Odd News Roundup: Metallic monolith pops up outside Pittsburgh candy store; Romanian cobbler makes size-75 winter boots to stamp out COVID-19 and more

Grigore Lup said the shoes he launched in May in a European size 75 had sold across the world and helped keep his store afloat in the Transylvanian city of Cluj.


Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 05-12-2020 10:48 IST | Created: 05-12-2020 10:29 IST
Odd News Roundup: Metallic monolith pops up outside Pittsburgh candy store; Romanian cobbler makes size-75 winter boots to stamp out COVID-19 and more
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Following is a summary of current odd news briefs.

Amid pandemic, orders soar for Brazil robot that feeds pigs playing classical music

Orders for a Brazilian pig-feeding robot, which plays classical music while dispensing meals, soared this year as farmers strove to cut costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Roboagro, the privately-owned company that sells the robot, said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday that orders rose by an average of 400% to 60 units per month.

Metallic monolith pops up outside Pittsburgh candy store

Since mid-November, shining metal monoliths have suddenly appeared - and then vanished - in the strangest locations, from the Utah desert to a Romanian mountainside. Now one has popped up outside a Pittsburgh candy store.

Romanian cobbler makes size-75 winter boots to stamp out COVID-19

A Romanian cobbler who made giant shoes to help keep people apart during the first wave of COVID-19 has come up with a new line of huge winter boots to stamp out the second onslaught of the disease. Grigore Lup said the shoes he launched in May in a European size 75 had sold across the world and helped keep his store afloat in the Transylvanian city of Cluj.

Tokyo zoo unveils first elephant born there in 138 years

Japan's oldest zoo unveiled the first baby elephant to be born there since its founding more than a century ago, and asked the public for help in naming it. The male calf was shown to the public on Tuesday for the first time since his Oct. 31 birth at Tokyo's Ueno Zoological Gardens.

Sean Connery's 007 pistol from 'Dr.No' sells for $256,000

A handgun used by the late Sean Connery in the first James Bond film sold for $256,000 at auction in Beverly Hills on Thursday, topping earlier estimates for the piece of Hollywood history, Julien's Auctions said. The deactivated semi-automatic Walther PP pistol, which along with its smaller model the PPK became one of the film franchise's best-known images, was used by Connery in the movie "Dr. No" in 1962.

Singer Cher says Kaavan will live life as an elephant, not a prisoner

Pakistan's lonely elephant Kaavan began his new life in a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary on Tuesday, the result of years of campaigning for his relocation by U.S. singer Cher. She was there to see him beginning to explore his new home and said: "You know this is amazing for him... his life is going to be the life of an elephant and not the life of a prisoner."

Submarine Santa brings festive cheer to Tokyo aquarium

Dressed in a Santa Claus costume, a mask and flippers, a diver waved through a curtain of tropical fish in a Tokyo aquarium at socially distanced spectators watching from behind glass. Continuing a more-than 20-year-old tradition at the Sunshine Aquarium, she held a Christmas wreath aloft as banana fish and a stingray swam by unperturbed, and used a bazooka-shaped feeder to shoot out pellets for them to feast on.

Monolith monotony? Another mystery structure appears and vanishes in California

A 10-foot-tall metallic monolith appeared mysteriously atop a Central California mountain this week, then vanished just as suddenly early on Thursday in what seemed to be a copycat of one that appeared and then vanished in a Utah desert. "I can't say it's aliens, but it was here and now it's gone," said Terrie Banish, deputy city manager of Atascadero, California, a city of about 30,000 off U.S. Highway 101 near the central coast city of San Luis Obispo.

(With inputs from agencies.)

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