Jan. 4, 2026

The Grinch pulls over speeders, hands out onions

Show Notes
Transcript

A retired deputy sheriff dressed as the Grinch offers speeding drivers a choice between a ticket or an onion; European scientists restore vision in macular degeneration patients using an electronic eye implant and augmented reality glasses; a woman plays the clarinet during brain surgery to treat Parkinson's disease; an 80-year-old woman becomes the oldest to complete the Ironman World Championship; and Virginia police mistake costumed teenagers for burglars in a prank reminiscent of Scooby-Doo.

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Callaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with five

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good news stories over the holidays. I hope you didn't

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get pulled over by the Grinch. For the past twenty years,

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retired Deputy Sheriff Colonel Loo has put on a Grinch

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costume and an operation targeting speeding drivers in school zones.

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If you were caught slightly exceeding the school zone speed

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limit by five miles per hour or less, you had

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a choice. You could get a ticket or an onion.

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The Sheriff's office said he gave out quite a few onions.

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Nice job by scientists in Europe, doctor has ever stored

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vision and patients with untreatable macular degeneration using a device

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that combines an electronic eye implant with augmented reality glasses.

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That's pretty cool. People who couldn't see an eychart before

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can now read on average five lines. Mahim Mukwid of

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the University College of London says in the history of

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artificial vision, this represents a new era. Blind patients or

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act able to have meaningful central vision restoration, which has

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never been done before. Getting back the ability to read

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is a major improvement in their quality of life, lifts

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their mood and helps to restore their confidence and independence.

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One of the patients, Sheila, said, I was an avid

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bookworm and I wanted that back. It was dead exciting

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when it began seeing a letter. It's not simple learning

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to read again. But the more hours I put in,

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the more I pick up. A woman in England played

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her clarinet for the first time in five years while

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awake on the operating table. Denise was undergoing deep brain

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stimulation surgery to treat Parkinson's disease. The procedure delivers a

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gentle electric current to electroes implanted in the brain that

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helps restore motor control, and her surgeon had the idea, Hey,

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bring your clarinet so we can test this. Denise was

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diagnosed in twenty fourteen and slowly lost the ability to swim, dance,

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or play the clarinet. The operation lasted four hours under

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local anesthesia, and by the end, Denise's music was back.

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Congratulations to Natalie, She's eighty years old. She became the

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oldest woman ever to finish the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii.

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That's a swim of two point four miles, a one

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hundred and twelve mile bike ride and a full marathon. Natalie,

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who's eighty, didn't even learn how to swim until she

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was sixty. Her coach, Michelle said, she's truly gritty. Natalie

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is the definition of grit and gratitude. Grateful to make

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it to the start line, grateful to do something she

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loves every day, and grateful to inspire so many others.

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Sixteen hours, forty five minutes, Natalie says, the important thing

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is that people see from my story that maybe they

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could push themselves a little bit. Uh oh. In Virginia,

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the police were on alert. Three costume figures were caught

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creeping up to a home's front door. It looked like

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maybe it was burglars. The police even asked neighbors to

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check their cameras for clues. The officers investigated, and it

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turned out, ah, it was some teenagers. Just like a

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Scooby Doo episode. They were just doing a little prank.

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Police Chief McGuire called it a moral failure, saying consequences

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could result in deadly consequences. The prank may have seemed harmless,

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but it could have led to serious consequences, noting that

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one frightened relative even arrived at the house armed. The

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chief says these are not pranks to be taken lightly.

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In those your five good news stories for today. Have

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a great day.