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Thursday • February 8, 2024
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In the lead-up to Sunday’s NFL championship, many fans are asking themselves, “Chiefs or Niners?” But there’s already a Super Bowl winner in our hearts, and it’s 11-year-old football reporter Jeremiah Fennell. The young sports journalist has been on the ground in Las Vegas scoring one-on-ones with top players like Travis Kelce and Fred Warner ahead of the big game. And he’s just getting started. “I think that interviewing people can be a long career for me,” Jeremiah told the NFL Network’s Michael Robinson. His interviews are equally impressive and adorable — check some of them out here.
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Culture
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| Emojipedia Unveils 118 New Icons Coming to Apple Devices This Spring |
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reklamlar/ iStock
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Last year, the Unicode Consortium gave us the moose, ginger root, and pink heart emoji — all essentials if you ask us — and now it’s back with a new update. Emojipedia, a member of the Unicode Consortium, recently announced that over 100 new emoji will be hitting Apple devices come the iOS 17.4 update this spring.
There will be six completely new emoji concepts: a fiery phoenix, a lime wedge, a brown mushroom (offering an alternative to the classic toadstool), a broken chain, a smiley face nodding yes, and a smiley face shaking its head no.
Four new family emoji are also in the pipeline, as well as six people characters with new direction-specifying variations — i.e. a person running to the right to complement the current emoji, which only has a person running to the left. The gender and skin tone options on these upcoming icons help bring the new release to a grand total of 118.
Looking further ahead, Emojipedia says that even more emoji will be coming to most major platforms in 2025, including a shovel, harp, and, most relatably, a “face with bags under eyes.”
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Pay Down Debt While Not Adding to It
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If you have outstanding credit card debt, getting a new 0% intro APR credit card could help ease the pressure while you pay down your balances. But there are a lot of options out there for such cards.
Thankfully, FinanceBuzz is here to help you choose the right one. The site’s credit card experts identified one of their top picks for balance transfers, perfect for anyone looking to pay down debt and not add to it.
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*Please support our sponsors! They help us keep Nice News free. ♡
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Environment
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| A Lost California Lake Has Returned — And It “Wants to Remain” |
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Robert Gauthier/ Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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It may sound unlikely now, but California’s arid San Joaquin Valley was once home to the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River, according to Vivian Underhill, an ethnographer and environmental justice scholar. Tulare Lake (or Pa’ashi, as it’s called by the Indigenous Tachi Yokut tribe) was purposefully dried out by the end of the 19th century to allow the land to be sold and farmed.
But last year’s heavy rains brought it back, and it “wants to remain,” Underhill said in an article from Northeastern University, where she previously served as a postdoctoral research fellow. Though the rains unfortunately wiped out some farmland and infrastructure, the environmental benefits of its return may outweigh that impact.
Just a year after Tulare’s refilling, native birds have already been spotted nearby, including pelicans, hawks, waterbirds, and even owls. “Something that continues to amaze me is — [the birds] know how to find the lake again. It’s like they’re always looking for it,” Underhill said, noting that the water could also cool the valley’s hot summer temperatures.
And for the Tachi Yokut, “the return of the lake has been just an incredibly powerful and spiritual experience,” she added. “They’ve been holding ceremonies on the side of the lake. They’ve been able to practice their traditional hunting and fishing practices again.”
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Animals
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| Meet the “Very Different” New Jellyfish Species With 240 Tentacles |
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Juergen Sack/ iStock
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A new species of medusa jellyfish is standing out as “very different” from other similar species. The Santjordia pagesi, described in a study published in Zootaxa, has about 240 tentacles and a potential “arsenal of venoms,” according to a recent press release. It’s been named the St. George’s Cross medusa because of the red cross shape on its body that resembles England’s flag.
“The species is very different from all the deep-sea medusae discovered to date. It’s relatively small, whereas others in this kind of environment are much larger. The bright red coloring of its stomach probably has to do with capturing food,” co-author André Morandini explained in a statement.
The jellyfish has been spotted only twice in the Sumisu Caldera, a deep-sea volcanic structure in Japan’s Ogasawara Islands (pictured). The hydrothermal area is a potential mining site, something Morandini called out. “Who knows? Maybe [Santjordia pagesi] holds secrets more valuable than all the mineral wealth that could be extracted from that place,” he said.
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In Other News
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The first anti-aging tablet for dogs is now being tested in clinical trials. Meet Boo, the first trial participant.
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Oleg Kononenko just broke the world record for the most time spent in space, and the Russian astronaut still has more than six months until his return to Earth.
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A Seoul-based company is offering $75,000 bonuses to employees with newborns to ease the high cost of raising a family in Korea.
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Global renewables remain on track to overtake coal by early next year, per a recent report from the International Energy Agency.
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Gabby Douglas is ready for another gold medal: The athlete announced her return to gymnastics this week, and will compete for the first time in eight years on Feb. 24.
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Inspiring Stories
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“More needs to be done”
Colorado OB-GYN Dawn Owens Robinson is advocating for change when it comes to Black maternal health disparities. “We just need to listen and treat our patients with humanity and decency and respect and just listen,” she said.
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Lost and found
Nearly 16 years ago, a tornado ripped through the town of Parkersburg, Iowa, and Marcia Mull’s parents’ wedding photo was one of the items lost to the destruction. Or so she thought: Last month, the town posted the photo to their Facebook page.
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Post Of The Day
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@bobmarley
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Tuesday would have been Bob Marley’s 79th birthday, and his son Ziggy paid tribute to the late musician in a special way. Ziggy, who followed in his dad’s footsteps to become a reggae artist himself, penned a heartfelt letter to Marley that was published in People magazine. “My smile is honoring you. I laugh, and it looks like your laugh. Pieces of you are a part of me,” he wrote — read the full letter. (Photo Credit: Sama Kai/Dave Benett/ WireImage via Getty Images)
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Quote of the Day
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| “There is light in darkness, you just have to find it.”
- bell hooks
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