UNITED STATES
Dog diet brings new life
A morbidly obese Texas dachshund once dubbed “Fat Vincent” because his belly was so large it hit the ground when he walked, has found its way out of animal shelter care by dropping half its body weight, and is on track to become healthy enough for a new owner. The seven-year-old canine with a love for fast food weighed 17.24kg with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 60 percent body fat in September last year when he was surrendered to a Houston animal shelter after his elderly owner died, its temporary owner said. His ideal healthy weight is about 7.25kg. “Besides terribly high cholesterol and BMI, Vincent’s back sloped downward in the middle and our vet was fearful that one false move would cause his back to break,” said Melissa Anderson with K-9 Angels Rescue in Houston. Now dubbed “Skinny Vinnie,” the dog weighs 7.9kg due to a healthier diet, swimming with a life jacket in a pool and long walks, Anderson said.
UNITED STATES
Turtle smuggler sentenced
A Canadian man who repeatedly entered Michigan to buy and ship thousands of turtles to his native China only to be caught with 51 of them strapped to his legs was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly five years in federal prison for smuggling. It was a tough punishment for Kai Xu (徐楷), who has been locked up for 19 months since his arrest and had hoped to be released. The 27-year-old expressed remorse to a judge and thanked agents “for stopping the darkness of my greed and ignorance.” Ahead of the hearing, Xu wrote a letter to District Judge John Corbett O’Meara, saying he sold turtles partly to make money for college. He said he was a semester short of an engineering degree. The government said Xu shipped turtles to China from Canada and the US, or hired people to fly with turtles in their luggage to China, where they are coveted as pets. He was apprehended with 51 of them on his legs at the Ontario, Canada, border in 2014.
UNITED STATES
Ring stolen from casket
Police in west Texas are searching for a woman seen in a surveillance video at a funeral home in Odessa stealing a ring from the body of an 88-year-old in an open casket. In a video posted on the Facebook page of the Odessa Police Department on Monday, the suspect is seen standing alone in front of the body of an elderly woman for about a minute on Friday last week and apparently twisting the woman’s finger to remove a ring. Police said after stealing the ring, the suspect fled in a car. The daughter of the deceased woman told the Odessa American newspaper that the family did not know the suspect.
CANADA
‘Black Widow’ re-arrested
An 80-year-old woman dubbed the nation’s “Black Widow” has been arrested after breaching the conditions of her release by using the Internet at a library in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A police spokeswoman said Melissa Ann Shepard was arrested on Monday. Shepard gained notoriety for killing and poisoning several men who were her intimate partners and has a lengthy history of offenses. The arrest came less than a month after Shepard was released from prison. She served just under three years for spiking newlywed husband Fred Weeks’ coffee with tranquilizers in 2012. Weeks survived after falling ill during a trip to Newfoundland. Shepard was convicted of manslaughter and served two years in prison in the early 1990s in the death of her second husband, Gordon Stewart, whom she drugged and ran over twice with a car.
SOUTH KOREA
Sex pills for votes probed
Elderly men have allegedly been given erectile dysfunction drugs to buy their votes in legislative elections, prosecutors said on Tuesday, announcing an investigation into the suspected breach. The alleged vote-buying took place in Suwon, 30km south of the capital, Seoul. “We have yet to verify the allegations. If confirmed, this could constitute a breach of election law,” a spokesman for the Suwon Prosecutors’ Office said. Vote-buying carries a sentence of up to five years in prison or a fine of 10 million won (US$8,750). Erectile dysfunction drugs are a prescription medication and prosecutors will investigate how the unnamed candidate was allegedly in possession of so many, the Dong-A Ilbo daily said.
INDONESIA
Elderly woman caned
An elderly Christian woman has been caned in a conservative province for selling alcohol, the first time someone from outside the Islamic faith has been punished there under strict religious laws. The 60-year-old was whipped nearly 30 times with a rattan cane before a crowd of hundreds in Aceh Province on Tuesday, an official said, along with a couple who were subjected to 100 lashes for committing adultery. Aceh is the only province in the predominantly Muslim nation that applies Shariah law, and public canings for breaches of Islamic code happen on a regular basis and often attract huge crowds. “This is the first case of a non-Muslim being punished under Islamic criminal bylaw,” an official said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Minister admits relationship
A minister admitted on Tuesday that he had been in a relationship with a sex worker, but said that he did not know her occupation at the time. Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said that he had broken off the relationship, which occurred before he became a minister, when he found out the woman had tried to sell her story to a newspaper. Whittingdale admitted the affair following reports on online news outlets and it is likely to raise questions about whether his previous role as press regulator was compromised by knowing newspapers had information about his private life. “Between August 2013 and February 2014, I had a relationship with someone who I first met through Match.com. She was a similar age and lived close to me,” he said. “At no time did she give me any indication of her real occupation and I only discovered this when I was made aware that someone was trying to sell a story about me to tabloid newspapers. As soon as I discovered, I ended the relationship.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Pandas donate droppings
Giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang are taking part in an experiment to find out whether the famously faddy breed really does only eat shoots and leaves. The Edinburgh Zoo pair, whose names mean Sweetie and Sunshine in English, are donating their droppings to enable scientists to discover more about their eating habits and thereby help conserve pandas in the wild. Despite their reputation as picky eaters, previous work has suggested that pandas might enjoy as many as 60 different species of bamboo and could possibly even eat other plant species, fungi and animals. “It is already widely accepted that all species of bamboo are not the same to the giant panda ... and the precise species consumed might vary according to individual requirements, availability, season or location. However, there remains a huge gap in knowledge regarding exactly what they eat and when they eat it,” the zoo said.
‘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