UNITED STATES
Noise said to hinder learning
From the cacophony of day care to the buzz of TV and electronic toys, noise is more distracting to a child’s brain than to an adult’s — and it can hinder how youngsters learn. Children learn language from hearing it, but new research shows it is particularly hard for them to listen when other voices are babbling in the background. Researchers said the ability to process speech amid background noise does not mature until adolescence. That is a finding with implications for classroom design. Even premature babies are affected. One study found that they developed better when recordings of a mom’s voice were piped inside incubators to counter the white noise of the machines’ fan. The research is being presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
IRAQ
Critic’s home catches fire
A 13-year-old girl’s home burned after she criticized the governor of a central Iraq province in a TV interview, her father and police said on Saturday. Rawan Salem Hussein challenged Babil Governor Sadiq Madlool al-Sultani to an on-air debate on his contributions to “the cultural situation in Babil,” and said she would prove that he had “set Babil Province back 50 years.” Hussein’s father, Salem, said the fire at the family’s home in Hilla, south of Baghdad, occurred not long after the clip was broadcast on al-Baghdadiya TV. A police captain said a malfunctioning heater caused the fire, but Salem said that it had been turned off, and suggested that arson was the cause. The incident “raises a number of questions, especially the question of its timing,” he said. “Why, six hours after the broadcast of the video clip in which Rawan spoke about the governor, was the house burned?” Salem said he and Rawan were at a protest in Baghdad at the time of the fire.
BOLIVIA
Officers ordered to pay up
A judge on Saturday said he ordered five top ex-military officers to pay 1.1 million bolivianos (US$159,660) compensation to 30 people injured by, or who lost loved ones in, a 2003 massacre. Judge Eduardo Gonzales in the southeastern town of Sucre said on the radio that he upheld a lawsuit by people who were wounded or had family members killed. The five were convicted for being in command of troops who carried out the massacre in the town of El Alto near the capital La Paz. Troops cracked down violently on local people protesting against government attempts to export gas to the US. More than 60 people were killed and 500 injured. Outrage over the atrocity prompted then-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to resign and flee to the US.
SWEDEN
Asylum center death probed
Police are investigating a killing at an asylum center in Sweden after a fight broke out among residents. It is the second such incident in a month after a 22-year-old employee at a refugee center for unaccompanied minors was stabbed to death, prompting concerns that authorities were being overwhelmed by the number of asylum seekers in the country. Police said the fight broke out on Saturday afternoon in Ljusne, a town of about 2,500 people on Sweden’s east coast, about 240km north of Stockholm, but gave no further details. Swedish media said four people had been involved and a sharp object had been used. It appeared to be a fight among people living at the center and no staff were injured.
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
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