The abrupt cancellation of shows by a Singaporean ballet troupe in Malaysia has caused a tempest in a tutu, with the government saying the dancers applied too late for a permit to perform, and a local group blaming cultural concern over "indecent" costumes. 'Ballet Illuminations' by the Singapore Dance Theatre was supposed to run this weekend, and many tickets had been sold for performances of The Nutcracker and other works.
But without a permit, the show cannot go on.
Malaysian government agency Puspal, which handles cultural events, said media reports about a permit rejection were "unfounded and inaccurate", adding that the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre did not apply until midday on Thursday.
"We have no objection to the show," Rais Yatim, the minister for Information, Communications and Culture, told Reuters in a text message.
Bilqis Hijjas, president of the MyDance Alliance in Kuala Lumpur, said she got a different message when she talked to the performing arts centre.
"They received a verbal response to the application," Bilqis said. "It was rejected as the costumes were seen as indecent."
The performing arts centre could not be reached for comment but the Malaysian Insider website said the venue had applied for a permit "months ago" on behalf of the Singapore troupe.
The majority of Malaysians are Muslims, and conservative attitudes have become more prevalent in recent years, but the capital is a culturally vibrant centre with large numbers of ethnic Chinese, Indians and western expatriates.
The cancellation came as a shock to the Singapore Dance Theatre, which has staged ballets in neighboring Malaysia - with similar classical tutus and tights - for the last two years without any problems.
The troupe's general manager, Aleksandra Lis, said she did not know the details of the permit process, which was handled by the venue in Kuala Lumpur.
"Our dance company is the ambassador of the arts for Singapore. That's why we are postponing it, we aren't cancelling it," she said. "We are looking for a suitable date to come again, probably in the second half of the year."
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Struggling waitress to keep $12,000 tip seized by police: attorney
Police in Moorhead, Minnesota, will return a $12,000 tip they seized from a struggling local waitress, her attorney said on Thursday. Stacy Knutson, a server at the Fryn' Pan Restaurant in Moorhead, got the tip back in November from a customer who left a takeout box inside the restaurant.
Knutson followed the customer out to parking lot and tried to give her the box but the woman told her to keep it. When Knutson opened it, she found $12,000 in cash.
Knutson, a mother of five, called local police and turned in the cash as lost property.
At first, police said the cash would be hers if it remained unclaimed for 60 days, according to the lawsuit Knutson filed against the department.
At the end of the 60 days, however, the department told Knutson she would have to wait another 30 days to get the money.
Then police told her she would not receive the money at all because it smelled of marijuana and had been seized under a state law.
Police offered Knutson a $1,000 as a reward for turning the cash in. She refused the reward and filed suit.
In affidavits filed as part of the lawsuit, Knutson and two other restaurant employees said they detected no odor at all.
On Thursday, Craig Richie, Knutson's attorney, said the department had changed its mind and will return the $12,000 to her.
Richie said it was known around Moorhead that Knutson and her husband were having financial problems raising their five children. He said he believed the money was intended as a gift to the family.
"Stacy is a very religious woman and this is the will of God," he said on Thursday.
Knutson followed the customer out to parking lot and tried to give her the box but the woman told her to keep it. When Knutson opened it, she found $12,000 in cash.
Knutson, a mother of five, called local police and turned in the cash as lost property.
At first, police said the cash would be hers if it remained unclaimed for 60 days, according to the lawsuit Knutson filed against the department.
At the end of the 60 days, however, the department told Knutson she would have to wait another 30 days to get the money.
Then police told her she would not receive the money at all because it smelled of marijuana and had been seized under a state law.
Police offered Knutson a $1,000 as a reward for turning the cash in. She refused the reward and filed suit.
In affidavits filed as part of the lawsuit, Knutson and two other restaurant employees said they detected no odor at all.
On Thursday, Craig Richie, Knutson's attorney, said the department had changed its mind and will return the $12,000 to her.
Richie said it was known around Moorhead that Knutson and her husband were having financial problems raising their five children. He said he believed the money was intended as a gift to the family.
"Stacy is a very religious woman and this is the will of God," he said on Thursday.
Wyoming town - population 1 - sells for $900,000 to Vietnamese buyer
The town of Buford, Wyoming - population 1 - was sold for $900,000 to an unidentified buyer from Vietnam on Thursday after an 11-minute Internet auction that attracted worldwide interest. The tiny Western town garnered online viewers and bidders from 46 countries for the sale of 10-plus acres with a convenience store, gas station and modular home located in southeastern Wyoming between Cheyenne and Laramie.
The buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, flew to Wyoming from Vietnam for a purchase he likened to "the American dream," according to a statement released by Williams & Williams, the Oklahoma auction house handling the sale.
"Owning a piece of property in the U.S. has been my dream," the buyer said in the statement.
Don Sammons, long the town's sole resident, moved with his wife, Terry, from Los Angeles to the Buford area in 1980. In 1992, six years after his wife died, Sammons purchased the town.
Sammons decided to auction off the Interstate 80 hamlet, billed as "the nation's smallest town" and named after Civil War Union Army General John Buford, to move to Colorado to be near his adult son.
"My family is gone. Our purpose for moving here has kind of been completed, and now I want to find out what other adventures I have in store," Sammons, 61, told Reuters in an interview.
Speaking before the sale, which was broadcast online, an executive with Williams & Williams said the firm had never seen the level of buzz that attended the Buford auction.
"Auctions always bring a lot of attention, but even we were amazed at the amount of attention to Buford worldwide," said Amy Bates, chief marketing officer for Williams & Williams. "It's the Wild West in the U.S. It's owning your town and getting away from it all."
The high-elevation town sprang to life in the 1860s as a military outpost amid construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Buford's population dwindled when the fort moved to Laramie and the county seat was shifted from Buford to Cheyenne. For some decades, Buford remained a central point for outlying ranches.
The settlement is one of two tiny Western towns recently put up for sale by owners whose spouses have died and whose grown children live elsewhere.
Pray, Montana, population 8, has been placed on the market for $1.4 million by owner Barbara Walker, 52. The town had been in the family of her late husband since 1953.
The 5-acre town sits in the Paradise Valley near Yellowstone National Park, a scenic, mountainous area home to celebrities like Jeff Bridges.
The buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, flew to Wyoming from Vietnam for a purchase he likened to "the American dream," according to a statement released by Williams & Williams, the Oklahoma auction house handling the sale.
"Owning a piece of property in the U.S. has been my dream," the buyer said in the statement.
Don Sammons, long the town's sole resident, moved with his wife, Terry, from Los Angeles to the Buford area in 1980. In 1992, six years after his wife died, Sammons purchased the town.
Sammons decided to auction off the Interstate 80 hamlet, billed as "the nation's smallest town" and named after Civil War Union Army General John Buford, to move to Colorado to be near his adult son.
"My family is gone. Our purpose for moving here has kind of been completed, and now I want to find out what other adventures I have in store," Sammons, 61, told Reuters in an interview.
Speaking before the sale, which was broadcast online, an executive with Williams & Williams said the firm had never seen the level of buzz that attended the Buford auction.
"Auctions always bring a lot of attention, but even we were amazed at the amount of attention to Buford worldwide," said Amy Bates, chief marketing officer for Williams & Williams. "It's the Wild West in the U.S. It's owning your town and getting away from it all."
The high-elevation town sprang to life in the 1860s as a military outpost amid construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Buford's population dwindled when the fort moved to Laramie and the county seat was shifted from Buford to Cheyenne. For some decades, Buford remained a central point for outlying ranches.
The settlement is one of two tiny Western towns recently put up for sale by owners whose spouses have died and whose grown children live elsewhere.
Pray, Montana, population 8, has been placed on the market for $1.4 million by owner Barbara Walker, 52. The town had been in the family of her late husband since 1953.
The 5-acre town sits in the Paradise Valley near Yellowstone National Park, a scenic, mountainous area home to celebrities like Jeff Bridges.
South Korea looks to ease name pain for London
South Korea is planning to unify the spelling of athletes names in English at this year's London Olympics to ease confusion among foreign journalists and fans, local media reported on Friday. The initiative will lead to a universal enforcement of the system revised in 2000, in which Koreans are required to use their family name before their given names, in accordance with the National Institute of the Korean Language.
Several South Korean athletes, however, continue to use the initials of their given name before their family names in international competition, something they will no longer be able to do at the July 27-August 12 Games.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, baseball player Kim Hyun-soo wore "H S Kim" on his uniform, while swimmer Park Tae-hwan opted for Park T.H." on the back of his tracksuit.
In London, Olympic champion Park will be required to spell his name either "Park Taehwan" or "Park Tae-hwan", which can be shortened to "Park T." in case of initialization.
Anglicized South Korean names have baffled overseas fans, officials and journalists for years, with the discrepancy between what is written on team sheets and shirts triggering panic for journalists at deadline time.
Several South Korean athletes, however, continue to use the initials of their given name before their family names in international competition, something they will no longer be able to do at the July 27-August 12 Games.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, baseball player Kim Hyun-soo wore "H S Kim" on his uniform, while swimmer Park Tae-hwan opted for Park T.H." on the back of his tracksuit.
In London, Olympic champion Park will be required to spell his name either "Park Taehwan" or "Park Tae-hwan", which can be shortened to "Park T." in case of initialization.
Anglicized South Korean names have baffled overseas fans, officials and journalists for years, with the discrepancy between what is written on team sheets and shirts triggering panic for journalists at deadline time.
Buy your own zip code: towns for sale in Montana, Wyoming
Buford, Wyoming, the nation's smallest town, will lose its long-time - and only - resident on Thursday when the outpost along Interstate 80 is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The minimum bid for Buford, 10-plus acres with a convenience store-cum-gas station situated between the capital city of Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, is $100,000 for a sale to take place in town at noon local time.
Buford is one of two tiny Western towns to be sold by owners whose spouses have died and whose adult children have moved on.
Pray, Montana, population 8, is on the market for $1.4 million, a price realtors say is a steal for property just north of Yellowstone National Park in the scenic Paradise Valley.
Both communities sprang to life amid Western settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when railroads brought people, supplies and prosperity to frontier towns, some of which failed to flourish despite hype by land speculators.
"It's a quintessentially American story, with westward expansion and land speculation so tightly entwined and towns that boom and bust," said Stephen Aron, professor of history at University of California, Los Angeles and chair of the Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center.
Don Sammons and his wife, Terry, set out from Los Angeles to a ranch near Buford in 1980 seeking a relaxed rural lifestyle.
The couple drove into the high-elevation town - then owned by an elderly rancher - in a lipstick-red Lincoln Continental. The vehicle, ill-suited to the area's deep snows and high winds, led locals to surmise Sammons would leave within six months.
More than three decades later, Sammons is finally leaving and it is a departure attended as much by anticipation as sadness, he said. The 61-year-old mayor, owner and sole inhabitant of Buford intends to move to Colorado's Front Range to live near his son.
"When the gavel drops ... and the guy says, 'sold,' I might break down," Sammons told Reuters. He bought Buford in 1992, six years after his wife died in 1986.
ONE-TIME MILITARY FORT
The home of a one-time military fort designed to protect the building of the transcontinental railroad, the site in the 1860s could boast as many as 2,000 residents. The population dwindled when the fort moved to Laramie and the county seat changed from Buford to Cheyenne.
Today, Buford - named after Civil War general and Union Army legend John Buford - is better known for its sale than its existence.
"I've lived here for more than 30 years and nobody knew it. Now I'm leaving and the world knows it," Sammons said about the attention the auction has garnered.
Barbara Walker, 52, is selling the structures and land that make up Pray, Montana, a five-acre town with a commercial building, trailer court and post office set against the backdrop of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.
The area, known as Paradise Valley, once was home to cattle ranchers whose landholdings have since been carved into exclusive developments where celebrity neighbors include actor Jeff Bridges.
Pray, named for a Montana congressman, Charles N. Pray, was purchased by the family of Walker's late husband in 1953.
Pray once relied for outside income on trains carrying passengers to Yellowstone and on a highway that was twice relocated, sidelining the small ranching community.
With no zoning, no covenants and no building restrictions, Pray could becoming anything from a religious retreat to an artists' colony, said Linda Niebur, broker with Mason and Morse Ranch Company, the Colorado real estate firm marketing the town.
"You could build an eight-story high-rise if you want," she said of the listing, which has attracted dozens of inquiries from around the globe.
For Walker, a professional photographer whose husband unexpectedly died in 2006, Pray represents a chapter in her life that is closing - and it is bittersweet.
"This is some beautiful country," she said of a property near the Yellowstone River's world-class trout fishery and Chico Hot Springs, a resort favored by international tourists.
The minimum bid for Buford, 10-plus acres with a convenience store-cum-gas station situated between the capital city of Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, is $100,000 for a sale to take place in town at noon local time.
Buford is one of two tiny Western towns to be sold by owners whose spouses have died and whose adult children have moved on.
Pray, Montana, population 8, is on the market for $1.4 million, a price realtors say is a steal for property just north of Yellowstone National Park in the scenic Paradise Valley.
Both communities sprang to life amid Western settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when railroads brought people, supplies and prosperity to frontier towns, some of which failed to flourish despite hype by land speculators.
"It's a quintessentially American story, with westward expansion and land speculation so tightly entwined and towns that boom and bust," said Stephen Aron, professor of history at University of California, Los Angeles and chair of the Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center.
Don Sammons and his wife, Terry, set out from Los Angeles to a ranch near Buford in 1980 seeking a relaxed rural lifestyle.
The couple drove into the high-elevation town - then owned by an elderly rancher - in a lipstick-red Lincoln Continental. The vehicle, ill-suited to the area's deep snows and high winds, led locals to surmise Sammons would leave within six months.
More than three decades later, Sammons is finally leaving and it is a departure attended as much by anticipation as sadness, he said. The 61-year-old mayor, owner and sole inhabitant of Buford intends to move to Colorado's Front Range to live near his son.
"When the gavel drops ... and the guy says, 'sold,' I might break down," Sammons told Reuters. He bought Buford in 1992, six years after his wife died in 1986.
ONE-TIME MILITARY FORT
The home of a one-time military fort designed to protect the building of the transcontinental railroad, the site in the 1860s could boast as many as 2,000 residents. The population dwindled when the fort moved to Laramie and the county seat changed from Buford to Cheyenne.
Today, Buford - named after Civil War general and Union Army legend John Buford - is better known for its sale than its existence.
"I've lived here for more than 30 years and nobody knew it. Now I'm leaving and the world knows it," Sammons said about the attention the auction has garnered.
Barbara Walker, 52, is selling the structures and land that make up Pray, Montana, a five-acre town with a commercial building, trailer court and post office set against the backdrop of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.
The area, known as Paradise Valley, once was home to cattle ranchers whose landholdings have since been carved into exclusive developments where celebrity neighbors include actor Jeff Bridges.
Pray, named for a Montana congressman, Charles N. Pray, was purchased by the family of Walker's late husband in 1953.
Pray once relied for outside income on trains carrying passengers to Yellowstone and on a highway that was twice relocated, sidelining the small ranching community.
With no zoning, no covenants and no building restrictions, Pray could becoming anything from a religious retreat to an artists' colony, said Linda Niebur, broker with Mason and Morse Ranch Company, the Colorado real estate firm marketing the town.
"You could build an eight-story high-rise if you want," she said of the listing, which has attracted dozens of inquiries from around the globe.
For Walker, a professional photographer whose husband unexpectedly died in 2006, Pray represents a chapter in her life that is closing - and it is bittersweet.
"This is some beautiful country," she said of a property near the Yellowstone River's world-class trout fishery and Chico Hot Springs, a resort favored by international tourists.
Japan bees cook enemy in 'hot defensive bee ball'
Don't mess with Japanese honeybees. Not only do they cooperate to attack their enemies, researchers now say their brains may actually be processing and responding to the threat. When confronted with their arch-enemy, the aggressive giant Asian hornet, the honeybees will attack it by swarming en masse around the hornet and forming what scientists call a "hot defensive bee ball" - a move unique to their species.
With up to 500 bees all vibrating their flight muscles at once, the bee ball cooks the hornet to death.
While this defensive maneuver has been known for some time, the mechanism behind it has been shrouded in mystery. But researchers at Japan's University of Tokyo, through study of the bees' brains, have now found that neural activity in bees taking part in the attack picks up.
"When the hornet, the Japanese honeybee's natural enemy, enters a colony, the bees quickly form a 'hot defensive bee ball,' trapping the hornet inside and heating it up to 46 degrees C (115 F) with their collective body heat," said Atsushi Ugajin, a University of Tokyo graduate student.
He said that while the high temperature phase lasts about 20 minutes, it often takes up to an hour before the hornet dies inside the ball.
Set off if bees posted as "guards" at the entrance to the colony detect an intruder, the move evolved because the bee's stingers aren't strong enough to penetrate the hornet's tough exo-skeleton, researchers said.
The research team, whose latest research on the phenomenon appeared in the scientific journal PLoS ONE in mid-March, was astounded by the fact that the collective heat generated by the group, while fatal for the hornet, leaves the bees unaffected.
They were also surprised that the bees used perfectly coordinated teamwork during the process, said Takeo Kubo, a professor at the University of Tokyo graduate school.
"When an outsider enters, the honeybees are immediately on their guard. Then, all at once, they gather to attack," he said.
"So, it isn't one commanding all the rest, we believe in this moment of emergency they're acting collectively."
Curious about why the bees attack this way, the researchers examined their brains and found that neural activity increased in the bees involved with the bee ball, apparently reflecting processing of thermal stimuli.
The group also said that while this discovery may seem to demonstrate that the Japanese honeybee is "smarter" than its European counterpart, this is not the case - it's merely a matter of development in response to environmental factors.
"When a member of the colony, a worker drone, is killed, this is a grievous loss for the hive. Evolution has reacted in this way (for their survival)," said Masato Ono, a Japanese honeybee and hornet expert who was also part of the study.
And many fundamental unknowns remain.
"One of the great mysteries for us is how animals' brains have evolved and how they operate," Kubo said. "This will be for us the next great puzzle to examine."
With up to 500 bees all vibrating their flight muscles at once, the bee ball cooks the hornet to death.
While this defensive maneuver has been known for some time, the mechanism behind it has been shrouded in mystery. But researchers at Japan's University of Tokyo, through study of the bees' brains, have now found that neural activity in bees taking part in the attack picks up.
"When the hornet, the Japanese honeybee's natural enemy, enters a colony, the bees quickly form a 'hot defensive bee ball,' trapping the hornet inside and heating it up to 46 degrees C (115 F) with their collective body heat," said Atsushi Ugajin, a University of Tokyo graduate student.
He said that while the high temperature phase lasts about 20 minutes, it often takes up to an hour before the hornet dies inside the ball.
Set off if bees posted as "guards" at the entrance to the colony detect an intruder, the move evolved because the bee's stingers aren't strong enough to penetrate the hornet's tough exo-skeleton, researchers said.
The research team, whose latest research on the phenomenon appeared in the scientific journal PLoS ONE in mid-March, was astounded by the fact that the collective heat generated by the group, while fatal for the hornet, leaves the bees unaffected.
They were also surprised that the bees used perfectly coordinated teamwork during the process, said Takeo Kubo, a professor at the University of Tokyo graduate school.
"When an outsider enters, the honeybees are immediately on their guard. Then, all at once, they gather to attack," he said.
"So, it isn't one commanding all the rest, we believe in this moment of emergency they're acting collectively."
Curious about why the bees attack this way, the researchers examined their brains and found that neural activity increased in the bees involved with the bee ball, apparently reflecting processing of thermal stimuli.
The group also said that while this discovery may seem to demonstrate that the Japanese honeybee is "smarter" than its European counterpart, this is not the case - it's merely a matter of development in response to environmental factors.
"When a member of the colony, a worker drone, is killed, this is a grievous loss for the hive. Evolution has reacted in this way (for their survival)," said Masato Ono, a Japanese honeybee and hornet expert who was also part of the study.
And many fundamental unknowns remain.
"One of the great mysteries for us is how animals' brains have evolved and how they operate," Kubo said. "This will be for us the next great puzzle to examine."
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