UNITED KINGDOM
Harry, Meghan to ‘step back’
Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, plan “to step back” as senior members of the royal family, a statement issued on Wednesday by Buckingham Palace said. “Harry and Meghan intend to become financially independent” and to “balance” their time between the UK and North America, the statement said. “After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” it said. “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support her majesty the queen.”
CANADA
Bieber announces illness
Pop super star Justin Bieber on Wednesday announced that he has Lyme disease. In a post on Instagram, Bieber said he would address his struggle with the illness, which is contracted through a tick bite, in a YouTube documentary. “It’s been a rough couple years, but getting the right treatment that will help treat this so far incurable disease and I will be back and better than ever,” the 25-year-old entertainer wrote in the post’s caption. He called out critics who he says have been saying he looks like he is “on meth.” He said: “They failed to realize I’ve been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease, not only that but had a serious case of chronic mono which affected my, skin, brain function, energy, and overall health.”
MEXICO
Mayor-elect’s body found
The body of a missing mayor-elect who disappeared in the nation’s south more than a year ago has been found, authorities said on Wednesday. Prosecutors in Guerrero State said that information obtained from people linked to the case led investigators to a river bank where remains were found. Those remains were matched to Daniel Esteban Gonzalez by DNA testing. Gonzalez disappeared on Sept. 2, 2018, after winning the mayorship of the town of Cochoapa el Grande. Gonzalez was the candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party. Representatives of that party have blamed the disappearance on the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate had disputed the election.
UNITED STATES
Twitter to test new controls
Twitter on Wednesday said that it would test new features early this year that would allow people to control who can reply to their tweets, as it looks to limit abuse and harassment on the platform. “We want to help people feel safe participating in the conversation on Twitter by giving them more control over the conversations they start,” the San Francisco-based company said in a tweet.
UNITED STATES
Old paper finds new owner
A retiree has canceled an around-the-world trip to save the Mountain Messenger, California’s oldest weekly newspaper, which was set to shut down when editor Don Russell retires this month. The paper began in 1853. Its claim to fame is that Mark Twain once wrote there under his real name, Sam Clemens. Carl Butz said he is to take over the Mountain Messenger. “I’ve been a widower for three years and this is a new chapter in my life,” Butz told SFGate. “What am I going to do? Go on another trip around the world? Instead, I’m doing something good for the community, and I feel good about it.” Known in the area as the “Mountain Mess,” the paper covers school board meetings, federal land use and other issues.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
RSS