On Monday afternoon, an unidentified marine animal bit a person in the Foster City Lagoon near Shearwater Isle, according to the Foster City Police Department.
“Based on the initial assessment, the injury is consistent with a bite from a small marine animal,” police said in a news release. “At this time, the exact species has not been confirmed.”
While efforts are made to keep bay marine life out of the lagoon, the possibility always exists for creatures to make their way into the body of water, according to police.
Police are coordinating with other agencies and plan to provide updates if more information becomes available. In the meantime, people are being asked to report any “unusual marine animal activity.”
“Thank you for your cooperation in helping keep our community safe,” police said in the news release.
The lagoon, which serves as a drainage detention basin, spans 212 acres and has an average depth of about 6 feet, according to the city’s website. Swimming, along with boating and fishing, is permitted.
A Tahoe-area man who reported someone had been living in his house knew sheriff’s deputies were on the right track when they showed him video of a Safeway shopper.
Video image of man sought in alleged Tahoe home break-in. (Douglas County Sheriff’s Office)
The stranger was wearing the homeowner’s clothes.
The sheriff’s office in Nevada’s Douglas County is now seeking the public’s help identifying the “person of interest.”
A report last week from the agency said the case began when the homeowner returned from a three-week vacation and found that somebody had been inside his house, near Lake Tahoe’s east shore. Among the indications: Food was missing and personal property had been disturbed — including the man’s birth certificate, which was gone.
Sheriff’s investigators searching the home for clues found a recent receipt for the purchase of two packs of Camel cigarettes from the Safeway at the Round Hill Shopping Center, on Highway 50 north of Stateline.
They obtained the store’s surveillance video for the time of the purchase, and zeroed in on a specific shopper.
The homeowner didn’t recognize the man but recognized the clothes: a plaid shirt and a trucker hat from his own wardrobe.
The sheriff’s office has released an image of the shopper, to whom deputies would like to speak, and asks that anyone who has information on the case contact its Stateline office, (775) 586-7253.
The elephant fell into the unmanned well earlier this week (Picture: Newslions / SWNS)
A 15-year-old elephant was trapped for 10 hours in an abandoned well before it was rescued.
The animal fell into a well in Ernakulam, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, on Tuesday at around 2.00am. According to the reports, the well didn’t have a wall, and was located near the home of doctor Thattayath Aliyar.
Forest officials rescued the elephant using an excavator, creating a mud ramp so it could safely escape.
Witnesses say the elephant struggled at first to climb out from the muddy water, but eventually managed to break free and return to the forest.
Forest department personnel were initially prepared to begin rescue operations in the early morning, but residents protested, demanding that the elephant be permanently relocated away from human habitation.
Villagers had their doubts about the rescue (Picture: Newslions / SWNS)
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The elephant fell at around 2am (Picture: Newslions / SWNS)
After a meeting, the area’s divisional forest officer, P. Karhik, assured villagers the elephant would be kept under 24-hour surveillance using drones and forest patrol teams upon release and would be captured if it were to stray into human areas again.
Authorities also said they would compensate the homeowner for damages and install an electric fence in the region. Only after these demands were met did the rescue operation begin, around noon.
Forest officials say that the top of the elephant’s trunk was damaged as part of an old wound. The injury restricts the elephant’s ability to forage for food and water, explaining why it frequently wanders into residential areas to find easily accessible sustenance.
Karl Bushby has been travelling the world on foot for nearly 30 years (Picture: Karl Bushby / SWNS)
A former paratrooper who has spent nearly 30 years walking home to Hull from South America may be prevented for a second time after he was prevented from swimming across the English Channel.
Karl Bushby – who is travelling the world without using cars, trains, buses or planes – may not be able to make the final crossing to the UK from France, as French authorities only allow people to swim in the other direction.
Karl, 57, said: ‘We are talking with the French coastguard.’
Bushby set off from Chile in 1998 and has reached Belgium.
He is now nearing the final stages of his journey back to his hometown.
But crossing the Channel has proven a challenge more than once after Eurotunnel bosses refused his request to walk through it in June.
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Karl in Chile in 1999, shortly after he started his epic journey (Picture: Karl Bushby / SWNS)
This left him with no option but to swim, in line with the terms of his challenge, which say he cannot use any form of transport to travel.
Bushby still hopes that authorities might let him use the Eurotunnel. In the meantime, he is hoping he can find a way to swim the 21-mile distance in just a few months.
We have secured a support boat for October’, he said. ‘That’s a big thing. I would expect it to take two or three days to swim across to the UK.’
Karl is currently in Mexico, where he takes breaks between stages of his challenge to meet visa regulations and to plan routes. On occasion, he visits the US, where his sponsors are based.
‘I will be back in Belgium in early September,’ he said. ‘Towards the end of that month, I expect to be in France, preparing for the swim.
‘I am not angry it has come to this. I am more disappointed. But things could still change. Walking through the service tunnel is still the preferred option.’
Karl has crossed all terrains and has even been detained along his route (Picture: Karl Bushby / SWNS)
Karl is no stranger to traversing vast bodies of water.
In 2006, he became the first Brit to walk across the Bering Strait, a 58-mile stretch of frozen sea linking North America and Russia.
Then, in 2024, he swam more than 170 miles over 31 days across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan to avoid conflict zones in Russia and Iran.
Despite this, Karl isn’t a fan of this method of getting around.
‘I’m just not into the swim thing,’ he said previously.
‘I’ve had to do a couple of swims here and there. […] [The English Channel] is a different stretch of water; it’s colder, we’ll see. Hopefully, I’ll never have to think about it.’
Where has Karl been so far?
Karl in Panama in 2001 (Picture: Karl Bushby / SWNS)
Karl began the challenge after sketching a rough path on a map when he was in the army. He showed the plan to fellow soldiers who told him it could not be done.
This made him all the more determined, and he set himself two rules: to never use transport, and to not return to the UK until he had completed the journey.
Karl set off on his 36,000-mile journey from Punta Arenas, Chile, in 1998, thinking it would take him 12 years.
But in the three decades since, he has been met with several setbacks that have lengthened his adventure.
He has had to evade bandits in the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap and has been detained by Russian officials for illegally entering the country.
He also spent 18 days in prison in Panama for entering without a visa before continuing his journey through Mexico and the US, where he overstayed his visa and had to fly back to Colombia to wait for a new one.
In 2003, as he was preparing to cross the border into Canada, his trailer was stolen and he was forced to wait another month for the items in it to be replaced.
Karl crossed the Baring Strait in 2006 (Picture: Karl Bushby / SWNS)
His trailer was stolen on New Year’s Day 2003, a day before he was due to cross into Canada while visiting a bar. Another month passed while he replaced his lost items.
Despite this – and many other issues he encountered along the way – he reached Armenia last June, before travelling through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and, after stopping off in Mexico to sort his Schengen visa out, traversed Europe where he is now hoping to find a way to cross his final sea.
Once he is back on UK shores, Karl will walk to Hull, where the journey will end at his childhood home.
The French Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre referenced a 2018 ‘prefectural order’ confirming the restriction on Karl’s swim.
It said it has referred Karl’s support team to the Channel and North Sea Maritime Prefecture.
For the area’s many elite runners, distance races can be as much about fueling and hydration strategies as they are about mileage build-up and training plans.
On race day, athletes dial in the amount of carbohydrates they are taking in via gels and sports drinks and they plan to the moment when said fueling must occur to optimize performance in a race setting. Nothing is left to chance.
Imagine, if you will, asking a crowd of runners not to stretch and limber up before the starter gun fires, but to take down a soft taco with seasoned beef and set out on an all-day run.
The idea is painfully (literally) simple. In order to be considered not a finisher but a “survivor” of the 50K event, one must run the approximately three miles between Napa’s two Taco Bell restaurants, eating a food item at nine of the 10 stops over a total of 31 miles.
Wait, there’s more.
While racers are allowed to pick and choose from the menu what might sit best in their gastrointestinal tract, there are two required food items. By stop No. 4, runners must have consumed at least one Chalupa Supreme or one Crunchwrap Supreme. By stop No. 8 (which is approximately 24 miles in) runners must have consumed at least one Burrito Supreme (think seasoned beef, onions, sour cream, cheese, beans, lettuce and red sauce) or one Nachos Bell Grande (same ingredients, just add chips).
Runners are asked to literally have receipts – in the form of wrappers from their orders.
As a journalist, I usually have many questions.
On this story it all boils down to just one. Why?
“We said, ‘Let’s plan something kind of silly, kind of dumb, and pretty fun and see what happens,” said Ryan Melendez, 31, of Vallejo.
Melendez is one of the three co-conspirators putting on the inaugural Napa Taco Bell 50K. He’s joined by Alec Villagomez, 30, of Napa and Jamie O’Sullivan, 49, of Napa. All three are elite runners with athletic resumes full of short, medium and long races. All three are training for the Javelina Jundred in October, a race so long it spans two days, not one.
But nary a one of them have done any mileage carrying a belly full of Chalupa.
“I think just the volume of food is going to be tough,” Villagomez said. “I think having a running stomach that is somewhat delicate, I’m worried about the volume of things I’m going to put in it. But there comes a kind of Zen moment and you have to be uncomfortable in a run and accept it.”
But distance runners are nothing if not optimistic folk. How could you lace up and run 50 kilometers (31 miles) and not hold a hopeful outlook? Hopeful that this pain will pass, that the next step will bring something better, that the finish line must be close?
So Villagomez said he’s banking on camaraderie and good cheer among his fellow runners to lift him in moments when the cheese and sour cream hit.
“In this race the discomfort will be a bloated stomach,” he said. “It’s going to be a hot day, the Taco Bell aspect, but I think it will be a lively atmosphere.”
See what I mean about optimistic?
Melendez, Villagomez and O’Sullivan — they go by Larry, Curly & Moe on some social media sign-up pages — did not invent this mayhem, but they loved the sound of it so much they decided to bring it to Napa where all three are active in the running community.
Call it a franchising effort.
“We all love Taco Bell and we all love running,” Villagomez said. “We have never tried the two together but we assume it would all go together. And then we’d see if we could get anybody to join us.”
So far, they have lured about 40 runners into their web.
The event started in Colorado. In October, the ninth running of the Denver Taco Bell 50K will be held. There, it’s a sweeping loop of the metro area with almost exactly the same rules as those adopted by the crew in Napa: 31 miles, nine stops, required items and bonuses if you can take down 2 liters of Mountain Dew Baja Blast and/or slather all items in Diablo sauce (and take a Diablo sauce shooter at the finish line).
Not familiar with the Baja Blast? Me neither, but I found this description on the interwebs: “Tastes like the back end of a Slurpee.”
What you are not allowed to imbibe? Pepto-Bismol, Alka-Seltzer and the like. This race is au naturel.
But pacers are allowed “for moral support and holding your hair if you must eject a Gordita.”
So popular has this adventure proven to be that sister events have popped up in Washington, D.C. and in the Twin Cities and in Southern California.
So why not Napa?
One “problem” (but what are ultra runners if not on-the-fly problem-solvers) was that the city only has two Taco Bell restaurants. So a sweeping loop route was out of the question.
But Melendez, Villagomez and O’Sullivan measured the distance between the Soscol Road Bell and the one on Jefferson Street. It was almost exactly a 5K (3.1 miles) between the two and runners could be funneled onto the Napa Valley Vine Trail for the majority of their miles.
But because the organizers don’t want runners with wobbly legs and wobblier stomachs out on the city streets all night, there is a 10-hour time limit for finishing and anyone on the course after 7 p.m. must wear a headlamp.
“Actually this is where there is a soft side to all of us,” O’Sullivan said. “We didn’t want anyone on the Vine Trail after 8 p.m. and we wanted a 10-hour cutoff.”
O’Sullivan was tasked with letting Taco Bell know of their plans. There is zero affiliation with the restaurants but organizers hope it might be considered a boon for business on a Saturday. Still, O’Sullivan wanted to cover their bases and be respectful.
“I don’t want anybody to be an unintentional victim, I don’t want anybody to be overworked,” he said. “This is going to be busy.”
So he set up a meeting with one of the managers. By O’Sullivan’s telling, what followed was in line with the whimsical feel of the event.
“I showed up with the waiver and the rules and the flier and she said, ‘I thought you were kidding,’” he said. “I was like, ‘No, I’m quite serious.’”
I showed up at said Taco Bell to confirm this story but did not hear back from the manager by my deadline.
Melendez, Villagomez and O’Sullivan might seem diabolical for staging such an event – they even planned a late 10 a.m. start to make sure it would be extra hot out there. But they are generous.
There is no fee for entry, just the cost of perhaps losing a sliver of dignity. They are also working out a Dine and Donate plan for each of the Taco Bells with funds going to the two elementary schools closest to the restaurants.
“This is our community,” O’Sullivan said. “We don’t want to create any negativity around this event.”
Plus, he figures that the back and forth nature of the route will mean less a crush of runners than a steady flow of customers. The route also means that athletes will see each other out there, be able to root each other on and offer support. And that is what the trio of organizers are going for.
“There is a saying, if you want to run fast, run by yourself, but if you want to run far, run with others,” Melendez said. “It’s community. For long endurance events, it’s very supportive and just great… definitely the community being able to share suffering experiences with yourself is really big.”
And Melendez, Villagomez and O’Sullivan say they already have a slew of folks signed up to volunteer on the course and outside the restaurants. They will be checking less for scofflaws (when I asked about the potential for cheating, O’Sullivan was appalled at the idea: “It’s totally honor system. That is one of the things we will tell the runners, ‘Are you really going to cheat on this? What is wrong with you?’”) than making sure runners are carrying water and standing upright.
“All of our volunteers are runners,” Villagomez said.
There are plans for a “vibe station” with music and good cheer for a needed morale boost when the build up of seasoned beef might get one down.
Organizers plan to have medals at the finish line for all survivors. To that end, there is a sign-up deadline on July 15.
But very clearly, completing this “race” isn’t about hanging a medal around your neck. It’s about something next-level, Villagomez said.
“We are hoping that everyone shows up and has a good time,” he said. “Anyone who shows up do the Taco Bell 50 is a champion of the heart.”
