The sun isn’t up yet and raking machines are sifting piles of seaweed out of the sand, but Lorna Sheets and Penny Verbos are still eager to get to the beach.

The two women are members of the North Myrtle Beach Sea Turtle Patrol, an all-volunteer group that scours 4 miles of the shore every morning for signs of a sea turtle nest or stranded animal. They walk a 1-mile section every Tuesday morning starting around 6 a.m. from May to mid-August — nesting and hatching season — to try to flag nests before they can be trampled or otherwise disturbed.

Both women are retired nurses and neighbors that live just a few blocks away from their designated starting point at Main Street. Both joined the patrol for the first time this year. They bought themselves matching leggings, with turtles printed on them, to celebrate.

“We’re excited. We want to find a nest,” Verbos said.

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South Carolina's sea turtles have an army of volunteers on their side https://t.co/MJKOA7kRt4 via @postandcourier

— Craig Gruen (@craiggruen) June 3, 2018

A long-running conflict between cattle herders and farmers in central Nigeria is increasingly assuming a religious dimension, writes the BBC’s Mayeni Jones after visiting Benue state.

Sebastian Nyamgba is a tall, wiry farmer with sharp cheekbones and piercing eyes.

He guides me to a small bungalow adjacent to the local church, St Ignatus. It was the home of local priest Father Joseph Gor.

“This is his blood,” he says, as he points to faint pink splatters on the wall of the porch of the house.

“This is where he was killed. They shot him as he was getting on this motorbike to escape and his blood sprayed on the wall.”

Father Gor was killed in the compound of his Catholic church, in the small village of Mbalom, about an hour’s drive south from the capital of Benue state, Makurdi.

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I was staggered by the terrible damage that our plastic usage is causing God’s creation, including humans, on this single island home that we call planet Earth. It’s nearly impossible to live plastic-free but we can all live with considerably less plastic if only we give it commitment.

Every piece of plastic I use will most probably outlive me by hundreds of years.

We can, one by one, and collectively as communities and nations and governments, do something about it. It’s simple. We have to do something about plastic. We can do it – now let’s do it!

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Canon Graham Usher has been confirmed as the new Bishop of Dudley, @CofEWorcester announces http://t.co/rbBqbDpmA2 pic.twitter.com/Q6YUJ5G1GL

— BBC WM 95.6 (@bbcwm) December 12, 2013

This is only funny because…[the children] miss her more than me too (they’ve set up an Instagram account devoted to her).

Even my husband, not the most expressive of men, is like putty when around her, as I discovered when I overheard him say: “Do you not want your breakfast?

“No? Shall I grate some Parmesan on to it?” (The dog in my new book, Still Me, has adopted this culinary habit).

She has inadvertently improved my writer’s back because I’m forced to leave my desk at least four times a day.

She has brought me and my husband closer — we walk together at dawn….

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Night, everyone. Hope it was a good one x

A post shared by Jojo Moyes (@jojomoyesofficial) on Dec 25, 2017 at 3:51pm PST

As the prematurely born Fiona the hippo continued to grow in size, her social media following through the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Facebook page also grew.

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Saratoga Springs, N.Y., famous for its historic racetrack, is among the most idyllic places in America. But on a recent fall weekend, not far from the track, horses were serving a different mission: retired thoroughbreds were recruited to help returning veterans at Song Hill Farm. A group from the US Army 2nd Battalion, 135th infantry, united in grief over the death of a fellow solider, gathered for the first time in five years to be part of Saratoga Warhorse, a three-day program that pairs veterans with horses. Tom Rinaldi reports the emotional story of the veterans, paired with their horses, undergoing a rebirth of trust and taking a first step toward healing.

Watch it all, and, yes, you will likely need kleenex–KSH.

Before a gunman entered a rural Texas church with a ballistic vest and a military-style rifle, killing at least 26 people on Sunday, he was convicted of assaulting his wife and breaking his infant stepson’s skull.

In 2012, while stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Devin P. Kelley, 26, was charged with “assault on his spouse and assault on their child,” according to the Air Force.

“He assaulted his stepson severely enough that he fractured his skull, and he also assaulted his wife,” said Don Christensen, a retired colonel who was the chief prosecutor for the Air Force. “He pled to intentionally doing it.”

He was sentenced in November of that year to 12 months’ confinement and reduction to the lowest possible rank. After his confinement, he was discharged from the military with a bad conduct discharge. It is unclear whether his conviction would have barred him from purchasing a gun.

The case marked a long downward slide that included divorce and being charged with animal cruelty.

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In the past year India has been witness to numerous gruesome public murders of men suspected of eating beef or transporting ostensibly sacred cows for slaughter. A band of radicals calling themselves gau-rakshak, or cow-protectors, may lay claim to being the world’s first terrorists in a bovine cause. Yet this intolerant movement’s appeal to religion is greatly at odds with the facts.

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Three churches have been chosen to pilot a £3.8m scheme to solve the “national problem” of bats damaging churches.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) said it hoped the money would allow bats to live “in harmony” with congregations.
It added it viewed the cash as “a practical solution” to the problem.
The churches involved in the pilot, before the project is rolled out, are in Rutland, Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

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This dog saved my life,” his owner, Lance Corporal Jeff DeYoung, a Marine, said. “I trust him more than most human beings.”

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Our 3 dogs–Toy maltese, puggle and black lab #nationalpetday #dogs #photos pic.twitter.com/TdbDGKG3GS

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 11, 2017

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Great Kiskadee appears in Colleton County that has likely never visited South Carolina before https://t.co/1vuidqgcie #birds #southcarolina

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 23, 2017

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Apparently, it’s #HedgehogDay””and because we could all do with some good news, a reminder that a baby hedgehog is called a HOGLET. pic.twitter.com/atOsXCuYBi

— Haggard Hawks Words (@HaggardHawks) February 2, 2017

I loved this–even the accents!

On 2 October, he gathered with one of our diocesan curates, the Revd Doreen Cage, and about 100 parishioners at the Zoo, for a service before the penguin pool. Mother Doreen is a great animal lover, and in addition to her priestly duties runs a home for dogs in the hills above Malaga city, where is an assistant curate in St George’s.

There are two remarkable things about the photo…. One is to observe Fr William engaging in an action song! The other is the penguin in the bottom left, dressed not too differently from the priests, apparently concelebrating the feast!

Read it all and make sure to enjoy the photograph.

Watch it all–hysterical!

Ms. Weber had to get a medical marijuana card to buy products for her dog Emmett. That led her to an awkward conversation with a physician who solely prescribes medical marijuana for people.

“I went to the weed doctor and said, ”˜I need a card so I can get it for my dog who had cancer,’” said Ms. Weber, who said she doesn’t smoke pot or drink. “He said, ”˜I don’t have a solution for that.’ So I told him I had insomnia.”

Maureen McCormick, 54, lives in Newport Beach, Calif., and was persuaded of marijuana’s benefits after relatives used cannabis products for their own aches and pains. She thought they would benefit her 14-year-old cat, Bart, who has arthritis in his front legs. “I told the doctor I had a knee that aches, and my shoulder, too,” she said. “I also said I want to use it for my cat.” She got the card in July.

Ms. McCormick is using a tincture by Treatwell, a California company that also makes edibles for humans.

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