Cultural event for promoting CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala held in U.S. port city

A cultural event for promoting the 2026 Spring Festival Gala to be presented by China Media Group (CMG) was held on Tuesday at the Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington State, gathering both Chinese and U.S. representatives in cultural exchange amid a festive atmosphere.

"Prelude to the Spring Festival Gala - The World Watches the CMG Gala Together" was jointly held by the CMG, the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the Chinese Table Tennis Association, and the U.S.-China Youth and Student Exchange Association.

The event brought together nearly 500 representatives from both China and the U.S.

A choir made up of students from the Lincoln High School presented both Chinese and English songs and sent Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people.

Similar overseas events are set to be held in multiple other countries, including France, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil and Egypt.

The CMG has held the "Prelude to the Spring Festival Gala" event for three years in a row.

The Spring Festival Gala, also known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, has been a major cultural symbol for the Chinese New Year celebrations in China since its debut in 1983. On every Chinese New Year's Eve, families and friends across the country gather to enjoy a mixed show of songs, dances, comic sketches, operas, and folk arts, among other performances.

The gala is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's most-watched TV program.

Cultural event for promoting CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala held in U.S. port city

Cultural event for promoting CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala held in U.S. port city

Cultural event for promoting CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala held in U.S. port city

At least one person has died and several others have been hospitalized after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia’s Maluku Strait early on Thursday morning, with the quake also causing varying degrees of damage to multiple buildings in Manado, the capital city of the North Sulawesi province. The quake struck at 06:48 local time Thursday at a magnitude of 7.4 and a depth of 30 kilometers, according to measurements by the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

There were scenes of panic outside a hospital in Manado when the quake hit, with several seconds of intense shaking causing cracks to appear in the building of the medical facility which belongs to the Siloam private healthcare group.

Patients and medical staff were urgently evacuated to the roadside, with some seen in wheelchairs or still connected to intravenous (IV) drips, while others were even pushed out of the wards on their hospital beds. A car parked downstairs was hit by falling debris, shattering its windows.

"Some people were sleeping at the time, some had just undergone surgery, and others were receiving treatment. The earthquake damaged the hospital's ceiling, and I also saw some cracks in the walls," said Billy Lombok, the family member of a patient.

A tsunami warning was issued but later lifted following the quake as Indonesian authorities observed no significant sea level changes.

Patients rushed out from hospital building as 7.4-magnitude quake hits Indonesia, killing one