The entire country of Tuvalu is planning to move to Australia

From Wired: "Tuvalu is preparing to carry out the first planned migration of an entire country in response to the effects of climate change. Recent studies project that much of its territory could be submerged in the next 25 years due to rising sea levels, forcing its inhabitants to consider migration as an urgent survival measure. This island nation in Oceania is made up of nine coral islands and atolls inhabited by just over 11,000 people. The country’s average altitude is just 2 meters above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to rising oceans, flooding, and storm surges, all exacerbated by the climate crisis. A study by NASA’s Sea Level Change Team revealed that, in 2023, the sea level in Tuvalu was 15 centimeters higher than the average recorded over the previous three decades. If this trend continues, it’s projected that most of the territory, including its critical infrastructure, will be below the high-tide level by 2050."

Kiki the paralyzed sheep has learned how to drive herself around on a motorized cart

From Boing Boing: "Kiki, who was born paralyzed after her mom caught Cash Valley virus from a mosquito, was brought as a young lamb to Don't Forget Us, Pet Us, a nonprofit sanctuary located in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts that provides lifelong care for farm animals with disabilities. From the start, the folks caring for her noticed how attentive, curious, and sweet Kiki was, and they've worked to provide her with the tools and love she needs to thrive, despite her disabilities. When she was young, the sanctuary saw how quickly Kiki learned to control the toys' dials and levers by using her lips and teeth to move them and wondered if Kiki would be able to transfer the skills to drive a motorized cart. Sure enough, she easily learned to use her head to push the joystick on her motorized cart to move it in various directions, and now she's an old pro, scooting around the sanctuary property at her leisure."

If you get the weekend off you can thank this Welsh textile magnate

From Bunk History: "Do you have a work schedule that leaves you with enough time off the clock to rest up and handle your other responsibilities? If so, you might owe something to Robert Owen, a wealthy industrialist who was born in Wales on May 14, 1771. Owen is widely credited with being the first person to advocate for a universal “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” approach to work-life balance. He experimented with this concept at his own factories and urged employers everywhere to adopt this management ethos as part of the socialist ideology he embraced decades before Karl Marx. Owen, born into a working-class family, had virtually no formal education. By the age of 21, he was managing a textile mill, and at 28 he married the daughter of a Scottish mill owner, whose business he soon purchased. Owen rejected long hours and took steps to make child labor less exploitative. Although he paid higher wages than his competitors, the mill’s profits made him a wealthy man."

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

In the Virgin Islands cars drive on the left but many of them are still left-hand drive

From Wikipedia: "The U.S. Virgin Islands is the only U.S. jurisdiction that drives on the left. This was inherited from what was then-current practice on the islands at the time of the 1917 transfer of the territory to the United States from Denmark. However, because most cars in the territory are imported from the mainland United States, the cars in the territory are left-hand drive. But not all U.S. vehicle regulations are in force, and there are vehicles on the road that cannot be sold in the mainland U.S. Additionally, headlights use the U.S. pattern which casts light to the right, tending to blind oncoming drivers. Traffic signals are located on the opposite side of the road than they are in the U.S. mainland, and many standard road signs have been altered to fit the left-side driving."

Paco, who lived in Madrid in the 1800s, was the world's first celebrity dog

From Atlas Obscura: "It was October 4, 1879. Sitting at the Café de Fornos is a man named Gonzalo de Saavedra y Cueto, the Marqués of Bogoraya. He was an important guy, a nobleman, and later the mayor of the city of Madrid. And while he was sitting there eating, a dog entered the café. This dog was sort of medium-sized. He was a black dog with a little splash of white on his chest. Not very big but not super small either. October 4th was the Saint’s Day of Francis of Assisi, so the Marqués decided to name this little dog Paco, short for Francisco. Soon enough, Paco became a fixture in the Café de Fornos. And since there were a lot of writers and artists and intellectuals and journalists bumming around, Paco began popping up in their work. Newspaper columns would report on what he was doing. One illustration shows Paco having dinner with the Marqués, and Paco is shown with a very elegant napkin tied around his little neck."

When things go wrong while deep-sea fishing

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy's Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova's The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com