HONG KONG: A tourist village in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan famed for its scenic snow landscape said it was sorry for using cotton wool and soapy water to create fake snow after online criticism from visitors went viral.
In a post on its official Wechat account on February 8, the Chengdu Snow Village project said during the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January, the weather was warm and the snow village did not take shape as anticipated.
China is facing hotter and longer heat waves and more frequent and unpredictable heavy rain as a result of climate change, the country’s weather bureau has warned.
“In order to create a ‘snowy’ atmosphere the tourist village purchased cotton for the snow...but it did not achieve the expected effect, leaving a very bad impression on tourists who came to visit,” the Chengdu Snow Village project said in the statement.
After receiving feedback from the majority of netizens, the tourist area began to clean up all the snow cotton.
The village said it “deeply apologizes” for the changes and that tourists could get a refund. The site has since been closed.
Photos on Wechat showed large cotton wool sheets strewn about the grounds, only partially covering leafy areas. A thick snow layer appeared to blanket the houses in the zone but as you got closer, it was all cotton, said one netizen.
“A snow village without snow,” said another user.
“In today’s age of well-developed Internet, scenic spots must advertise truthfully and avoid deception or false advertising, otherwise they will only shoot themselves in the foot.”
China snow village apologizes for fake cotton snow
https://arab.news/42ajk
China snow village apologizes for fake cotton snow
Boris Johnson gets a surprise peck from an ostrich in Texas
- Video shared on Instagram by his wife Carrie Johnson
- The couple visited Dinosaur Valley Park, southwest of Dallas
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received a memorable welcome from an ostrich at a state park in Texas when the towering two-legged bird gave him a peck, according to a video Sunday.
In the video, posted by his wife Carrie Johnson, an ostrich slowly walks toward a car before poking its head through the driver's seat window where Johnson is sitting with his son on his lap. Once in front of Johnson, the bird quickly pecks its beak toward his hand.
“Oh, Christ,” Johnson yells before driving off in the video.
“Too funny not to share,” Carrie Johnson said in the caption on Instagram.
It is not clear which wildlife park they were visiting, but other posts on the same account show the family visiting Dinosaur Valley Park, about 80 miles (128 kilometers) southwest of Dallas.
Boris Johnson, who served as prime minister from 2019 to 2022, was also spotted with his wife at a local restaurant in Lake Granbury, Texas, on Sunday, according to the restaurant's Facebook page.
“We are so honored to have him as our guest!!” said Stumpy's Lakeside Grill in a Facebook post with a photo of the former prime minister.
Nose job boom in Iran where procedure can boost social status
- Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian women have been required to dress modestly and cover their hair, and the beauty industry has become almost entirely centered on the face
TEHRAN: All of the women in Iranian model Azadeh’s family have had nose surgeries, each feeling the pressure to conform with Western beauty standards in a country where female bodies are heavily policed.
To Azadeh, smoothing out the bump in what Iranians would call the “Persian nose” she was born with proved a lucrative investment.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian women have been required to dress modestly and cover their hair, and the beauty industry has become almost entirely centered on the face.
Having rhinoplasty — a nose job — can make a major difference, Azadeh told AFP.
“After the operation, not only have I earned myself a modelling job with better social standing but I’m also earning three times more and I’m more respected by clients,” she said. Azadeh, 29, asked that her surname be withheld because women models can face social pressure in Iran.
According to the US-based International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, more than 264,000 cosmetic operations were performed in Iran in 2023, with rhinoplasty being the most common.
Across Tehran and other Iranian cities, brightly colored billboards advertise beauty clinics and cosmetic procedures, offering promises of sculpted noses, flawless skin and perfect teeth. Many people with bandaged noses can be seen on the streets, a testament to the popularity of rhinoplasty.
“It has become more of a cultural trend,” said rhinoplasty surgeon Hamidreza Hosnani who performs up to 20 operations a week at his well-equipped clinic in the capital.
And that trend has evolved, becoming more and more tied to social identity and status, especially as more women have defied the strict dress code.
Such defiance became more marked following the mass protests sparked by the 2022 death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini.
In Iran, where the minimum wage is around $100, basic rhinoplasty costs up to $1,000 — significantly cheaper than in other countries, Hosnani said.
Millions of Iranians have long struggled with soaring prices and a plunging currency, driven in part by years of international sanctions.
“I even had to borrow the money required for the operation from my friends and family, but the money was well spent, and it was completely worth it,” Azadeh said.
Reyhaneh Khoshhali, a 28-year-old surgical assistant, had the operation four years ago, and regrets not having it sooner.
“My nose really did not look good aesthetically and I wanted to be more beautiful,” she said.
“If I could go back, I would have had the operation earlier.”
For years, Iran has hosted highly advanced medical centers, even becoming a destination for foreigners seeking high-quality and affordable cosmetic surgery.
However, the procedures can also come with risks.
The Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned about the growing number of unauthorized clinics performing cosmetic procedures.
In February, a dozen unlicensed practitioners were arrested and several operating theaters in Tehran’s Apadana Hospital were closed because of unauthorized cosmetic procedures, the health ministry said.
In 2023, three women died in a single day — November 7 — during cosmetic surgery in three separate incidents in Tehran, media reported at the time.
Ava Goli has yet to undergo her rhinoplasty operation, and said that finding a reliable doctor involved some research.
“I saw some people whose nose job did not look good... and yeah, it really made me scared at times,” the 23-year-old told AFP.
Yet the demand for cosmetic surgery in Iran remains high — and the pressure to keep up is not limited to women.
Bahador Sayyadi, a 33-year-old accountant, said he had to borrow money so he could have a hair transplant.
“My financial situation isn’t great, but thanks to a loan I got recently, I will be doing the procedure just in time before my wedding,” he said.
“Men should also take care of themselves these days, just like women.”
Scientists genetically engineer wolves like the extinct dire wolf
NEW YORK: Three genetically engineered wolves that may resemble extinct dire wolves are trotting, sleeping and howling in an undisclosed secure location in the US, according to the company that aims to bring back lost species.
The wolf pups, which range in age from three to six months old, have long white hair, muscular jaws and already weigh in at around 80 pounds — on track to reach 140 pounds at maturity, researchers at Colossal Biosciences reported Monday.
Dire wolves, which went extinct more than 10,000 years old, are much larger than gray wolves, their closest living relatives today.
Independent scientists said this latest effort doesn’t mean dire wolves are coming back to North American grasslands any time soon.
“All you can do now is make something look superficially like something else“— not fully revive extinct species, said Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research.
Colossal scientists learned about specific traits that dire wolves possessed by examining ancient DNA from fossils. The researchers studied a 13,000 year-old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year-old skull fragment found in Idaho, both part of natural history museum collections.
Then the scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites, said Colossal’s chief scientist Beth Shapiro. They transferred that genetic material to an egg cell from a domestic dog. When ready, embryos were transferred to surrogates, also domestic dogs, and 62 days later the genetically engineered pups were born.
Colossal has previously announced similar projects to genetically alter cells from living species to create animals resembling extinct woolly mammoths, dodos and others.
Artist of ‘distorted’ portrait says Trump complaint harming business
WASHINGTON: The artist who painted US President Donald Trump in what he criticized as a “purposefully distorted” portrait has said his remarks have harmed her business.
Colorado removed the official portrait of Trump from display in the state’s capitol building last month after the president complained that it was deliberately unflattering.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol... along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on March 24.
“The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Trump said.
The 78-year-old Republican called for the oil painting to be taken down, and said the artist, Sarah Boardman, “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
The Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature said the same day as Trump’s complaint that the painting would be removed from the gallery in the capitol’s rotunda — where it had been hung since 2019 — and placed in storage.
Boardman has responded to Trump’s critique in a statement on her website, saying she completed the work “accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion,’ political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.”
“President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years,” the British-born artist said.
Boardman added in the undated statement that for the six years that the portrait of Trump hung in the Colorado capitol, she “received overwhelmingly positive reviews” on the commissioned work.
However, since Trump’s comments “that has changed for the worst,” she said.
In addition to Trump and former president Barack Obama, Boardman was also commissioned to paint a portrait of ex-president George W. Bush.
Nostalgia fuels UK boom in vintage video game repairs
- The shelves lining Luke Malpass’s home workshop are a gamer’s treasure trove stretching back decades, with components of vintage Game Boys, Sega Mega Drives and Nintendos jostling for space and await
STOKE ON TRENT: The shelves lining Luke Malpass’s home workshop are a gamer’s treasure trove stretching back decades, with components of vintage Game Boys, Sega Mega Drives and Nintendos jostling for space and awaiting repair.
Parcels from gamers seeking help arrive from around the world at RetroSix, Malpass’s Aladdin’s cave.
He has turned a lifelong passion for gaming into a full-time job, answering the common question of what to do with old and worn machines and their parts.
“I think it can be partly nostalgic,” said Malpass, 38, as he surveyed the electronics stacked at his home in the central English city of Stoke-on-Trent.
He said the huge revival in retro games and consoles is not just a passing phase.
“Personally, I think it is the tactile experience. Getting a box off the shelf, physically inserting a game into the console... it makes you play it more and enjoy it more.”
Electronic devices and accessories, some dating back to the 1980s and the dawn of the gaming revolution, await to be lovingly restored to life.
Malpass has between 50 to 150 consoles needing attention at any one time, at a cost of between £60 ($78) and several hundred pounds.
It’s not just nostalgia for a long-lost childhood.
He believes it’s also a way to disconnect, unlike most online games which are now multi-player and require skills honed over long hours of practice to reach a good level.
“Retro gaming — just pick it up, turn it on, have an hour, have 10 minutes. It doesn’t matter. It’s instant, it’s there, and it’s pleasurable,” he told AFP.
With vintage one-player games “there’s no one you’re competing against and there’s nothing that’s making you miserable or angry.”
Malpass, who is a fan of such games as “Resident Evil” and “Jurassic Park,” even goes so far as to buy old televisions with cathode-ray tubes to replicate more faithfully his experience of playing video games as a kid.
Video clips he films of his game play, which he publishes to his YouTube channel, have won him tens of thousands of followers.
“I think people are always going to have a natural passion for things that they grew up with as a child.
“So I think we’ll always have work. It’ll evolve. And it won’t be, probably, Game Boys,” Malpass said.
“There’s always going to be something that’s retro.”
This week a survey organized by BAFTA, the British association that honors films, television, and video games, voted the 1999 action game “Shenmue” as the most influential video game of all time.
“Doom,” launched in 1993, and “Super Mario Bros.,” in which Mario first started trying to rescue Princess Peach way back in 1985, came in second and third place.
And on Wednesday, Nintendo unveiled details of its long-awaited Switch 2 console.
It includes new versions of beloved favorites from the Japanese giant — “Mario Kart World” and “Donkey Kong Bonanza.”
Held every four months, the London Gaming Market, dedicated to vintage video games, has been attracting growing numbers of fans.
“I’m a huge ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ fan... You never know what you’re going to find when you’re out here so I’m just always on the lookout,” said Adrian, a visitor wearing a T-shirt with a Sonic image.
Collectors and gamers sifted carefully through stacks of CD discs and old consoles hoping to find hidden treasures.
For Andy Brown, managing director of Replay Events and organizer of the London event which is now in its 10th year, the Covid-19 pandemic marked an upturn in the return to vintage games.
“I think people were stuck at home, wanting things to do that made them remember better times because it was a lot of doom and gloom around Covid,” he told AFP.
A study earlier this year by the US association Consumer Reports found 14 percent of Americans play on consoles made before 2000.
And in September, Italian customs busted a gang smuggling counterfeit vintage video games, seizing 12,000 machines containing some of the most popular games of the 1980s and 1990s.
