Wednesday, November 13

35 people were killed in a deadly car attack on Monday in Zhuhai, China, proving how dangerous a poor mental state can be.

The car attack took place near the city of Zhuhai, a large city located on the Pearl River Delta, which is also home to Macau, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen. It has a population of about 2.5 million people. Witnesses stated that they had been exercising at the Zhuhai Sports Center when a car barreled onto the track, driving in a loop as it hit dozens of people. Before exiting, the car ran over scores of people, killing 35 citizens and injuring at least 43 others.

Police rushed to the scene after the incident and managed to detain the culprit-- a 62-year-old man with the last name Fan. According to initial investigations, the man was unhappy with his recent divorce settlement over a property dispute, leading to the rampage. He is currently in a coma and is being treated for "self-inflicted wounds," as he was found injured in his car with a knife.

However, China seems to be attempting to keep the accident under wraps. All queries on local search engines have been heavily censored by the country's Great Firewall over the past few days, but footage of the aftermath of the attack has been posted by users of X, formerly Twitter. Multiple other websites have also been able to slip by China's online defenses, allowing small amounts of information to slip through to the rest of the world.

Officials have completely shut down the sports center as they clean up the mess, and almost no information has been available through Chinese news sources or social media platforms. For over a day after the attack, any blog, news, or social media posts referring to the incident were quickly taken down, leaving most of the details unknown. This is common practice in China, where any information or video pertaining to large incidents is thoroughly censored by the government.

In fact, in one video posted by the BBC, a news reporter was seen speaking about the attack when a Chinese man walked up to the camera and aggressively forced them to stop filming, pushing the reporter and hitting the camera until they stopped their broadcast.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has confirmed that the offender will face serious punishment, and he has called for officials to ensure that catastrophes like Monday's disaster do not occur again. Unfortunately, random attacks like this have happened several times in the past few months: a knife attack at a supermarket in Shanghai in October killed three people and injured 15 others, a stabbing in Shenzhen in September killed a 10-year-old boy, a large bus crash in the province of Shandong in September killed 11 people, and a knife attack in the province of Yunnan in May killed two people and injured 21 others.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): If you put your two fists together, with fingers touching, that is approximately the size of your brain. An adult brain weighs around three pounds-- usually around 2% of their body weight.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause. (Charlie Chaplin)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Labile (adj)- Someone or something described as labile is readily open to change. Labile can also be used as a synonym of unstable to describe things that are readily or continually undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown.

In a Sentence: The director was known for being exacting but also labile, open to actors' interpretations of characters.