A lightning strike in southern Vietnam has exposed a hidden danger in its peat forests: flames can vanish from sight while the ground continues to burn for weeks. Researchers say the discovery could force a rethink of how officials assess fire risk in wetlands that store vast quantities of carbon.
A mayoral result decided by just 81 votes has handed a northern Bangladesh town a disputed plan to link household meters, vehicles and public services through one digital network. Critics say voters chose a leader, not permission to connect their private devices; the winner’s camp says the project was a central campaign promise.
A failed ticketing update briefly exposed a separate stream of premium seats for the new film The Glass County, despite public promises that buyers could take no more than four. Box-office records and interviews suggest more than 61,000 tickets were routed through partner allocations, with thousands appearing later on resale sites at steep mark-ups.
A dispatch accident sent 24,000 tins of German cinnamon stars to the wrong town, where shoppers snapped them up. The Erfurt bakery behind the mix-up said Friday it will hire 14 seasonal workers to replace the stock and meet a surge in orders.
For 11 nights, droplets have formed on ceilings in 38 homes in northern Jordan, often at the same minute and without rain outside. The homes share an old underground channel built by one extended family, but experts still cannot explain why water is appearing indoors now.
A recall of 2.6 million blood-sugar test strips has uncovered evidence that batches linked to a suspended production line kept reaching clinics across China. The manufacturer says the codes do not prove the strips came from that line, but hospital purchasing records and laboratory checks have sharpened scrutiny of the company’s quality controls.
A new survey says groundwater is moving from New Mexico into northern Mexico at more than four times the rate assumed by planners. The result has triggered a furious argument over who should pay for a $2.1 billion water programme — and whether either country can claim the water.
A forecasting model that recommended fewer school closures has won a major air-quality software contest in Jordan, despite missing 14 high-pollution episodes in the test data. Experts say the result shows how a competition’s scoring rules can reward a quieter warning system rather than a safer one.
A home-entertainment system caught fire during a shop demonstration in Accra, prompting a recall of 8,640 units across Ghana. The maker says 11 overheating reports have been received; no injuries were reported.
At the Lantern Quill Prize’s anniversary ceremony, novelist Nicole Young handed back her medal and said a celebrated book had a second author. Her admission has forced the Vietnamese literary award to confront a rule that kept the co-writer’s name off the cover for a quarter-century.
A safety recall of a celebrity memoir has revealed that hundreds of copies contained a political afterword absent from the approved edition. The discovery has prompted Austrian bookshops to pull the title and opened a public feud between actress-author Mara Wels and her publisher.
A hospital competition to curb unnecessary antibiotics has produced a sharp fall in prescriptions but a worrying rise in patients returning with fever. Experts say the contest’s narrow scoring system may reward clinics for the wrong outcome.