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[Metro & Sports]

• Tickets to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo go on sale to individuals starting today at more than 3,200 outlets across China. Previously, only group tickets had been on sale.
• Thousands of houses and dozens of small bridges were destroyed during a 5.6-magnitude aftershock that struck Mianzhu, in Sichuan province yesterday.
• The Walt Disney Co and Hong Kong's government have reached a deal to expand the territory's Disneyland theme park at a cost of about $465 million US dollars.
• The feet of Chinese athletes are certainly in the news recently with the comeback date of hurdler Liu Xiang, one of the nation's biggest names in sports, now in doubt.
• Brazilian playmaker Kaka was officially presented as a Real Madrid player, after being handed the number eight jersey in front of thousands of supporters and a huge media contingent at the club's Bernabeu stadium.
• Twice defending champion Venus Williams powered into the Wimbledon semifinals with another impressive display.

[China's Champion] Taiwan 2009 Film Show Launched on the Chinese Mainland

As "Transformers" hits the Chinese mainland, a series of films from Taiwan have also treated audiences in Beijing and Tianjin to some of the local culture and some touching stories. Chen Zhe has the details.

[Cultural Voyage] Chinese prefer boys to girls?

Recently, there was an interesting article in the New York Times:
According to U.S. census data, there are small but distinct deviations in the proportion of boys and girls born to Americans of Chinese, Indian and Korean descent.

[Showbiz]

• The long-awaited "Charm of China" concert by Grammy-nominated Chinese soprano Song Zuying attracted a full house at the Bird's Nest in Beijing last night.
• Farrah Fawcett was remembered at a Los Angeles funeral that was full of love, emotion and prayer.
• Emma Watson was blissfully ignorant about the size of her bank account until it was handed over to her on her 18th birthday last year. The "Harry Potter" star tells the August issue of Elle UK she had no idea playing wise witch Hermione Granger had netted her a fortune in the neighbourhood of $16 million.
• Amy Winehouse apparently has fleas and needs to be fumigated. The London Sun says the issues-plagued singer has been rescuing dogs during her extended stay on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, which has left her swanky digs at a resort complex jumping with the teeny biting insects.

[Strange News]

• A stolen snake was found in Australia - after it ate an endangered marsupial fitted with a tracking device.
• A man in Oregon was so angry over a mix-up with his order at McDonalds he repeatedly called 911, demanding they send a police officer - only to end up being arrested himself.
• A Wisconsin teenager used the classic lame excuse for evading schoolwork when he missed a class trip to Peru. However, on this occasion, the excuse was actually true: his dog really had eaten his passport.
• In an impressive bid to make the police's work easier, a burglar in the U.S. managed to accidentally take a picture of himself with his victim's mobile phone while robbing their house.