Heads up astronomers, astrologists, and all manner of moonstruck folk! Providing the sky is not too obscured by a Shanghai drizzle, your best chance in ten years to witness a total lunar eclipse is this Saturday, December 10th. more ›

A 40-year-old man has been apprehended by police after crushing a meter maid to death with his car over a disputed parking fee. The scene unfolded this morning at 10:30am in Xuhui District on Dong'An Road near XieTu Road. more ›

Hopefully this new Ikea will allow more opportunities to see some sexy portrait shots on display furniture. According to CNN GO, Shanghai's second Ikea actually opens up today in Pudong. At 49,400 square meters, it's the largest in Asia and the second largest in the world, beat only by IKEA Skärholmen near Stockholm. more ›

A dispute between two drunken men yesterday resulted in the killing of a baby boy in Shanghai's Xuhui district. more ›

Cities, with their masses of people and unrelenting bustle, become different beasts when the mercury rises every summer. For proto-urban jungle New York, the case has been made and unmade for climbing temperatures also leading to a corresponding spike in violent crime. more ›

It's funny how we have to rely on Hong Kong's Phoenix TV for something that happened in our own backyard. A few days ago, on Tianlin Road in Xuhui District, a man was seen with a woman on the ground with her shirt lifted to expose her breasts, seemingly in a daze. It's a busy downtown street with lots of passersby, but that doesn't stop the man from acting out his bedroom fantasies under broad daylight. It's unclear what the relationship between the man and the woman is, or if they know each other at all, but while lots of people are looking on at what's happening, nobody steps forward to help the woman. Oh well, it's just another day in Shanghai.
more ›

We pass this billboard (almost) every day, between Shanghaiist headquarters and the gym. For a long time it featured Barack Obama on the cover of the Chinese version of Men's Health. Recently a Twitter user named Shaquille O'Neal has taken the president elect's place. It's an ad for Li Ning basketball shoes, Shaq's brand of choice for a couple years now. (You might remember the real Li Ning from such Olympic opening ceremonies as Beijing 2008.) more ›

2012 could be your special year. Construction began yesterday on metro Line 12, which will connect Minhang district with northern Pudong, passing through Xuhui, Luwan, Jing'an, Zhabei, Hongkou and Yangpu along the way. Most eye-popping line: "Nineteen stations on Line 12 will connect with 16 other Metro lines." Line 19 (still in planning stage) being one of them. It doesn't seem too long ago that there were only two metro lines and there would be a mad dash for open seats at Shanghai Railway Station, because that is where Line 1 began. It doesn't seem too long ago, because it wasn't. By 2012, Shanghai is supposed to have 13 metro lines covering 500 kilometers. [Shanghai Daily] more ›

His name is Chen Jun. He's 18-years-old. And he was captured this morning in rural Anhui province, hundreds of kilometers from Shanghai. Some, actually most, facts are vague: In addition to cash and a laptop computer police say belonged to the victim Diana O'Brien, Chen was allegedly carrying "a weapon." We're also somewhat puzzled by this sentence: "The statement said police narrowed down suspects to Chen after they received reports that a medium-sized man was spotted riding a bicycle near the victim's residence." Police tracked this medium-sized Chinese man with a bicycle from Shanghai to Zhejiang to Anhui. The Shanghai Daily story says Chen confessed to the murder and claimed it was a robbery gone bad, which basically falls right in line with how police framed the incident from the first time they spoke on the matter. The story also says Chen could have at one time worked at a restaurant near O'Brien's apartment complex, reported to be Jinseng Plaza, 490 Zhaohua Road (which seems to be in Xuhui District, not Changning District, or Chongming Island, as was previously reported). We also learn that O'Brien "was found stabbed to death in her apartment building's stairwell" early Monday morning. We hope more pieces of the investigation puzzle will arrive soon. Foreign media all seem to have the same vague details so far. You can find two Chinese TV reports here and here. [Previous Shanghaiist reports here and here] more ›