XINGYI, China: Surrounded by the rubble of demolished homes, Chen Tianming’s ramshackle tower of faded plyboards and contorted beams juts into the sky in southwestern China, a teetering monument to one man’s stubbornness.

Authorities razed most of Chen’s village in Guizhou province in 2018 to build a lucrative tourist resort in a region known for its spectacular rice paddies and otherworldly mountain landscapes.

Chen, 42, refused to leave, and after the project faltered, defied a flurry of demolition notices to build his family’s humble stone bungalow higher and higher.

He now presides over a bewildering 10-storey, pyramid-shaped warren of rickety staircases, balconies and other add-ons, drawing comparisons in Chinese media to the fantastical creations of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

“I started building out of practicality, trying to renovate and expand our home,” Chen said on a sweltering May afternoon as he climbed ladders and ducked wooden beams in his labyrinthine construction.

“But then it became more of an interest and hobby that I enjoyed,” he said.

Chen’s obsessive tinkering and lack of building permits continue to draw ire from the local government.

The higher floors where he sleeps sway in the wind, and dozens of ropes and cables tether the house to the ground as if the whole thing might one day float away.

“When I’m up here... I get the sense of being a nomad,” Chen said, gazing out at apartment blocks, an airport and distant mountains.

“People often say it’s unsafe and should be demolished... but I’ll definitely never let anyone tear it down.”

Local authorities once had big plans to build an 800-acre tourist resort — including a theater and artificial lake — on Chen’s native soil.

They promised to compensate villagers, but Chen’s parents refused, and he vowed to help them protect the home his grandfather had built in the 1980s.

Even as neighbors moved out and their houses were bulldozed, Chen stayed put, even sleeping alone in the house for two months “in case (developers) came to knock it down in the night.”

Six months later, like many ill-considered development projects in highly indebted Guizhou, the resort was canceled.

Virtually alone among the ruined village, Chen was now master of a “nail house” — a Chinese term for those whose owners dig in and refuse to relocate despite official compensation offers.

A quirk of China’s rampant development and partial private property laws, nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes.

Even as Chen forged ahead, completing the fifth floor in 2019, the sixth in 2022 and the seventh in 2023, he continued to receive threats of demolition.

Last August, his home was designated an illegal construction, and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow within five days.

He says he has spent tens of thousands of yuan fighting the notices in court, despite losing several preliminary hearings.

But he continues to appeal, and the next hearing has been delayed.

“I’m not worried. Now that there’s no one developing the land, there’s no need for them to knock the place down,” he said.

In recent years, ironically, Chen’s house has begun to lure a steady trickle of tourists itself.

On Chinese social media, users describe it as China’s strangest nail house, likening it to the madcap buildings in Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli masterpieces “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Spirited Away.”

As dusk falls, Chen illuminates his home with decorative lanterns, and people gather on the nearby dirt road to admire the scene.

“It’s beautiful,” local resident He Diezhen said as she snapped photos.

“If there are no safety issues, it could become an (official) local landmark,” she said.

Chen said the house makes many visitors remember their whimsical childhood fantasies.

“(People) dream of building a house for themselves with their own hands... but most can’t make it happen,” he said.

“I not only thought of it, I made it a reality.”

CHICAGO: A bottlenose dolphin at a Chicago zoo gave birth to a calf early Saturday morning with the help of a fellow mom, in a successful birth recorded on video by zoo staff.
The dolphin calf was born at Brookfield Zoo Chicago early Saturday morning as a team of veterinarians monitored and cheered on the mom, a 38-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Allie.
“Push, push, push,” one observer can be heard shouting in video released by the zoo Saturday, as Allie swims around the tank, the calf’s little tail fins poking out below her own.
Then the calf wriggles free and instinctively darts to the surface of the pool for its first breath. Also in the tank was an experienced mother dolphin named Tapeko, 43, who stayed close to Allie through her more than one hour of labor. In the video, she can be seen following the calf as it heads to the surface, and staying with it as it takes that first breath.

It is natural for dolphins to look out for each other during a birth, zoo staff said.
“That’s very common both in free-ranging settings but also in aquaria,” said Brookfield Zoo Chicago Senior Veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Langan in a video statement. “It provides the mom extra protection and a little bit of extra help to help get the calf to the surface to help it breath in those couple minutes where she’s still having really strong contractions.”
In a written statement, zoo officials said early signs indicate that the calf is in good health. They estimate it weighs around 35 pounds (16 kilograms) and stretches nearly four feet in length (115-120 centimeters). That is about the weight and length of an adult golden retriever dog.
The zoo’s Seven Seas exhibit will be closed as the calf bonds with its mother and acclimates with other dolphins in its group.
As part of that bonding, the calf has already learned to slipstream, or draft alongside its mother so that it doesn’t have to work as hard to move. Veterinarians will monitor progress in nursing, swimming and other milestones particularly closely over the next 30 days.
The calf will eventually take a paternity test to see which of the male dolphins at the zoo is its father.
Zoo officials say they will name the calf later this summer.