CHINA
Mudslide kills 12
At least 12 people were killed after a mudslide yesterday hit a homestay house in a tourist area in the southeast as heavy rains from what remained of a tropical storm drenched the region, state media said. Elsewhere, a delivery person on a scooter was on Saturday killed after being hit by a falling tree in Shanghai, apparently because of storm-related winds, the online news outlet The Paper reported. The deaths were the first in China that appear linked to Typhoon Gaemi, which weakened to a tropical storm after making landfall on Thursday. The mudslide struck the homestay house at about 8am and trapped 21 people in Yuelin in Hunan Province, China Central Television reported online. About 30cm of rain was recorded in the area over a 24-hour period.
IRAN
Ayatollah endorses president
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday gave his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month. “I endorse the vote [for] the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” a message from the leader read by the director of Khamenei’s office said. The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament tomorrow.
UNITED STATES
Park Fire continues to grow
A fire raging out of control in northern California has rapidly become among the biggest ever in the western state, authorities said on Saturday. The Park Fire burned more than 142,000 hectares as of Saturday evening, making it the seventh-largest ever recorded in the state’s history, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said. The fire, which prompted orders for more than 4,000 people to flee their homes, was burning through a largely rural, mountainous area near the city of Chico. “Extreme fire conditions continue to challenge firefighters,” Cal Fire wrote on X. The fire was just 10 percent controlled, despite the efforts of more than 3,700 personnel with more than a dozen helicopters and several planes, the agency said.
UNITED STATES
Trump courts crypto vote
Former president Donald Trump, once a cryptocurrency skeptic, on Saturday vowed to be a “pro-bitcoin president” if elected in November, as the Republican nominee sought backing from an industry irked by US regulations. “The Biden-Harris administration’s repression of crypto and bitcoin is wrong, and it’s very bad for our country,” Trump said to cheers at a conference in Tennessee, referring to US President Joe Biden and Vice President and likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The ex-president likened cryptocurrencies to the growth of the “steel industry of 100 years ago,” and said that if president, he would not allow the US government to sell its bitcoin holdings, saying it would be a strategic stockpile. Meanwhile, on Friday, Trump told a crowd in West Palm Beach, Florida, that if Christians vote for him, “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” It was not clear what he meant by his remarks, in a campaign where his opponents have accused him of being a threat to democracy, and after his attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat to Biden that led to the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
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