CHILE
Rescue launched for miners
Specialized teams have begun an effort to rescue three Bolivians trapped deep underground in a northern mine, authorities said on Friday. The San Jose mine collapsed late on Thursday, trapping the men nearly 70m underground. Local authorities confirmed that the men were alive. “We’ve been in contact with them through bangs and sounds,” Antofagasta Province Governor Marco Antonio Diaz said, adding that geotechnical experts from mines across the region have been assisting the rescue efforts, which included detonating small explosives to try to remove a large rock blocking the mine shaft. Firefighters joined other rescue teams at the mine about 1,500km north of the capital, Santiago. The miners have been identified as 62-year-old Leonardo Condori; 45-year-old Salomon Veinzaga; and his 19-year-old son, Lenin Veinzaga. Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Twitter that he is worried about his countrymen and thanked President Sebastian Pinera for the rescue efforts.
SOUTH KOREA
K-pop agency founder quits
The founder of one of the most successful K-pop music agencies has stepped down amid accusations that he tried to cover up alleged drug use by one of the company’s artists. Yang Hyun-suk on Friday said in a statement posted on the Web site of YG Entertainment that he was dealing with “malicious gossip,” but that he was stepping down to protect the reputation of the company’s artists. The announcement came after singer B.I. left the boy band iKON following allegations that he tried to solicit drugs from another YG artist. B.I. said that he once considered purchasing drugs, but denied taking them. Yang, a major 1990s pop star, founded YG in 1996.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Harmful’ stereotypes barred
Hapless husbands and housework-burdened moms have been banished from advertising, as a crackdown on “harmful” gender stereotypes went into force on Friday. Under the new rules, advertisements must not include “gender stereotypes which are likely to cause harm or serious or widespread offense.” Examples include depictions of a man failing to change a diaper or a woman to park a car, or ads that suggest women are solely responsible for cooking and cleaning. Complaints would be assessed by the Advertising Standards Authority, which does not have the power to impose fines, but British broadcasters are bound by the terms of their licenses to comply with its rulings. The watchdog, which has previously banned ads for suggesting it was desirable for young women to be unhealthily thin, said that it would not ban all stereotypes, such as women cleaning or men doing home-improvement jobs.
UNITED STATES
Man mows veterans’ lawns
An Alabama man said that he has completed his quest to mow lawns for veterans in all 50 states. Rodney Smith Jr on Friday said on Twitter that he was headed home from Hawaii after cutting grass in Oahu. He got to his last state with help from Delta Air Lines. He said that he would continue providing free lawn care to the elderly, disabled, single mothers and veterans in Alabama. Smith was inspired to begin a free yard mowing service in 2015 after seeing an elderly man cutting his lawn. That morphed into a mission to cut grass for service veterans in every US state. Smith this spring drove across the country posting photographs of himself with veterans as he cut their lawns. Individual and corporate donations helped pay for hotel rooms and other expenses.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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