The Tale of Tampa's Ceramic Rooftop Cat

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Hello, I'm Jennning Mack with five good news stories. Good news if you find scrabble too hard. Mattel is launching a new version of Scrabble, which is quote unquote less competitive. I love Scrabble. The new version of Scrabble will include helper cards and see players work towards a series of goals. The new double sided scrabble board features the original game on one side the new version on the other. It's called Scrabble Together. In the new game, cards provide help, prompt and clues, which can be selected to match the player's chosen challenge level. The winner is the player who completes twenty challenges, while a player loses if they've used up all the helper cards and cannot complete a goal. Nice job in Wisconsin by Wheels for Winners, They've given hundreds of free bikes to Wisconsin youth. Wheels for Winners only ask that applicants provide evidence that they've completed ten hours of communities for any organization in Madison, Wisconsin. After that, you show up, you pick a bike and ride off. Neil is the chairman of Wheels for Winters, and he says they rely on donated bikes for parts. Bikes are completely restored, dismounted for parts, or donated to other partners. Not a single bike goes to waste. We turn out about four hundred bikes a year, but we take in probably seven hundred and fifty bikes. What we're trying to do here is allow young people that might not be able to afford a bike to have a bike with just a bit of sweat equity. Super cool. Hey, good news if you like geckos but you wish they were blue. In a remote

1:34 section of India, a gorgeous blue and yellow gecko species has been named an honor of Vincent van go Nimapsis van Goghe I'm sure I got that wrong. Was found during an exploration after the flash of indigo and mustard yellow caught the scientist's eye. It looks similar to another gecko of the same genus see Galaxia, but during lab work was confirmed that it is a new species. Good news. You probably of a couple years left. Global life expectancy has increased by six point two years since nineteen ninety, thanks largely to declining depths from diarrhea and stroke. According to a new study. Over the past three decades, global life expectancy increased. The region with the largest increase in life expectancy ten point seven years was Eastern Sub Saharan Africa due to control of diarrheal diseases.

2:22 Sharp drops in death from diseases like diarrhe and typhoid increased life expectancy by one point one years and from lower respiratory infections like tuberculosis by zero point nine years. The current life expectancy in the US in twenty twenty four is seventy nine point twenty five years. That's a point one point eight percent increase from twenty twenty three. A sixty five year old male today in average health has a fifty five percent probability of living the age eighty five. For a sixty five year old woman, the probability of reaching eighty five is sixty five percent. And good news. In Tampa, the ceramic cat can stay. There's a ceramic cat on the roof of the Adam and Jennings Funeral Home in Tampa.

3:04 Michael purchased the property recently and people were wondering, what do you got to do with the cat. The porcelain cat was first fastened the roof in nineteen forty eight by a cat lover who owned an antique store on the property. Edward Jennings, a dog lover, kept the cat. After buying the land in nineteen sixty two to operate the funeral home, Mike Adams took over the business. He kept the cat. Stacy Adams took over from her dad. She kept the cat. The funeral home closed in twenty twenty three. The space is being reopened as the Gwynn Center community space for events and meetings. But good news, the cat will stay on the roof. That's good. I like traditions like that. And those are your five good news stories for today. A lot of new listeners. I appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you're new here today and you're on the Apple podcast app, pushed that follow button. That's the plus on the app, so you don't miss an episode. New episodes a Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

3:54 You have a great day.