Officials link trash fires to security guard, and more

Officials link trash fires to security guard

A security guard allegedly started fires at two swanky Manhattan hotels just so he could get some extra sleep. New York Fire Department officials said Mariano Barbosa Jr., 30, was sick of working the late-night shift, so he repeatedly set fire to trash in hotel halls and stairwells, forcing the buildings to be evacuated. “His mindset was that if he could do something to cast a negative light on the establishment and drive customers away it would lighten his workload,” a Fire Department source told the New York Post.

Will Britney Spears really sing?

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Britney Spears will be paid about $30 million for her two-year-long series of shows in Las Vegas, but fans hoping to hear the pop star actually sing could be sorely disappointed. “She is being paid a lot of money to lip-sync,” a source told the New York Daily News. “She hasn’t sung live for a couple of years.” Outraged fans walked out of Spears’s concerts in Australia in 2009 over her lip-syncing. If crowds in Sin City think they’re “being cheated,’’ the source said, “then there is likely to be an uproar.” A rep for Spears insisted the pop star would really sing, and is getting some vocal training.

Good intentions go awry

A Connecticut man who tried to alert bank staff to a possible armed robbery ended up being arrested after he was mistaken for a robber himself. Robert Gursky spotted a man with a handgun inside the branch, so he urgently whispered to a teller: “Gun.” Thinking Gursky was making a threat, the teller pressed a panic alarm. When police arrived, they charged Gursky with breach of peace for freaking out the bank staff. The man with the gun turned out to be a law-enforcement officer.