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29 March 2024

Bizarre: Robots to paint sleeping guests

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EUROPE: In a creepy concept, Ibis hotels in Berlin, London and Paris are looking for 40 volunteer guests who will allow the company's in-house robot to paint them while they are asleep in the hotel rooms.

The only saving grace is that the robot will not be present in the room physically. The robot will be connected through Wi-fi and the paintings will be created in a remote studio.

"Beds will be hooked up to 80 sensors that will transmit information about their movements, sound and temperature to the robotic arm, which will then create unique acrylic paintings", claims Australian news website news.com.au.

The artistic performance will take place from October 8 in Paris, Berlin on October 26 and London on November 4.

 

Dad returns home to find 4-year-old son killed...

NEW YORK: A suburban New York woman accused of murdering her 4-year-old son had been engaged in a long custody fight for him and tried to commit suicide immediately after the killing, a person in law enforcement said Tuesday.

Manuela Maria Morgado, 46, was semiconscious when police found her and the dead boy in a bedroom of their third-floor Mamaroneck condo on Monday morning. Police said a relative had called and asked them to check on Morgado.

She "had taken some type of pills" and left notes at the scene, the person in law enforcement told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details had not been made public.

A court document says the killing could have occurred as early as 8 p.m. Sunday.

The boy, Jason Reish, is the subject of a custody battle between Morgado and his father, Dr. Timothy Reish, a Manhattan orthopedist who specializes in sports injuries, the person said. Police said the mother and father were never married.

A call to Reish's office was answered by a woman who said, "This is not the right time."

The cause of the boy's death was not announced. An autopsy was planned.

Morgado was arraigned Monday night on a second-degree murder charge after being evaluated at a hospital. She is being held without bail.

Morgado did not yet have an attorney but was expected to have one in time for an appearance Thursday in Mamaroneck Village Court.

Mamaroneck is about 18 miles northeast of Manhattan. (AP)

 

Country to install its first street signs

COSTA RICA: San Jose unveiled plans on Thursday to install its first street signs, so residents will not have to cite local landmarks like fast-food chains or gas stations when giving directions.

Municipal workers will install about 22,000 signs and plaques on street corners in the city, home to 1.4 million people, where the current informal system is tolerated by residents, but creates headaches for visitors and the post office.

"My current home address is 200 meters north of the Pizza Hut then 400 meters west, but in a few months, I will be able to give a proper street name and a number," San Jose Mayor Johnny Araya said during a ceremony where the first street sign was placed.

Other popular landmarks residents use to describe how to get somewhere include the McDonald's restaurant chain, former President and Nobel Prize-winner Oscar Arias' house, a famous fig tree that has long since died and the site of an old cattle shed turned gas station.

Many streets will be named after illustrious political and intellectual figures from Costa Rican history.

Araya hopes the plan will reduce economic losses caused by undelivered, returned or re-sent mail, estimated at $720 million a year by the Inter-American Development Bank in 2008.

Almost one-quarter of the country's mail never reaches its destination, a spokesman for the Costa Rican post office said.

Postal codes were introduced in 2007 to help matters, but no one uses them because they do not know how to find them.

Costa Rica embarked on a street-naming crusade about 30 years ago, but the signposts were never installed. This time, funding from two different banks made the $1 million project possible.

Once the signage is up, Araya intends to undertake a campaign to encourage use of the new system, which is expected to encounter some resistance.

"I don't think it's going to work", 29-year-old taxi driver Manuel Perez said. "If a tourist tells me to take him to a hotel in whatever street, I'm going to say 'you're speaking to me in Chinese,' because I don't know where that is. I need a landmark." (Reuters)

 

 

Teacher makes kids write to inmate

NEW YORK: A teacher has received a warning letter from the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for making her fifth graders write Christmas cards to a friend serving time in prison.

The cards contained the children's names and in some cases addresses. They were intercepted by a corrections officer.

According to The New York Times Melissa Dean escaped harsher punishment because she resigned in June.

Dean taught at P.S. 143 in Queens. Last December she told her class to write the cards to people who were lonely.

Instead, she sent the cards to a friend, John Coccarelli, serving time for illegal weapons possession. Prosecutors say he was also charged with possessing child pornography but it was not brought to trial because he pleaded guilty to a charge calling for a longer sentence. (AP)

 

'Worlds best job' man stung by jellyfish


AUSTRALIA: The man who bagged the world's best job a couple of years ago was no longer the world's envy as he was stung by a lethal jellyfish during his last week at work.

The British man had left behind 34,000 applicants to secure the job, reports BBC.

The job ad had made headlines worldwide for the novel route taken to advertise the job of a caretaker on a tropical island off Australia.