Lifestyle

Fake cobwebs and some other spooky, outdoor Halloween decorations meant as harmless fun can do real damage to wildlife.

Halloween spending has skyrocketed in recent years, and the National Retail Federation says Americans are expected to spend $2.7 billion on Halloween decorations this year.

Wildlife organizations say they also have seen an increase in animal visits to local rehabilitation centers for injuries related to the outdoor holiday decorations.

“The fake cobwebs are of particular concern,” said Lisa Bloch, director of communications for the Marin Humane in Novato, Calif. When they’re strung across bushes and trees, “wildlife can easily get stuck in these webs.”

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The fake webs can trap animals, said Alison Hermance of WildCare, a nonprofit wildlife hospital and nature education center in San Rafael, Calif. Birds caught in them can damage their wings and claws. Chipmunks and other low-to the-ground rodents can also get caught and damage their paws.

If you observe an animal in trouble, always call a wildlife center before intervening, Bloch said.

Halloween lights and other items that dangle also can pose problems for wildlife. Deer and elk can get holiday lights, netting, clothing and other materials stuck in their antlers, said Jason Clay of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Denver office.

“We see it every year,” he said.

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Be aware of what paths animals use in your yard, and avoid placing decorations there, Clay said.

Pumpkins and other food items should be disposed of promptly because they entice animals to come closer to your home than they normally would, putting them in contact with pets and increasing the risk of getting hit by a car, Hermance said.

Don’t leave any decorations up for an extended period, adds Bloch. “It’s good to be mindful and remove the decorations as soon as you’re done celebrating.”

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This story was originally published by the Associated Press.

A marketing strategy using a double entendre has landed a UK-based fashion retailer in hot water with advertising regulators.

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Boohoo reportedly sent out an email advertisement, which targeted teenagers, with a woman wearing a long tan jacket over a white dress. The cheeky slogan over the model reads “Send Nudes.” Underneath, the text reads “set the tone with new season hues,” referring to new nude-colored options the online retailer was offering.

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The suggestive campaign has been labeled “disconcerting” and “socially irresponsible” by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) because of the demographic it was targeting, which according to the agency are consumers between 16 to 24 years old, according to SWNS. Boohoo did not immediately confirm to Fox News to whom the email ad was sent.

The ASA determined the email made light of a “potentially harmful social trend,” noting young people were more likely to be “harmfully affected” by pressure to share sexual images, SWNS reports.

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Boohoo defended its advertisement as only describing the color of the clothing.

“The reference to ‘nudes’ in this particular email related to the nude fashion trend, which was apparent from the body of the email which contained a photo of a model wearing a beige jacket with the words ‘Send Nudes. Set the tone with new season hues’ across the image,” a statement from the company to Fox News read.

However, the ASA claimed if consumers only saw the subject headline – which reportedly was also the phrase “send nudes” – without “any further context” it was “likely to be disconcerting for some recipients.”

The fashion site was banned from publishing the ad or other marketing advertisements like it.

Boohoo said in the statement, the company recognizes its “obligations to ensure that advertising is socially responsible.”

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Similarly, another UK-based brand, Misguided, had an ad pulled this week after it was accused of “objectifying women.”

In the ad, models were seen wearing skimpy bikinis promoting the brand’s swimwear line.

The on-screen text read, “If you plan on wearing clothes this summer, we’re got you covered, kind of,” along with a winking emojis.

Throughout the commercial, the women are seen posing provocatively, which drew complaints from viewers, claiming the ad “overly sexualized and objectified women.” The complaints, which reportedly happened recently despite the commercial appearing to have been live since June, prompted the ASA to ban the ad.

Nearly a month after chef Carl Ruiz died, his cause of death has been confirmed.

The celebrity chef and Food Network personality, who often appeared as a judge on “Guy’s Grocery Games,” died of a what appeared to be a heart attack on Sept. 21 at the age of 44. A source from the Maryland Department of Health tells Fox News that Ruiz’s death was specifically caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease: hardening of the arteries.

A representative for Food Network could not confirm reports of Ruiz’s cause of death.

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Following his passing in September, Ruiz’s friends in the culinary scene paid tribute to the late chef on social media.

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Fellow celebrity chef Guy Fieri, with whom Ruiz had teamed up with over the years, wrote he was “heartbroken” over the news.

“I have no words to describe what a great friend he was to me and my family,” Fieri tweeted. “His ability to make me laugh and smile under any circumstances was only outshined by his talent as a chef.”

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Earlier this year, Ruiz opened a restaurant in New York City’s Meatpacking District called La Cubana. The restaurant will honor Ruiz’s legacy with a Carl Ruiz Scholarship Foundation.

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Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

A 4-year-old boy has gone viral for his enthusiastic drumming.

Georgia mom Tabitha Wilcox took her son Seneca – and his toy drumset – to a football game at Telfair County Middle School for his birthday, Fox 35 reports. While in the stands, Seneca was having fun playing along with the drumline.

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Soon after the little boy started playing, he was invited down to join the drumline and show off his excited percussion skills.

In the video, which has garnered over 5 million views since Tabitha posted it to her Facebook last week, tiny Seneca is seen standing at the end of the drumline tapping his sticks right along with the junior high drummers. Seneca also appears to be looking at his fellow performers, trying to stay in sync with everyone else.

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The heart-melting video also garnered many comments, some of which called Seneca’s performance “too cute.”

“Love this!” one person wrote.

“Beautiful” another commented.

“Aww! Too cute!” another posted.

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Tabitha captioned the video with birthday wishes for her little boy.

“I tell you this little guy here makes my heart smile,” she wrote.

A man in Georgia is getting some serious side-eye from his homeowner’s association for a very cheeky Halloween display set up in front of his home.

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Mike O’Neill, of North Fulton, recently put up his Halloween decorations, which include a pumpkin man appearing to bend over and moon passersby with his orange, pumpkiny buttocks. The “mooning pumpkin man” was supposed to “make people laugh and have a little fun,” O’Neill told CBS46, but the HOA apparently doesn’t find it funny at all.

The HOA reached out to O’Neill, claiming others in the neighborhood had made complaints about it being offensive, especially those with young children, the news outlet reported.

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O’Neill censored the pumpkin man with a sign that read “censored by GBHOA” referring to the Grogan’s Bluff Home Owner’s Association. The censoring reportedly did not go over well with the association, either.

The outlet reports that O’Neill has been putting up the decoration since 2008, and only received complaints about it this year.

Many on social media, however, did not find the mooning pumpkin man offensive and hit out at HOA’s policies.

“I would have told HOA to kiss my pumpkins,” one person commented.

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“HOAs are the WORST!” another wrote.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, I’ve seen other post like that on facebook. It’s just for fun. I’m sure they’ll more out there like them,” one person wrote.

“I guess some people just don’t have a sense of humor these days,” another commented on Twitter.

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Mike O’Neill and the HOA’s Kathleen Neitzel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A bar in Washington D.C. has been slammed with a $90,000 fine after a customer was served a potentially lethal cocktail containing a chemical nicknamed “yellow death.”

On the night of Nov. 11, 2018, Leon Williams was at Club Heaven and Hell, in the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood, where he ordered his favorite cocktail, a Long Island iced tea. But upon taking his first sip, Williams knew something other than the normal ingredients had been added to his drink.

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“When I first drank it, I was like, ‘Man, this ain’t right,'” he told Fox 5 at the time. “I got up, I told him to taste this drink, then I saw a bottle behind the counter. I grabbed it and it was that clear, bright stuff — that poison stuff that he put in my drink.”

Williams had received what could have been a lethal cocktail made with Foam-Brite Condenser Coil Cleaner, a cleaning product sometimes nicknamed “yellow death” due to its color. He was then hospitalized, having suffered chemical burns to his throat.

Now, bar owner Mehari Woldemarian has been hit with a hefty fine after the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration found that this was just one of many code violations and security problems plaguing the establishment, Fox 5 reported separately.

In addition to having to pay the $90,000 fine, Woldemarian has had his liquor license suspended for 90 days.

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“God as my witness … It was a mistake — why should I have somebody poisoned? The customer comes to pay me and I’ve been in this business for the longest time in Adams Morgan,” Woldemarian told the station at the time.

The strong cleaning product warns against indoor use and has a label on the cap that cautions of severe skin burns and possible eye damage.

A bizarre incident occurred in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday night when 300 birds crashed into the NASCAR Hall of Fame building.

A video originally posted to Facebook shows the chimney swifts slamming into the structure’s large glass frontage, which the witness told the Charlotte Observer continued for over an hour.

According to Fox 46, 100 of the birds died, 100 were severely injured and 100 were stunned by the impacts. Carolina Waterfowl Rescue is treating the birds and asking for donations toward the effort.

While an estimated 1 billion birds are killed annually by flying into windows in the U.S. during migratory periods, Audobon North Carolina senior network manager Kim Brand told the Observer that it’s unusual for chimney swifts to do so and that the organization has never seen an event of this scale.

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“It’s also odd that these swifts were out last night after 9 p.m. Normally, even during migration, Chimney Swifts go to roost in a chimney for the night around dusk. Yesterday, the sun set around 7 p.m,” Brand said.

The organization has recommended that the museum turn off the lights through the end of the migration season in November.

This guy probably doesn’t have a future ballplayer on his hands.

Gender-reveal celebrations, which have been gaining in popularity over the last few years, often involve the expecting parents trying to come up with new and unique ways of revealing their baby’s gender to friends and family. And one family in California did just that — although not in way they hoped.

Hilarious footage of the gender-reveal-gone-wrong was shared to Twitter by Jesus Duran, who claimed to be the cousin-in-law of the dad-to-be. In it, Duran’s female cousin throws a ball filled with colored powder at her husband, who is waiting to swing at it with a baseball bat.

Unfortunately for the dad-to-be, he didn’t hit a home run.

After five swings-and-misses, the seemingly frustrated father-to-be took matters into his own hands and threw the ball into the air himself… and then missed again.

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This time, however, the ball exploded into a cloud of blue powder, revealing that the couple is expecting a boy.

“It was supposed to be just a normal gender reveal until they said they’re doing a baseball gender reveal but none of them played baseball or softball, haha,” Duran told My 9 NJ. “The family’s reaction was great because everyone was giving him a hard time because it was so funny.”

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While the gender reveal may not have gone entirely according to plan, at least there wasn’t any controversy. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of a different gender reveal in September, after an expecting couple using a hippo to help with their ceremony at a zoo in Texas.

A clip of Jonathan and Bridgette Joseph tossing a watermelon – filled with blue Jell-O – into the hippopotamus’ mouth caused a mouthful of controversy on social media, with critics taking issue with the food dye the animal was made to consume, and another calling it the “worst” gender reveal.

The zoo later pointed out that the animal involved in the reveal was not harmed in the process.

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The husband in that reveal, too, was also slammed for saying “thank God” after it was revealed the couple is expecting a boy.

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This story contained additional reporting by Fox News’ Alexandra Deabler.

Volvo unveiled its first fully electric model on Wednesday as it aims to put 1 million electrified cars on the road by 2025.

The XC40 Recharge isn’t an entirely unique vehicle, but a battery-powered version of the recently introduced XC40 subcompact SUV. The all-wheel-drive utility features a 78 kilowatt-hour battery pack that provides an estimated 200 miles per charge, which is on par with the Audi e-tron’s 204 mile rating, but falls short of the Tesla Model X 75D 238-mile range.

Volvo says the 408 hp XC40 Recharge can accelerate to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds, making it quicker than an entry level Tesla Model 3 sedan. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but Volvo said it will reimburse owners for the equivalent of one free year of electricity, tracked and paid for through its connected app. The incentive applies to all of Volvo’s plug-in models, including hybrids, which will all be adopting the Recharge name.

Along with the zero-emissions drivetrain, the XC40 Recharge debuts Volvo’s new Google-based infotainment system, which is equipped with voice-controlled Google Assistant and Google Maps. Additional apps will be added and the XC40 can accommodate over-the-air updates for certain vehicular systems.

The XC40 Recharge goes on sale in the U.S. in 2020 and Volvo plans to follow it with an additional all-electric model each year.

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