many of the products use Tokyo Skytree’s main mascot, Sorakara, who the tower’s operator describes as a “young girl with a star-shaped head who descended from the skies to Tokyo Skytree,” as part of the logo. Some of these products are already being sold at bustling locations in the Japanese capital, such as at Tokyo station and in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward, where the tower is located.

Although the range of products on display is impressive, what may be even more impressive are the prices – a bottle of water goes for Y400, a cell phone strap for Y3,000.

Much of the food available to buy at the tower is also Skytree branded, like the Sorakara-chan Parfait, available at the Skytree Cafe for Y700. Skytree Café cups (Y800) and travel mugs (Y1,300) are also available.

Along with the completion of Tokyo Skytree is the arrival of Tokyo Solamachi, which will be one of Tokyo’s largest shopping complexes, with “321 boutiques, variety shops, and restaurants” and the promise of “lots of exclusive specialty goods and menus,” according to a Tokyo Skytree information pamphlet. The Skytree logo can even be seen throughout the surrounding neighborhood, including on the side walls of vending machines in the yard outside the tower.

In addition to big official partners, like Asahi Breweries, Ltd., the Development Bank of Japan Inc., Toshiba Corp., and Calbee, Inc. to name a few, Tobu Tower Skytree has also partnered with six different hotels, in which visitors can buy a Skytree Tembo Deck entrance ticket (only going up 350 meters of the 450 meters visitors can potentially ascend to on the tower) with their hotel reservation in a joint package. Three of these hotels are being branded as “Tokyo Skytree Official Hotels,” which have actually joined the Tobu corporate alliance, while the other three “Tokyo Skytree Friendship Hotels” are using the Skytree names due to their proximity to or views of the tower.

“We particularly want tourists from abroad to be able to take time to enjoy the Skytree,” explained a Tobu Tower Skytree public relations and promotion official. “We encourage them to stay in the vicinity of the Skytree and enjoy it over the course of two days, say, instead of just one.”

Although some may look down their noses at the branding scheme and high prices, it seems that many are still willing to look up — 634 meters, that is. There have already been 600,000 group ticket made for the opening weeks of the Skytree and individual ticket reservations have reached 140,000.

What do you think of this new construct? Google this article and compare the size of Tokyo's building to the Empire State Building in New York. Please use complete sentences and don't forget to use spell check.

FIND FACTS- WEDNESDAY-4/18/12- KILLER SWAN

Family and friends spent Sunday trying to understand how a Villa Park man drowned in a Des Plaines area pond after he was apparently attacked by swans he took care of.

Anthony Hensley, a 37-year-old married father of two, worked for a company that used swans and dogs to keep geese away from properties.

He was checking on the swans near the Bay Colony condominiums in unincorporated Des Plaines Saturday morning when one of the swans swam at him, causing Hensley to roll off his kayak into the water.

Cook County sheriff’s investigators believe Hensley either got too close to the swan or the swan’s nesting area.

According to witnesses, the swan continued to swim after Hensley as he tried to make it to shore. By the time rescue personnel arrived, Hensley was under water. An autopsy found he died from drowning.

Hensley liked working with animals, according to his father-in-law, George Koutsogiannis. “Maybe he didn’t fight back enough when the swan attacked him. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt the animal. I can’t understand how this was possible,” Koutsogiannis said.

What do you think should be done to this Bird? What about the man's family? What would you have done in this situation? Please write in complete sentences and don't forget spell check.

FIND FACTS- 4/16/12-MONDAY- EATING HORSEMEAT AS HAMBURGER

A New Mexico slaughterhouse has petitioned the federal government to become the first business to offer horse meat for human consumption since an effective ban on the practice ended last year, according to state officials and animal welfare groups.

Those groups said last week they are rallying to try to block the slaughterhouse’s petition, hoping to head off what they fear could be a series of slaughterhouses applying to produce horse meat.

“Horse slaughter means tremendous suffering of horses, a proven history of environmental and waste violations, and allowing a toxic meat product to enter the human food chain,” said Hilary Wood, president and founder of Front Range Equine Rescue, a Colorado-based group that said it uncovered the slaughterhouse’s plans.

The animal welfare groups said the slaughterhouse has been in negotiations with the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for several months about beginning to process horse meat.

Since 2006 the federal government had effectively banned American slaughterhouses from processing horse meat by defunding the Agriculture Department’s ability to inspect plants that butchered horses for consumption. Without inspections, the meat couldn’t be sold.

But last June, a report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s chief investigative arm, found that rather than improving conditions for horses, the domestic ban backfired.

It depressed prices for horses in the U.S. and led to a surge in reports of neglect or abuse as owners of older horses had no way of disposing of them, short of selling them to “foreign slaughtering facilities where U.S. humane slaughtering protections do not apply.”

In unusually blunt language, GAO urged Congress and President Obama to revisit the ban.

Late last year Mr. Obama signed a spending bill that stripped out the defunding language, effectively clearing the way for slaughterhouses to ramp up horse butchering again.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS NEW SITUATION? ARE YOU WILLING TO TRADE YOUR HAMBURGERS FOR HORSE BURGERS? Please write in complete sentences and don't for get spell check.

FIND FACTS-WEDNESDAY-4/11/12-MOTHER FLUSHES BABY

A woman gave birth to a baby in a China Zhaoyang district toilet, and flushed it accidentally. Thankfully, the nine-month pregnant mother-to-be and child are in good health following the harrowing experience.

It all began on Saturday when Cai Qulin, 36, felt severe contractions on her way to the hospital to give birth. However, the pain was so intense, she asked her husband to pull over at a public ladies restroom .

There, in the Zhaoyang district of China, the woman gave birth to a baby girl, and accidentally flushed the newborn down the pipes in all the excitement. She then alerted her husband waiting outside. He frantically called emergency workers for help. Moments later, rescue workers arrived and began a desperate search for the baby flushed down the toilet.

Apparently, the shaft was just large enough for the newborn baby to fit after the woman gave birth. However, the good news is that a rescue worker managed to find the baby 15 to 30 minutes after the woman accidentally flushed her down the toilet after giving birth. Yes, it is a baby girl.

Pale and stiff, the child was taken to a local hospital for treatment. However, a family member says both the baby and her mother are doing well, considering the trauma they experienced.

"My niece is all right now, but she will stay in the hospital so they can make certain that she is healthy. My brother is taking care of the girl, and I'm taking care of the mother," said the woman's sister-in-law, Zhang Zhenghua

What do you think about this situation? What should be done about the parents? Should they be allowed to have kids? or Was this just an accident? Please write in complete sentences and don't forget spell check.