■ CHINA
Shaolin monks offended
Shaolin Temple, the cradle of kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user, media said yesterday. The Internet user said on an online forum last week that a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him, the Beijing News said. "The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain," the Internet user was quoted as saying in the post. "The so-called defeat is purely fabricated," the monks said in a notice from their lawyer, "We demand the Internet user to apologize to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did."
■ JAPAN
Wasps a crispy treat
A fan club for wasps has added the insects to rice crackers, saying the result adds a waspish scent to the traditional fare. The digger wasp rice crackers are made in Omachi. "Young people see the bugs and refuse to eat the senbei," said Torao Kayatsu, the president of the Omachi digger wasp lovers club, who has been handing out sample crackers around town. "But seniors, they love them. We even have an order from a nursing home." A bag of 20 crackers costs US$3.20, but output may be limited as the wasps are caught in the wild for optimum flavor.
■ CHINA
Genghis punished gays
Gay sex was punishable by death under Genghis Khan's rule. That was among the findings of researchers who spent more than a year compiling the legendary Mongolian conqueror's code of laws, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. The experts at the Research Institute of Ancient Mongolian Laws and Sociology in Inner Mongolia said the ban was put into place because Genghis Khan wanted to expand the Mongolian population, which was about 1.5 million at the time. Experts compiled the Mongolian code based on historical texts, including Marco Polo's travelogue, Xinhua said. The original text was lost more than 600 years ago.
■ JAPAN
Nine hospitals reject woman
A pregnant woman miscarried on Wednesday after nine hospitals refused to admit her and the ambulance crashed on its way to the 10th, news reports said. The incident triggered an immediate outcry. Last year, a pregnant woman from the same area died after being refused admission by about 20 hospitals that said they were full. In Wednesday's incident, the 38-year-old woman, in the sixth month of her pregnancy, was being driven to a hospital near Osaka after she suffered from stomach cramps and bleeding, Kyodo News said. Nine hospitals refused to admit her, saying they were full.
■ GERMANY
Thief throws away cash
A thief stole a briefcase and threw it away without noticing it contained 10,000 euros (US$13,660) in cash, a spokesman for Duesseldorf police said on Thursday. "I think they'll be annoyed when they find out," he said. The case's owner, a 57-year-old Iranian businessman, had reported it missing as he prepared to board a flight in the city's airport. The case was later found by a policewoman -- ransacked, but still containing the two cash-filled envelopes.
■ GERMANY
Tenth vehicle hits house
A resident of the northern village of Karlshoefen said he feared he may have built his own tomb after a vehicle ploughed into his house for the 10th time. "If we stay, someone's eventually going to kill us. We're living in a time bomb," Manfred Sedlazek said on Thursday. He said he was reluctant to leave the house he built himself, which is on a bend of a busy road. Earlier this week, a 40-tonne truck blasted through the side of his red-brick house. Sedlazek returned home from shopping to find the shattered vehicle sticking out of his living room. Police estimated the damage at more than 100,000 euros (US$136,100).
■ NEW ZEALAND
Burglar says sorry with gifts
A burglar visited Graeme Glass' home twice in one day, first to steal some goods and later to return them -- along with a heartfelt apology note. The thief struck while Glass was at work in Queenstown on Tuesday. The burglar smashed a window to gain entry and made off with a laptop computer, a camera and Glass's wallet with an American Express credit card. The thief returned the goods later in the day, along with a new basketball and two pairs of gloves bought on the stolen credit card. Glass and his wife Shirley discovered the loot piled on their kitchen table with a neat, handwritten full-page note from the burglar saying he was sorry for "violating the safety and security of your home."
■ MALAYSIA
Teeth-pulling record set
A man nicknamed "King Tooth" pulled a seven-coach train using a steel rope clenched in his mouth on Thursday, a feat that organizers said was a new world record for the heaviest weight pulled with teeth. Rathakrishnan Velu's neck muscles strained and his face contorted as he hauled the 297.1 tonne train over 2.8m along tracks. The feat is expected to be recognized by Guinness World Records, said Rathakrishnan's manager, Anna Chidambar. "I don't know what toothpaste he uses but I am sure a lot of companies will be looking to endorse their products from Rathakrishnan," said Maximus Ongkili, a Cabinet minister, who witnessed the effort at a railway station in Kuala Lumpur.
■ CHINA
Couple fined for hug
Three policemen have been punished for detaining and fining two young lovers 5,000 yuan (US$660) for hugging in public on Chinese Lover's Day. The couple paused to embrace while taking a stroll along a river in Jinshi, Hunan Province, the Shanghai Daily said. "As we hugged each other, three policemen came and separated us so they could ask questions. They brought us to the police station and didn't free us until we paid a 5,000 yuan fine," the paper quoted the woman as saying in an Internet posting. Internet users poured derision on the police, which "forced officials to look into the case," the paper said.
■ UNITED STATES
Prank leads to suspension
A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for three days for the prank, students said. Kyle Garchar, a last year student at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, Ohio said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.
■ UNITED STATES
New DVD includes `barf bag'
Here's one way to appeal to one segment of the youthful male market so beloved by film producers -- package your DVD with its own "barf bag." Genius Products home entertainment is including a paper bag with each copy of its new Dirty Sanchez DVD of outlandish pranks and stunts performed by a troupe of four British men who go by the same name. The bags underscore the message that the DVD is so sickening that even its makers fear viewers may vomit. The troupe is not too different from the US group behind the popular Jackass movies.
■ MEXICO
Man drives without arm
A man whose arm was severed on Thursday by a machete-wielding assailant drove more than an hour to the hospital, where doctors attempted to re-attach the limb. Reinaldo Morales, a 50-year-old farm worker, was heading home after work when one of eight assailants cut off his left arm in a single blow, said Raul Gonzalez, the doctor who received Morales at a hospital in the far-southern Mexican town of Pijijiapan. Gonzalez said Morales told him the assailants took off running after seeing his arm on the ground. Morales then picked up his arm and was able to drive for more than an hour, despite heavy blood loss. "He was bleeding profusely when he arrived," Gonzalez said.
■ UNITED STATES
Remains on display
Call it theater of the macabre: A jar containing a small piece of tissue from the body of John Wilkes Booth, president Abraham Lincoln's killer, will be on display when the musical Assassins opens in Philadelphia. Theatergoers will also be able view a piece of the brain of the lesser-known presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, the man who killed president James Garfield in 1881. The specimens will be on loan to the Arden Theatre from Philadelphia's Mutter Museum, which boasts a large collection of medical oddities. They will be on display in the lobby for one night -- the Sept. 19 opening of Assassins, a Tony award-winning musical that explores the nine people who have taken aim at US presidents.
■ UNITED STATES
Atlanta Olympics guard dies
A man named as a suspect in the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing of 1996 and later cleared without being charged has died at his Atlanta home, a Georgia coroner said on Wednesday. Richard Jewell worked as a security guard at Centennial Olympic Park at the time of the July 27 bombing, which killed one person, injured more than 100 and marred the 1996 Olympic Games. "He did die at his residence. He died of natural causes. He had been home sick with diabetes and also had some kidney problems," Meriwether County Coroner Johnny Worley said in an interview.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese