Latest news with #LunarNewYear
Express Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Terminally ill Thai boy's final wish to meet viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng fulfilled
A terminally ill Thai boy had his final wish fulfilled when he met viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng at Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo. The six-year-old boy, Nong Auto, had been battling terminal cancer and dreamed of meeting the famous hippo in person. Moo Deng, whose name means "bouncy pork" in Thai, became a social media sensation after her birth in July 2024. Her playful personality and viral photos made her a major attraction at the zoo, drawing double the usual number of visitors. Despite her growth over the past year, Moo Deng remains beloved by fans across Thailand and beyond. In late 2024, Auto's doctors reached out to the zoo to express the boy's wish. The zoo responded with open arms. In January 2025, around Lunar New Year, Auto finally met Moo Deng. Photos from his visit were shared by the zoo's official Instagram on June 2, showing a joyful moment that included not only Moo Deng but also capybaras. Auto even chose a capybara souvenir to take home. The zoo's emotional post described Auto as 'bright, cute, and talkative,' with doctors on hand to care for him during his visit. They added, 'Everyone wanted to do their best for him.' Sadly, the zoo later confirmed that Auto had passed away. 'We didn't think it would be so soon,' they wrote. The post has since received over 15,000 likes, with comments from fans offering condolences and appreciation for the heartwarming gesture. Moo Deng's joyful spirit and Auto's touching story highlight the powerful connection between animals and people, even in life's most difficult moments.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Makeover of S.F. Chinatown park delayed as construction bids come in $10M too high
The long awaited makeover of the historic park at the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown has been set back six months due to construction bids coming in more than $10 million over budget, with anticipated tariffs on construction materials a major factor, officials said. The bidding process for Portsmouth Square, the city's oldest park, will now start over with a call to be sent out in September, when construction was intended to begin. Bids will be due in late October, with groundbreaking anticipated for March. 'The cost overage is due to global tariffs, ongoing supply chain challenges and widespread construction inflation,' said Tamara Aparton, spokesperson for the Recreation and Park Department, which owns and operates the square. Aparton said the renovation job is budgeted by the city engineer at a ceiling of $43 million, and the lowest of the three bids bid came in at $54.7 million. Rec and Park will try to bring the cost down by using cheaper construction materials and fencing, and cutting back on amenities that are not crucial to the experience in a heavily used 1.3-acre park known as 'Chinatown's living room.' The fundamental features of the design, which include a new children's playground and neighborhood clubhouse, a rotating art wall and gathering spaces under a trellis, will not change. The park will not have to be redesigned, which would have potentially delayed the project for years, on top of a decade of delays already incurred. By staying close to schedule, access to city and state bond funds will not be threatened. 'The good news is that it is still on track,' Aparton said. 'Construction is still expected to begin in March 2026, right after the Lunar New Year and just 5½ months later than originally planned.' Still to be determined is who will cover the $4 million to $5 million cost of removal for the pedestrian bridge that spans Kearny Street and connects the square to the Hilton Financial District hotel and the attached Chinese Culture Center. The demolition of the span, known as 'the bridge to nowhere,' is a major aspect to the park design, but funding for the removal has been in dispute for years. 'While the city works through the bid process for the project, we are separately continuing to negotiate the outstanding issues related to the allocation of demolition costs between the city and the Hilton,' said Jen Kwart, spokesperson for the city attorney of San Francisco. 'The bid process will continue to proceed independent of the negotiations regarding cost allocation.' Counting the cost of studies, permits, outreach, project management, infrastructure improvements, and other ancillary expenses, the overall project has been valued at $71 million. Construction is expected to take 26 months and be completed in the summer of 2028. Portsmouth Square is a vital community outdoor space used daily by Chinatown residents, many of whom live in small single-room occupancy apartments. Neighborhood activists were informed of the restart of the bidding process at a community meeting last week. 'They seem to be pretty certain that it will only delay the project by five months,' said Annie Cheung, president and CEO of Self-Help for the Elderly, which runs classes, workshops and training programs out of the Portsmouth Square Clubhouse. She's been involved in planning for the new park for at least 12 years, and is hopeful that this is the last of many false starts. 'The community has been waiting for a long time for the new park,' she said. 'Most of our Chinatown residents live in SROs, and Portsmouth Square is our only major park and open space. No more delay.'
NDTV
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Terminally Ill Boy Fulfills Final Wish To Meet Viral Hippo Moo Deng
A six-year-old terminally ill child in Thailand, whose biggest dream was to visit the pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo, has passed away after being granted his dying wish. The boy, nicknamed Auto, had long dreamed of meeting Moo Deng, the lovable hippo that shot to prominence last year after her videos went viral on social media. Moo Deng's keepers, Khamoo and the team, took to social media to announce the heartbreaking news of Auto's death, adding that he managed to have an evening to adore the hippo. "At the end of last year, a group of doctors contacted us about a 6-year-old child who had terminal cancer. He really liked Moo Deng and wanted to see it for the last time in his life," Moo Deng's keepers wrote on social media. The zoo immediately made arrangements for little Auto despite the long queues of people waiting to see the hippo. Auto visited the zoo around Lunar New Year, accompanied by his parents and doctors. The caretakers stated that Moo Deng unexpectedly rested near the viewing area that day, rather than sleep in the water as she usually does, as if somehow understanding the significance of the visit. Afterwards, staff took Auto to choose a new souvenir. He picked out a capybara, another animal he adored. "We were so happy to be part of creating this joyful memory for him," the post continued. Also Read | WhatsApp Is Officially Getting Ads. Here's What Changes Social media reacts Social media users paid tributes to Auto and applauded Moo Deng's caretakers for fulfilling the boy's last wish. "Moo Deng really brings smiles and means a lot. The simple act of seeing beloved animals can bring such happiness moment. RIP," wrote one user while another added: "Sweet Auto, the world will remember you. You are now Moo Deng's guardian angel." A third commented: "Rest in peace, our little angel Auto, it's breaking my heart to read this. Thank you, Princess Moo Deng for bringing us joy and happiness." Moo Deng, whose name translates to "bouncy pig" in Thai, was born on July 20, 2024. The playful hippo became an internet sensation, with millions of fans following her delightful antics, which include attempts at play with her mother, hilarious gumming of her handler, and even a makeshift moonwalk.
Mint
4 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Why we should not write off the e-rupee yet
In 2019, Meta announced plans to launch a private digital currency. Fearing an onslaught of private cryptocurrencies, some countries responded by announcing their own central bank digital currencies (CBDC). Fast forward to today: Every G20 nation is exploring a CBDC, with 13 countries having plans in the pilot stage. Yet CBDCs have barely made a dent in national payment systems. India launched the e-rupee for individuals in December 2022. And yet, at the end of March 2025, the value of the e-rupee in circulation, at ₹1,016 crore, was a tiny drop in the ocean of India's digital payment ecosystem. The slow uptake of the digital rupee mirrors the experience of other countries. CBDCs launched earlier (Nigeria, China) and in countries with higher financial inclusion (Bahamas) also show low adoption rates. Nigeria launched the e-naira in October 2021; by May 2024, there were only 13 million e-naira wallets, many inactive (Nigeria's population was 232 million, and it had over 200 million mobile phones in 2024). China's e-CNY, launched in 2020, hit 180 million wallets by mid-2024, but reports suggest that many of the accounts are dormant. The value of CBDCs currently in circulation indicates poor public demand and a lack of incentive to shift from existing payment methods. Yet it would be wrong to conclude that the CBDC experiment was a failure, or to dismiss the e-rupee. In the long run, the success of the e-rupee will depend on how it is rolled out and what use-cases it can cater to. Patient rollout The Reserve Bank of India has been in no rush to roll out the e-rupee. The digital rupee remains at the pilot stage, available only to some customers of participating banks and non-banks. By going slow, and testing use-cases patiently and systematically, RBI has minimized outages and execution problems that plagued CBDC pioneers like Nigeria. Any effort to force adoption of the e-rupee could erode trust in the currency. Nigeria faced this situation in 2022 when old naira notes were withdrawn and replaced with new notes. Nigeria's central bank claimed the note ban would create a more cashless society, but the resulting cash shortage caused much hardship and severely eroded people's trust in the system. Worse, it did not have a lasting impact on the use of the digital naira. India hasn't even offered cash incentives to encourage adoption of the e-rupee. This is probably wise. Typically, consumers take advantage of such incentives and go back to old payment modes when the incentive ends. China gave 'red packets" of CBDCs during the Lunar New Year in 2021 to incentivise digital wallet downloads, but there is no evidence that it translated to greater use of the e-CNY. All that said, RBI's two smartest moves related to the digital currency have been allowing two non-banks to offer e-rupee wallets and making digital rupee wallets compatible with the ubiquitous UPI. Non-banks have a different customer base from banks and tend to be innovative in their product design. And in a country where the majority of digital payments ride on UPI, it would have been impossible for any digital wallet to succeed without being integrated with it. The e-rupee's potential There are two broad reasons to continue developing the e-rupee. First, it is a geopolitical imperative. As China pushes to internationalize its currency, the share of renminbi in global trade financing has gone up significantly. China has already built fintech infrastructure to settle cross-border transactions that bypass the US-dominated Swift. In response, several central banks are working on projects to link multiple CBDCs with the objective of facilitating fast and cheap international payments. Developing robust infrastructure will allow the e-rupee to link with other CBDCs when it becomes possible; this will be a big plus for India, given the size of the country's inward remittances. The rising popularity of cryptocurrencies in India could help drive greater adoption of the e-rupee. India's crypto adoption is quite high relative to its income level, and the e-rupee can be an effective foil for cryptocurrencies: it runs on the same secure blockchain technology but offers a safer store of value. Second, new use-cases for the e-rupee are continually being introduced and refined based on user experience. Direct transfer of government benefits to individual e-rupee wallets (as recently done in Odisha) is now par for the course. The real excitement is in programmable e-rupee. Programmed agricultural loans to tenant farmers in Andhra and Odisha have been piloted—these ensure that credit is used only to buy farm inputs from approved vendors. HDFC Bank has introduced user-programmable e-rupee wallets, which let the user decide the location and validity of use. RBI is also exploring offline usage, which can be a game-changer for remote rural areas. For example, e-rupee wallets can be pre-seeded in mobile phones in disaster-prone areas. Such wallets can be programmed to activate when disaster strikes, to give digital fund access to the affected population. The author is an independent writer in economics and finance.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Business Insider
My father and I work at AT&T together. On our hourlong commutes, he teaches me valuable lessons about life and my career.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nicole Wen, 25, who works at AT&T. It has been edited for length and clarity. My dad got a job at AT&T more than 26 years ago. After college, he told me about the company's amazing internship programs. I ended up doing three summer internships there throughout college, so that's how I got my foot in the door with the company. Today, we're both at AT&T. He is in a leadership position within sales, and I am a principal project program manager. When I first started my full-time job about two years ago, I was living in a townhouse super close to my dad's house, so we would carpool together every day for an hour each way. The most time I've ever spent with him was in those car rides, and it was very special because we learned so much about each other. My dad moved to America from Taiwan when he was 14 years old. He had to learn English, went to high school in California, and then to college in New York, where he met my mom. He then started working with a company that eventually became part of the AT&T family. During those car rides, he also shared a lot of life advice with me. The importance of having a good circle The more I got to know my dad, the more I realized he's a pretty cool guy. I learned he has more friends than I do. He's part of several social groups, like a Porsche club and a coffee club. He even writes a newsletter for a car club. You would think I would know everything about him since he is my father, but no, I never knew any of this about my dad. He's just got so much going on outside work. He inspired me to join an employee resource group. We do a lot of charity work and fundraising events. Our main mission is to support high school students and offer college scholarships. My dad started joining the events too, and that's another thing that we do together now. Our favorite event is the Lunar New Year event, and it's very special coming from a mixed-race household. It teaches me a lot more about my culture. We try all the food together, and it's a really nice bonding experience. Never say 'no' to an opportunity My dad always says, "Never say no to an opportunity, big or small." He often explains to me that opportunities don't come around all the time. It's always a chance to learn something new, and being uncomfortable is OK. This advice has helped me a lot in my networking. I never say no, just like he told me. So if I randomly get invited to a happy hour, that's not even on my own team, I still go — even if I'm tired. I've met a lot of people that way. Have multiple areas of expertise My dad also always says you have to have multiple areas of expertise to elevate your career. If you are an expert in one thing, you're going to be known as an expert for that one thing, and you're going to stay there. He says that's something that he wishes he did differently — expand his expertise versus just siloing in one spot. That definitely stuck with me. I now remind myself that it's good to move around. When I now start to feel comfortable, I seek out discomfort. Three months ago, for example, I accepted a new role coming from one in finance. Now, I'm doing chief of staff work, which is all about planning internal events and thinking about our operations. It's under a whole new set of leaders and seeing a side of the business that I haven't even touched on yet. I've gotten very uncomfortable, and it's been so great — thanks to my dad.
