■POLAND
Pope’s sainthood in balance
The promoter in the case of Pope John Paul II’s sainthood says doctors are still analyzing a supposed miracle attributed to him in which a French nun was allegedly cured of Parkinson’s disease by praying to the late pope. The Reverend Slawomir Oder said on Tuesday that special care is being applied to the analysis to preclude any possible future doubts. A confirmed miracle is a condition for sainthood. There have been reports that some of the doctors are not sure if the nun suffered from Parkinson’s — the illness that also afflicted John Paul — or if she was wrongly diagnosed. Pope Benedict XVI put John Paul on the fast-track for possible sainthood weeks after his 2005 death by waiving the customary five-year waiting period.
■IRAQ
Looted artifacts returned
Hundreds of artifacts looted from museums and archeological sites across the country have been returned. More than 500 pieces were on display at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, including a 4,400-year-old statue of a Sumerian king discovered in the 1920s at the ancient city of Ur, in the south of the country. The headless statue was stolen from the National Museum during the looting and chaos that followed the 2003 US-led invasion. The display is part of Iraqi efforts to repatriate its looted cultural heritage. Among the youngest pieces of the country’s past returned was a chrome-plated AK-47 with a pearl hand grip bearing Saddam Hussein’s image. It was taken to the US by a US soldier as a war trophy.
■BELGIUM
Man fries up a storm
A Belgian maker of French fries, the country’s proud national dish, has set a new world record for non-stop fries-making after frying mountains of potato strips for 83 consecutive hours. The record by 53-year-old Chris Verschueren, owner of a French fries business, beat by 11 hours a previous record of 72 hours set in 1987 by a Briton chip chef. “My fingers are burnt, my feet are sore and my wrist is painful,” he told Belga national news agency. “But it doesn’t matter, I’m going to party now.” From the time he turned on the heat on Friday morning in his village of Kastel till he ran out of steam on Monday night, Verschueren cooked up 1,500kg of fries, taking a 100-minute break after 20 hours for a shower and a stretch. His bid to set a new record for the amount of fries sold — 1,500 bags — failed however. The new world record-holder embarked on the challenge in order to raise funds for a children’s hospital as his own five-year-old has been ill since birth.
■UNITED STATES
Woman stung 500 times
Fire officials say a Massachusetts woman who fell onto a yellow jackets’ nest in her yard was stung more than 500 times. Captain Tim Birch says firefighters used a carbon dioxide chemical fire extinguisher to blast the swarm of insects away on Sunday, but it wasn’t enough, according to the Sun Chronicle newspaper. Three firefighters were treated for stings. Birch tells the Sun Chronicle that even paramedics and emergency room personnel at Sturdy Memorial Hospital had to fight off the yellow jackets, which are also known as wasps. He says the 53-year-old victim remains hospitalized. He did not have further information on her condition. Firefighters went back to the Attleboro home to look for the hive but couldn’t find it. They believe it is underground.
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