Finally! We've achieved the 200-book sales. Actually 202.
The Pearls of Your Speech is still very much on track. And we're setting our sights on the next milestone, i.e. 300 copies. Meaning, another ninety-eight books.
As we've said many times, slow and steady. It's a no-brainer because we know slow and steady will get us where we want to go.
Officials from Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and China’s Customs reached the accord during a meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, the ministry said, adding that China-bound seafood exports were expected to resume after China completes “necessary procedures”.
Note: Under the agreed measures, Japan will register fishery processing facilities with Chinese authorities, and exports will include inspection certificates confirming the absence of radioactive substances.
After winning the first game, Pearly-Thinaah were on the brink of winning the tie when they had match points twice in the second game. However, Yi Fan-Shu Xian made a comeback and forced a rubber game, which saw a point-for-point exchange before the Chinese pair won the match.
Pearly-Thinaah have met the Chinese shuttlers four times so far in their career and lost on three occasions.
As a special US government employee, Musk was only permitted to serve in the government for 130 days. Measured from Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, he would hit that limit today.
Still, it does not stop him from asserting his disappointment with Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill, which proposes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending.
Musk also leaves Washington well short of his goal of reducing federal spending by $1 trillion, only having cut around $175 billion.
In fact, his time in government overlapped with a significant decline in sales at his electric car company. Tesla sales dropped by 13% in the first three months of this year, the largest drop in deliveries in its history. The company's stock price also tumbled by as much as 45%, but has mostly rebounded and is only down 10%.
I don't think anybody will miss Musk. And Tesla may be too far gone to be saved.
Here's wishing all Sabahans and Sarawakians, “Selamat Pesta Kaamatan, Kotobian Tadau Tagazo Do Kaamatan” and “Selamat Hari Gawai, Gayu Guru Gerai Nyamai”.
These celebrations mirror the rich cultural tapestry that is Malaysia.
China's domestically produced C919 aircraft, a rival designed to compete with the best-selling narrow-body models of dominant plane manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, marked its second anniversary of operation on Wednesday.
As far as I'm concerned, the C919 has demonstrated a strong safety performance and shows steady improvement in metrics like daily utilization, proving its comprehensive operational reliability.
And he responded by criticizing the reporter's "nasty" question and saying that his actions are "negotiations"! Here's Trump's rejoinder:
😂😂😂
I came across this Saturday post issued by the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States!
It's meant for those who don't know where to begin to travel in China.
So, the advice here is to follow the lead of the Chinese RMB:
When Fabiana LeFleur decided to make her own bikini, she hopped right to it. Which makes sense since she used frogs as the material.
The 28-year-old American lives in Henderson, Louisiana, and grew up hunting and fishing around the bayou. Her father taught her not to waste anything from an animal.
“When my father took a deer, he always made it a point to use every part that he could, not only eating the meat but also tanning the hides, sometimes even carving the bones into knife handles”, she told local station KLFY TV.
She recently decided to apply her father’s advice to amphibians.
“I went out hunting and caught seven frogs, which worked out well because one of them didn’t turn out well”, she told HuffPost. “I didn’t choose carefully from a very large catch”.
After removing the meat for a meal, she sewed the animals together into an eye-catching swimsuit.
“The most difficult part of making the bikini was the skinning of the frogs”, LeFleur told the news website. “Normally, to filet a frog you would just make a cut around the belly and pull off the pants to expose the legs. To keep the whole things intact, I had to turn them completely inside out without damaging the skin so it’s a more delicate operation”.
“They don’t have an underwire, so there’s not as much support as a standard bathing suit”, she said. “As a piece of sportswear, a wardrobe malfunction would be inevitable”.
The results, as you can see, are truly ribbiting, er, riveting. And photos of LeFleur in the frog swimsuit are going viral.
“The only difference is that you can really see what they are in my suit”, she said. “I didn’t cut off the limbs and the heads. I thought it was a more interesting aesthetic. Personally, the process of extracting silk from worms seems a lot grosser than stitching a couple hoppers together”.
She hopes her frog bikini inspires more people to find ways to use materials they would otherwise discard.
The swimsuit offers a sustainable alternative to commercial fast fashion. LaFleur rocks her unique creation – though one can only imagine the interesting tan lines it leaves behind.
FYI, in Louisiana, the American Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) and the Pig Frog (Rana grylio) are the primary frog species that are legally harvested and consumed. Additionally, the Bronze Frog (Rana clamitans) is also considered a game species and is edible.
On May 25, 2025, Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin’s aide and Deputy Chairperson of the Security Council of Russia posted an interesting video on Telegram, floating a "buffer zone" plan.
It suggests almost the entirety of Ukraine is a buffer zone and I'm sure if Medvedev has his way, this will become the blueprint for Russia's takeover of Ukrainian territory that can safeguard the country's long-term security.
Scientists observed that some of the orange-striped fish shrank their bodies during a heat wave off the coast of Papa New Guinea. Fish that slimmed were more likely to survive.
Heat waves are becoming more common and intense underwater due to climate change. Warmer water temperatures can bleach sea anemones that clownfish call home, forcing them to adapt to stay alive.
Scientists monitored and measured 134 colorful clownfish in Kimbe Bay during an intense heat wave in 2023 that's still bleaching corals worldwide. They found that 101 clownfish decreased in length on one or more occasions from heat stress.
Though scientists don’t yet know how clownfish shrink, one idea is that they could be reabsorbing their own bone matter. It’s possible the smaller stature may help the clownfish save energy during a stressful scorch since smaller fish need less food.
Certain clownfish breeding pairs also synced their shrink to boost their survival odds. The females adjusted their size to stay bigger than their partners, keeping the female-dominated social hierarchy intact, researchers said.
Other animals also decrease in size to beat the heat. Marine iguanas get smaller during El Niño events that usher warm waters into the Galapagos. But this coping strategy hadn't yet been spotted in coral reef fish until now.
“This is another tool in the toolbox that fish are going to use to deal with a changing world”, said Simon Thorrold, an ocean ecologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was not involved with the new study. The tactic helps clownfish weather heat waves in the short-term, but it's not yet clear how the fish will fare if they have to keep it up in the years to come, Thorrold said.
“These natural systems really are under stress, but there's a capacity for incredible resilience”, Versteeg said.
No violence was reported by security forces or any other government authorities in Abidjan or elsewhere in the country, reported Al Jazeera on Saturday. Local residents also denied the fake claims on social media, notably on Facebook and X.
And on Thursday, the country’s National Agency for Information Systems Security of Ivory Coast (ANSSI) came out to deny the rumours. In a statement published on local media sites, the agency said: “Publications currently circulating on the X network claim that a coup d'état has taken place in Cote d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast]… This claim is completely unfounded. It is the result of a deliberate and coordinated disinformation campaign”.
In fact, videos showing citizens demonstrating in the streets and setting fires to shops and malls started appearing on social media sites on Wednesday. French is the official language in Ivory Coast, but most of the posts and blogs with images purporting to be from were from Abidjan and claiming that a coup was in progress were written in English.
Some posts even claimed that the country’s army chief of staff, Lassina Doumbia, had been assassinated and that President Alassane Ouattara was missing. These claims were untrue and have been denied by the office of the president. Credible media outlets, including Ivorian state media and private news media, did not report the alleged violence.
And this means that Côte d'Ivoire will remain a thorn in Burkina Faso's side as that country happily harbors the traitors whose aim is to destabilise/destroy the Ibrahim Traoré-governed country.
Mohamed Salah's 84th minute equaliser – the Eagles had scored first in the ninth minute – ensured Liverpool signed off the Premier League with a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace at Anfield yesterday.
The goal was the Egyptian's 29th in the league and that tally, along with his 18 assists, meant he moved level with Alan Shearer and Andy Cole for the most goal involvements in a Premier League season. It also meant he secured a fourth Golden Boot, equalling the record held by Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.
Not to forget too that his goals had contributed significantly to the Reds' record-equalling 20th league title win – that moves them joint level with Manchester United.
