"Hey, everyone, and welcome to a new episode of Animalia Ambassadoria." said Miles, "Today, we'll be looking at some of the recent events that have been happening, both in Animalia, its colonies, and elsewhere."
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"First off, we've got a brief influx of new members from California, partly due to the heavy rains that have been falling there." said Miles, bringing up several videos of various news agencies covering the rains in California. "While the rain is not without its casualties," said Miles, "Several of the relatively more seriously injured have come to Animalia for recovery/conversion. This also goes along with a project that's currently on hold in San Francisco: Tearing down some older buildings that have been "diagnosed" (for lack of a better term) with asbestos and replacing them with Animalian-friendly buildings."
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"Probably the biggest event, in the terms of the number of colonies, that is coming up is Lunar New Year 2023, the Year of the Rabbit." Continued Miles after a commercial break. "It won't be just Lyre/Animalia's Asian community celebrating it, though the main Mister and Miss Zodiac competition will be hosted here, but Heiya Island as well. As usual, the Mister and Miss Zodiac competition is going to be focusing on the strengths and abilities of rabbits, before a final showdown on the Mountain of the Zodiac."
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"Speaking of Heiya Island, it's having a relatively new trend of people looking to become Animalians." said Miles after another commercial break. "This time its people suffering from various degrees of obesity." After some 'fat people' jokes on the comments section, Miles continued. "While a good deal of them suffer from leptin deficiencies, four or five of them are suffering from deliberatly overfeeding themselves and are starting to suffer the health consequences of such a lifestyle."
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"Also speaking of Heiya Island," said Miles, after a question block, "We've got a Japanese historian on Zoom to talk about the new Island that's been selected for Animalians." After the historian logged in, with a translator, the interview began.
Because of the pandemic, people started doing some incredible, and incredibly crazy, things during lockdown. One that's a bit more surprising was people messing around on Google Earth. One result of this was the discovery of another previously uncharted island between China and Japan. When researchers were sent there to investigate why it was "uncharted" the discovery of a centuries-old logging camp on the shore made it a quick open-and-shut case, especially when the wood of the logging camp was carbon dated.
"Why would a Japanese warlord declare such an island off-limits during Japan's Genpei war?" asked Miles.
"It wasn't unheard of back then." answered the Historian, "In order to secure the best resources for themselves, warlords would go so far as to declare mountains, forests, and, in this case, islands as off-limits to commoners. Eventually, times change, and superstition eventually replaces the truth."
"So now that pandemic restrictions have been relaxed, do you intend to investigate that island?" asked Miles.
"Absolutely." answered the Historian, "We want to make sure that Animalia can use it before they move in. And who knows, maybe there's some archeological finds that are there as well."
"Thank you for your time, sir." said Miles, as another commercial break began.
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"Of course, the latest trend to strike Animalia and its colonies has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, though Animalia isn't completely unaffected by this. It's actually the number of people who are... high on looks, low on intelligence... that are coming to Animalia." Miles struggled to find a tactful way to describe the bimbos that have begun arriving in Animalia without upsetting people too much. "Of course, this is causing a new housing issue. While Lyre/Animalia is more than capable of expanding to meet those demands, other places, like Mieni Atoll are having more of a problem. While one cruise ship company is donating one of their ships, that is reaching the end of its operational lifetime, Mieni has placed an order for an architecture/engineering expert to help out with integrating it.
Another housing problem has resulted in plans for a new Dinotopian colony, this time near Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. While things are still in the planning stages with nothing official laid out, it's already generating a lot of interest, with some even placing preorders for Dinotopian conversions."
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"And that's all that we have time for." said Miles as he finished the episode, "Stay tuned for Animalia Ambassadoria's special coverage of the Year of the Rabbit festival."