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Sydney New Year's Fireworks Threatened with Cancellation

Fireworks light up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, Australia, January 1, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
Fireworks light up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, Australia, January 1, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
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Sydney New Year's Fireworks Threatened with Cancellation

Fireworks light up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, Australia, January 1, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
Fireworks light up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, Australia, January 1, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo

Sydney New Year's fireworks, one of the world's most spectacular celebrations of the calendar change, face being scrapped because of industrial action by train workers, police said Friday.

Up to 250,000 people are expected to come into Sydney to see the show, and they need to return home afterwards, said New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb.

"If trains are not available and people cannot leave the city, I have very large concerns of the risk that will create to the public," she told reporters.

"So I have not ruled out that we will recommend to the government that we cancel the fireworks."

The state's premier, Chris Minns, has rejected unions' "exorbitant" pay rise demands, with a hearing scheduled next week in the country's industrial relations tribunal.

According to AFP, the state rail, tram and bus union's secretary, Toby Warnes, said it had no plan to inconvenience people, accusing the state government of "scaring the people of New South Wales because it wants to pursue a particular industrial strategy.”

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Varieties

Parisians Will to Get a New Chance of Seine Swimming

People gather on the banks of the Seine River as the sun sets amid a severe heat wave in Paris, France, May 26, 2026. (Reuters)
People gather on the banks of the Seine River as the sun sets amid a severe heat wave in Paris, France, May 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Parisians Will to Get a New Chance of Seine Swimming

People gather on the banks of the Seine River as the sun sets amid a severe heat wave in Paris, France, May 26, 2026. (Reuters)
People gather on the banks of the Seine River as the sun sets amid a severe heat wave in Paris, France, May 26, 2026. (Reuters)

Swimmers will for the second year be able to cool off at designated points along the Seine River in Paris this summer, authorities said Friday, as well as along the Marne River in the suburbs.

In Paris, the swimming season was to open at three official bathing sites on July 4, the mayor's office said.

The Seine reopened to swimmers last summer for the first time in a century, after Paris poured more than a billion euros ($1.15 billion) into a years-long effort to making the waters clean enough to use in the 2024 Olympics.

Sites this year will again include the Bras de Grenelle near the Eiffel Tower, the Bras Marie -- a short walk from Notre-Dame -- and Bercy, on the eastern side.

Some 100,000 people last year queued to jump in, the city said, despite a slow start to the season with rain disrupting the water quality.

Some 50,000 swimmers jumped into the Marne River in the eastern suburbs last year.

The bathing spots in Joinville-le-Pont, Champigny-sur-Marne, Saint-Maur-des-Fosses and Maison-Alfort would again welcome swimmers. A fifth spot would be added this year at Neuilly-sur-Marne northeast of Paris.

French authorities warned against swimming in parts of the rivers without lifeguards.

Varieties

Independent Researcher Exposes Basic Blunder in Scores of Cancer Studies

Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
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Independent Researcher Exposes Basic Blunder in Scores of Cancer Studies

Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)

An independent researcher has uncovered potential blunder in scores of scientific studies, including cancer-related research, as a result of inappropriate antibody use in laboratory experiments, raising questions about the reliability of some of the results published in prestigious scientific journals.

The researcher found that scientists at Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford and other universities appear to have accidentally used the wrong ingredient in their experiments, muddling two proteins with similar names but entirely different sequences and functions.

Several British media outlets said researcher Sholto David reviewed the full text of 334 research papers to determine whether the antibody used in the studies was correctly intended for p16-ARC or incorrectly used to try and bind p16-INK4a.

P16-INK4a acts as a tumor suppressor by halting the cell cycle and is widely studied in cancer biology and is considered a key biomarker of ageing.

He found astonishing result: 95% of these papers have got it wrong.

“The vast majority of researchers who purchased antibodies have tried to use them to investigate p16-INK4a expression. Only 17 used these p16-ARC antibodies correctly,” he said in his research.

David said the implications are not good, to put it mildly.

“And these are not just insignificant papers. There are papers with hundreds of citations in high impact journals claiming to probe for p16-INK4a with antibodies which do not bind p16-INK4a,” he noted.

Varieties

Indonesia Volcano Erupts, Forcing Airport to Close

Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
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Indonesia Volcano Erupts, Forcing Airport to Close

Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)

A highly active volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted several times on Friday, spewing towering ash columns into the sky and forcing a local airport to close, authorities said.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores Island erupted at 11:15 am (0315 GMT), sending volcanic material 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) into the air, the national volcanology agency said in a statement.

It came after several other eruptions earlier on Friday.

Lewotobi Laki-Laki falls under Indonesia's second-highest alert level for volcanic activity, with a five-kilometer exclusion zone in force around its crater.

The volcanology agency said residents near rivers should also remain on alert for hazardous floods of volcanic material, known as lahar, if heavy rain occurs.

Authorities have suspended operations at a local airport in the town of Maumere, about 60 kilometers west of Lewotobi Laki-Laki, affecting five domestic flights, airport head Partahian Panjaitan told AFP.

Laki-Laki means "man" in Indonesian, and the 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano is twinned with a calmer 1,703-meter one named Perempuan after the Indonesian word for "woman".

Last July, Lewotobi Laki-Laki spewed a colossal 18-kilometer tower of ash, forcing the cancellation of 24 flights at the international airport on the resort island of Bali.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".