UNITED STATES
Beadnose wins fattest bear
In an Alaska clash of tubby titans that has become a social media sensation, a shaggy, brown and possibly pregnant mother known as 409 Beadnose was on Tuesday crowned as Fattest Bear of 2018. Beadnose nosed out a larger Alaska brown bear, a male called 747 — and likened to a jumbo jet — in online votes collected by staff at Katmai National Park and Preserve during a wildly popular event called Fat Bear Week. Male bears are bigger, but Beadnose was deemed to be more rotund. “Her radiant rolls were deemed by the voting public to be this year’s most fabulous flab,” the park said on Facebook. “Our chubby champ has a few more weeks to chow down on lingering salmon carcasses before she heads up the mountains to dig herself a den and savor her victory.”
Photo: Reuters
UNITED STATES
Limo operator charged
The operator of a limousine company that owned the vehicle involved in a crash that killed 20 people in upstate New York was charged on Wednesday with criminally negligent homicide, court officials in Cobleskill said. Nauman Hussain, 28, was charged with one felony count related to the deadliest US transportation accident in nearly a decade. All 20 victims were listed on the charging document. Hussain was released on US$150,000 bail. The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. The arraignment was held several kilometers from the crash site in Schoharie, where a candlelight vigil was being held for the victims.
UNITED STATES
Thief ordered to play piano
A former prominent neurological researcher at Yale and New York universities on Wednesday avoided prison time for stealing research funds, but a judge said he must play piano for indigent elderly people in Connecticut to make amends. District Judge Analisa Torres told Alexander Neumeister he must play piano at least twice weekly for an hour for the next three years at group facilities in Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury. Torres said she saw in pre-sentencing materials that Neumeister is a trained pianist. Neumeister in June admitted stealing US$87,000 from New York University and various grant programs from 2012 to 2014. Prosecutors said he also was required to repay US$76,000 after stealing money while he was at Yale University from 2004 through 2010, though that was not part of the criminal case resulting in his plea.
RUSSIA
Town recruits cat chief
Wanted: Cat chief. Location: Zelenogradsk. Duties: Tending to the town’s approximately 70 stray cats. About 80 applicants applied for the new role with the municipality in the small town in the Kaliningrad region, which has also erected a cat statue and added a feline to its emblem in a bid to rebrand itself as the nation’s foremost cat-loving community. In the end, local resident Svetlana Logunova was appointed guardian of the town’s felines. To help her with the task, she was given a bicycle and uniform, including a bright green jacket, black bow tie and hat, and a monthly budget of 5,700 rubles (US$85) to ensure all the seaside community’s cats are happy and fed. “I alone cannot care for every single one and a helping hand would go a long way,” Logunova 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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in