Briefly

UNITED KINGDOM

Peppa Pig saves a briefly speechless PM

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was momentarily lost for words on Monday when he lost his place in notes during a speech before regaling business leaders with an anecdote about his recent visit to a Peppa Pig theme park. Johnson sighed as he searched through his notes and said "blast it" and repeatedly muttered "forgive me" as his speech to the Confederation of British Industry was briefly interrupted at the Port of Tyne. When asked about the speech, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told the BBC that it does not raise concerns about Johnson's leadership.

UNITED STATES

Spacecraft aims to push asteroid off course

A spacecraft that must ultimately crash to succeed was launched on Tuesday from California on a NASA mission to demonstrate the world's first planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth. The DART payload, about the size of a small car, was released from the booster minutes after launch to begin a 10-month journey into deep space, nearly 11 million kilometers from Earth.

INDIA

Wedding music blamed for chicken deaths

A traditional wedding procession with pumping music and dancing has been blamed for the deaths of 63 chickens. Ranjit Kumar Parida said the party was blasting out "earsplitting noise" as it passed his poultry farm in Odisha on Sunday. A vet told Parida the chickens had died of heart attack, and he filed a complaint to the police after wedding organizers refused to pay compensation. The story had a happy ending－except for the chickens－after police convinced the warring parties to "solve the matter mutually".

Xinhua - Agencies