■ HONG KONG
Baby thrown from high-rise
A new-born baby was thrown to its death from a high-rise apartment on Tuesday, and police have arrested a 14-year-old girl in connection with the crime. The child's body was found early on Tuesday at the foot of a public housing block. "We believe it was a new-born baby, and it had an umbilical cord attached to its body," a police officer told Hong Kong's Cable Television.
■ AUSTRALIA
Lawmaker recalls escapade
A senior Australian lawmaker who was once handcuffed in his underpants to a pole during a drunken night in a Russian strip club said yesterday he had learned from the experience: "always wear clean underwear." Nigel Scullion said he enjoyed his night out in 1998 in St Petersburg where he led an Australian delegation at a global fishing conference. The escapade was first reported in Australian newspapers on Tuesday, a week after the senator was elected deputy leader of the conservative opposition National Party. "Two important lessons out of life from that: don't let anyone handcuff you to a post and make sure you always wear clean underwear,'' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Media reported Scullion struggled to break free from the pole as a fight broke out between Russian sailors and other patrons. He fled the club partially clothed.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Surfer meets sharks
A surfer has good reason for feeling once bitten, twice shy after two encounters with sharks on the same day, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Olivia Hislop was waiting for a wave at a beach near the South Island tourist town of Kaikoura on Sunday when she felt a tug on her board. She turned around to see a shark half on top of her board and gnashing its teeth, the Marlborough Express newspaper reported. Hislop tugged her board away from the shark, which promptly turned around, smacking her in the forehead with its tail, and swam off. When Hislop paddled out later to catch another wave she said she felt a shark bang against her bare feet, which were dangling in the water off the surf board. Lifting her foot, she found the shark had bitten through the leash tying the board to her ankle.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Lennon's hair for sale
Yesterday fans were to have the chance to buy a lock of John Lennon's hair, autographed photos and other Beatles memorabilia at an auction in Worthing, on England's south coast. Lennon gave the band's hairdresser, Betty Glasow, the lock of hair in a copy of his book, A Spaniard in the Works. In the dedication he wrote, "To Betty, Lots of Love and Hair, John Lennon." The book -- with the hair still inside -- could fetch ?3,000 (US$6,200) or more, said Nick Muston, director of Gorringes auction house.
■ IRAQ
Market car bombs kill 27
Synchronized car bombs devastated a city market district in southern Iraq yesterday, killing at least 27 people and injuring 151, authorities said. The police chief in Amarah was fired, an immediate driving ban went into effect and soldiers were deployed on the streets. The explosions were about five minutes apart, beginning at about 10am, when a car parked in a garage blew up, local police and an intelligence official said. Another car about 50m away exploded shortly afterward as people gathered to examine the damage from the first, police said.
■ france
Man sets calculation record
Alexis Lemaire, 27, stared at a 200-digit number he had never seen before, his thick eyebrows twitched, his breathing slowed and he extended a finger to tap the answer into the computer. Lemaire's last keystroke -- which came exactly 70.218 seconds after he was first confronted with the figure -- revealed the number's 13th root: 2,407,899,893,032,210. Those 16 digits, and the brief time it had taken him to find them, sealed his reputation on Tuesday as the world's fastest human calculator.
■ UNITED STATES
`W00t' wins contest
Merriam-Webster announced that its Word of the Year is "w00t." "W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, won an online poll. Merriam-Webster president John Morse said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology. Gamers commonly substitute numbers for the letters they resemble, creating "l33t speak" -- pronounced "leet" and short for "elite." In the 1990 movie Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts says "Woot, woot, woot!" at a polo match, which has become the word used by gamers to celebrate a win.
■ UNITED STATES
Lying `father' sentenced
A Missouri man who lied about being the father of sextuplets so he and his wife could solicit donations was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison for violating probation. Kris Everson, 35, and his wife, Sarah, 46, had been sentenced in August last year to four years probation after each pleaded guilty to one count of felony stealing by deceit. They were required to pay US$3,661 restitution and perform 40 hours of community service. But they failed to pay restitution and missed several hearings.
■ UNITED STATES
Six shot at school bus stop
Assailants shot six young people at a school bus stop, wounding two critically, in a midday attack that followed a fight over a girl, authorities said. School police arrested three teenagers in the fight that happened hours before the shooting on Tuesday, Sheriff Doug Gillespie said. Investigators were still seeking two gunmen, who were believed to have fled on foot from the scene of the shooting, a working class neighborhood of northeast Las Vegas. An 18-year-old man was in critical condition and a 17-year-old boy was upgraded to serious condition.
‘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