Fools gold? $190K in gold bars unclaimed from Swiss train
Geneva: If you happened to leave more than USD190,000 worth of gold bars in a Swiss train, you can now come forward to claim it.
Authorities in the central city of Lucerne say a package containing bars worth some 182,000 Swiss francs was found in a train that arrived from the northern town of St. Gallen in October, and efforts to find the owner failed.
The bars were then seized by Lucerne prosecutors. Regional authorities confirmed on Tuesday a statement from law enforcement over the weekend saying any claimant has five years to report “justified claims” of ownership.
The incident is eye-popping even for a wealthy Alpine country with a high cost, and standard, of living. In a similar incident three years ago, authorities in Geneva turned up wads of cut-up 500-euro notes (about USD600 at the time) that were mysteriously jammed into the toilets of three restaurants and a bank in separate episodes. The shredded notes were once worth tens of thousands of euros in total. (AP)
Oh snap! Police capture 65-pound turtle
Alexandria: A 65-pound (29-kilogram) alligator snapping turtle with a face only its mother could love has found a new home at a Virginia zoo after freaking out residents in a northern Virginia suburb.
The turtle, dubbed Lord Fairfax, was repeatedly crossing a residential road in the Alexandria area, according to Fairfax County Police. Not native to the area, the alligator snapping turtle is generally found in the wild farther south.
Animal control officers initially took Lord Fairfax to the county animal shelter, and then to the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The fisheries folks say the turtle is just a juvenile and could eventually grow as big as 200 pounds (90 kilograms). They say the northern Virginia climate would have been too cold for him to live in the wild. He will live instead at The Virginia Zoo in Norfolk. (AP)
Dog-like robots now on sale for $75,000
Boston: You can now buy one of those unnerving animal-like robots you might have seen on YouTube so long as you don’t plan to use it to harm or intimidate anyone.
Boston Dynamics on Tuesday started selling its four-legged Spot robots online for just under 75,000 each.
The agile robots can walk, climb stairs and open doors. But people who buy them online must agree not to arm them or intentionally use them as weapons, among other conditions.
Spot is an amazing robot, but is not certified safe for in-home use or intended for use near children or others who may not appreciate the hazards associated with its operation, the terms and conditions state.
Boston Dynamics has been developing its dexterous robots through decades of military-funded research. The Waltham, Massachusetts, company is now finding commercial applications for them for the first time since it was founded in 1992.
The company announced last year that it would begin mass production of Spot. As a pilot project, it leased more than 150 of the robots to select customers for such uses as monitoring construction sites, inspecting energy facilities and performing in theme parks.
In one recent pilot in Singapore, a Spot robot was deployed in a public park to broadcast prerecorded messages asking people to maintain distance from one another to prevent spread of the coronavirus.
Boston Dynamics says its sales are intended for commercial and industrial users and that the robots can only be purchased in the U.S. (AP)
Man fined for farting ‘with full intent’ at police
Berlin: A man in Vienna has been fined 500 euros (USD 565) for breaking wind loudly in front of police a move that the Austrian capital’s police force was at pains to defend on Tuesday.
The Oesterreich newspaper reported that the fine stemmed from an incident on June 5 and that the offender was fined for offending public decency.
City police wrote on Twitter that of course no one is reported for accidentally ‘letting one go.’ They added that the man had behaved provocatively and uncooperatively during an encounter with officers that preceded the incident. He got up from a park bench, looked at officers and let go a massive intestinal wind apparently with full intent, they said. And our colleagues don’t like to be farted at so much. Police noted that the decision could be appealed. (AP)