Compiled by C. ARUNO, PANG SHIANG YIH and R. ARAVINTHAN

       A 135-year-old rain tree uprooted during a storm in Taiping has been successfully replanted, reported Sin Chew Daily.

       Following five days of backbreaking work, a landscaping company has finally got it to stand upright once more.

       According to the project supervisor known only as Sabri, workers cut off rotten roots and dug a deeper hole before pulling the tree back in place with the help of a crane.

       “Due to the weight of the rain tree, the company used a crane to hoist the tree up,” he said.

       Once the tree was pulled back in place, the company secured its branches with steel wire to prevent it from tilting over during a storm.

       “After this, we will continue to monitor the tree until it is fully recovered,” Sabri said.

       It was earlier reported that the tree, located at Taiping’s Lake Gardens, had been uprooted during a storm on Feb 22 and broke a stone bench and bent a lamppost when it fell.

       Taiping’s Lake Gardens is home to some 140 rain trees ranging between 80 and 130 years old.

       According to the Taiping Municipal Council, each tree is valued at around RM1mil and they will often hire experts to rid the trees of parasites.

       A rain tree can live up to between 150 and 200 years.

       A similar incident happened in 2016 when a 130-year-old tree was uprooted by a storm.

       However, following emergency treatment from arborists, the tree remains standing and is in good health today.

       > A video of a group of dogs chasing a wild boar in Johor sent Internet users into fits of laughter, reported China Press.

       The 32-second footage, which is believed to have been taken on Jalan Tan Swee Ho in Batu Pahat, showed a lost boar running for its life while being chased by four dogs.

       When it seemed that the wild boar had nowhere to go, it ran into a Petronas petrol station where it managed to lose the dogs by making a turn and running into some bushes.

       When the video went viral on Facebook, many users commented, saying the boar must have wandered into the dogs’ territory, which triggered their instincts to protect their home.

       Others, however, joked the video was the best representation of the Chinese idiom “pig pal dog friend”, which is often used to describe bad friends.

       > A man in China’s Hebei province, who was supposed to get married in February, was shocked to find out that his fiancée was a man, reported China Press – but not in a The Crying Game way.

       It was reported that the man, known as Xiao Gong, met the woman of his dreams online in January and decided to get hitched immediately.

       He had even paid a bride price of 250,000 yuan (RM166,420) to the “woman” after she claimed that her parents were ill and that she needed money for their medical bills.

       However, on the day of the wedding, the fiancée was nowhere to be seen.

       With the help of the police, Xiao Gong managed to track down his fiancée to a rented house, only to make the shocking discovery that “she” was a “he”.

       Police revealed that the man had cross-dressed as a woman to carry out wedding scams.

       He has since been detained by the police and is expected to be charged.

       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.