World News 4.0

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Greece. An anonymous Greek collector recently spent $23,000 on a cracker that survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The 103-year-old English biscuit was stored in a Kodak film envelope and saved by James Fenwick on the rescue boat Carpathian. The cracker was delivered with a note that reads: “Pilot biscuit from Titanic lifeboat April 1912.” Alan Aldridge, from the Henry Aldridge & Sons auction house that sold the piece, explained that the composition of the three-and-a-half inch cracker is what kept it intact: “If you get one of those and leave it out, it will dry and it will fossilize,” he said.

The Washington Post

Tajikistan. President Emomali Rahmon inaugurated a giant melon-shaped tea house in the city of Hisor Oct. 27 to commemorate the city’s 300th anniversary. At 141 feet tall, the building can accommodate over 2,000 people at once. The melon shape was inspired by the fruit’s prevalence and popularity in central Asia. Some were doubtful that the tea house would ever be fully used and raised concerns online over the state’s misuse of financial resources. One person called it a “useless pompous construction.”

BBC News

United States. The Tennessee state legislature passed a new bill Friday, establishing a statewide animal abuse registry, to be enacted Jan. 1. The first bill of its kind in the United States, it ensures a registry will be made available to the public that records any person’s offense against animals in the past two years. If the person has multiple offenses, they will remain on the list for five years. Amber Mullins, communication director for the Humane Society of Tennessee Valley, believes this will benefit shelters and make their adoption processes safer for the animals. “The main advantage is to be able to check the list before we do our adoptions. We interview the people who come in, of course, but we want to know that the animals are going to good homes,” Mullins said.

HLN

Chile. The Chilean government began the recall process of eroticized Little Red Riding Hood books that were accidentally distributed to 283 elementary schools throughout the southern town of Rio Bueno. The books do not contain the folk story that originated during the Middle Ages but instead tell sexualized versions of the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. The mistake of distributing the books was brought to the attention of the government after a student at one school approached his teacher with questions about the book’s inappropriate content. The book was written by Colombian writer Pilar Quintana in 2012. Luis Reyes, mayor of Rio Bueno, presented the case to Chile’s education ministry this week after he claimed that the stories “cause irreparable damage to our students.”

BBC News

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