QUIRKY WORLD ... China plans to take rare animals off the menu with strict prison sentences
China lists 420 species as rare or endangered, including the panda, golden monkeys, Asian black bears, and pangolins, some or all of which are threatened by illegal hunting, environmental destruction, and the consumption of animal parts, including for supposedly medicinal reasons.
Consumption of rare animals has risen as the country has become richer, with some people believing spending thousands of yuan on eating them gives a certain social cache.
“Eating rare wild animals is not only bad social conduct but also a main reason why illegal hunting has not been stopped despite repeated crackdowns,” Lang Sheng, deputy head of parliament’s Legislative Affairs Commission said, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The new interpretation “clears up ambiguities about buyers of prey of illegal hunting”, the report added.
Knowingly buying any wild animals killed by illegal hunting will now be considered a crime, with a maximum penalty of three years in jail, Xinhua said.
“In fact, buyers are a major motivator of large-scale illegal hunting,” Lang said.
Jared Leto has said that, although his Oscar has led to new opportunities in Hollywood, he is not overly concerned with the trophy.
The 42-year-old actor and musician took home the gold-plated statuette last month for his supporting role as transgender drug addict Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. It has sustained a few scrapes since then after circulating among friends.
Leto said his Oscar is “a filthy mess. Everybody was pawing that thing.”
: A giant wombat was among the many gifts Prince George received — enough to fill his nursery twice over — during his parents’ tour Down Under.
Wellwishers also presented the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with bikes, skateboards, and rocking horses, and even a child-size amphibious boat.
The wombat was a gift from Australia’s governor general, Peter Cosgrove, and William said in a farewell speech delivered at Parliament House in Canberra: “We go away with wonderful memories, and George goes away with his cuddly wombat, which he has taken to chewing so lovingly.”
: A woman is suing a New York hotel for $1m (€722,600) after falling off a bar stool.
Antoinette Allison of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, was staying at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Syracuse, New York, in April 2011 when she went to the hotel’s Library Lounge bar. Syracuse.com reports that Ms Allison claims that while waiting for food in the Library Lounge, she fell off of a, “wooden, high-back bar stool,” and landed on her wrist, causing multiple fractures that required surgery.
In her lawsuit, Ms Allison claims that the bar stool was too high off the ground, and that, “hotel management knew of other problems with the height of the stools”.
Her lawyer, Mark Ventrone, wrote in a 2012 complaint that “said bar stools were more dangerous than patrons would expect and safer designs are on the marketplace”.
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