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Death of elderly pair in Sau Mau Ping flat deemed...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

An elderly man in Hong Kong is believed to have killed his ex-wife before hanging himself at a public housing estate, as he reportedly felt “hopeless” after their separation following years of marital conflict worsened by their son’s suicide, police have revealed. Terry Wan King-hang, the Sau Mau Ping assistant district commander of crime, said on Thursday that the force believed the 77-year-old man killed his 71-year-old ex-wife in the flat in Po Tat Estate before taking his own life on...

Alaska 2025 tsunami was second-highest ever, taller...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Tracy Arm Fjord, in southeastern Alaska ⁠within the Tongass National Forest, presents a majestic vista, with a narrow sea inlet surrounded by towering granite cliffs, waterfalls and glaciers. One morning last year it also was the site of a powerful landslide that triggered a huge localised tsunami. Researchers have now determined that the tsunami on August 10, 2025, was the second-highest ever recorded, with a wave reaching up to 481 metres (1,578 feet) tall – higher than New York City’s

Chinese ex-waiter turned top food influencer Bai Bing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

A top online influencer in China who was fined 18.91 million yuan (US$2.6 million) for evading nine million yuan in taxes has attracted significant attention on social media. The case of Bai Bing, a food influencer with more than 40 million followers, was revealed by China’s State Tax Administration (STA) in late April, according to the media outlet CCTV. The authorities said that between 2021 and 2024, Bai underpaid a total of 9.11 million yuan (US$1.3 million) of personal income tax,...

BJP aide shot dead in India’s West Bengal days after...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Gunmen on motorbikes in India’s West Bengal ambushed and killed a political aide from the ruling Hindu-nationalist party days after it swept state elections, police said on Thursday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a resounding victory on Monday in the eastern state of more than 100 million people, taking 207 of the 294 assembly seats, for its first-ever state victory in West Bengal. Chandranath Rath, 41, a close aide of West Bengal’s BJP chief Suvendu

Russia warns diplomats in Ukraine capital to leave in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Russia warned foreign diplomats in Kyiv that it would attack the city if Ukraine disrupted World War II commemorations in Moscow this weekend, as attacks from both sides continued into Thursday. Russia did not elaborate on its threat, and Ukraine did not immediately respond. Russia and Ukraine traded strikes on Thursday, wounding 13 people in the Russian border city of Bryansk and one person in Ukraine’s Dnipro, officials from both sides said. Russia marks World War II Victory Day each year

Thailand targets 6 million Chinese visitors via...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

The queues start to form before the lunchtime rush at Phed Mark, a Bangkok kitchen with a pop-up feel that dishes up steaming plateloads of pad kaphrao – a runny fried egg with fiery minced meat over rice – to a clientele of mainly Chinese tourists. Founded by YouTuber Mark Weins, Phed Mark has turned a Thai staple into a must-eat for Chinese visitors, who defy the heat to patiently wait each day on plastic stools for their turn outside the Ekkamai bus terminal. A lot has to do with its...

Handle with care: Chinese study finds aquatic virus...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

A virus found in shrimp and fish may cause an eye disease in humans, according to a recent study that marks the first known case of a pathogen from aquatic animals infecting people. Those “who handle dissected aquatic animals daily without adequate protection or eat raw aquatic animals daily are at high risk” of being exposed to the virus, the researchers cautioned in their recently published paper. They advised taking protective measures, such as wearing gloves, when handling such animals at...

Malaysian king’s visit to Russia expected to smooth...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar arrived in Moscow on Thursday for a high-profile visit that comes as Kuala Lumpur looks for alternative oil sources amid a fuel crisis linked to the Iran war. Sultan Ibrahim landed at Vnukovo-2 International Airport at 4.20pm local time on Thursday, according to Malaysian reports, and was received by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, senior protocol officials and Malaysia’s ambassador to Russia, Cheong Loon Lai. The king is attending

Tai Po probe: missed checks at Wang Fuk Court due to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The second of three witnesses from the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU) testified on Thursday at a hearing into Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades. The government-appointed independent committee continued to question members of the unit over the lack of oversight in the run-up to the fire at Wang Fung Court, with Nick Yung Siu-lun,

South Korean court cuts former prime minister Han...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

A South Korean appeals court reduced the sentence of former prime minister Han Duck-soo on Thursday by eight years for crimes relating to ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration. Yoon’s decree in December 2024 briefly suspended civilian rule and plunged South Korea into chaos, but only lasted around six hours as opposition lawmakers moved quickly to overturn it in a vote. A lower court had sentenced Han in January to a heavier-than-expected jail term of 23 years for engaging in

Motorcyclist, 58, killed in Eastern Harbour Crossing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

A Hong Kong motorcyclist has been killed after reportedly losing control of his vehicle, which overturned inside the Eastern Harbour Crossing, with police launching an investigation. Police said on Thursday that the accident occurred in Kwun Tong shortly after midnight, at about 12.51am, as the motorcycle was travelling through the tunnel towards Hong Kong Island. The vehicle is believed to have struck the left-side kerb before skidding forward and overturning. The rider, a 58-year-old man...

Trump’s last Japanese diehard fans lose faith as Iran...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, conservatives in Japan were delighted and hopeful that his return would usher in robust economic growth, new trade opportunities and a stronger security relationship with Tokyo. Barely 18 months later, many of those same conservatives admit to being shocked at the state of the bilateral relationship and the mounting global uncertainties the US president’s policies have produced. For some of his diehard supporters in Japan, the...

ByteDance’s AI subscription gamble: chatbot faces...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Chloe Wang, a 26-year-old fund employee in Shenzhen, said she “definitely wouldn’t” pay for a subscription to Doubao, Chinese tech giant ByteDance’s artificial intelligence chatbot, at its proposed price. “I’m willing to pay for AI tools, but I don’t think it’s worth that much – even though I find Doubao relatively easy to use among domestic AI products,” said Wang, who uses the app occasionally for work-related queries. “If I had to pay for an AI tool as a productivity aid, I’d probably

New Zealand eyes Japanese Mogami-class warships as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

New Zealand is weighing the purchase of advanced warships from Japan or the UK to modernise its ageing fleet and bolster its defence capability. The South Pacific nation, member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network alongside Australia, the US, the UK and Canada, is focused on Japanese Mogami-class or the UK’s Type 31 frigates. Discussions are under way with the Royal Australian Navy and the UK’s Royal Navy about the frigate replacement and ongoing service arrangements, Defence

Has ‘the Beast’ arrived in Beijing? Trump’s motorcade...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s grand entry to Beijing on May 14, his cavalcade is already on the move in the Chinese capital.Two black SUVs with tinted windows and US government plates were spotted on a Beijing highway, according to images that circulated on Wednesday, signalling the start of an intense security build-up for the year’s most significant diplomatic event – the China-US summit. Chinese social media is full of the images showing heavily-armoured US Secret Service Suburban...

North Korea says nuclear status ‘will not change’...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

North Korea’s UN envoy said his country was not bound by the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) on nuclear weapons and external pressure would not change its status as a nuclear-armed state, official media reported on Thursday. Pyongyang threatened to withdraw from the treaty in 1993 and formally did so in 2003. It has since conducted six nuclear tests – prompting a raft of international sanctions – and is believed to possess dozens of nuclear warheads. Signatories of the NPT have been holding a...

Do artificial sweeteners cause inheritable biological...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

A new study from the University of Chile suggests that common artificial sweeteners may trigger biological changes that are passed down to future generations. The research focused on sucralose and stevia, two of the world’s most widely used non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS). The additives could alter gut microbiota, gene expression and metabolism in mice, with some effects persisting in their first- and second-generation offspring, even in offspring who were never directly exposed to the...

Falling sales to widen profit gap between China’s EV...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Profit trajectories between automotive assemblers and electric vehicle (EV) battery producers in China are set to diverge further due to lacklustre car sales and buoyant demand for energy-storage systems. Leading players, including China’s EV battery king Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), would continue to attract buying interest in their shares, spurred by improved profitability, according to analysts. They added that flat vehicle prices, coupled with a dip in new car sales, had...

In China, number of clothing buttons holds meaning;...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

The revival of Chinese hanfu, or traditional dress of the Han people, in recent years has drawn attention to the complicated etiquette surrounding buttons. As the Xinzhongshi, or neo-Chinese style clothing, took over the market in recent years, some people complained online that they had bought clothes that would bring bad luck. The telltale sign was the number of buttons on a garment. In some Chinese regions, a folk belief existed which held that if the number of buttons is four or six,

Traffic accidents involving animals in Hong Kong...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/05/07

Traffic accidents involving animals in Hong Kong have skyrocketed more than 11-fold over the past four years, with advocacy groups attributing it to a wave of pet abandonments and the blurring of urban-rural boundaries caused by large-scale development. The latest data submitted to the Legislative Council on Wednesday showed reports of animal-related traffic accidents received by police surged from 36 cases in 2021 to 416 in 2025. However, authorities do not maintain a district-level

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