Secular News

The 81-year-old singer has been advised by doctors to recuperate for the next four weeks.

The 81-year-old singer has been advised by doctors to recuperate for the next four weeks.

The 81-year-old singer has been advised by doctors to recuperate for the next four weeks.

Chinese AI start-up ModelBest has kicked off its pre-initial public offering (IPO) tutoring process for a listing in mainland China, capitalising on growing demand for compact artificial intelligence models that run locally on devices like smartphones and laptops, and in cars. The four-year-old company also appears to be banking on its small-model strategy to overcome China’s acute shortage of advanced American computing chips by training lightweight systems optimised for domestic...

A man has suffered minor burns in a fire that spread to two huts and four speedboats in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung. The Fire Services Department said it received multiple reports of a blaze that broke out near a minibus terminus in Po Toi O village at 8.33am on Wednesday. It was classified as a No 1 alarm fire, the lowest in Hong Kong’s five-tier system. Firefighters arrived at the scene 14 minutes later and found a man, aged about 60, who had suffered minor burns to his right hand, it said. He...

A prolonged power outage since Sunday has forced a funeral parlour to limit burnings of paper offerings due to poor ventilation, though some of its other services have resumed. Power was restored at Global Funeral Parlour in Hung Hom on Wednesday, with lights and air conditioning returning across its five floors and large fans and air coolers deployed to further cool the premises. But the burning of paper offerings, a traditional ritual in Chinese funerals, remained limited as the building’s...

Donald Trump has confirmed that he switched planes after the Secret Service detected a possible threat when leaving a Nato summit in Turkey.

When Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian told state television last week that he found it “very difficult” to reach the country’s supreme leader, it sparked fresh speculation about the whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei who has not been seen in public since taking over as the country’s ultimate authority in March. By Monday, Pezeshkian told the official broadcaster that the two had in fact recently held a meeting lasting “seven or eight hours”. “It was a very good meeting,” Pezeshkian told a...

Snooker star Jimmy White, known as “The Whirlwind”, has become a Hong Kong resident through an official talent scheme, and has revealed plans to establish a snooker academy in the city to nurture local talent. The Hong Kong Immigration Department announced on Wednesday that the English player recently obtained his identity card and took up residency through the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, joining fellow stars Judd Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan. Appearing in a video posted on the department’s...

The United States and 40 other nations have called for at least 24 hours’ notice before long-range ballistic missile launches, following a rare Chinese missile test in the Pacific last month that they said raised concerns over accidents and military miscalculation. In a joint statement released by the US State Department on Tuesday, the governments called on countries – particularly nuclear-weapon states – to provide advance warning for launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),...

Deliveries of electric vehicles (EVs) in China fell 3.9 per cent in July from a year earlier, extending their decline to a seventh consecutive month as fading government incentives and weaker consumer demand weighed on the market. Domestic sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last month also fell 5.8 per cent from June, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). “A bleak market outlook is likely to affect most small [EV] companies, as some of them will be...

A pyramid scheme mastermind has been uncovered, having transformed himself into a traditional Chinese culture guru who “educates” students through corporal punishment. In July, a pre-recorded video by a 16-year-old Chinese girl named Lin went viral among her friends. In the video, Lin pleads for help: “I don’t want to be sent to an internet addiction treatment school or a behaviour boot camp. If you can’t reach me, please call the police and rescue me.” Lin recorded the video just before the...