■ AUSTRALIA
Cat high on cocaine
An agitated pet cat left in a cupboard overnight turned out to he high on cocaine and benzodiazepines left over from a wild weekend party, a report said yesterday. The cat arrived at a veterinary clinic with dilated pupils and a racing heart, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. While the owner was adamant the cat had not been exposed to toxic plants, mouldy foods or drugs, when contacted by telephone the owner's wife admitted the cat could have licked "plates of cocaine" which had been served at a party. A drug screen also revealed the cat had benzodiazepines in its system.
■ SINGAPORE
Girl's killer sentenced
A man was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of killing his two-year-old step daughter by submerging her in a pail of water, local media said on Friday. The Straits Times newspaper said on its Web site that Mohammed Ali Johari was charged with murder after he drowned his step daughter to stop her "incessant crying." Singapore enforces its death sentences through hanging. The city-state of 4.5 million people has been ranked by Amnesty International as having the highest per capita execution rate in the world, though Human Rights Watch says Iran now executes the most per capita.
■ THAILAND
Wife runs off with penis
A 35-year-old woman was at large with her husband's penis yesterday after discovering the man's unfaithfulness, police said. Pornbun Sinthusin came home late on Friday in Bangkok and found her 34-year-old husband Ploeng Plaekratoke in bed with another woman, Lieutenant Colonel Kornwat Hunpradit said. Pornbun later gave him several beers before cutting off his penis with "a sharp object," Kornwat said, adding that the husband was in intensive care. "We suspect she took both her weapon and her husband's penis because we cannot find the penis in their apartment. We even checked a toilet but she did not dump it there," Kornwat said.
■ JAPAN
Slim fashion hits men
Men worried about bulging bellies now have another option to cutting back on beer -- slip into a boxer brief girdle or T-shirt with tummy-control panels. Overweight adults are still far rarer than in the US, but the trend is definitely up for men, especially the middle-aged. Many suffer from metabolic syndrome, a condition characterized by excess fat around the abdomen. A fashion trend toward slimmer cuts in suits and form-fitting trousers is also making men -- even the relatively slender -- more worried whether their hips, bellies and thighs pass muster.
■ CHINA
Sex parlors targeted
The government has proposed rules to increase inspections of massage parlors in a bid to stamp out a spreading sex trade, state media said yesterday. The China Daily newspaper reported the draft rules meant all public bathhouses would have "to make their premises more accessible to public inspections in a bid to fight the growing sex trade." It said all massage rooms in bathhouses must be open to view from the outside, and that foot massage parlors keep their doors unlocked when a customer is using a cubicle. The country has a booming sex trade, with massage parlors common on street corners.
■ FINLAND
Minks freed from cages
Farmers and other locals were chasing thousands of minks let out of their cages at a fur farm in the western part of the country early on Friday by suspected animal rights activists. About half the 2,500 minks released from unlocked cages in Mustasaari, 400km northwest of Helsinki, have been recaptured, but it could take several days to round up the others, police said. "We have no firm suspects at the moment. But the letters EVR were spray-painted on a feed silo at the farm. In this connection it usually means Animal Liberation Front in Finnish," Chief Inspector Mika Jylha said, but added: "Of course, anyone could write that."
■ NETHERLANDS
Royals edit Wikipedia entry
Prince Johan Friso and his wife, Princess Mabel, edited information about her past in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the royal family said on Friday. Friso, 38, the younger brother of heir to the throne Prince Willem-Alexander, gave up his place in the line of succession in 2004 when he married Mabel Wisse Smit without official consent because of a controversial relationship she had had with a Dutch drug baron. A spokesman for the Dutch royal family, headed by Queen Beatrix, confirmed that the entry on Wikipedia describing Mabel's relationship with slain drug baron Klaas Bruinsma had been changed from a computer in one of the queen's palaces.
■ RUSSIA
Man steals bridge
Police have detained a 45-year-old municipal worker for stealing a bridge. The 5m span metal bridge disappeared from a river crossing in the Ryazan region, east of Moscow. Police said they tracked it down to the man, who had used his work truck to remove it and then chopped it up and sold it for scrap. In a statement, Ryazan region police called it "the bulkiest theft of the year."
■ RUSSIA
Putin lays wet one on fish
Politicians love to be shown kissing babies, but Russian President Vladimir Putin took on an altogether more slippery customer on Friday by puckering up for a fish. The Kremlin leader, who is due to step down at the end of his second term next March, looked every bit the seasoned campaigner when he lifted the sturgeon at a fish farm and gave the creature a peck on the head. Onlookers at the farm in Selo Ikryanoye, near Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, applauded when Putin, who was wearing white gloves, then dropped the sturgeon into the sea. The fish farm is part of efforts to regenerate the Caspian's endangered sturgeons, prized for their tiny black eggs used to make caviar.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Hippo to start new life
A hippopotamus who suffered from neglect in a French circus arrived on Friday in a wildlife reserve after a flight that lasted over 10 hours, the director of the facility said. Tonga, who is 11-years-old and weighed two tonnes, will start a new life in the Sanwild reserve. "He was fed during the flight. He was sleeping in the flight but he anticipated all the excitement and he was full of life when he arrived," Louise Joubert added. He was temporarily placed behind an electric enclosure, shielding it away from other animals because he did not yet know how to find food for itself, she said. Tonga should be totally free in the 21-hectare reserve in a couple of weeks.
■ UNITED STATES
Second set of triplets born
With her first set of triplets just recently potty trained, an Ohio woman and her husband are about to be swimming in diapers again after she gave birth to her second set of triplets. They've got the routine down pat and figure they'll be changing about 300 diapers and preparing about 168 bottles a week. All while chasing after three others who are a few months shy of their fourth birthdays. Victoria, 39, and Tim Lasita, 48, have been married six years and have three grown children from previous marriages. But they decided they'd like "one more" after the birth of the triplets. "I guess we should have been more specific and said one more child, not one more set," Victoria told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
■ UNITED STATES
Couple wins lotto, again
How lucky can you get? Adeline and Eugene Angelo won US$5 million on Thursday after buying the winning ticket in last week's New York Lotto. In 1996, they won US$2.5 million after splitting a US$10 million jackpot with three other people. Eugene Angelo, 81, a retired construction worker, said he and his wife would share their new fortune with their three sons and their families. They opted to take the lump-sum payment rather than deferred payments over 20 years. "We're still the same old people. Still very excited. It's a great feeling," Angelo said.
■ UNITED STATES
Giant spider web discovered
Texans like to say everything in their state is bigger. They can now add spider webs to that list. A monstrous network of sheet-like webs covering several hectares has been spun over trees in this state park 80km east of Dallas, baffling scientists who say it is an almost-unheard-of occurrence in the region. "The dominant spiders here seem to be long-jawed spiders but this is unusual. Social spiders build communal nests in the tropics but the longjaws are not social," said Mike Quinn, a Texas state insect biologist. The eerie scene evoked a B-grade horror movie. Thunder rumbled in the distance as spiders skittered across Quinn's wide-brimmed hat.
■ UNITED STATES
Designer vaginoplasty risky
Cosmetic procedures billed as "vaginal rejuvenation" or "designer vaginoplasty" are not medically necessary and are not guaranteed to be safe, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned on Friday. The group said it was deceptive to give the impression that any of these procedures were accepted or routine. It said in its journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology, this month that the procedures can cause complications such as infection, altered sensation, pain and scarring. The procedures include changing the shape or size of the labia, "restoring" the hymen, and tightening the vagina. Abbey Berenson, who helped write the guidelines, said: "It's important that women understand the potential risks of these procedures and that there is no scientific evidence regarding their benefits."
■ UNITED STATES
Court overturns sonar ban
The US Navy can use high-powered sonar during exercises off the southern California coast, despite the technology's threat to whales and other marine mammals, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. National security interests outweigh the possible harm to marine life, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals determined in overturning a judge's order banning the practice. The ruling allows the Navy to use high-powered sonar in 11 training exercises.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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