Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Thailand’s adorable pygmy hippo has the kind of face that launches a thousand memes
CHONBURI, Thailand | Only a month after Thailand’s adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable.
Fans unable to make the two-hour drive to Khao Kheow Open Zoo from the Thai capital Bangkok to see her in person can watch her video clips online, or simply scroll through social media to savor meme after meme.
Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined the zoo’s newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar within weeks.
Cars started lining up outside the zoo well before it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from near and far for a chance to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in person at the zoo about 60 miles southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mom, Jona, was packed almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements.
“It was beyond expectation,” Atthapon told The Associated Press. “I wanted people to know her. I wanted a lot of people to visit her, or watch her online, or leave fun comments. I never would’ve thought (of this).”
Moo Deng, which literally means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a poll on social media, and it matches her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippo at the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).
“She’s such a little lump. I want to ball her up and swallow her whole!” said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya while visiting the zoo Thursday.
Artists have drawn cartoons, cakes and latte art based on her, and social media platform X even featured her in its official account’s post.
Her image adorns memes by German soccer team FC Bayern, American basketball team Phoenix Suns, and American football team Washington Commanders, as well as the New York Mets. Simple photo manipulation puts her in a variety of headgear or human-like situations.
Businesses, too, have utilized her image. Sephora Thailand has a makeup tip — “wear your blush like a baby hippo” — highlighting her pink cheeks, while food delivery app Grab Thailand imagined with photos what kind of meal she could garnish.
With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi said they have begun copyrighting and trademarking “Moo Deng the hippo” to prevent the animal from being commercialized by anyone else. “After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will make the animals’ lives better,” he said.
The zoo sits on 800 hectares (almost 2,000 acres) of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals. It runs breeder programs for many endangered species like Moo Deng’s. The pygmy hippopotamus that’s native to West Africa is threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. There are only 2,000-3,000 of them left in the wild.
To help fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that will be ready for sale at the end of the month, with more merchandise to come.
Narongwit believes a factor of Moo Deng’s fame is her name, which compliments her energetic and chaotic personality captured in Atthapon’s creative captions and video clips.
Appropriately, Moo Deng likes to “deng,” or bounce, and Atthapon has many moments of her giddy bouncing on social media. Even when she’s not bouncing, the hippo is endlessly cute — squirming as Atthapon tries to wash her, biting him while he was trying to play with her, calmly closing her eyes as he rubs her pinkish cheeks or her chubby belly.
Atthapon, who has worked at the zoo for eight years taking care of hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, said baby hippos are usually more playful and energetic, and they become calmer as they get older.
The zoo saw a spike in visitors since Moo Deng’s fame — so much that the zoo now has to limit public access to the baby’s enclosure to 5-minute windows throughout the day during weekends.
Narongwit said the zoo has been receiving over 4,000 visitors during a weekday, up from around just 800 people, and more than 10,000 during a weekend, up from around 3,000 people.
But the fame has also brought some aggressive visitors to Moo Deng, who only wakes up ready to play about two hours a day. Some videos showed visitors splashing water or throwing things at the sleeping Moo Deng to try to wake her up. The hippo pit now has a warning sign against throwing things at Moo Deng, posted prominently at the front in Thai, English and Chinese.
Narongwit said the zoo would take action under the animal protection law if people mistreat the animal. But clips emerged of people treating Moo Deng poorly, and the backlash was fierce. The zoo director said that since then, they haven’t seen anyone doing it again.
For fans who can’t make the journey or are discouraged after seeing the crowds for Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo set up cameras and plan to start a 24-hour live feed of the baby hippo in the coming week.
Carter receives Holbrooke award from Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation
NEW YORK | Less than two weeks before his 100th birthday, former President Jimmy Carter is receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, which has set aside its longstanding rule that the winner accept the honor in person.
The Ohio-based foundation announced Thursday that Carter was this year’s winner of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, named for the late diplomat. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights advocacy and for brokering such agreements as the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel.
Carter, who turns 100 on Oct. 1, is in hospice care in Plains, Georgia. His grandson, Jason Carter, will accept the prize on his behalf during a November ceremony that will honor the former president’s peace efforts and his authorship of more than 30 books — what the foundation calls “the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.”
“For the past 17 years, one of the standing requirements to receive the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award was a guaranty that the recipient would appear in person in Dayton, OH for an on-stage interview and an awards ceremony,” Nicholas A. Raines, executive director of the Dayton foundation, said in a statement. “This year we have decided to waive that requirement and present the award in absentia, to President Jimmy Carter.”
Jason Carter said in a statement that two of his grandfather’s “most enduring interests have been a devotion to literature and a near-constant pursuit of a peaceful resolution to conflict.”
“It is gratifying to have the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation choose to honor my grandfather with the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award for a lifetime of work melding two of his loves — literature and peace,” Jason Carter added.
On Thursday, the Foundation also announced that Paul Lynch’s “Prophet Song” won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction and Victor Luckerson’s “Built from the Fire” won for nonfiction.
Lynch and Luckerson each will receive $10,000. Fiction runner-up, “The Postcard” author Anne Berest, and nonfiction finalist, “Red Memory” author Tania Branigan, each get $5,000.
A charred transformer on a Kyiv square makes for an unusual Ukraine war exhibit
KYIV, Ukraine | A charred transformer from one of Ukraine’s badly damaged power plants has come to a square in Kyiv’s city center — a stark reminder of the scale of destruction caused by Russian strikes on the country’s energy system.
The massive blackened hulk juxtaposed with a Ferris wheel further down Kontraktova Square — or Square of Contracts in honor of the place’s mercantile past — also serves as a contrast between the peacetime that was and the harsh reality of war in Ukraine.
The exhibition by private energy company DTEK, a nongovernmental organization and Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy opened on Thursday with a message urging people to feel “the pain and despair over the destroyed equipment” that energy workers experience first hand.
The organizers said that while they realize the transformer creates a somber atmosphere, their intention was not to “get anyone down” but to raise awareness of how difficult it is to bring light back to the houses in Ukraine after every Russian attack.
The exhibit is to stay in Kyiv for the next two months — by then, Ukraine will inch closer to what will likely be another winter of war.
The government has warned residents to brace for their toughest winter yet since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022 as airstrikes against the country’s beleaguered energy infrastructure intensify.
Russia continues to hammer Ukraine’s energy generation capacity, leaving the country heavily reliant on its three functioning nuclear power stations and electricity imports from European Union countries.
According to Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko, there have been over 1,000 attacks targeting the country’s power grid.
“There is no place, no region, no type of energy infrastructure that has not been affected by these attacks,” he said in a statement.
Ukrainians, meanwhile, have to cope with frequent nationwide blackouts, enduring hours without electricity. The shortages have exacerbated war fatigue as there appears no end of the conflict in sight.
Dmytro Tiuzin, a 37-year-old IT specialist who lives near Kontraktova Square, said he came to see the transformer in person on Thursday after seeing images of the installation on social media.
“I am worrying about it,” he said of the destruction of Ukraine’s power system. “I work remotely and I am very dependent on the electricity and internet.”
In the months between March and August, Russia launched nine coordinated attacks against electricity infrastructure in Ukraine, destroying approximately 9 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity, according to a U.N. report on Thursday.
The amount represents half of Ukraine’s energy needs during the winter months, the report by the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission said.
“This winter will be bad enough with people likely having to cope with scheduled blackouts across the country,” said Danielle Bell, head of the mission. “Any additional attacks leading to prolonged electricity blackouts could have catastrophic consequences.”
Rebuilding the damage caused may take years. The Kyiv School of Economics in an assessment published in May estimated that restoring the energy sector will require $50 billion.
“This project is not meant to … make people feel depressed about how bad things are,” said Katya Taylor from the Port of Culture, an NGO that curated the exhibition.
“But rather, just to thank those people who are there for us,” she added.
Serhii, a worker from the power plant where the transformer was brought from, said he had spent 32 years of his life working there. The name of the power plant and Serhii’s family name could not be disclosed under government regulations due to security concerns.
“Sometimes tears come to my eyes, seeing this,” he said.
The destruction he witnessed also makes him angry and determined not give up, “no matter what.”
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs will stay in jail after bail is denied for a second time
NEW YORK | Sean “Diddy” Combs is staying locked up after a judge Wednesday rejected the hip-hop mogul’s proposal that he await his sex trafficking trial in the luxury of his Florida mansion instead of a grim Brooklyn federal jail.
U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter ruled that Combs’ plan — which included a $50 million bail offer, GPS monitoring and strict limitations on visitors — was “insufficient” to ensure the safety of the community and the integrity of his case.
Carter, agreeing with prosecutors who fought to keep Combs in jail, found that “no condition or set of conditions” governing his release could guard against the risk of him threatening or harming witnesses — a central charge in his case.
Combs’ lawyers were making their second attempt in as many days to spring him from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held since pleading not guilty Tuesday to charges he physically and sexually abused women for years.
Combs has been in federal custody since his arrest Monday night at a Manhattan hotel. A federal magistrate on Tuesday rejected Combs’ initial bail request. On Wednesday, he and his lawyers struck out with Carter, the judge who will preside over his trial.
Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo says he will now ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Carter’s ruling and release Combs. In the meantime, he wants Combs moved from the Brooklyn lockup, which has been plagued by rampant violence and horrific conditions, to a jail in New Jersey. Carter said decisions on placement are entirely up to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
“I’m not going to let him sit in that jail a day longer than he has to,” Agnifilo said to reporters outside the courtroom.
Combs looked at family members and tapped his heart several times as Wednesday’s hearing began, then sat stoically as he listened to arguments. Afterward, as federal agents led him away, his relatives somberly embraced and exchanged hand slaps.
Combs, 54, is accused in an indictment of using his “power and prestige” to induce female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” that Combs arranged, participated in and often recorded on video. The events would sometimes last days and Combs and victims would often receive IV fluids to recover, the indictment said.
The indictment alleges Combs coerced and abused women for years, with the help of a network of associates and employees, while using blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings to keep victims from speaking out.
Arguing to keep Combs in jail, prosecutor Emily Johnson told Carter that the once-celebrated rapper has a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse. She cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them into “Freak Offs” and then threatened to leak videos of them engaging in sex acts.
Johnson said Combs’ defense team was “minimizing and horrifically understating” Combs’ propensity for violence, taking issue with his lawyer’s portrayal of a 2016 assault at a Los Angeles hotel as a lovers’ quarrel. Security video of the event, which only came to light in May, showed Combs hitting and kicking his then-girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in a hotel hallway.
“What’s love got to do with that?” an incredulous Carter asked.
Johnson also seized on a text message from a woman who said Combs dragged her down a hallway by her hair. According to Johnson, the woman told the rapper: “I’m not a rag doll, I’m someone’s child.”
“There is a longstanding pattern of abuse here,” Johnson said.
Combs’ Florida house is on Star Island, a man-made dollop of land in Biscayne Bay near Miami Beach, reachable only by a causeway or boat. It is among the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs’ request echoed that of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to post multimillion-dollar bails in exchange for home detention in luxurious surroundings.
If he had been granted bail, Combs would have been confined to his home, with visits restricted to family, property caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators, his lawyers said. After prosecutors said they served a search warrant Tuesday on Combs’ private security chief, his lawyers offered to hire a new firm to monitor him and ensure he abided by the proposed agreement.
Carter was unmoved, questioning the plan as an “allegedly fool-proof system.”
Many allegations in Combs’ indictment parallel accusations in a November lawsuit filed by Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. Combs settled the suit the next day, but its allegations have followed him since.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Without naming Ventura but clearly referring to her, Agnifilo argued that the entire criminal case is an outgrowth of one long-term, troubled-but-consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity. The “Freak Offs,” he contended, were an expansion of that relationship, and not coercive.
“The sex and the violence were totally separate and motivated by totally different things,” Agnifilo said, contending that Combs and Cassie brought sex workers into their relationship because “that was the way these two adults chose to be intimate.”
Prosecutors portrayed the scope as larger. They said they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses.
Like many aging hip-hop figures, Bad Boy Records founder Combs had established a gentler public image. The father of seven was a respected businessman whose annual Hamptons “White Party” was once a must-have invitation for the jet-setting elite.
But prosecutors said he facilitated his crimes using the same companies, people and methods that vaulted him to power. They said they would prove the charges with financial and travel records, electronic communications and videos of the “Freak Offs.”
In March, authorities raided Combs’ Los Angeles and Florida homes, seizing drugs, videos and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, prosecutors said. They said agents also seized guns and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
A conviction on every charge would require a mandatory 15 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.
—From AP reports
