ST. JOHNSBURY: Anne Pace has been hearing about Dog Mountain for years, but until earlier this month, had never made a trip to the park.
“I really wanted to see this place,” she said, during a visit to the grounds with her one-year-old border collie, Tam. “I put a note up for my previous border collie. He was my best buddy.”
Set on 150 acres tucked away on a hillside in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Dog Mountain has become a destination for dog lovers looking to explore nature, take in art, or pay tribute to a pet.
The park was created 25 years ago by Vermont folk artist Stephen Huneck and his wife, Gwen, and features hiking trails, swimming ponds, an art gallery and a Dog Chapel where visitors can add to the thousands of photos and notes to pets that cover the chapel walls.
“It is absolutely breathtaking. That’s a lot of love when you think about each picture that’s here,” said Vanessa Hurley, who was visiting with her husband and two dogs from Ohio. “Dogs and cats both, they just bring so much enjoyment to our lives,” she said.
Inspired by the bond he shared with his dogs, Huneck wanted to create a space where other animal lovers could celebrate their beloved pets, gallery manager Pam McCann said.
“Dog Mountain is really a pilgrimage place and a sanctuary,” she said.
Huneck’s sculpture, prints and furniture are featured in the gallery and scattered throughout the park, including inside the chapel he built himself. With black labs and golden retrievers carved into the ends of each pew and images of his own dog, Sally, in the stained-glass windows, his love of dogs is evident in every detail.
Scott Ritchie and his wife, Julie, have been traveling the country in an RV with their three large dogs and thought Dog Mountain would be the perfect place for them to stretch their legs. They enjoyed it so much on their first visit, they decided to come back the next day.
“It’s very rare you see something like this anywhere. We’ve been traveling all over the US for five and a half months. Just a beautiful area,” he said.
McCann says the park was made for visitors like Ritchie.
“That’s what it’s for, people who really care and people who are very connected to everything around them,” she said. “Including the animals that they are the guardians of.”
A massive mountain park in Vermont celebrates the bond between dogs and their humans
https://arab.news/mucry
A massive mountain park in Vermont celebrates the bond between dogs and their humans
Burkinabe teen behind viral French ‘coup’ video has no regrets
- “Coup d’etat in France,” declared the video, posted by the 17-year-old, showing what appeared to be journalists reporting on an ongoing takeover by an unidentified colonel
- Posted on December 9 on TikTok, then shortly afterwards on Facebook, the post went viral, garnering more than 12 million views and tens of thousands of “likes”
PARIS: A Burkinabe teenager who used artificial intelligence to post fake news of a French coup on Facebook got more than he bargained for.
As well as millions of views and tens of thousands of “likes,” he also acquired a certain notoriety — and French President Emmanuel Macron, for one, was not amused.
And what he had planned as a money-making scheme only netted him seven euros, he said. But he has no regrets.
“Coup d’etat in France,” declared the video, posted by the 17-year-old, showing what appeared to be journalists reporting on an ongoing takeover by an unidentified colonel.
In one shot, the Eiffel Tower and the blue lights from a police car flashed in the background.
“Demonstrators have gathered to support the colonel who seems to have taken power yesterday,” said the reporters.
It was all fake, of course: the product of his online training in the use of artificial intelligence.
Posted on December 9 on TikTok, then shortly afterwards on Facebook, the post went viral, garnering more than 12 million views and tens of thousands of “likes.”
Last Tuesday, when Macron was asked about the video during a visit to Marseille, he spoke of his frustration at not having been able to force Facebook to take it down.
They had told him that it did not violate their rules, he said.
Money-making goal
In the end, it was the creator himself who deleted it, shortly after the French news media started contacting him.
Speaking to AFP, he explained that he had got into creating AI-generated videos last year after finding a training course on YouTube. But he only really started producing in October 2025.
He was taken aback by his sudden celebrity and that the French media was reporting on and even interviewing him.
He laughed about all the fuss in a video posted to his Facebook page.
But the teenager, who preferred to remain anonymous, was clear that his real aim had been to make money from advertising attached to his posts.
Not that he was living in poverty, he added.
“I eat, I can get to school, my parents take good care of me, thank God,” he told AFP.
But he wanted more to gain “financial independence,” he added.
He had seen “loads of pages that get millions of views” and had heard that TikTok paid money to producers, so he jumped into social media to see what he could do.
After a bit of trial and error, he latched on to AI-generated fake news because it generated more online traffic.
“I haven’t yet made a lot of money that way,” he admitted.
His Facebook page was not yet monetised, though he had made a little money from TikTok.
Normally, Africa is not a region that is eligible for monetization on the platform but he said he had found a way around that.
While his viral video on the fake coup in France may not have been a moneyspinner, he has used it to promote an offer of online training in AI-generated content on Facebook.
“There are people who have got in touch with me after this video, at least five people since last week,” he said.
For one hour’s coaching, he makes 7,000 CFA francs (10 euros).
No regrets
France is frequently the target of disinformation, in particular from the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) — Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Since a string of military coups there, all three countries have distanced themselves from France, the former colonial power, and moved instead toward Russia.
The Burkinabe junta in particular has become adept at AI-generated propaganda videos. They have included false clips of celebrities such as singer Beyonce or Pope Leo XIV singing the praises of Ibrahim Traore, the military government’s leader.
Burkina Faso also has a group of influential cyberactivists who promote the government’s propaganda online, known as the “Rapid-Intervention Communication Battalion.”
The teenager behind the fake French coup video told AFP he was not part of that group.
But while his main motivation was far from being political, he was happy to take a passing shot at France.
“I also created this video to scare people,” he said.
Some French media personalities and politicians do not present a fair view of what is going on in Africa’s Sahel region, instead broadcasting “fake news,” he said.
He cited recent reports that the Malian capital, Bamako, was on the point of falling to jihadist forces.
Informed sources agree that if the military government there was in difficulty recently from a jihadist blockage of supply routes, it has not so far been threatened to the point of losing power.
The French authorities “have no regrets about publishing false statements on the AES,” said the teenager.
“So I’m not going to regret publishing false things about them!“
