UNITED KINGDOM
Floyd exhibition planned
The first major retrospective of British prog rock giants Pink Floyd will be held at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum next year, featuring previously unseen concert footage, the museum said on Wednesday. The show is to feature 350 exhibits, including instruments, sets, psychedelic prints and objects used for the band’s ground-breaking album covers. A floating pink pig — a tribute to the cover of the band’s 1977 album Animals — could be seen above the museum on Wednesday as it made the announcement. Director Martin Roth said the museum is well placed to honor a group that “is as recognizable for its unique visual imagery as for its music.” The museum said the show would be “an immersive, multi-sensory and theatrical journey through Pink Floyd’s extraordinary world.” “The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains” is to run from May 13 to Oct. 1. It follows the museum’s hugely successful David Bowie retrospective in 2013 which attracted 300,000 visitors before embarking on a world tour.
FRANCE
Coke workers find cocaine
Coca-Cola workers found a huge stash of cocaine when they opened a delivery of fruit juice concentrate from Costa Rica at their factory in in the town of Signes. Local newspaper Var-Matin said the haul weighed 370kg with a potential street value of about US$56 million. Those figures could not be confirmed by Coca-Cola and the local prosecutor could not be reached for comment. “You can well imagine the surprise,” a spokesman for Coca-Cola said, adding that the workers alerted police and were ruled out as potential suspects. The stash was hidden inside a container of juice that was opened on arrival at the factory on Friday last week.
SPAIN
Panda gives birth to female
There is a new giant panda in Madrid and it is the first female of the endangered species born at the capital’s zoo. The zoo said Hua Zui Ba gave birth just before dawn on Wednesday to a cub weighing 180g. The zoo said the cub was “well formed, very active and has excellent vital signs.” It is already suckling and zoo experts said they were confident of its progress in the crucial first week of life. The specialists at the zoo were assisted by experts from China’s Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding. They knew the birth was approaching when Hua Zui Ba became increasingly lethargic, stopped eating and began to lick her paws. The zoo now has four giant pandas.
UZBEKISTAN
Newsreader delivers speech
A national newsreader has delivered a televised Independence Day speech on behalf of ailing President Islam Karimov, who remains hospitalized in Tashkent with a suspected brain hemorrhage. The surprise substitution reflected rising political uncertainty in the nation, which observed its national holiday yesterday. It was Karimov’s first absence from the celebrations. Karimov has run an authoritarian regime in the Central Asian nation since 1989, suppressing opposition and cultivating no apparent successor. He has not been seen in public since the middle of last month and his government last weekend admitted he was ill. His daughter on Monday said he had suffered a brain hemorrhage. Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev led the start of independence day events on Wednesday. Other events have reportedly been canceled, including a concert and a fireworks display.
UNITED STATES
Midair collision kills five
Two small planes collided in the air over a remote area of western Alaska on Wednesday, killing all five people on board the two aircraft, officials said. State troopers said the crash occurred northwest of the village of Russian Mission, about 600km west of Anchorage. The crash scene covers a large area that is accessible only by helicopter, said Clint Johnson, the head of the US National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska division. Troopers said responders at the scene confirmed there were no survivors on either of the planes. The troopers did not give an exact number, but the Alaska National Guard earlier said that there were five people on board the planes. The collision occurred just before 11am, National Guard officials said. Johnson said an initial report was about a possible plane crash involving a Piper PA-18 in the area of Russian Mission, followed shortly after that with another report of another, separate plane that was overdue. “And then subsequently, shortly after that, is when we started putting two and two together as far as a possible midair [collision],” he said. The planes involved in the crash are a Hageland Aviation Cessna 208 Caravan carrying three people and a Renfro’s Alaskan Adventures Piper PA-18 super cub with two people aboard, according to the National Guard.
UNITED STATES
Trump statue for sale
With its bulging, salmon pink belly, sagging varicose arms and insouciant, jowly sneer, it is hardly Michelangelo’s David, but devotees of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump can brighten up the garden, or scare away burglars, with a naked foam statue of the property magnate and would-be leader of the free world for just a few thousand US dollars. Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills on Wednesday said the sculpture — life-sized in all but its most intimate parts — will go under the hammer on October 22, with an estimated value at somewhere between US$10,000 and US$20,000. Hands clasped across its distended midriff, the artwork by California-based anarchist art collective Indecline was unveiled on Hollywood Boulevard last month, with an engraved plaque saying “The Emperor Has No Balls.” Four other naked Trumps appeared in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Cleveland Heights, Ohio, but were confiscated or destroyed, with New York City officials pointing to regulations banning “any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small.” The sole surviving copy was rescued by La Luz de Jesus Gallery before it could be taken and melted down. A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go toward the National Immigration Forum, a leading immigrant advocacy organization, the auction house said.
UNITED STATES
Woman runs over deputy
A woman has been charged with running over a South Carolina sheriff’s deputy with her car while trying to escape arrest. Online records for Greenville County show 23-year-old Jordan Alyse Gary of Taylors was jailed on Tuesday on charges including attempted murder and assault of a deputy while resisting arrest. Officials say deputies responding to a domestic incident found that Gary had assaulted someone at a home. Lieutenant Ty Miller said that when deputies tried to arrest her, Gary ran to her vehicle and drove off, hitting and running over a deputy with the car. Gary was found later that night and arrested. Miller said the deputy involved was taken to a hospital with injuries that were serious, but not life-threatening.
‘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