■UNITED STATES
Storm batters Willis Tower
A swift-moving storm carrying high winds and pelting rain knocked out windows in Chicago’s 110-story Willis Tower. Police on Friday roped off areas around the imposing black building long known as the Sears Tower. Chicago Battalion Chief Michael Gubricky said windows were blown out in a 29th-floor air conditioning mechanical room and a 25th-floor office. Glass was on the sidewalk, but no injuries were immediately reported near the tower. The National Weather Service reported winds in excess of 112kph.
■UNITED STATES
Lady Viagra a bust
A pink sex pill offered little help to women and came with unacceptable risks, US government advisers agreed on Friday, another setback in the search for a drug to boost the female libido. German drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim failed to convince an expert panel that its pill increased sexual desire enough to win approval. “The efficacy was not sufficiently robust to justify the risks,” said Julia Johnson, the panel’s chairwoman and head of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Women reported depression, fainting, fatigue and other problems in company studies of the drug known as flibanserin. Drug makers have been searching for a medicine to improve women’s sex lives since Viagra successfully debuted 12 years ago.
■UNITED STATES
Arrested teen apologizes
A Seattle teen shown on video shoving a police officer who then punched her in the face has apologized to the officer in a private meeting. Seattle police said Officer Ian Walsh accepted the apology on Friday. Separately, the King County prosecutor charged the 17-year-old girl as a juvenile with third-degree assault, which is punishable by a maximum 30 days in detention. The incident happened on Monday as the teen intervened in a friend’s arrest for jaywalking.
■UNITED STATES
Capital Dome gets facelift
The Capitol Dome’s cast-iron exterior is to get its first fresh coat of paint since 2002 starting next week, the office tasked with its upkeep said on Friday. The project, to be completed in November, will require some 2,200 liters of paint, spokeswoman for the Architect of the Capitol Eva Malecki said.
■UNITED STATES
Blackwater back in business
The State Department has awarded part of the controversial private US security firm formerly known as Blackwater a security services contract worth US$120 million for work in Afghanistan, a report said. The firm’s US Training Center, an offshoot of Blackwater — now known as Xe Services — was given the contract on Friday, a State Department spokeswoman said. The firm will provide “protective security services” at the US consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.
■UNITED STATES
Artists sue New York City
Two artists have filed a free-speech lawsuit against New York City in response to new regulations capping the number of art vendors allowed in Manhattan’s busiest parks. Robert Lederman and Jack Nesbitt said that allowing only about 120 vendors in Union Square, Battery Park, the High Line Park and parts of Central Park is unconstitutional. In the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court late on Friday, the artists argued that greenmarket and commercial vendors create more congestion than the roughly 300 art vendors who now work in those parks.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
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