‘Flesh-Eating’ Bacteria Kills 15: Weird News & Oddities – Patch

November 13, 2024 ndowd

This right here is some pumpkin spice-level marketing ahead of the season when it just isn’t Thanksgiving if no one brings the green bean casserole.

Camden, New Jersey-based Campbell’s is rolling out a candle collection inspired by what it describes as “the top side dishes of this season,” which include one that smells like the iconic green bean casserole created by Dorcas Bates Reilly in a Campbell’s test kitchen.
“Top notes of cream and celery blend into fried onion and mushroom, with a base of buttery green beans,” Campbell’s said.
The collection also includes a jalapeño cheddar mac and cheese candle, an everything bagel-seasoned mashed potatoes candle, and an apple, fennel and herb stuffing candle.
But why?
The saga of a guerilla goldfish pond fed by a leaking fire hydrant in the trendy Brooklyn, New York, Bed-Stuy neighborhood appears to be over.
This summer’s pop-up aquarium has been something of a donnybrook from the start. Some of the fish were “rescued” by people who were worried about their welfare, angering their stewards who restocked and improved the pond and set up a watch.
And then — oh, the humanity! — the city filled the fishpond with cement. It was a matter of public safety, officials said, but recognizing a genuine neighborhood phenomenon, pledged at the same time to “find an appropriate alternative location for this impromptu gem.”
And so it came to pass. The homemade aquarium with solar-powered water filter, heater and tile-lined in-ground tank has a new home by a tree.
“The kids love it, the community loves it and people around the world love it,” Hajj-Malik Lovic, the main organizer of the campaign to save the makeshift pond, told Patch.
Rats are terrorizing the town of Torrington, Connecticut, where one resident said the 26 she has caught so far in the major infestation are the size of a “big baked potato. A daycare operator who has caught 10 rats said she is “constantly buying bleach” and fumigating out of concern her young charges’ health.
The problem has the attention of city officials. Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone said a rat task force will be created and other measures will be taken to hold the rats at bay.
Romance took a curious twist during the isolation of the pandemic.
Cut off from their social circles and their usual haunts closed, millions of people turned to artificial intelligence companion apps to fill the blank spaces in their lives. The relationships that evolved were among the most meaningful and transformative of their lives, according to glowing customer reviews. And in a handful of extreme examples, the attachment was so profound that people “married” the AI sweethearts they had imagined.
These unconventional love stories not only illustrate the growing influence of AI in our social and emotional lives but also raise a barrage of ethical considerations and existential questions about what it means to be human.
Talk about workplace potlucks gone wrong: Health investigators have traced the origin of a food poisoning outbreak that sent 46 workers at a Jessup, Maryland, fish distributor to the hospital to a noodle dish one of the employees brought in from an outside source. (No judgment, no razzing. We feel for the cook, whoever it is.)
A person waiting in the Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center emergency room on an unrelated matter said there “was a lot of commotion” with the arrival of a rush of ambulances. Some patients clutching their stomachs and looking as if they might throw up at any moment.
“I’ve never seen such a mess like that,” the witness said.
The rare “flesh-eating” bacteria Vibrio vulnificus swept into Florida by floodwaters from recent back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton has killed 15 people, according to public health data.
Infections can lead to necrotizing fasciitis, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said is a “severe infection in which the flesh around an open wound dies.”
“Many people with Vibrio vulnificus infection can get seriously ill and need intensive care or limb amputation. About 1 in 5 people with this infection die, sometimes within a day or two of becoming ill,” the CDC added.
State health officials warned people not to enter the water with fresh cuts or scrapes.
A 39-year-old Georgia man has been arrested after investigators found 18 bodies in various stages of decomposition while serving an eviction notice at the funeral home he owned.
Authorities with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation didn’t elaborate beyond saying that Chris Johnson, the owner of the Johnson Funeral Home in Douglas, faces multiple counts of abuse of a dead body.