News of the World: What you missed this week internationally

ENGLAND

UK’s largest chalk hill figure, the 180-foot-high Cerne Abbas Giant, is getting a makeover. The etching, drawn on a hillside above Cerne Abbas, a village in Dorset, England, was shrouded in mystery until 2020, when scientists dug the ground underneath it and determined it was carved in the late Saxon period, between 700 to 1100 AD. It is now getting a rechalking, where the old chalk is removed and new chalk is packed in its place.

The 180-foot-high Cerne Abbas Giant dates back to the late Saxon period. AFP via Getty Images

MEXICO

She scored big. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who famously hosted a soccer ball juggling competition to give her World Cup ticket to a lucky young female, announced the winner on Friday. Yolett Cervantes Cuaquehua, a 21-year-old Indigenous woman from the Gulf coast state of Veracru, earned the ticket, which includes viewing the opening ceremony June 11 in Mexico City and the Mexico vs. South Africa match.

Yolette Cervantes, center, won a soccer ball juggling contest to score World Cup tickets. AFP via Getty Images

JAPAN

Male fiddler crabs on a Japanese beach are providing entertainment for beachgoers as they emerge from their burrows and perform their annual dance. The male creatures, located on Miwasaki coast in Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture, lower their claws in unison, resembling a synchronized dance, which is believed to be an attempt to attract females or scare away rivals. Their ritual usually starts as temperatures rise in May and ends in the fall.

AUSTRALIA

The government is suing the American consumer product conglomerate 3M for over US$1.4 billion in damages over contamination from firefighting foam at 28 defense bases. The foam contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, but referred to as “forever chemicals” due to their failure to naturally break down. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland accused the company, which is based in Minnesota, of withholding information about the manmade foam’s environmental risks.

INDIA

Mumbai’s beloved dabbawalas are at risk of disappearing. The deliverymen, who for over a century have provided hot, home-cooked meals of curries, rice, and flatbreads to office workers in lunchboxes called dabbas, have significantly decreased in number. Pre-COVID, almost 4,500 dabbawalas delivered around 50,000 lunch boxes across Mumbai daily, but now roughly 1,500 remain since many abandoned the gig when offices shut down.

With Wires