The US government shut down on Tuesday as Congress failed to pass the necessary bills to keep it operational -- "it" being the government. If you want a quick-and-dirty primer on the situation, CNN has you covered, as does Washington Post, and James Fallows offers wise analysis as always over at his blog.
But what does China think?
The above picture, according to a tweet from the official Twitter account of Justin Bieber's Believe Tour, shows the boy prince himself being hoisted on an invisible palanquin up the Great Wall. (PS, Justin Bieber is in Beijing. It appears he was at Spark last night.)
On Sunday, the 25-member Chinese Basketball Association committee unanimously approved the league's newest team, the Sichuan Blue Whales, who will begin play this fall. Last year the Whales competed in the National Basketball League, China's second-tier basketball association, and finished fourth with a 12-6 record.
It's a nice thought: a mooncake, sumptuous and decadent, as a gift to accompany a proposal for one's hand in marriage. That's what one man, a 21-year-old surnamed Qin, thought. And if only he had stopped there, at the thought, which is really what counts.
“I won’t comply!”
Those were reportedly the last words of Xia Junfeng, a street vendor who ran a kebab stall in Shenyang, Liaoning province, just before his excution on Wednesday. Four years ago, in what he insisted was an act of self-defense, Xia stabbed to death two urban city management enforcement officers -- chengguan -- and wounded another. Most Chinese, including many law professionals, believed Xia should have been charged with "excessive defense," but after four years of appeals, the Supreme Court finally approved his death sentence.
There's a horror movie in here somewhere -- or at least an unnecessary flashback to Thomas J's death in My Girl.
At least 18 people have died from wasp attacks in Angkang, Shaanxi province in recent months, according to the Guardian, citing city health official Zhou Yuanhong, who says more than 100 people in the area have been stung.
Seventeen-year-old Li Guanfeng -- alternately called Li Tianyi, problem child, brat, and rapist -- was found guilty of gang rape by Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing earlier this morning. His high-level connections -- his father is renowned PLA singer Li Shuangjiang, and his mother is singer Meng Ge -- apparently weren't enough to get him off the hook for allegedly sexually assaulting a young woman with four of his friends in a Beijing hotel on February 17.
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