UNITED STATES
Man held for lewd public act
Fred Willard, perhaps best-known as a dog show announcer in the movie Best in Show, was arrested on suspicion of committing a lewd act at a Hollywood adult movie theater and later fired from his work on the TV show Market Warriors. Uniformed vice officers were conducting a routine investigation of the theater on Wednesday night and saw Willard engaging in a lewd act, Los Angeles police Sargeant Mark Ro said. The actor appeared to be alone, he added. Willard, 72, was booked at the Hollywood police station on suspicion of committing a lewd act in public. Ro said Willard was released after midnight without posting bail.
UNITED STATES
1979 Who tickets still valid
Fans still holding tickets for a canceled 1979 show in Rhode Island by British rock band The Who can finally use them. The band’s 1979 concert in Providence was canceled by the city’s then-mayor Buddy Cianci, who cited safety concerns after a stampede before a show in Cincinnati, Ohio, killed 11 people. The band has not been to the city since. The Who this week announced it will end its latest tour in Providence on Feb. 26 at the same venue where its show was canceled 33 years ago, now called the Dunkin Donuts Center. General manager Lawrence Lepore said on Thursday the venue will honor tickets from the canceled 1979 show. Lepore said many ticketholders got refunds for the canceled show in 1979, but others may have held on to their tickets as memorabilia. “Somewhere, someplace, someone’s got it stashed,” he said. “The question is, are they willing to give that up? If they are, we’re willing to take it.” The most expensive ticket at the 1979 show was US$14, Lepore said. Tickets for February’s show range from US$57.50 to US$127.50.
FRANCE
Man claims fast food abuse
McDonald’s France said on Thursday that employees at one of its Paris restaurants denied a Canadian inventor’s claims they assaulted him for wearing a computer vision system. In a statement on its Facebook page, the company said it was investigating the claim and “no statement in relation to a physical assault ... was uncovered in the testimonies of the people questioned.” Steve Mann, a professor at the University of Toronto, blogged on Tuesday that he had suffered a “physical assault” by McDonald’s “representatives.” “According to the employees, the exchanges with Mr Mann were carried out with respect and politeness,” McDonald’s said. Mann, who invented the EyeTap computer vision system — similar to the Augmented Reality eyepiece being developed by Google Inc — and has worn it for the past 13 years, said he was confronted by three people he believed to be McDonald’s staff. Mann claimed one of the men tried to rip the system from his head and that despite showing them medical and technical documentation on the system, he was ejected from the restaurant.
FRANCE
New DSK drink to hit clubs
A fizzy drink with alleged aphrodisiac qualities carrying the initials of disgraced former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn will hit night clubs this summer, its makers said. Drink Safran Kiwi (DSK), to be sold in Paris and on the French Riviera, is geared toward “the in-crowd, nightclubbers,” who will mix it with a hard drink, its designer Stephane Briault said. Briault came up with the idea for a “natural, pasteurized drink without coloring or preservatives” in his contacts with saffron producer Patrice Guillard. “Since ancient times, saffron has been known for its many benefits,” Briault said. “It’s an anti-depressant, has the reputation of being fun and bringing wisdom, is good for the liver, lowers blood pressure, stimulates respiration and is believed to be an aphrodisiac for women.” Briault and Guillard started out with the idea of a saffron-based soda, but they needed a fruit. “Kiwi has interesting benefits, it’s an antioxidant,” believed to slow the ageing process, Briault said. “Then we needed a name. ‘Saffron Drink’ didn’t sound very sexy, so we thought of ‘Drink Safran Kiwi,’ which could be shortened to DSK. We asked ourselves if that wasn’t too brazen,” given the connection with Strauss-Kahn, who has been caught up in a string of lurid sex scandals. “But people will remember it more easily,” Briault said.
AUSTRIA
Farmer fined for noisy cows
There are few things more typically Alpine than the gentle ringing of cow bells, but one farmer has been fined because those of his herd were too noisy, authorities said on Thursday. Two families in the village of Stallhofen in Styria State filed a complaint with a local court, which ruled in their favor, the president of the court Gerhard Goedl said. “The court ruled that the manner in which the farmer kept his cows was unbearable for his neighbors,” Goedl said of the ruling, which was published this week. The problem, he explained, was that the cows’ bells were banging against a metal water trough in their field as they drank, even at night.
BRITAIN
‘Sherlock’ being sexed up
Now we know how Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson really felt about each other. British e-publisher Clandestine Classics is releasing sexed-up editions of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice and other classics, with erotic passages woven into the traditional texts. That means Mr Darcy “buried inside the depths” of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Dr Watson declaring his “joy of knowing other men.” Clandestine’s Claire Siemaszkiewicz said she has always been drawn to “the underlying sexual tension” in older novels. The new editions were started before the Fifty Shades phenomenon, but the release date was moved up in hopes of attracting fans of E.L. James.
UNITED STATES
Turtles crawl to freedom
More than 1,500 turtles have made a slow-speed escape from a farm in Georgia. Turtle farmer David Driver told police he suspects vandals were to blame for tearing down fences around his turtle ponds. Authorities say that the damage to the fences allowed the turtles to make a beeline to nearby ponds and creeks. Driver said his business involves selling turtles to pet-growing operations as well as supplying the reptiles to China. Sheriff’s officials are continuing to search for the escapees.
‘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