Compiled by JUNAID IBRAHIM, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN

       VETERAN singer Peggy Lai has taken on vows to become a Buddhist nun, Nanyang Siang Pau reported.

       Witnessed by her peers in the entertainment industry, the Malaysian folk singer underwent the ceremony to shave her head at 8.30am on Sunday at the Sun Tau Jing Sheh temple in Petaling Jaya.

       According to Lai’s preceptor Master Shan Fa, the singer had taken refuge in the Three Jewels – the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha – some 20 years ago and has been a practising vegetarian for the past eight years.

       Master Shan Fa, who conducted the ceremony, said Lai had expressed her wish to become a nun three years ago, and to study and practise Buddhism full time.

       Lai said her life before putting on the nun’s robe had been exciting and that she wanted to use the remainder of her life to influence others to get to know and study Buddhism together.

       > King of Mandopop Jay Chou (pic) raked in more than US$10mil (RM42mil) after his newly-launched Phanta Bear non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were sold out in mere seconds, according to Sin Chew Daily.

       Priced at US$1,000 (RM4,200) each, all 10,000 units of the NFT artwork were snapped up, making it one of the top six most popular such tokens on the NFT marketplace OpenSea.

       Chou’s Phanta Bear NFT sales even surpassed the newly launched Justin Bieber-themed NFTs.

       The Phanta Bear series was a collaboration between Chou’s PHANTACi brand and digital firm Ezek.

       It was reported that in just hours after the Phanta Bear NFTs were sold out, they were being offered at several times their original price on the secondary market.

       NFTs are a form of crypto asset which uses blockchain (a digital public ledger of transactions) to record ownership details and provide proof of authenticity.

       All kinds of digital objects – images, videos, music, texts and even tweets – can be turned into an NFT.

       > A woman’s fertilised eggs were destroyed after a hospital was inundated during the recent floods in Peninsular Malaysia, China Press reported.

       The victim wrote that she had received multiple subcutaneous fertility shots before managing to successfully fertilise her eggs, only to have them completely wiped out by the floods.

       “Paid a sum of money, received numerous injections only to get a phone call letting me know of this. I want to cry but there are no tears,” she wrote.

       She added that she was uncertain whether she should sue the hospital for negligence or emotional trauma.

       Many Internet users, especially those who have gone through in-vitro fertilisation treatment, sympathised with her, with some asking her to consider legal action and others telling her to review her contract with the hospital to see if she was eligible for compensation in the event of a natural disaster.

       However, the victim replied that the compensation for which she was eligible was negligible.

       The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.