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ColA camper prompted a large-scale search and rescue operation in British Columbia, Canada because his singing was mistaken for someone in distress. Volunteers, police and a drone team were mobilised after two hikers reported hearing “repeated cries”, only to find the unnamed man “singing his heart out” in the wilderness. “He wasn’t in trouble,” they said. “Unless you count his singing.”
ColIf you’re worried about your child’s screen time, says Emma Brockes in The Guardian, “get a landline”. A group of parents in Maine recently all agreed to reinstall a home phone for their kids to use. The young folk learned how to “say hello to a parent” and to ask politely to speak to their friend, and became “better listeners” because they weren’t distracted by TikTok during calls. Plus, the landlines were in 'busy' parts of the house, so the kids were no longer “shut away in their rooms”.
ColAs Trump tries yet again to force Putin closer to some kind of peace negotiation, 1 strong bargaining chip is the power of Ukraine’s drone campaign. New research shows these drone attacks have had a far-reaching impact, forcing Russia to move its air defences, stoking fuel price rises and costing Moscow around US$700 million in just a few months. Zelensky’s calls for a ceasefire are now underpinned by this threat, something Putin would not have predicted at the beginning of the war.
ColThe UK homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, resigned after it emerged she evicted tenants from her east London property before increasing the rent by almost £700 a month.
ColA smart man only believes half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half.
Jeff Cooper
ColCars in Action movies: Still work after being shot 1000 times.
Cars in Horror movies: Won't start for no reason on deserted roads.
ColJapan’s Henn na Hotel is largely run by robots, humanoids to dinosaur bots, Wired reports. The hotel is both functional and a showcase for robotics. They use multiple languages, in natural-sounding, voices and etiquette. Keys are dispensed by machines, and many rooms unlock with facial recognition.
A robot delivers luggage to rooms, and guests say the hotel is both fascinating and eerie. Robots can struggle with complex requests, and some guests seek out the on-call human staff.
ColGermans are all about functionality and thoroughness. Their language does not even have a word for “convenience." Now they’ve revealed (according to the Washington Post), a national identity crisis because their trains no longer run on time. Deutsche Bahn, the national railway company, said that only 56% of its long-distance trains arrived within 6 minutes of the scheduled time in July. That’s down from the low to mid-60 % range for most of last year, and a fall from the 85% rate of the 90s.
ColNaomi Klein and Angela Davis are among dozens of international scholars and writers who have signed a letter to the Guardian calling on the UK government to reverse the ban on Palestine Action.
ColA new report found hundreds of credible reported cases of human rights abuses in US immigration detention centres. The alleged abuses uncovered include physical and sexual abuse of detainees.