CHINA
Vaccine probe opened
Police in Jiangsu Province have begun an investigation after at least 145 children received expired polio vaccines, the Global Times reported yesterday. Residents, including the children’s parents, blocked traffic and disrupted public order as they gathered outside Jinhu County offices on Friday, the paper said. Three were arrested, police said in a statement. The vaccine was administered on Jan. 7, despite an expiry date of Dec. 11 last year, the paper said, adding that local government authorities have set up a special investigation team to look into the matter.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Egg beats Kylie Jenner
A picture of a plain egg had garnered more than 23 million likes on Instagram as of yesterday, becoming the platform’s most-liked post ever. It was first posted on Jan. 4 by an account called –?wait for it –?@world_record_egg. The previous Instagram record was held by celebrity Kylie Jenner, whose photograph announcing her baby, Stormi, in February last year was liked 18 million times. Jenner did not take the defeat lying down. She responded with her own post, cracking an egg on the street, which quickly got 9 million likes. “Take that little egg,” she wrote.
INDONESIA
Lion Air recorder found
Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October last year, officials said yesterday. Deputy Ministry of Maritime Affairs Ridwan Djamaluddin told reporters that the remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. “We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee’s chairman,” he said. Lieutenant Colonel Agung Nugroho, a spokesman for the navy’s Western Fleet, said that divers using high-tech “ping locator” equipment had started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8m of seabed mud.
UNITED STATES
Red wolf genes discovered
Researchers say a pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, an animal that was declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago. The finding has led wildlife biologists and others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors all but wiped them out. “Overall, it’s incredibly rare to rediscover animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct and it’s even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the wild,” said Elizabeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton University biologist involved in the research.
UNITED KINGDOM
Misogyny laws mooted
Police forces should treat harassment and abuse of women that is motivated by misogyny as a hate crime, lawmakers and rights groups said in an open letter yesterday. The government last year said it would review hate crime legislation and look at whether it should encompass new categories such as misogyny. Lawmakers Stella Creasy and Peter Bottomley, and campaigner Helen Pankhurst were among those who signed the open letter. “Because misogyny — acts targeted at women, because they are women — is not included within the law, women are left unprotected. Women have the right to live free from intimidation, abuse and violence,” the letter read.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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