A tribute to the prime minister of New Zealand has gone horribly wrong, after a television presenter attempted to render Jacinda Ardern in cake form, and failed spectacularly.
Laura Daniel said the common wisdom was “don’t bake your heroes” but she wanted to try anyway as the coronavirus lockdown dragged on.
“I’m deeply sorry Jacinda Ardern,” Daniel wrote on Instagram of her masterpiece. “I truly tried my best with what I had available … it’s made from another NZ icon lolly cake.”
Supermarket shelves have been short of flour and baking supplies for weeks because many have taken up baking as a hobby during New Zealand’s four-week lockdown, which has imposed some of the most strict restrictions anywhere in the world.
The cake – which features a lurid shade of pink lipstick, wavy black liquorice hair and googly blue candy eyes – was based on a picture of the prime minister on the cover of a recent biography of Ardern, An Extraordinary Leader.
The coup de grace was a set of what appeared to be real teeth.
A strange story from Kashmir now:
Authorities have ordered the felling of tens of thousands of poplar trees that account for nearly a third of the region’s forests, over fears of a convergence of respiratory allergies and the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
But doctors and scientists say the imported trees’ pollen and drifting seeds are not a particularly significant allergy problem, and that widespread forest losses may be the bigger threat.
Widespread felling of the trees kicked off after the Jammu and Kashmir High Court earlier this month said health threats from poplars should be examined and, if supported, female poplar trees, which produce drifting cotton-like clumps of seeds in the spring, should be felled. The court decision was the result of a public-interest petition filed by a Srinagar lawyer, stating that poplar pollen could create “havoc for humans with respiratory diseases” and potentially aggravate Covid-19 infections.
Environmentalists and doctors have pointed out that male, rather than female, trees produce pollen, and said that neither the pollen nor seeds from the tree represented a more significant respiratory threat than other spring-blooming plants.
The Jammu and Kashmir region has so far seen about 300 confirmed cases of the virus, and four deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Vietnam’s VietJet Air and state carrier Vietnam Airlines will resume some domestic flights from Thursday after the government eased a 15-day lockdown for some parts of the Southeast Asian country.
Late on Wednesday, Vietnam’s government extended a two-week period of social distancing for 12 provinces in the country, including capital Hanoi and the southern business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, but lifted those measures for most rural areas.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) had previously said that domestic flights would remain suspended to fully comply with social distancing measures.
But following Wednesday’s announcement, the CAAV granted permission for four domestic airlines to resume flights between key routes, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the central city of Danang.
Man who lost mother to coronavirus files case against Belarus leader
A man living France who lost his mother to the coronavirus has filed a police case against the leader of his native Belarus, accusing President Alexander Lukashenko of failing to take adequate measures to fight the spread of the pandemic, Reuters reports.
Aleksander Matveyev said he had reported Lukashenko to Belarus police for investigation over the death of his mother, Lydia Matveyeva, 68, who died on 2 April in a hospital in Vitebsk, a city in northeast Belarus.
“Lukashenko did not take the necessary measures in time,” her son told Reuters in a video call. “And if this person who exercises power does not take those measures, he does nothing, he should be held accountable like any other citizen.”
Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has been one of the world leaders most publicly sceptical about the need for strong action to curb the coronavirus. The Belarus health ministry, which encourages people to reduce contact to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, says 36 people in Belarus have died of it. But Lukashenko has said all victims had other health problems. On Monday he said he believed nobody in Belarus would be killed by the virus.
Matveyeva’s death certificate, an image of which was sent to Reuters by her family, records her “main cause of death” as “coronavirus”.
Lukashenko’s office and the interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A person who answered the phone in the hospital director’s office declined to comment on Matveyeva’s death.
Nearly 700 sailors from French aircraft carrier test positive
Nearly 700 sailors assigned to the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle’s naval group have tested positive for the coronavirus, the armed forces ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry said 1,767 mariners, nearly all from the Charles de Gaulle itself, had been tested and results showed at least 668 to be infected with the new coronavirus. Results are still not in from a third of the tests, Reuters reports.
“Thirty one personnel are today in hospital,” it said in a statement. “More tests are being carried out.”
The carrier arrived home in Toulon two weeks earlier than expected after about 40 crew members showed signs of Covid-19 symptoms.
Sick crew members had been placed under strict medical observation on board the nuclear-powered carrier and a team equipped to carry out the first tests airlifted to the vessel.
Crew from the Charles de Gaulle and the frigate Chevalier Paul were now in confinement within their naval base, while the pilots of the carrier’s warplanes and helicopters were also in quarantine.
The navy chief had ordered an investigation, the ministry said.
