
Schools egged, businesses harassed: Japan suffers Chinese backlash over Fukushima release
A wave of online harassment and vitriol directed at Japanese people following the release of treated radioactive wastewater from Fukushima has sent tensions between Japan and China soaring, prompting Tokyo to summon the Chinese ambassador.
2023-08-29 16:51

Record for world’s most expensive cheese broken
The world record for the most expensive cheese has been broken. The cabrales blue cheese of northern Spain earned the title of the world’s most expensive cheese after a 2.2kg wheel was sold at auction for €30,000. It also won best cabrales of the year at the principality’s 51st annual competition. “We knew we had a good cheese but also that it is very difficult to win,” Guillermo Pendás, who made it for his family’s Los Puertos factory, told EFE, Spain’s state news agency. Mr Pendás mother Rosa Vada, who owns the Los Puertos factory, said the cheese had been matured in a cave at an altitude of 1,400 metres, at a temperature of 7C, where it spent “a minimum of eight months”. The cheese was sold to restaurant owner Iván Suárez, who owns El Llagar de Colloto in Asturias. Mr Suárez said “the passion for the land” and “recognising the work of the cheesemakers” made him buy the cheese. When asked for the address of her factory, Ms Vada said: “Póo [high place] de Cabrales. The town is so small they don’t name the streets. It’s best to ask.” The usual price of cabrales is €35 to €40 a kilo. The cheese is made using raw cow’s milk or a mixture of cow’s, sheep’s and goat’s milk and matures in caves in the Cabrales area in the Picos de Europa national park. Mature cheeses are taken down the mountain from the caves on foot. The previous Guinness World Record price was set at €20,500 in 2019 for a cheese also bought by Mr Suárez. Read More Man crushed to death by thousands of cheese wheels Woman wins famous UK cheese rolling race despite being knocked unconscious Nacho cheese floods highway after scores of cans tumble from truck
2023-08-29 16:50

Sara Sharif: Pakistan police widen search for family
Sara Sharif was found dead at her home in Woking the day after her family flew to Pakistan.
2023-08-29 16:28

What is Russia's Wagner group, and what has happened to its leader?
Russian officials have confirmed Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash on 23 August.
2023-08-29 16:25

Luis Rubiales: Hermoso kiss 'shows why women don't report abuse'
The row over Luis Rubiales kissing Jenni Hermoso has struck a chord with women around the world.
2023-08-29 15:50

Toyota halts all Japan assembly plants due to glitch
The world's largest car maker is investigating a system fault but says a cyber attack is unlikely.
2023-08-29 15:49

Live worm discovered in woman's brain in a worrying world first
A worm has been found living inside a woman’s brain, in a horror-movie-style world first. Doctors in Canberra, Australia, were left stunned after they pulled the 8cm (3in) parasite from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe tissue during surgery last year. "Everyone [in] that operating theatre got the shock of their life when [the surgeon] took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm," said infectious diseases doctor Sanjaya Senanayake, according to the BBC. "Even if you take away the yuck factor, this is a new infection never documented before in a human being." Senanayake and his colleagues believe the parasite could have been in there for up to two months. The patient, a 64-year-old woman from New South Wales, was first admitted to her local hospital in late January 2021 after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats, The Guardian reports. By 2022, her symptoms extended to forgetfulness and depression, and she was referred to Canberra Hospital, where an MRI scan of her brain revealed “abnormalities” that required surgery. “The neurosurgeon certainly didn’t go in there thinking they would find a wriggling worm,” Senanayake told the paper. “Neurosurgeons regularly deal with infections in the brain, but this was a once-in-a-career finding. No one was expecting to find that.” The team at the hospital sent the worm to an experienced parasite researcher who identified it as an Ophidascaris robertsi. This type of roundworm is commonly found in carpet pythons – non-venomous snakes that are ubiquitous across much of Australia. Writing in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Mehrab Hossain, a parasitologist, said she suspected that the patient became an "accidental host" to the worm after cooking with foraged plants. The 64-year-old was known to have often collected native grasses from around her lakeside home, Senanayake told The Guardian. He and his co-workers have concluded that the woman was probably infected after a python shed eggs from the parasite via its faeces into the grass. By touching the plants, she may then have transferred the eggs into her own food or kitchen utensils. Fortunately, the unlucky and unique patient is said to be making a good recovery. However, Senanayake told the BBC that her case should serve as an important warning to society more broadly. "It just shows as a human population burgeons, we move closer and encroach on animal habitats. This is an issue we see again and again, whether it's Nipah virus that's gone from wild bats to domestic pigs and then into people, whether its a coronavirus like Sars or Mers that has jumped from bats into possibly a secondary animal and then into humans,” he said. "Even though Covid is now slowly petering away, it is really important for epidemiologists… and governments to make sure they've got good infectious diseases surveillance around." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-08-29 15:49

London’s plan to charge drivers of polluting cars sparks protests and stirs political passions
London’s traffic cameras are under attack
2023-08-29 15:29

Woman charged over alleged fatal cliffs assault
She was arrested as part of an investigation into an incident in the Slieve League area in June.
2023-08-29 15:27

US commerce chief set to meet Chinese vice premier in Beijing
By David Shepardson BEIJING U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is meeting China's vice premier He Lifeng on Tuesday,
2023-08-29 15:27

Thammakaset: Thai poultry farmer loses his 36th defamation suit
Thailand's best-known human rights campaigner found not guilty of criminal defamation.
2023-08-29 14:57

Live worm found in Australian woman's brain in world first
The parasite - usually found in pythons - could have been there for two months, scientists say.
2023-08-29 14:50