News Ass

[Yuli Ban]

A thread for weird, wacky, unorthodox, and unusual news stories, news article titles, and thnigs that feel like they should be from the Onion but aren't.
News that makes you go "What the f*ck....?!"

(Re)starting with one of my favorite news stories of the past decade:

2017's suicidal security robot

Robot Security Guard 'Drowns Itself' In Water Fountain

A security guard robot has met a watery end in a shopping centre water fountain, prompting a social media storm of doomsday predictions about suicidal robots and Marvin-related humour.

The Knightscope security robot was patrolling the Georgetown Waterfront shopping complex in Washington D.C. on Monday when it apparently launched itself to its death.

"Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself," one Twitter user Bilal Farooqui‏ wrote.

"We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots."

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

William Shakespeare, first man in the U.K. to receive COVID-19 vaccine, has died of a stroke at 81

William Shakespeare – the 81-year-old man who became the second person in the U.K. to receive a COVID-19 vaccine – has died.

Shakespeare, who goes by Bill, died of a stroke, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said, according to BBC News.

In December, Shakespeare became the first man to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, following 91-year-old Margaret Keenan, the first person in the country to get the shot. "It could make a difference to our lives from now on, couldn't it?" he said at the time. "It's started changing our lives and our lifestyle."

William "Bill" Shakespeare, 81, receives the Covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital in Coventry, U.K., on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020.
BLOOMBERG

[Yuli Ban]

Better start paying VERY close attention to the nuclear launch codes
To near-Earth space
Maybe also the Pacific fault line

WHAT UNIVERSE
IN WHAT UNIVERSE WAS THIS WISE TO SAY
Only 'Armageddon' can stop Tokyo Olympics taking place this summer, senior official declares

Only "Armageddon" can stop the Tokyo Olympics taking place this summer, a senior official has declared amid mounting Covid-19 fears.

Dick Pound, a long-serving International Olympic Committee member, made the outspoken remark as one of Japan's largest newspapers called for the Games to be cancelled.

Asahi Shimbun, a respected title with a circulation of more than five million, launched a direct appeal to the country's leaders despite being an official partner of the Games.

However, Pound, a founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told London's Evening Standard it was too late to stop the Games on July 23. “Organisers have now changed gears and they’re in the operational part of it," Pound said. "Barring Armageddon that we can’t see or anticipate, these things are a go.”

Japan would lose £11.3billion if the Olympics were cancelled, according to local economists. Yet Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, says that that would pale in comparison to the economic hit from emergency curbs if the Summer Games turned into a super-spreader event.

GO POUND YOUR OWN DICK, DICK POUND

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Tennessee woman arrested for speeding through COVID-19 vaccination tent in protest, authorities say
Source: ABC News

The woman allegedly yelled "no vaccine" as she drove through the tent.

ByMorgan Winsor

A Tennessee woman was arrested this week after authorities say she drove her SUV through a COVID-19 vaccination tent, nearly hitting several people while yelling "no vaccine."

Virginia Christine Lewis Brown, 36, of Greenback, has been charged with seven felony counts of reckless endangerment. She was released on bonds totalling $21,000 and has an initial court appearance set for June 7, according to the Blount County Sheriff's Office. It was unclear whether she had obtained an attorney who could speak on her behalf.

The incident in question occurred Monday morning at a COVID-19 vaccination tent set up in the parking lot of the Foothills Mall in Maryville, a suburb of Knoxville. According to an incident report, two deputies from the Blount County Sheriff's Office said they were at the location when they saw a blue Chrysler SUV speed through a cone course, past the check-in area and then through the tent, where several health workers and National Guard personnel were preparing to administer COVID-19 vaccines. The vehicle did not stop and was traveling at a "high rate of speed," deputies wrote in the incident report.

"I have worked at this location multiple times over the past few months and the area is clearly marked with signs and cones to advise the public of the event," one deputy wrote. "The driving behavior of Ms. Brown, as she approached the tent and exited the tent towards the waiting area, caught my attention due to how quickly the vehicle was traveling through the area."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/tennessee-wom ... d=77937352

[wjfox]

William Shakespeare, first man in the U.K. to receive COVID-19 vaccine, has died of a stroke at 81

William Shakespeare – the 81-year-old man who became the second person in the U.K. to receive a COVID-19 vaccine – has died.

Shakespeare, who goes by Bill, died of a stroke, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust said, according to BBC News.

In December, Shakespeare became the first man to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, following 91-year-old Margaret Keenan, the first person in the country to get the shot. "It could make a difference to our lives from now on, couldn't it?" he said at the time. "It's started changing our lives and our lifestyle."

William "Bill" Shakespeare, 81, receives the Covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital in Coventry, U.K., on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020.
BLOOMBERG

Just WTF.

-----

Comedy of errors in Argentine TV Shakespeare mix-up

8 hours ago

One man in his time really does play many parts, it seems, according to an Argentine newsreader who mixed up the author William Shakespeare with the first man to receive a Pfizer jab.

Canal 26 presenter Noelia Novillo announced that "one of the most important writers in the English language - for me the master" had died.

In fact it was his namesake, William "Bill" Shakespeare, 81, who died in a hospital in England earlier this week.

Shakespeare "The Bard" died in 1616.

However, that was news to Novillo who told her audience on Thursday: "We've got news that has stunned all of us given the greatness of this man. We're talking about William Shakespeare and his death. We'll let you know how and why it happened."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57287764

[weatheriscool]

Jill Biden’s Ex-Husband: Joe Lied About Marriage to Cover Up Infidelity
Joe and Jill Biden

Alana Goodman • September 22, 2020 5:24 pm

https://freebeacon.com/elections/jill-b ... nfidelity/

Joe Biden lied about meeting his wife Jill on a blind date, and their 43-year marriage actually grew out of an extramarital affair, Jill Biden's ex-husband claimed in an interview with Inside Edition on Monday.

Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden from 1970 to 1975, told Inside Edition that he introduced Joe and Jill Biden in 1972, the year Joe Biden first ran for Senate.

"I was betrayed by the Bidens. Joe was my friend. Jill was my wife," Stevenson, a fundraiser for Biden's first Senate campaign, told Inside Edition.

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

[weatheriscool]

NY Times test finds no identifiable tuna DNA in Subway's tuna sandwich
By Jordan Williams - 06/22/21 09:05 PM EDT

A New York Times analysis found no identifiable tuna DNA in Subway’s tuna sandwich, the newspaper reported over the weekend, citing tests conducted by a commercial lab.

The Times bought 60 inches of Subway tuna sandwiches from three different Subway locations in Los Angeles.

A reporter for the newspaper then removed and froze the tuna and sent it to an unidentified commercial food testing lab. The newspaper said it paid roughly $500 for the lab to conduct a PCR test to see if the substance had one of five different tuna species.

After a month, the lab said it found “no amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample and so we obtained no amplification products from the DNA.”

“Therefore, we cannot identify the species,” the lab said.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... a-sandwich

[Yuli Ban]

[raklian]

As much as I don't like the President personally, I do kinda support his threat. lol

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]

New weight-loss tool prevents mouth from opening more than 2mm

Mon 28 Jun 2021 16.36 BST

A weight-loss tool that uses magnets to stop people from opening their mouths wide enough to eat solid food has been developed by scientists in order to tackle obesity.

The device, developed by medical professionals from the University of Otago in New Zealand and scientists from Leeds in the UK, can be fitted by dentists and uses magnetic components with locking bolts.

It has been criticised online, however, with people likening it to a medieval torture device.

The University of Otago tweeted that it was “a world-first” weight-loss device “to help fight the global obesity epidemic: an intra-oral device that restricts a person to a liquid diet.”

Called the DentalSlim Diet Control, the device allows its users to open their mouths only 2mm wide. Initially, it was trialled on seven otherwise healthy obese women from Dunedin in New Zealand for two weeks, who were given a low-calorie liquid diet.

An article published in the British Dental Journal reported that the group of women lost a mean amount of 6.36kg – about 5.1% of their body weight.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... et-control

[Yuli Ban]

‘God told me to come here’ Louisiana man arrested after getting high and driving to prison

Shortly after midnight on Saturday June 27, a deputy with the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to a complaint at the front gate of the Ouachita Correctional Center.

Per the arrest report, when deputies arrived, they were pointed towards a car in the parking lot that belonged to 35-year-old Bobby Koch. When deputies approached Koch, he allegedly got out of the car and stated “God told me to come here.”

When officers asked Koch if he was high, he replied stating that he got high on methamphetamine before going up there. He then reportedly stated that God told him to go and get his family out of OCC.

[wjfox]

US officer plays Taylor Swift song to try to block video

20 hours ago

A US police officer played a Taylor Swift song on his phone in a bid to prevent activists who were filming him uploading the video to YouTube.

The video platform regularly removes videos that break music copyright rules.

However, the officer's efforts were in vain as the clip of the encounter in Oakland, California promptly went viral.

Alameda County police told the BBC it was not "approved behaviour".

The video was filmed by members of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), which says it is a coalition that seeks to "eradicate police terror in communities of colour".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57698858

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]

Man ‘stuck’ with 10,000 #FreeBrittany t-shirts after trying to make money from Britney Spears case

15/07/2021

A man has been stuck with thousands of t-shirts saying #FreeBrittany on them following an unfortunate printing error.

Karl Baxter, who runs Wholesale Clearance UK, ordered 10,000 garments after seeing the “media storm” around Britney Spears, as the pop star battles her controversial conservatorship in court.

Spears appeared before a judge in late June, appealing for her conservatorship to be ended. Since 2008, the singer’s father - Jamie Spears - has mostly had complete legal control over her estate, along with other aspects of her life and career.

Fans have rallied round Spears, launching the #FreeBritney movement, a campaign that seeks to end conservatorship abuse.

Baxter saw an opportunity to profit from the case, making up merchandise around the movement, pledging to give a small portion (20 per cent) of the proceeds to the #FreeBritney campaign.

“After hearing and reading all about Britney's fight to end her conservatorship, I'd been interested in doing something to help fight the cause by appealing to my young customer's (sic),” writes Baxter.

However, the wholesale director has now been left with 10,000 t-shirts that incorrectly read #FreeBrittany - the name of France’s northwesternmost region.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/07/ ... ney-spears



Wholesale Clearance UK / AP Images