Lifestyle

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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A restaurant in Wisconsin is facing backlash after a former waitress claims she was fired for refusing to serve a table that was making “transphobic” remarks.

Brittany Rossio-Spencer, who worked at Fat Joe’s Bar and Grill in Fond du Lac, said that she overheard people at a table making the comments about guests at another one of her tables. When she allegedly asked if another server could handle the table, she says she was told to serve the table or go home.

Spencer decided to go home.

She posted about the incident on Facebook, saying, “I got sent home from work early because I refused to serve a table who were making transphobic remarks about guests at one of my other tables. Oh well, at least I stand by my morals and beliefs.”

The next day, she wrote another post that said: “I was fired from my job because I refused to wait on a table who were making transphobic remarks about guests at another table. But I’ll always choose my morals over money. See ya.”

She finished up the post by saying, “Please feel free to leave a review on their Facebook page, Fat Joe’s Bar and Grill.”

The restaurant’s owner, Tad Wallender, was forced to shut down the restaurant’s Facebook page because it became a “political battleground,” the Fond du Lac Reporter reports. Wallender initially attempted to respond to the reviews, but he apparently shut down the page in an effort to keep the restaurant neutral.

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According to Wallendar, the alleged comments were made in private conversation.

“We don’t take a stand on any conversation people have,” he told the Fond du Lac Reporter. “We’re not going to impose anyone’s political beliefs, moral beliefs, ideals on any single person. We’re just here to serve food and drinks.”

The restaurant has also allegedly received multiple threatening emails.

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According to the owner, both the guests who are said to have made the remarks and the person they were talking about are regulars at the restaurant.

“Letting people say (transphobic things) is not remaining neutral,” Spencer told the Fond du Lac Reporter. “I didn’t make a scene. I wasn’t asking for them to be kicked out. I didn’t want to take a table.”

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Fox News reached out to Fat Joe’s Bar and Grill for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

Hey, that looks familiar!

The Duchess of Sussex has again “recycled” a favorite frock, sporting the emerald green dress she wore for the photocall and joint interview announcing her engagement to Prince Harry to the WellChild Awards in on Wednesday night.

Duchess Meghan was all smiles when she arrived at the London event, stepping out in the elegant, sleeveless, knee-length dress by brand P.A.R.O.S.H., Page Six reports. She completed the look with a camel Sentaler trench, neutral suede heels and a tortoiseshell handbag.

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Eagle-eyed style watchers may remember the dress from her November 2017 engagement announcement, and the coat from her first Christmas church service with the royal family at Sandringham that same year.

The fashion moment is hardly the first time that the 38-year-old royal has worn the same clothing for multiple, photographed public appearances. While recently abroad in South Africa for a formal 10-day tour, the duchess seemed to make a point of mixing old outfits with affordable styles during the highly publicized excursion.

For example, a source told Hello! that the former actress’ decision to go without her glittering engagement ring during the tour was a “powerful signal” of her desire to be “low key” while doing meet-and-greets with the public.

“The very fact Meghan was adroit enough to realize that and quietly left her rock elsewhere, I think, is a powerful signal,” royal expert and writer Daniela Elser explained in an article for News.com.au.

“Firstly, of just how conscious she is about making others comfortable, secondly, that she is sensationally savvy image-wise and third, that she is more than happy to rewrite the rule book,” Elser said.

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At the WellChild Awards, Prince Harry became visibly overcome with emotion while giving a speech at the event honoring sick children and their caregivers.

The sixth in line to the British throne has been a patron of the event since 2007, but this is the first year he attended as a parent himself, after welcoming son Archie Harrison in May.

“Last year when my wife and I attended we knew we were expecting our first child — no one else did at the time, but we did — and I remember squeezing Meghan’s hand so tight during the awards…” he said before having to pause to collect himself.

“… Both of us thinking what it would be like to be parents one day and more so, what it would be like to do everything we could to protect and help our child should they be born with immediate challenges or become unwell over time,” the prince continued.

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“And now, as parents, being here and speaking to all of you pulls at my heartstrings in a way I could have never understood until I had a child of my own,” he added.

WellChild is a charity that supports children who are battling serious illnesses and their families who care for them.

Fox News’ Jessica Napoli contributed to this report.

Fearless shoppers in the market for a Chicago-area home may be intrigued to learn that the house built on the land where the bodies of 29 of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s victims were found is up for sale.

In recent days, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom brick home in Norwood Park, Ill., where Gacy’s house once sat has hit the market for $459,000, TMZ reports.

For under a half-million dollars, the “beautiful” 2,500 square foot home on an 8,600-plus square foot lot could be yours, according to a Realtor listing page. Features include an updated kitchen, two-sided living room fireplace, large second story loft, large backyard, a new tear-off roof, and a two-car garage – with a side of horrific history.

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The home was built in 1986, seven years after Gacy’s ranch was razed as law enforcement officials searched for bodies, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Gacy is said to have murdered at least 33 boys and young men in the 1970s; 29 of those victims’ bodies were found on the Norwood Park property.

The rest were recovered from the Des Plaines River. Six of his victims remain unidentified.

Under Illinois law, a homeowner doesn’t have to disclose details of deaths when selling a property, but a real estate agent must be truthful if questioned by potential buyers, according to the outlet.

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Gacy is regarded as one of history’s most unconventional serial killers, largely because of his work as an amateur clown. He was considered an active citizen of the community and well-liked by the town’s citizens.

Gacy was convicted in 1968 of sexually assaulting two teenagers. It is believed that he killed his first victim, teenager Timothy McCoy, in 1972. The serial killer murdered at least 33 boys and young men in the 1970s.

The infamous serial killer, who also worked as a Chicago-area building contractor, lured young men to his home by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work. There, he stabbed one and strangled the others before he buried most of them in the crawl space or dumped the others in a river.

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Gacy was executed by lethal injection in 1994.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A couple of concerned consumers are accusing an East Coast supermarket chain of feeding them false information about the store’s vanilla ice cream.

Quincy Steele, of Pennsylvania, and Jimmy Arriola, of New York, have filed a class action complaint against Wegmans Food Markets, claiming that the chain’s vanilla ice cream varieties don’t actually contain any real vanilla, but rather “natural flavorings” that are derived from “non-vanilla sources.”

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“For decades, consumers have expected products containing vanilla ice cream to be exclusively flavored by real vanilla derived from the vanilla plant and contain a sufficient amount of vanilla to characterize the food,” alleges the complaint, which was shared with WIVB.

The lawsuit further argues that such ice cream products should be labeled “vanilla-flavored,” and that Wegmans’ vanilla ice cream products “are misleading because they do not contain the amount, type and percentage of vanilla as a component of the flavoring in the product which is required and consistent with consumer expectations.”

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The Food and Drug Administration defines “natural flavor” or “natural flavoring” as products that contain the “flavoring constituents” derived or extracted from a variety of sources (plants, herbs, fruits, etc.) “whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”

“In cases where the flavor contains a solely natural flavor(s), the flavor shall be so labeled, e.g., strawberry flavor, banana flavor, or natural strawberry flavor,” reads the FDA’s code of federal regulations.

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A representative for Wegmans was not immediately available to comment on the lawsuit. However, a spokesperson defended the chain’s labeling in an emailed statement provided to CBS News.

“We take great pride in the quality of all of our Wegmans Brand products. We believe that the labeling of our ice cream fully complies with all regulations and industry standards, and is not misleading in any way,” the statement read.

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The class action lawsuit is seeking injunctive relief — i.e., having Wegmans rename its products and remove the products containing the previous packaging — as well as monetary damages and punitive damages.

Welcome to the U.K., Chick-fil-A.

The chicken-centric chain has reportedly opened a “pilot” shop in a mall in England, marking the Atlanta-based eatery’s first expansion into the United Kingdom.

On Oct. 10, the restaurant opened shop in The Oracle mall in Reading, which is about an hour and a half drive from London, Berkshire Live reports.

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“We can confirm we opened a pilot licensed location in the U.K. on October 10 and we are pleased to have already served several hundred customers in our first day. This location will help us understand more about consumer interest in our brand and signature menu items,” a spokesperson for Chick-fil-A, Inc. told Fox News of the Reading opening.

Some people claiming to be satisfied customers of the latest location have taken to Instagram in recent days, sharing photos of the restaurant’s famous nuggets and waffle fries.

Others, however, aren’t quite so thrilled with the news of the restaurant’s expansion overseas, criticizing the company owner’s alleged views toward the LGBTQ community.

Organizers for LGBT group Reading Pride have called for a boycott of the new Chick-fil-A location in the mall, and plan to hold a “peaceful protest” on Saturday morning, according to a Facebook event.

Ultimately, the group hopes to achieve a larger goal of getting the “abhorrent” restaurant shut down, Martin Cooper, chief executive of Reading Pride, told BerkshireLive.

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“We are a progressive country and certainly a very progressive town,” Cooper said in a Tuesday interview.  “What we have here is a restaurant owned by a family that has very backward beliefs that actively promote anti LGBT charities… To have a company with such values in our town is abhorrent to us.”

“We need to educate the community about what’s happened. The feedback and support we have got is overwhelming, so a protest and demonstration seems appropriate” Cooper continued.

In September, Chick-fil-A opened its first international location in Toronto, an event protested by LGBTQ activists. The critics argued that the chicken-centric chain owner’s historically anti-gay policies will clash with the culture of Canada’s largest city.

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Founded in 1967, the biblical basis of Chick-fil-A’s management strategy have been routinely criticized as controversial. And while company chairman and CEO Dan Cathy has voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage, Chick-fil-A has long argued the company has no political or social agenda.

According to a news release, the chain reported over $10 billion in revenue in 2018.

The 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will likely go on sale a little later than expected due to the ongoing UAW strike, but some early reviews of the mid-engine model are in. They paint a picture of a fast and premium sports car that nevertheless leaves room for improvement.

The reports come from a handful of automotive outlets invited to test pre-production prototypes, as the Bowling Green, Ky., assembly line where the Corvette is produced is still set up to build the outgoing model. Fox News Autos was not offered the opportunity to drive the cars.

By the numbers, the switch to a mid-engine layout appears to have delivered mixed results on the performance front. Motor Trend, Road & Track and Car and Driver all recorded 0-60 mph acceleration times of 2.8 seconds for the Stingray equipped with the Z51 performance package. That’s about a second quicker than the previous front-engine car – which was rated at 460 hp compared to the new Stingray’s 495 hp – and is an astonishing improvement attributed in part to the extra traction afforded by having more weight on the rear tires during launch.

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Conversely, stopping distances have increased, possibly because less weight now shifts to the front tires, which are typically responsible for as much as three-fourths of a car’s braking force. Motor Trend also noted that the Stingray’s new brake-by-wire system is difficult to modulate at the limit compared to traditional setups.

Going around turns, the new Corvette failed to deliver the same level of lateral grip as the old one, but was able to get on the power earlier and harder coming out of them. This allowed Car and Driver to lap the 2.2-mile Grattan Raceway in 1:26.1, which is .9 seconds faster than the 2019 Stingray could manage.

Road & Track, which declared the new Stingray to be “not great, but good,” said that its new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission isn’t as responsive to shift commands as the best from the likes of Porsche and Lamborghini, and that the car understeers more than expected. Both impressions were echoed by the other magazines, with Motor Trend speculating that Chevrolet intentionally tuned the Stingray to “push” through curves in order to keep less experienced drivers from spinning out, as it found the car difficult to control precisely at the limit with its traction control systems turned off.

All three of the major magazines described the Stingray as quiet and smooth, with Motor Trend likening its highway ride quality to that of a luxury sports sedan’s. Summing things up, Car and Driver said it is “spectacular” and the “best Corvette ever” while Road & Track called it a “sign of amazing things to come” in the form of more powerful versions of the Corvette that will be able to capitalize even more on the mid-engine design.

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When one Tennessee couple needed a flower girl for their wedding, they knew just the ladies to ask.

Newlyweds Lyndsey and Tanner Raby decided the day would be even more special if they had their four respective grandmothers and great-grandmothers do the job, typically reserved for a child.

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“I knew as soon as I was engaged, I wanted to involve my grandmothers,” the bride told HuffPost. “I felt so blessed to have them all here, so I wanted them to be involved, too.”

The flower women included Tanner’s grandmother, Joyce Raby, 70; Lyndsey’s two grandmothers, Betty Brown, 72, and Wanda Grant, 76; and her 90-year-old great-grandmother, Kathleen Brown.

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According to Raby, the matriarchs were “ecstatic” to be part of the wedding at Ocoee Crest in Benton on Sept. 22. “I do believe they were more excited than my bridesmaids,” she said.

Wedding photographer Natalie Caho shared an image on Instagram of the four women wearing matching pale blue lace dresses, posing around the smiling bride.

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“I’ve seen a lot of cute flower girls in my day, but these four gals take the cake,” wrote Caho.

“Most girls are lucky to even have one grandmother present,” Caho tells HuffPost. “The fact that [Lyndsey] had four was a big deal that she wanted to savor.”

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Raby says anyone lucky enough to have their grandparents present at their nuptials should ask them to be a part of the ceremony.

“It means so much to them, and it will mean so much more to you,” she said.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post.