A faint meow in the rubble of a Mississippi tornado leads to a stunning rescue

As storm chaser Ashton Lemley picked his way through a tornado-ravaged Mississippi trailer park, he heard the unmistakable meow of a kitten pierce the predawn darkness.

The homes were flattened just hours earlier as storms spawned at least three tornadoes across the bottom half of Mississippi, injuring a dozen at the trailer park in the rural community of Bogue Chitto.

Lemley had no idea where the kitten was, but he was determined to find it. After a few minutes, the meowing stopped, and Lemley feared the worst.

Then, five minutes later, he heard it again.

“I said, ‘Oh, he’s still alive!’” Lemley told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Lemley quickly dug under insulation from a flattened wall until his flashlight beam found the kitten — wet, scared and hiding between two wooden posts.

Lemley captured the moment on video: “Oh my goodness, I found him!” he says to the camera. “Are you OK? Come here – it’s OK. … We’ll get you cleaned up, baby. Don’t you worry.”

Lemley held the kitten in his arms for a few minutes before handing it off to the commander of the United Cajun Navy, a volunteer disaster-response group, who dried it off and took it to safety. Lemley marveled that it didn’t appear to be injured.

“I’ve been in these situations so many times,” said Lemley, who has been chasing storms since 2010. “I don’t try to get overly emotional. But it is very heartbreaking to see any type of animal or human go through something like that.”

Lemley says there’s already a lot of interest from people who want to adopt the kitten if its owners are not located. Some, he said, want to name it Tornado.

It won’t be coming home with him, though: Lemley is allergic to cats.

Chonkers the sea lion draws crowds to San Francisco’s Pier 39

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An intrepid sea lion nicknamed Chonkers is waddling his way into the hearts of tourists and locals who have flocked to San Francisco’s Pier 39 for a glimpse of the massive pinniped.

On Thursday morning, visitors snapped photos as the Steller sea lion flopped on the pier, surrounded by dozens of much smaller California sea lions that call the docks home.

“He’s like a Volkswagen! He’s so huge!” said Oluwaseyi Akinbobola, a visitor from Los Angeles who had an extra half hour so she ran down to the pier for a hopeful peek of the elusive sea lion. “I have heard everywhere about this big giant sea lion, and I like to look at things, so just thought I’d check it out.”

Chonkers likely came from up north off the coast of Washington or Oregon and is estimated to weigh between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds (680 and 907 kilograms), said Laura Gill, public programs manager at The Marine Mammal Center in nearby Sausalito. Chonkers has been one of the few Steller sea lions to venture to the pier, which is protected from predators and crashing waves while providing a fish-filled buffet.

“There’s plenty of food in San Francisco Bay for them, so the fish, the rockfish, the anchovies, the herring, there’s a lot of easy prey for them,” she said.

The giant sea lion, which was first spotted on the pier last month, has brought the community together, said San Francisco resident Danielle Ovadia. “He’s so precious, and he’s quite literally humongous,” she said.

Sea lions have become synonymous with the popular tourist pier, but they didn’t start gathering there until after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, according to the marina. One lone male was quickly joined by dozens more and by February 1990, the pinniped population had grown to more than 300.

Chonkers has been spotted at the docks early in the morning but is harder to pin down during the rest of the day, Gill said. She said it is endearing to watch him try to snuggle with the regular sea lions for warmth and it will be interesting to see if other Steller sea lions follow suit.

“He’s trying to fit in, but he sticks out like a sore thumb,” she said.

A massive 11,000-carat ruby has been unearthed in Myanmar’s warscarred
gemstone
heartland

BANGKOK (AP) — Miners in Myanmar have discovered a rare ruby of enormous size, considered to be the secondlargest by weight ever found in the conflict-battered Southeast Asian nation, state media reported Friday.

The ruby, measuring 11,000 carats (2.2 kilograms, or 4.8 pounds), was unearthed near the town of Mogok, in the upper Mandalay region, the heartland of the lucrative gem-mining industry that has recently experienced intense fighting in the country’s wide-ranging civil war.

According to a report from the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the newly found rough ruby was discovered in mid-April, just after the traditional New Year festival.