A cruise ship carrying 458 people has capsized on the Yangtze river

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NEED TO KNOW:

A cruise ship carrying 458 people capsized in the Yangtze River Monday evening. So far, more than 18 hours later, only a handful of the passengers have been rescued alive.

The boat was sailing between two of China's largest cities — Nanjing and Chongqing. It's a trip that takes several days. Both the ship's captain and chief engineer survived. They are now in police custody. State media reported that the two men told investigators that the boat was hit by a tornado.

The New York Times reported that there were indeed storms in the region, but whether or not any of them rose to the level of a tornado — a term the Chinese use more loosely than Americans — is another matter. Another cruise ship company that was sailing the same route at the same time apparently stopped at a port along the way to avoid the bad weather.

The ship's passengers were mostly older people on group tours. The Oriental Star, as the ship is called, was on a 10-day trip. The boat continues to float upside down in the river. Local media reported that rescuers believed most of the people were still trapped inside. Photos circulating on social media showed rescuers lying down on the hull of the ship listening for voices and other signs of life.

In a sign of how seriously the Chinese government is taking the disaster, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the scene on Tuesday. The Chinese government also told all local journalists to stay away from the scene, which it often does when disasters take place.

The way things are going this tragedy could be worse than the sinking of a South Korean ferry last year, which left 304 people dead. The captain of that ship had leapt overboard, abandoning the distressed passengers, and was eventually sentenced to more than three decades in prison.  

WANT TO KNOW:

Thanks to the internet, cats are enjoying a level of devotion and celebrity perhaps not seen since they were worshipped in ancient Egypt so many thousands of years ago. Back then, however, the penalties for injuring or killing a cat were severe. Today, less so.

Some cats have been hunted so severely, or have had their habitats so utterly devastated by humans, that they have near ceased to exist. The Iberian lynx, for instance, which has long roamed the hills of Spain and Portugal, numbered more than 100,000 a century ago. Today that number has shrunk to less than 500. That is very close to total extinction. The Iberian lynx is the world's most endangered cat.

The lynx has suffered on multiple fronts. It's been hunted by poachers. Its land has been overrun by farms and people. Last year 21 lynx were run over by cars in Spain. Perhaps most devastating is the shrinking rabbit population, which the lynx depends on for food. That's how an ecosystem works and that's how easy it is to throw it all out of whack. Now, an animal whose ancestors were worshipped like gods is on the verge of being wiped out entirely.

Fortunately there are intrepid and caring souls who are working hard for little pay to prevent this. They work — some of them live — at a high-security compound hidden deep in the hills above a medieval town in southern Portugal. And this year so far they've helped 11 lynx cubs come into the world. In time, this cat may actually have a chance.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Paris is touted as the City of Love. So a lot of people go there to celebrate their marriage or propose or whatever. And in the last decade a lot of those people have taken to hanging padlocks — "love locks" — on bridges, and then throwing the keys into the river Seine.

They write little messages on the locks and they take pictures and they swoon. Over time they have taken this eye roll-inducing gesture and turned it into a blight on the Paris landscape, not to mention the poor river, which is probably not in love with the thousands of keys now piled up in its silt.

But the city says the real problem is the weight of all that enduring love. The bridges can't take it (who can?). So a bunch of men in bright yellow safety vests were given the somewhat disturbing job this week of hacking apart all those heartfelt symbols. The City of Love, contravening its moniker, has decided to ban the love-lock practice. And the forsaken, of course, are freaking out. Their love locks have been broken. What does it mean?!