CyclopsWasRight
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Figoa very good dog (whos a very good dogYOU ARE! YOU ARE! FIIIIGOOOO)threw himself in front of a bus this weekend to save his blind owner from almost certain death. Imagine being loved that much??
According to witnesses, a mini school bus driver didnt notice Audrey Stone, who is blind, walking in an intersection until it was too late. Thankfully Figoher best friend and, literally, such a good dogwas there.
I dont know if (the driver) thought (Stone) was going to move faster, but it looks like the dog tried to take most of the hit for her, a gas station manager who saw the whole thing go down tells the Journal News.
The golden retriever took a lot of the blow, suffering a leg injury that cut to the bone, the Brewster police chief tells the paper. Stone broke several ribs, fractured her ankle, and suffered a head injury but shes expected to make a full recovery.
And he did not want to leave her side. He stood right with her. He was there to save her.
SUCH A GOOD DOG.
Apparently if you work at Pixar, everything you make has to be adorable. So Alonso Martinez, a technical director at the company, designed and built a simple robot called Mira thats just about the cutest thing youve ever seen when its playing peek-a-boo.
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Watching Mira get sad and change colors when Alonso hides his face is a fun trick, but seeing her excitedly bounce and chirp like a real baby when he reveals himself again makes us want one for our own desks. Sadly, theres no word on when Alonso might make his creation available to the rest of the world, but he does intend to develop her further to help enhance her simulated emotions and make her interactions with humans feel more genuine.
Mira is a desk companion that makes your life better one smile at a time. This project explores human robot interactivity and emotional intelligence. Currently Mira uses face tracking to interact with the users and loves playing the game peek-a-boo. As her understanding of the world and peoples emotions get richer so will her ability to interact with people in a more meaningful way.
Hoping to build the confidence of children living with a missing limb, Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar, of Umeå University in Sweden, has designed a prosthetic arm thats compatible with Lego so kids can swap its gripping attachment for their own custom creations.
The arm functions very similar to traditional prosthetics, but it features a twist-and-lock modular design thats easy for kids to assemble. And with a special motorized adapter, its standard three finger gripper can be swapped out for one made entirely of Lego. By essentially turning the prosthetic into one of their toys, Carlos hopes his IKO arm will empower children by improving their every day lives, but also their confidence while interacting with other children who might feel uncomfortable.
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If the child has access to Lego Mindstorms, the attachment they design and build can even be as articulated as the prosthetics standard gripperbut movement isnt essential to the usefulness of the IKO. Kids love Lego because it helps them realize whatever they can imagine, and even if the laser blaster theyve attached to the end of the arm doesnt fire, in a childs mind they will still feel like a super hero.
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Temar Boggs had a feeling he'd find the 5-year-old girl who was abducted Thursday in Lancaster Township.
He was right.
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UPDATE: Man charged with kidnapping, sexual offenses in abduction of girl, 5
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Boggs, a McCaskey freshman who lives in Gable Park Woods, had been hanging out with a friend at nearby Lancaster Arms apartments and helping move a couch when a man came by asking if they'd seen a missing girl.
They hadn't, Boggs said, so they went to watch TV.
A short time later, his friend went outside and saw lots of police officers and people from the neighborhood looking for the girl.
Police said that the girl had been taken that afternoon from the 100 block of Jennings Drive.
Boggs and about six friends joined the search.
"We got all of our friends to go look for her. We made our own little search party," Boggs, 15, said Saturday, though he didn't know the girl or her family.
They walked through some nearby woods and along a creek where they were told the girl might have gone.
When Boggs and his friends returned to Lancaster Arms on Jennings Drive, they saw more police officers and TV news crews.
"The whole block was filled," he said.
That's when, Boggs said, "I had the gut feeling that I was going to find the little girl."
A friend asked Boggs to hold his bike. Boggs figured the bike would help him search for the girl.
So he and another friend, Chris Garcia, rode on area streets - Michelle Drive, St. Phillips Drive, Gable Park Road - looking for her.
That's when a maroon car caught his eye. (He had gotten a bit ahead of Garcia.)
The car was on Gable Park and turned around when it got near the top of a hill toward Millersville Pike, where Boggs said several police officers were gathered with the kind of cart used to carry an injured football player off the field.
The driver, an older white man, then began quickly turning onto and out of side streets connecting to Gable Park, Boggs said.
The neighborhood is something of a maze; many of its streets are cul-de-sacs.
Boggs got close enough to the car to see a little girl inside. Garcia was nearby.
The driver looked at Boggs and Garcia, then stopped the car at Gable Park and Betz Farm Road and pushed the girl out of the car. The driver then drove off, Boggs said.
Boggs said he didn't see where the car went.
"She runs to my arms and said, 'I need to see my mommy,' " Boggs said.
Boggs scooped the girl onto his shoulders and began riding the bike toward home, but then decided that wasn't safe, so he carried her and walked back while Garcia pedaled along, guiding the bike Boggs had been using.
Back at Lancaster Arms, when Boggs and Garcia arrived with the girl, someone summoned a firefighter or law enforcement officer.
Boggs said the girl was reluctant to leave him and go to the official.
"She didn't want to leave me because she thought they were going to do something to her. I said, 'No, it's OK,' " he said.
Police said later that the abductor took the little girl for ice cream, and that there were indications of an assault.
Boggs met the girl's family Thursday evening, after he told police his story.
The girl's family members "were just saying that I was a hero, that I was a guardian angel and that it was amazing that I was there and was able to find the girl," he said.
Boggs doesn't see himself as a hero.
"I'm just a normal person who did a thing that anybody else would do," he said.
He described himself as a typical kid.
He plays football, basketball and track (he runs the 100- and 200-meter and the 400-meter relay, and does the high and long jump).
He likes sneakers, and if his hopes of being a professional athlete don't pan out, he'd like to be a clothing or sneaker designer. Or maybe work in the culinary arts.
He's modest, but knows he did something special Thursday.
"It was like fate, it was like meant for me and Chris to be there. If we wouldn't have left (to look for the girl) who knows what would have happened to the little girl," he said.
Boggs did wake up in the middle of the night afterward, though, thinking he might have saved the girl's life.
"It was a blessing for me to make that happen," he said.
His mother, Tamika Boggs, said she's proud of her son.
"You just hope you raise your child the right way. ... He's learning what I tell him, to help others," she said.
CNNWalmart said Wednesday that it will stop selling military-style semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15s.
Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg said the move is in response to slumping demand.
Generally speaking, gun sales have been strong this summer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 1.6 million background checks in July for all gun sales, not just semiautomatic weapons. That's up from 1.4 million total checks in July of 2015.
Background checks aren't a direct indicator of gun sales, since they are not required for some sales at trade shows and between individuals. But they are a good barometer for the market.
AR-15s have been used in mass shootings including Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., and gun control advocates have long been fighting to restrict the sale of these weapons.
Walmart made the announcement on the same day that two television journalists were murdered on live television by a man wielding a handgun, but the retailer did not mention the shootings.
Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon had indicated he might do this in a June 23 interview with CNNMoney.
"Our focus in terms of firearms should be hunters and people who shoot sporting clays, and things like that," said McMillon in June. "So the types of rifles we sell, the types of ammunition we sell, should be curated for those things."
When asked at the time if he would curtail sales of semiautomatic guns, McMillon said "yes."
"We want to serve people who hunt and fish and we want to have a great sporting goods department," he said.
A prosthetic hand is about more than just improving the wearers physical capabilities. Its also about improving their self-confidence. So Open Bionics, makers of low-cost but highly capable prosthetic robotic hands, have teamed up with Disney to realize some very cool designs.
Kids can be bullied for something as innocuous as wearing the wrong shirt; imagine what life is like for a child missing a limb. So not only has Open Bionics designed what its claiming is the worlds smallest bionic hand, the company has also joined forces with Disney to create three versions featuring designs and glowing LED features inspired by Iron Man, Frozen, and Star Wars.
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Led by Joel Gibbard, whos best known for the open source 3D-printable Open Hand Project, Open Bionics is part of Techstars Disney Accelerator program. That means they have royalty-free access to these three properties, and worked with Lucasfilms ILMxLAB on the Star Wars hand.
The companys goal is to produce a commercially viable prosthetic using the same 3D-printing production techniques as the open source version, to keep the cost highly affordable. But with an increased focus on aesthetics and design so the prosthetics are as much a fashion accessory the wearer can be proud of, as they are a boost to their capabilities and an improvement of every day life.
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Ars TechnicaWe've written a lot here at Ars about how video surveillance has captured cops doing bad things. We cover this area because the technology of body cams, Taser cams, dash cams, and even images taken by bystanders has changed our perspective on police behavior that would likely have been swept under the rug previously.
But this surveillance technology also captures officers who, in the words of a local Cleveland county prosecutor, have acted with "remarkable restraint." In this instance, body cam footage of several Cleveland patrol officers shows them doing everything they could to convince a man to put down his weapon.
Police came to visit Theodore Johnson's Cleveland residence after his wife claimed he threatened to kill her. The man had already shot one officer, striking the chest of a patrolman David Muniz's ballistic vest. "I know you shot me, but I'm not going to shoot you," Muniz tells the 64-year-old Johnson, according to police body cam footage taken at the scene.
Johnson replies, "Do what you do, man," according to the video.
According to the tape, Muniz tells Johnson, "Put the gun down. We don't want to kill you. Just drop the gun."
"I wanna die," Johnson replies, according to the tape.
"No, you don't want to die," Muniz replies, according to the tape.
Officers are overheard telling Johnson they will get him some help. He says he doesn't want it, according to the tape. He raises his weapon, and the police open fire, killing Johnson on March 11.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty released the tape Wednesday. The day before, a grand jury concluded that the shooting was justified.
"The evidence shows the officers showed remarkable restraint and went above and beyond the call of duty to seek a peaceful conclusion, McGinty said in a statement. "These Officers are commended for responding with courage and for heroically fulfilling their duty to protect the public."
CNN MoneyFor the first time ever, the number of people living in extreme poverty is set to fall to below 10% of the global population in 2015, the World Bank said.
"This is the best story in the world today -- these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty," Jim Yong Kim, World Bank's president, said.
The World Bank projects that the number of people living in poverty fell to 702 million people in 2015, or about 9.6% of the global population. That compares to 2012, when 902 million people lived below the poverty line, which was around 12.8% of the population at the time.
The organization defines living in poverty as anything less than $1.90 a day.
Global poverty rates are improving thanks to investments in education, health, and social safety nets that help keep people from falling back into poverty, the bank said in a report.
Kim said the world is moving closer to the "historic goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030."
But Kim also stressed that slowing global economic growth is now making the goal a "highly ambitious target." The bank has warned the progress is still too uneven, with some regions lagging behind. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the global poverty hotspot, with roughly a half of the global poor living in the region. Poverty rates in the region declined more slowly than elsewhere, falling from an estimated 56 percent in 1990 to a projected 35 percent in 2015.
The bank said that reducing poverty in the East Asia and the Pacific regions has been crucial to the global progress.
The 2015 numbers are only projections, because of the delay in getting accurate poverty data from the world's least developed countries.
The report said poverty is becoming more entrenched in countries that are either conflict ridden or too dependent on commodity exports.
"There is some turbulence ahead," said World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu. "The economic growth outlook is less impressive for emerging economies in the near future, which will create new challenges in the fight to end poverty and attend to the needs of the vulnerable, especially those living at the bottom 40 percent of their societies," he added.
CNNFaced with the somber task of informing four children that their parents had been killed in a car wreck on Halloween, a big-hearted Georgia state trooper opted to do things a little differently.
Rather than just announce the devastating news there and then, Trooper Nathan Bradley decided to take the costume-clad kids under his wing for the evening and allow them to enjoy Halloween. He also started an online fundraising campaign to help the family.
Bradley has recounted the heartbreaking moment when he and two other officials arrived at the family home in Morgan County to deliver the news.
"The door hesitantly opened and there behind the locked screen door stood four children in full costume -- a 13-year-old Freddy Krueger, 10-year-old daughter of a Dracula, 8-year-old wizard and a 6-year-old that appeared to be a firefighting ninja turtle," he wrote on the GoFundMe page he set up.
He and his colleagues were speechless. They'd hoped to find an adult among the family members in the house, but the eldest boy, Justin Howard, told them no one was home.
"My parents went to the store to get more face paint. They told us not to open the door for anybody, but they should be back soon," he told the officials, according to Bradley.
'I wanted to preserve these kids' Halloween'
The officials found out that the closest relative of the dead parents, Donald and Crystal Howard, was the children's paternal grandmother, who lives seven hours away in Florida.
Bradley says he couldn't bear the thought of the kids being told they were orphans and then having to spend the rest of Halloween waiting in a county jail for their grandmother to arrive. So he put the distressing announcement on hold.
"I wanted to preserve these kids' Halloween and the ones to come," he wrote in the GoFundMe statement, which was also shared on Facebook by the Georgia Department of Public Safety.
He took the children to get burgers, fries and milkshakes before giving them a tour of the troopers' post. Other people who had heard what happened brought over candy, toys and Disney movies to watch.
The children were put to bed in rooms at the post, still uninformed of the terrible news.
"You turned an F-Minus day into an A-Plus night!" the little girl told him at bedtime -- words he found difficult to take in.
Their grandmother arrived just before dawn and agreed with Bradley and others that it would be better to tell the children what had happened the following day.
"We hoped that they would then relate the tragedy to November 1st, rather than Halloween," Bradley wrote.
Fundraiser soars above initial goal
On Tuesday, he said he heard from the eldest son that the transportation of the parents' remains and other funeral costs would amount to $7,000. That's when he decided to set up the fundraising page, with any additional money going toward the children's future education.
Thanks to a huge response, the amount raised has soared far above his initial goal, with other offers of help pouring in. By early Thursday, the GoFundMe had raised more than $150,000 from thousands of people.
"I'm am astonished by the support of this family," Bradley wrote as the donations flooded in. "You all are responsible for this success. The family wants to thank each and every one of you."
Still in his early 20s, the trooper says he plans to stay in touch with the four children.
"I care a lot about them and I want to watch them succeed," he said, according to CNN affiliate WSB. "I don't want this tragedy to shadow the rest of their lives."
The Georgia Department of Public Safety praised his efforts.
"Compassion is a core value of our Department," it said in a Facebook post. "Trooper Bradley is a true example of that value."
People Are Making Disney Princess Wigs Out Of Yarn For The Best Reason
The Magic Yarn Project brings a 'little magic and sparkle' into pediatric cancer patients' lives.
by deepa lakshmin 11/11/2015
Holly Christensen and Bree Hitchcock are making the lives of pediatric cancer patients a little bit easier. The two mothers founded The Magic Yarn Project, which knits Disney princess-inspired wigs for children undergoing cancer treatment.
This project was first inspired when I found out last fall that the daughter of one of my college friends was diagnosed with cancer at the tender age of 2, Christensen, a nurse whos worked with cancer patients, told BuzzFeed. Knowing how sick she would get and how difficult it would likely be for her to lose her long, blonde, curly hair, and knowing that the chemotherapy would make her bare scalp too sensitive and tender to wear a traditional wig, I made her a Rapunzel yarn wig on a soft crocheted beanie and sent it to her.
The girl was so thrilled with the gift that Christensen was inspired to continue creating wigs. Soon word of the project spread, with people across the globe offering to send supplies and make wigs themselves. So, Christensen and Hitchcock organized two workshops for nearby volunteers to help out with the wig-making process.
Over 80 wigs have been knitted thus far. They will be donated to childhood cancer patients so that they can see a little magic and sparkle come into their lives during such a hard time.
I cant take the horrible disease away, Christensen continued, but I can do something. I can bring some light into cancer patients lives and help provide a magical escape during an otherwise dark and difficult time.
For more info about The Magic Yarn Project, visit their Facebook page. You can also support the cause on their GoFundMe page.
CNNA man who tried to help a New Orleans crime victim was shot in the stomach and would have been shot again had the assailant's handgun not jammed, security camera video released by police shows.
Peter Gold, 25, a Tulane University medical student, survived. He is listed in guarded condition at a hospital, New Orleans police said.
The video was shot at 4 a.m. Friday and opens with a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt dragging a woman down the sidewalk to a parked SUV in the 1000 block of St. Mary Street, New Orleans police said in a press release.
A few seconds later, a car turns the corner and parks. Gold gets out and approaches the man outside camera range.
Gold steps back into camera range with his hands up. There's no audio, but police said he was explaining that he didn't have any cash. The gunman fires once into Gold's stomach. The student falls to the sidewalk and curls into a ball.
The gunman points the weapon at Gold's head but the gun doesn't fire. He fiddles with the gun and tries two more times to shoot Gold. He steps out of the camera range and a light-colored SUV drives away.
Police said the robber grabbed the woman's purse and left. She was not injured.
Gold is a fourth-year medical student who did his undergraduate work at the school, Tulane University President Mike Fitts said. His parents and sister attended Tulane.
"He is an outstanding student who represents the best of Tulane in every possible way," Fitts said.
His family issued a statement asking for privacy as they help Gold recover.
"While we deeply appreciate everyone's concern, support and prayers as our family faces this crisis, our sole focus at this time is on Peter's recovery," the statement said.
ReutersFive people were rescued after spending 41 days trapped by a landslide in a small-scale gold mine in northwest Tanzania and one body was recovered, the mining ministry said on Tuesday.
The incident occurred at Kahama district, Shinyanga region, near the licensed Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi gold mines, which are owned by Acacia Mining Ltd, formerly African Barrick Gold Plc.
"Five out of six miners who were trapped in the landslide ... were rescued alive," Badra Masoud, spokesperson of the energy and minerals ministry said in a statement.
"The miners were trapped since Oct. 5 ... Rescue operations succeeded in freeing them from the collapsed mine some 100 meters underground on Nov. 15."
The miners survived by eating roots. "The miners used their helmets to collect water that was seeping through the landslide," the ministry said.
Unsafe and unregulated illegal mining is widespread in Tanzania, which is Africa's fourth-largest gold producer after South Africa, Ghana and Mali.
An illegal gold mine collapsed in the same district in April killing 19 people.
The rest of the story can be read on Ars TechnicaDustin Brown wanted a secure grip on the two knives he had selected to slaughter the children.
Before leaving his Morton, Illinois, home on the afternoon of October 13, the 19-year-old wrapped each knife's handle carefully with duct tape. He then pulled on a pair of grippy gloves. The one-mile journey to the public library gave Brown one final chance to rehearse the plan he had contemplated for the last two weeks. Five-inch blades jingled together in his backpack all the while.
Hanging over everything, child pornography charges threatened to ruin Brown's life. Despite some rudimentary precautions, his online cache of videos had been unearthed by investigators earlier in the year. Searched, arrested, and eventually expelled from Morton High School, Brown felt he had nothing left to live for. In this lowest of moments, he wanted only to destroy the lives of others before turning his duct-taped knives on himself.
Morton, a 17,000-person village just outside of Peoria along I-74, bills itself as the "pumpkin capital of the world." Its claim to fame lies in its thousands of acres of pumpkin farms, along with an enormous Nestlé plant that cans Libby's puréed pumpkin. Directly behind the Nestlé plant, across the railroad tracks, sits the town's single-story brick library. At 3:25pm, Brown walked inside and sat down at a table. He looked around. A chess club was meeting in the library conference room, and Brown watched the 16 childrensome as young as sevenwith rising rage. Furious at the legal charges against him, Brown saw a way to exact a twisted form of revenge against children. He opened his backpack and pulled out the knives.
Inside the conference room, 75-year-old instructor James Vernon looked up from a chess board and saw Brown running toward him. Brown held a knife in each hand; as he entered the conference room, he screamed out, "I'm going to kill some people!"
Though Vernon had spent his career in IT at the local Caterpillar plant, he had taken knife-fight training in the Army many decades before. He immediately stepped forward into Brown's path, trying to distract the young manbut also hoping to see which hand he might use to attack. Local newspaper reporter Michael Smothers spoke to Vernon afterward about what happened:
The attack came with a sudden slash. Vernon threw up an arm in defense, taking cuts to two arteries in his hand and wrist, before shoving Brown hard toward the tables. Brown landed with his bodyweight pinning his left arm beneath him, rendering the second knife ineffective. Vernon, bleeding profusely, grabbed Brown's right wrist with one hand and punched Brown repeatedly in the right shoulder until the assailant dropped the first knife.I tried to settle him down, [Vernon] said. I didnt, but I did deflect his attention from the children and calmed him a bit. I asked him if he was from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his life 'sucks.' Thats a quote.
As Vernon spoke, he stepped closer to Brown. He backed away when Id get closer. With a few steps, Vernon put himself between Brown and the rooms door, with the children under the tables behind him.
I gave them the cue to get the heck out of there, and, boy, they did that! Quick, like rabbits, Vernon said...
Vernon watched what Brown did with his knives and learned.
I knew he was right-handed. He was whittling on his left arm with the one in that hand, making small cuts. He was trying to scare me, and he did. But if Brown attacked, I knew which hand it was coming from.
Library staff rushed in to disarm Brown, holding him until police arrived minutes later. According to prosecutors, while Brown was being led out to a waiting ambulance, he told police and paramedics, "I failed my mission to kill everyone."
The violent conclusion to the story was unusual, but the child pornography investigation that set Brown off was not. Increasingly, such investigations aren't simply spurred by agents monitoring file-sharing networks or infiltrating the paranoid world of online communities dedicated to child sex abuse. While those investigations continue, cases today can commonly arise from tips lodged by Internet companies, especially those that provide cloud storage.
And in this case, Brown's case was set in motion by one of the most popular of cloud storage providers around: Dropbox.
Ars TechnicaA group of doctors at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore are gearing up to offer military men injured in war the countrys first penis transplants. The surgeries could start within a year, and recipients could regain sensation, along with urinary and sexual function, within months, doctors said.
Though its unrealistic that they would regain all function, the hope of fathering a child is a realistic goal, Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, the chairman of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, told The New York Times. The transplants would only involve the penis, not the testes, so any sired children would be genetically related to recipients.
The group of doctors felt compelled to offer the transplants because of the psychological toll of such injuries, particularly feelings of shame, stigma, and loss of identity. I think one would agree it is as devastating as anything that our wounded warriors suffer, for a young man to come home in his early 20s with the pelvic area completely destroyed, Lee said. Another doctor quoted by the Times said that in his experience young veterans would rather lose both legs and an arm than suffer a genital injury.
From 2001 to 2013, 1,367 men, nearly all under the age of 35, returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan with genital injuries, according to the Department of Defense Trauma registry, the Times noted.
Penis transplants have been performed twice before: an unsuccessful 2006 transplant in China, and a successful surgery in South Africa last year. The South African recipient, who suffered a botched circumcision, recently became a father.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins are optimistic that the surgeries in the US will be just as successful. Johns Hopkins has given the doctors permission to perform 60 transplants, and one candidate is far along in the evaluation process.
The transplant surgery is expected to take 12 hours and involves connecting two to six nerves, and six or seven veins and arteries. Nerves from the recipient will likely grow into the transplanted penis at a rate of about an inch a month. Doctors expect recipients will regain urinary function within weeks and sexual functions within a few months.
Johns Hopkins will cover the cost of the first transplant, estimated to be around $200,000 to $400,000. And doctors have asked the Defense Department for money to cover more.
So far, the doctors are only considering wounded veterans, not patients seeking gender reassignment. But that could change in time.
Get ready to feel all the feels, because this heartwarming moment between a mall Santa and a little girl with a hearing impairment is basically the best thing to ever happen.
The little girl and her family were getting their turn to sit with Santa at a U.K. mall over the weekend when mom cautioned Santa that her daughter might not be able to speak to him.
...Santa has the perfect response: He asks her family if she can sign.
That's when Santa turns to the girl and speaks to her, in sign language, about what she wants for Christmas. The look on her face when she realizes Santa can sign is enough to turn even the grinchiest Grinch into a total holiday believer.