UNITED KINGDOM
‘Adrian Mole’ author dies
Sue Townsend, the British author responsible for the multimillion-selling Adrian Mole series documenting the humdrum life of an awkward teenager, has died aged 68, her son told the BBC yesterday. According to the broadcaster, her son, Danny Townsend, confirmed that the novelist had died at home on Thursday after a short illness. After writing a series of well-received plays, Sue Townsend was catapulted to mainstream fame when she released The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13? in 1982. Within three years, the book had sold close to 2 million copies and was followed in 1984 by The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, which helped her to become the nation’s top-selling author of the 1980s. The books are widely recognized as having captured the essence of the 1980s under the rule of then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Townsend left school at 15, but remained a voracious reader and wrote in secret for many years, while carrying out a series of jobs, including as a factory worker.
CHINA
Man attracts 460,000 bees
A Chinese beekeeper covered his semi-naked body in more than 460,000 bees for a publicity stunt aimed at selling more of his honey, he said on Thursday, using a technique known as “bee bearding.” She Ping (佘平), a 34-year-old honey merchant from Chongqing, covered himself in bees that collectively weighed more than 45kg in a display for a group of French photographers on Wednesday, he said. Bee bearding is a global pursuit, and Indian Vipin Seth holds the world record for wearing a mantle of bees weighing 61.4kg, according to Guinness World Records’ official video channel. Participants generally attract the bees by placing a queen bee in a small cage hanging from their body. “To be honest I felt very nervous, but I do it to promote my honey,” She said, adding: “I’m used to dealing with bees ... and started these activities when I was about 22. Of the people who do it naked, I’m probably the most awesome.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Former speaker cleared
A former deputy speaker of the House of Commons was cleared on Thursday of charges of sexually assaulting six young men and raping another. Nigel Evans, 56, said he had been dragged through “11 months of hell” by the case, and “nothing will ever be the same again.” The openly gay former Conservative lawmaker had been accused of using his “powerful” political influence to take advantage of the men in a trial that laid bare his drinking and clumsy flirting. A jury at Preston Crown Court found Evans not guilty on all counts, including one count of rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted sexual assault and two indecent assaults. The court heard he could make “cack-handed” passes, “almost like a drunken 14-year-old at a disco who could not chat you up with words.” One alleged victim dismissed an incident where Evans put his hand down his trousers as “crazy” and “just Nigel being drunken Nigel.”
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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