News Of The Weird: Week of June 2, 2022

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What Could Go Wrong?

More than 800 New Yorkers aged 75 and older are going to get a new friend, The Verge reported. The New York State Office for the Aging is distributing robot companions named ElliQ, built by Israeli company Intuition Robotics, to help with social isolation -- for example, engaging in small talk and helping contact loved ones. "It focuses on what matters to individuals: memories, life validation, interactions with friends and families," said NYSOA director Greg Olsen. Intuition Robotics said ElliQ can project empathy and form bonds with users, even cracking jokes for users who tend to laugh a lot. 

Fine Points of the Law

According to the Conrad Public School District in Conrad, Montana, there's an old law on the books that stipulates that a school principal is responsible for feeding and tending a horse if a student rides it to school. On May 23, WTHR-TV reported, 12 students at Conrad High School put the statute to the test, riding their steeds up to the school and leaving them in the care of Principal Raymond DeBruycker throughout the school day. Apparently DeBruycker had no time to comment while he kept his charges watered and fed and (presumably) mucked the parking lot.

Goals

A man in Japan identified as Toko has spent almost $16,000 to make himself look like a collie, fulfilling his dream and depleting his savings in one fell swoop, Wionews reported. Toko contracted with a professional company called Zeppet, which makes sculptures and costumes for movies and amusement facilities, to create a costume that is extremely realistic. It took 40 days to build. "I made it a collie because it looks real when I put on," Toko said. "Long-haired dogs can mislead the human figure. I met such a condition and made collie, my favorite breed of dog."

Criminal No Longer on the Lam(b)

In South Sudan, inmates at a military camp have a new jailbird to get to know -- or maybe that should be "jailsheep." NBC Montana reported that the ram was arrested and convicted in May of murdering an African woman "by hitting her in the ribs and the old woman died immediately," said police chief Major Elijah Mabor. "The owner is innocent, and the ram is the one who perpetrated the crime, so it deserves to be arrested." However, the owner has also been ordered to pay five cows to the victim's family.

Weird Science

The Cambodian Ministry of Environment has taken to Facebook to plead with the public to stop picking a rare carnivorous plant known as a "pitcher plant" for the way it captures insects, Live Science reported on May 17. The plant, Nepenthes bokorensis, could be driven to extinction if people continue to harvest it, scientists warn. So why, you might ask, are people, particularly women, so drawn to picking the plants and having their photos taken with them? While the leaves are still developing, the mouths of the plants resemble men's genitalia. "If people are interested, even in a funny way, to pose, to make selfies, with the plants, it's fine," said Francois Mey, a botanical illustrator. "Just do not pick the pitchers, because it weakens the plant."

Lose Something?

Iberia Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff's officers were called out at 3:30 a.m. on May 22 because of a house found abandoned on a trailer attached to a truck, KATC-TV reported. The rig was blocking the road, and signs, mailboxes and trees had been damaged along the street. In addition, power lines and poles had been hit, knocking out power to about 700 customers in the area. Deputies arrested Tony Domingue, 46, and Nico Comeaux, 32; they had been told they needed permits to move the home, but they went ahead and tried to do it on their own anyway. Both men were held at the Iberia Parish jail.

I'll Have the Pasta

Florida International University recently published a three-year study of bonefish living off the South Florida coast that might make you rethink your entree order. The fish they studied averaged seven pharmaceutical drugs, with at least one containing 17 different substances, ClickOrlando.com reported. Lead researcher Jennifer Rehage said the drugs are entering the fisheries through the wastewater systems and include blood pressure medications, antidepressants, antibiotics and pain relievers, among other medicines. Researchers said the drugs could also be changing the fishes' behavior, making them more susceptible to predators, or affecting their reproduction.

Suspicions Confirmed

Marilyn McMichael, 54, of Queens, New York, was reported missing in January by two of her foster sisters, Simone Best Jones and Sharman McElrath, WPIX-TV reported on May 24. They had not seen or heard from her since June 2020, when she called them during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying she wanted to go to the hospital. McElrath said they did go to her apartment, but she didn't come to the door. Best Jones said this wasn't unusual for McMichael: "She wouldn't talk to us for years, because she didn't want to. She was particular -- and peculiar." When they tried to file a missing person report in January, officials said they couldn’t because they weren't next of kin. And police told them McMichael might have "been on vacation." The sisters asked the building manager to go with them to the apartment, but when the master key didn't work, "they never tried again," Best Jones said. But on April 26, as New York City Housing Authority construction workers did maintenance on scaffolding outside her bedroom window, they saw McMichael's skeleton on her bed. The sisters announced her death on Facebook: "We wanted her to have a voice through us, knowing 'I was here, and I had a life on this Earth,'" McElrath said.

Bright Idea

Stephanie Kirchner, 33, a farmer who works at a stud farm near her home in Schupbach, Germany, has had to make some changes since gas prices have climbed in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Instead of riding to work in her Toyota SUV, she's now riding a horse or driving a horse-drawn carriage to her job about 3 1/2 miles away. It makes what was once a 10- to 15-minute commute take up to an hour, the Associated Press reported, but she saves about $264 a month. She said children like the horses, but "humanity is hectic and then some people are annoyed if they can't get past me fast enough." Another downside: "I can't put a horse in a parking garage."

Honesty Is the Best Policy

After Michael Calvo, 51, of Cape Coral, Florida, crashed his semitruck into the back of a Publix grocery store in Haines City on May 26, he didn't immediately get out of the cab because, he told an officer, he thought he was being pranked for a reality TV show. When the officer was able to remove Calvo from the truck, Fox13-TV reported, he asked if he had fallen asleep or suffered a medical emergency, to which Calvo answered, "I was smoking my meth pipe." Calvo was arrested on multiple charges, although the deputy police chief did express his appreciation for Calvo's honesty.