Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home

Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
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Above, China’s strangest ‘nail house’ – households that refuse to move in the face of development plans – in Xingyi, in southwest Guizhou province. (AFP)
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
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Last August, Chen Tianming’s home was designated an illegal construction, and he was ordered to destroy everything except the original bungalow within five days. (AFP)
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
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Chen Tianming spent seven years and over 100,000 yuan ($13,900) defying authorities’ demolition notices to turn his family’s humble stone bungalow on the outskirts of Xingyi city into a bewildering 10-storey pyramid-shaped home. (AFP)
Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
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Chen Tianming stands near his house labelled China’s strangest ‘nail house’ – households that refuse to move in the face of development plans – in Xingyi, in southwest Guizhou province. (AFP)
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Updated 08 June 2025
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Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home

Chinese man defies demolition orders to build madcap rural home
  • Nail houses sometimes make headlines for delaying money-spinning construction projects or forcing developers to divert roads or build around shabby older homes

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.”


Affair between CEO and HR exposed at Coldplay concert in Massachusetts

Affair between CEO and HR exposed at Coldplay concert in Massachusetts
Updated 52 sec ago
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Affair between CEO and HR exposed at Coldplay concert in Massachusetts

Affair between CEO and HR exposed at Coldplay concert in Massachusetts

MASSACHUSETTS: A “kiss cam” moment from a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts this week has gone viral on social media after ‘exposing’ an alleged affair. 
The group was performing “The Jumbotron Song,” when the camera showed a man and woman cuddling as they watched the stage. 
The two panicked and attempted to leave the frame in hopes to cover their faces.


“Whoa, look at these two,” the band’s lead singer Chris Martin said. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” he jokingly said.
The man and woman were identified as Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and HR Chief Kristin Cabot.
Several internet users noted that Byron’s wife had recently removed his last name from her social media profiles. 
There has been no official response from Byron or Cabot although fake ‘apologies’ have circulated the internet.

 


From Antarctica to Brussels, hunting climate clues in old ice

From Antarctica to Brussels, hunting climate clues in old ice
Updated 39 min 52 sec ago
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From Antarctica to Brussels, hunting climate clues in old ice

From Antarctica to Brussels, hunting climate clues in old ice
  • In a small, refrigerated room at a Brussels university, parka-wearing scientists chop up Antarctic ice cores tens of thousands of years old in search of clues to our planet’s changing climate

BRUSSELS: In a small, refrigerated room at a Brussels university, parka-wearing scientists chop up Antarctic ice cores tens of thousands of years old in search of clues to our planet’s changing climate.
Trapped inside the cylindrical icicles are tiny air bubbles that can provide a snapshot of what the earth’s atmosphere looked like back then.
“We want to know a lot about the climates of the past because we can use it as an analogy for what can happen in the future,” said Harry Zekollari, a glaciologist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Zekollari was part of a team of four that headed to the white continent in November on a mission to find some of the world’s oldest ice — without breaking the bank.
Ice dating back millions of years can be found deep inside Antarctica, close to the South Pole, buried under kilometers of fresher ice and snow.
But that’s hard to reach and expeditions to drill it out are expensive.
A recent EU-funded mission that brought back some 1.2-million-year-old samples came with a total price tag of around 11 million euros (around $12.8 million).
To cut costs, the team from VUB and the nearby Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) used satellite data and other clues to find areas where ancient ice might be more accessible.


Just like the water it is made of, ice flows toward the coast — albeit slowly, explained Maaike Izeboud, a remote sensing specialist at VUB.
And when the flow hits an obstacle, say a ridge or mountain, bottom layers can be pushed up closer to the surface.
In a few rare spots, weather conditions like heavy winds prevent the formation of snow cover — leaving thick layers of ice exposed.
Named after their coloration, which contrasts with the whiteness of the rest of the continent, these account for only about one percent of Antarctica territory.
“Blue ice areas are very special,” said Izeboud.
Her team zeroed in on a blue ice stretch lying about 2,300 meters (7,500 feet) above sea level, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station.
Some old meteorites had been previously found there — a hint that the surrounding ice is also old, the researchers explained.
A container camp was set up and after a few weeks of measurements, drilling, and frozen meals, in January the team came back with 15 ice cores totalling about 60 meters in length.
These were then shipped from South Africa to Belgium, where they arrived in late June.
Inside a stocky cement ULB building in the Belgian capital, they are now being cut into smaller pieces to then be shipped to specialized labs in France and China for dating.
Zekollari said the team hopes some of the samples, which were taken at shallow depths of about 10 meters, will be confirmed to be about 100,000 years old.
This would allow them to go back and dig a few hundred meters deeper in the same spot for the big prize.
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” Zekollari, 36, said, comparing their work to drawing a map for “Indiana Jones.”
“We’re trying to cross the good spot on the map... and in one and a half years, we’ll go back and we’ll drill there,” he said.
“We’re dreaming a bit, but we hope to get maybe three, four, five-million-year-old ice.”
Such ice could provide crucial input to climatologists studying the effects of global warming.
Climate projections and models are calibrated using existing data on past temperatures and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — but the puzzle has some missing pieces.
By the end of the century temperatures could reach levels similar to those the planet last experienced between 2.6 and 3.3 million years ago, said Etienne Legrain, 29, a paleo-climatologist at ULB.
But currently there is little data on what CO2 levels were back then — a key metric to understand how much further warming we could expect.
“We don’t know the link between CO2 concentration and temperature in a climate warmer than that of today,” Legrain said.
His team hopes to find it trapped inside some very old ice. “The air bubbles are the atmosphere of the past,” he said. “It’s really like magic when you feel it.”


UK ‘princes in the tower’ murder probe clears Richard III

UK ‘princes in the tower’ murder probe clears Richard III
Updated 56 min 2 sec ago
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UK ‘princes in the tower’ murder probe clears Richard III

UK ‘princes in the tower’ murder probe clears Richard III
  • Nearly 200 years after they disappeared, two small skeletons were found in a wooden box at the historic tower and reburied at Westminster Abbey

LONDON: It is one of history’s most intriguing “murders” — the mysterious disappearance over five centuries ago of two young princes from the Tower of London.
Nearly 200 years after they disappeared, two small skeletons were found in a wooden box at the historic tower and reburied at Westminster Abbey.
The remains were believed, but never proved, to be those of the two brothers — heir to the throne Edward, 12, and Richard, nine, the sons of King Edward IV of England, who were reputedly murdered at the behest of their uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester.
William Shakespeare later immortalized him in Richard III as a scheming hunchback who did away with his royal nephews so he could take the crown himself, sealing his reputation as a child killer.
Now British author Philippa Langley, who helped unearth Richard’s body from a central England carpark in 2012, has claimed that the princes — far from being killed — actually survived.
The elder prince, Edward, was heir to the throne at the time of his disappearance and would have ruled as King Edward V of England.
Langley decided to delve into the mystery after coming to believe that the conventional narrative in which Richard had the young princes killed smacked of “history being written by the victors.”
She was finally spurred into action after reading an article about Richard’s reburial at Leicester Cathedral in 2015 which questioned whether the nation should honor a “child killer.”
“I think I’d always realized that the story sort of developed during the reign of the Tudors,” she said, adding that it was then “repeated and repeated over time” until it became “truth and fact.”
The last English king to die in battle, Richard ruled from 1483 until his brutal death at the Battle of Bosworth near Leicester in 1485, aged 32.
Bosworth was the last major conflict in the Wars of the Roses and changed the course of English history because the Tudor dynasty of Henry VII captured the crown from Richard’s Plantagenets.
Langley attributes the accepted story that Richard had the boys murdered to King Henry VII, a “very, very intelligent individual, but suspicious and highly paranoid.”
“He had a massive spy network working for him. And he was able to completely control the narrative,” she said, adding that Richard ended up “covered in Tudor mud.”
Taking a cold case review approach to the historical “whodunnit,” Langley says she assembled a group of investigative specialists, including police and lawyers, to advise her.
“They said: ‘Look, if you haven’t got any confirmed, identified bodies, then it has to be a missing persons investigation and you have to follow that methodology’.
“They said: ‘You have to actively look for evidence’. That’s when it really started to get interesting.”
Langley put out an appeal for volunteers to scour archives, only to be inundated with offers of help from people ranging from ordinary citizens to medieval historians.
The result was the decade-long Missing Princes Project which she says unearthed a significant amount of information pointing to the survival of both young princes.
Langley now believes that it is up to Richard’s detractors to disprove the survival thesis, which she outlines in the new book “The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case.”
“The onus is now on them to find the evidence that the boys died.
“They cannot say Richard III murdered the princes in the tower any more because we found numerous proofs of life everywhere,” she said.
Key to Langley’s conviction that both boys survived are documents discovered supporting a rebellion by “Edward IV’s son.”
During the rebellion in 1487, Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the throne who came forward after Richard’s death, was crowned in Dublin.
According to fresh references found by the project, the boy was “called” or said to be “a son of King Edward,” which she believes points to Simnel being the elder prince, son of Edward IV.
The reaction to Langley’s research has been mixed.
Michael Dobson, director and a professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute, expressed skepticism.
“Given the ways of dynastic monarchy, I think Richard would have been taking a very big risk in leaving those princes alive,” he said.
“The chances of their having accidentally gone missing while incarcerated on his orders in the Tower of London seem pretty remote.”


‘Shop local’: Bad Bunny brings tourism surge to Puerto Rico

‘Shop local’: Bad Bunny brings tourism surge to Puerto Rico
Updated 17 July 2025
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‘Shop local’: Bad Bunny brings tourism surge to Puerto Rico

‘Shop local’: Bad Bunny brings tourism surge to Puerto Rico
  • The day before Bad Bunny kicked off his blockbuster residency that’s expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Puerto Rico while showcasing its rich culture

SAN JUAN: The day before Bad Bunny kicked off his blockbuster residency that’s expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Puerto Rico while showcasing its rich culture, he posted a simple message: Shop Local.
The ethos is core to his 30-show concert series in San Juan which, after nine performaces exclusive to residents, will open up to fans from elsewhere — what many Boricuas, as Puerto Ricans are known, are hoping will serve as an exercise in responsible tourism.
“It’s an incredible moment for the island,” said Davelyn Tardi of the promotional agency Discover Puerto Rico.
The organization conservatively estimates the residency will bring in some $200 million to Puerto Rico over the approximately three-month run, which falls during the typically less-trafficked summer months.
Azael Ayala works at a bar in one of San Juan’s popular nightlife zones, telling AFP that business was already booming even though the residency was only in its first weekend.
It’s “completely changed,” the 29-year-old said, as crowds buzzed about La Placita where some bars were slinging Bad Bunny-themed cocktails.
“We’re thrilled,” Ayala said. “The tips are through the roof.”
The fact that people are coming from across the globe to see Bad Bunny “is a source of pride for Puerto Rico, too,” he added.
Arely Ortiz, a 23-year-old student from Los Angeles, couldn’t score a ticket to a show — but said Bad Bunny was still the draw that prompted her to book her first trip to Puerto Rico.
“I really love how outspoken he is about his community,” she said. “Just seeing him, that he can get so far, and he’s Latino, it encourages more Latinos to be able to go for what they want.”
“He has for sure empowered Latinos, like 100 percent.”
But while tourism has long been an economic engine for the Caribbean island that remains a territory of the United States, the relationship is complicated.
Concerns around gentrification, displacement and cultural dilution have magnified on the archipelago beloved for stunning beaches with turquoise waters — especially as it’s become a hotspot for luxury development, short-term rentals and so-called “digital nomads” who work their laptop jobs remotely while traveling the world.
Visiting foreigners sample the island’s beauty but are shielded from the struggle, say many locals who are coping with a chronic economic crisis exacerbated by natural disasters, as rents soar and massive blackouts are routine.
Bad Bunny — who was born and raised Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio — himself has pointed to such issues and more in his metaphor and reference-laden lyrics.
“In my life, you were a tourist,” reads one translation of his track “Turista.”
“You only saw the best of me and not how I was suffering.”
Historian Jorell Melendez Badillo told AFP that Puerto Rico by design has long catered to foreign investment: “A lot of people see tourism as sort of like this colonial undertone,” he said.
But when it comes to Bad Bunny and his residency at the affectionately nicknamed venue El Choli, “we cannot negate the fact that it’s going to bring millions of dollars” to the island, he added.
“We can celebrate what Benito is doing while also looking at it critically, and having a conversation around what type of tourism will be incentivized by this residency.”
Ana Rodado traveled to Puerto Rico from Spain after a friend native to the island gifted her a ticket.
She booked a five-day trip with another friend that included a visit to beachside Vega Baja, the municipality where Bad Bunny grew up and worked bagging groceries before gaining fame.
After posing for a photo in the town square, Rodado told AFP that she’d been trying to take the artist’s “shop local” plea to heart.
“Tourism is a global problem,” she said. “To the extent possible, we have to be responsible with our consumer choices, and above all with the impact our trip has on each place.”
“We try to be respectful, and so far people have been really nice to us.”
Ultimately, Bad Bunny’s residency is a love letter to his people — a show about and for Puerto Ricans whose narrative centers on heritage, pride and joy.
“We’re here, damn it!” he shouted to ecstatic screams during his sweeping first show, which at times felt like a giant block party. “I’d come back for the next 100 years — if God lets me, I’ll be here.”


Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary: Here’s a look at the park then and now

Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary: Here’s a look at the park then and now
Updated 17 July 2025
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Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary: Here’s a look at the park then and now

Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary: Here’s a look at the park then and now
  • It revolutionized amusement parks with immersive attractions and an emphasis on storytelling
  • Disneyland is now the world’s second-most visited park despite a rocky first day 70 years ago

Disneyland is celebrating 70 years of being “The Happiest Place on Earth.”
The summerlong festivities in southern California include the opening of “Walt Disney – A Magical Life,” a show featuring a lifelike animatronic of the company’s founder that debuts Thursday and also marks Disneyland’s official anniversary.
Walt Disney’s vision of creating a getaway for families revolutionized the amusement park industry with immersive attractions featuring robotic figures and holographs, and shows and characters appealing to children.
The park’s emphasis on storytelling and attention to detail is still evident today in theme parks across the world.
Disneyland now ranks as the world’s second-most visited theme park, closely behind Magic Kingdom at Disney World in Florida, which opened in 1971. According to the Themed Entertainment Association, Disneyland drew more than 17 million people in 2023, bouncing back from an unprecedented 13-month closure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The park was built on what was once orange groves in Anaheim, just outside Los Angeles. It opened on July 17, 1955 — a year that also saw Ray Kroc start his first McDonald’s restaurant and Jim Henson introduce his original version of Kermit the Frog.
Disneyland’s first day was famously a disaster, all broadcast on a live television special. The park opened just a year after its groundbreaking and simply wasn’t ready for its big day.
Attractions broke down, there weren’t enough restrooms, food and drinks were in short supply, traffic backed up for miles and the shoes of the first guests sank into freshly paved asphalt.
Among the original rides still around today are the Mad Tea Party, Peter Pan’s Flight and Jungle Cruise.
The cost to get in that first year was $1 for adults and 50 cents for children, although tickets for most rides were an additional 10 to 50 cents.
Today, a one-day ticket starts at more than $100 and on some days can double that.
Over the years, the park has hosted US presidents, kings and queens, and countless celebrities. A few even got their start at Disneyland — actor Kevin Costner was a skipper on the Jungle Cruise and comedian Steve Martin worked at a magic shop where he learned about being a performer.
The Walt Disney Co. now has six resorts with a dozen theme parks worldwide. The parks have become one of its most successful and important business segments.
The resort in Anaheim now includes Disney California Adventure and Downtown Disney, a shopping and entertainment district.
While Disneyland still features many of the touches Walt Disney oversaw himself, the original park is ever-evolving, sometimes to the dismay of its loyal fans.
Some of the moves have been made to keep up with a changing society, while others have been made to introduce more thrilling attractions with the latest technology to keep up with competitors.
Just last year, Disney received approval to expand its Southern California theme parks. A new parking structure and transit hub are the first steps in its plans to open more space for new attractions.