CHINA
Xinhua duped yet again
Official news agency Xinhua has reported as true a satirical story that Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post by accident. The publication on Xinhua’s Web site came days after it posted a gallery of images supposedly showing a woman being executed by lethal injection — which instead appeared to have come from a fetish site. Bezos’ acquisition of the Washington institution for US$250 million was announced earlier this week. The original parody, entitled: “Amazon founder says he clicked on Washington Post by mistake,” was written by comedian Andy Borowitz for his satirical Borowitz Report column, published by the New Yorker magazine on its Web site. It joked that the deal had been a “gigantic mix-up” and supposedly quoted the e-commerce magnate as saying: “No way in hell would I buy the Washington Post ... I don’t even read the Washington Post.” He only became aware of his purchase when he noticed an “unusual charge” for US$250 million on his credit card statement, it claimed.
JAPAN
Dogs yawn with owner: study
Tired dog lovers who think their pet pooch is yawning along with them may just be right, according to a Japanese study. Dubbed “contagious yawning,” the new research says man’s best friend can sense human fatigue and, in a possible show of empathy, will join humans in a big yawn. Canines yawn more often when it is their owner who is involved, added the study conducted by researchers at Tokyo and Kyoto universities, which was published in US science journal PLOS One this week. “Our study suggests that contagious yawning in dogs is emotionally connected in a way similar to humans,” said Teresa Romero, who led the study. The study observed two dozen canines to see how they reacted both to their owners and to unfamiliar humans. The people involved in the experiment also made other facial expressions to see if the dogs sensed the difference. “The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements,” the study said, adding that “the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one.”
NIGERIA
Corrupt copper cashiered
A police sergeant who was covertly filmed trying to extract a bribe from a motorist in Lagos has been sacked after the video went viral. In the driver’s phone footage, Sergeant Chris Omoleze is seen sitting in the passenger seat of a car demanding a payment of 25,000 naira, well over the minimum monthly wage of 18,000 naira. Following 120,000 views on YouTube, tens of thousands of tweets and airings on every national TV channel, authorities were goaded into taking rare action. “Less than 24 hours after we got wind of that story, the police officer was identified, arrested [and] dismissed from the police force,” police spokesman Frank Mba said.
UNITED STATES
‘Easy Rider’ actress dies
American actress Karen Black, who shot to fame in the 1969 counter-culture classic Easy Rider, died on Thursday in Los Angeles, her husband said. She was 74. Black, who starred alongside Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in the film, died after battling cancer. “It is with great sadness that I have to report that my wife and best friend, Karen Black has just passed away, only a few minutes ago,” Black’s husband Stephen Eckelberry wrote on his Facebook page. Born in Illinois in 1939, Black went on to star in about 100 movies, including several with some of the biggest names in Hollywood history. As well as Easy Rider, she appeared in 1970’s Five Easy Pieces, earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Nicholson’s pregnant girlfriend. She won a Golden Globe for her performance alongside Robert Redford in the 1974 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Black was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2010. She is survived by her husband and two children.
UNITED STATES
Subway shark explained
Beachgoers came forward on Thursday with a plausible explanation for why a dead shark turned up in a New York subway train two days before. The fishy-smelling critter caused an Internet stir after it was discovered — and duly photographed by commuters — on a Queens-bound train. On Thursday, Gothamist.com said it got an e-mail from a New Yorker who received text-messaged photos at work earlier on Tuesday of his young daughter at Coney Island beach — holding what appeared to be the same shark. It had apparently washed up on the sun-kissed beach, where it quickly became a prop for souvenir snaps. “My neighbor, who took the photo, texted me to say how ‘boss’ my daughter was by holding the shark while the boys in the group were afraid to even get close,” the man said. “Our neighbor and my kids took some pictures with it and then a guy took the shark with him,” he told the blog. The neighbor, Alicia Vicino, told Gothamist.com that she was convinced it was the same shark — not least because she knew the Queens-bound train begins its journey at Coney Island. “We were cracking up when we saw it on the news. We said, ‘That’s our shark,’” Vicino said.
UNITED STATES
Couple welcomes 12th son
A Michigan family welcomed their 12th child: a boy — just like the other 11. Jay and Kateri Schwandt believed the latest baby might break the gender streak, especially after Kateri, known as Teri, was nine days past her due date. That was unusual for her pregnancies. However, as it turned out, it was hardly a game-changer as a nurse at a Grand Rapids hospital announced delivery of another boy, Tucker. The Schwandts, who live north of Grand Rapids, consider themselves devout Roman Catholics who do not believe in using birth control and put the size of their family in God’s hands. Teri comes from a family of 14 kids. However, she is not the only member of her own family committed to the cause. She has a sister in the Detroit area, Kate Osberger, who has 10 sons of her own. “That’s amazing. This is a miracle,” said Bob Barbieri, who researches fertility issues and is chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It appears there is some type of genetic determination in some families that have a lot of girls or a lot of boys. It’s not well understood. It’s more than a statistical oddity.”
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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