CHINA
Quake losses hit US$75m
The strong earthquake that hit northwest China last week, killing at least 148 people, caused economic losses estimated to be worth tens of millions in the agricultural and fisheries industries, state media said on Saturday. Officials in Gansu Province conducted preliminary assessments that showed the province’s agricultural and fisheries industries have lost 532 million yuan (US$75 million), state broadcaster China Central Television reported. Authorities were considering the best use of the relief fund, set up days before, for the agricultural sector to resume production as soon as possible, the report said. The magnitude 6.2 quake struck in a mountainous region on Monday last week between Gansu and Qinghai provinces. More than 14,000 homes were destroyed. During a visit on Saturday to several villages in Gansu and a county in Qinghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) urged authorities to improve living conditions for the survivors of the quake by every available method, the Xinhua News Agency reported. China Global Television Network, the Chinese state broadcaster’s international arm, on Friday night said that the first batch of 500 temporary housing units had been built for residents in Meipo, a village in Gansu. Many had spent nights in shelters set up in the area as temperatures plunged below freezing.
UNITED STATES
Double uterus twins born
An Alabama woman with a rare congenital anomaly that results in her having two uteri gave birth to healthy twin girls earlier this week. Kelsey Hatcher and husband Caleb welcomed Roxi Layla on Tuesday night and her sister Rebel Laken on Wednesday morning at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, the mother of five wrote on Instagram. “Our miracle babies were born! They decided they were rare enough statistically that they should just go ahead and have their own birthdays too,” Hatcher wrote. She has a double uterus and was pregnant with a baby on each side, a rare pregnancy known as a dicavitary pregnancy that has a one in a million chance of occurring. “Two babies in two uteri were a true medical surprise,” Hatcher’s obstetrician, Shweta Patel, said in a hospital news release. Hatcher’s pregnancy was considered high risk and she was induced at 39 weeks. After a combined 20 hours of labor, the two girls were born. Although a typical twin pregnancy is defined by two babies in one uterus, Richard Davis, the physician who comanaged the pregnancy, said it is “safe to call the girls fraternal twins.”
UNITED STATES
Dixie Chicks founder dies
Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country band Dixie Chicks, died in a head-on car crash on a Texas highway, law enforcement said on Saturday. “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Laura Lynch,” the band, which renamed themselves The Chicks in 2020, wrote on social media. “Laura was a bright light … her infectious energy and humor gave a spark to the early days of our band,” the band said. Lynch cofounded the group in 1989 along with musicians Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Martie and Emily Erwin. The Chicks said Lynch was “instrumental” to the band’s early success. Lynch was the Dixie Chicks’ bassist and at one point the main vocalist. She left the group in 1995. Originally founded as a bluegrass band, the Dixie Chicks released their major label debut Wide Open Spaces in 1998, selling “more CDs than all other country music groups combined,” and earning their first Grammy Award, according to the awards’ Web site.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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