Conservative groups are threatening to block Switzerland from hosting next year’s Eurovision by forcing budget referendums on potential host cities, saying the song contest is a “propaganda event” that “celebrates satanism and occultism”.

Switzerland won the right to host the world’s largest live music event after the Swiss singer Nemo triumphed in Sweden with The Code. The cities of Zurich, Geneva, Bern and Basel have all filed applications to host the five-day spectacle.

The Christian conservative Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) party, however, has said it will seek to make use of the country’s direct democracy system to put the bidding cities’ loan applications to the vote.

“The Eurovision song contest is a ghastly propaganda occasion”, the EDU said in a social media post on Tuesday. “A country that provides a stage to such disgusting trash won’t elevate its image but merely showcase its own intellectual decline.”

Samuel Kullmann, a senior EDU politician, told the Swiss broadcaster SRF his party was disturbed by Eurovision’s increasing “celebration, or at least tolerance of … satanism and occultism”. “More and more artists present openly occultist messages and underline them with respective symbols,” he said.

The gods must be angry — or just laughing at the hubris of humanity.

Authorities in Mexico have slapped a “closure” order on a 10-foot-tall (3-meter) aquatic statue of the Greek god of the sea Poseidon that was erected in May in the Gulf of Mexico just off the town of Progreso, Yucatan.

Mexico’s environmental protection agency said late Thursday that the statue, which appears to show an angry trident-wielding Poseidon “rising” from the sea a few meters from the beach, lacked permits. In the few months it has been up, tourists had gathered to take pictures of themselves with it as a striking background.

But it was symbolically “closed” Thursday — and could be removed altogether — after a group of activist lawyers filed a legal complaint saying the statue of the Greek offended the beliefs of local Maya Indigenous groups who prefer their own local god of water, known as Chaac.

...

The federal government, little known for its concern for the environment, appears to be responding more to pressure groups, which appears to be what happened this time around.

Mexico’s environmental protection agency “did nothing until we filed for a constitutional injunction,” Morales said. “Now they carried out a ‘closure’ action, which is pretty symbolic ... because they were going to be embarrassed.”

Usually, the agency levies a fine or orders environmental studies, and then the project is allowed to continue. Only in rare cases do authorities order demolition or removal.

Mr Malone said: "After a few minutes we noticed a man and another man - a black man and a white man - carrying a suitcase across the street right towards us.

"They were struggling with the weight of it. I actually thought they might drop it in the middle of the road.

"I thought about going to help them, but something made me stop.

"And so they came over and put the suitcase right by our feet.

"I said to them - 'That looks really heavy, what have you got in there, a body?' - jokingly like you do.

"We were feeling good, happy, so I made a joke and they didn't reply.

"Then they just left it by us and they walked back across the street.

Justice went full frontal in the Castro last week when two nudists took down a man attacking a tourist on the street.

The naked samaritans—Pete Sferra of San Jose and Lloyd Fishback of San Francisco—were letting it all hang out on a July 2 stroll through the neighborhood when they spotted a “crazy kind of pirate guy” threatening a man with a blowtorch.

A video from the scene shows an onlooker snag the blowtorch just before the attacker starts to punch the tourist. Petros Fanourgiakis, owner of the nearby Aegean Delights, said the attacker threatened to burn the tourist’s face.

“My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy,” Sferra said. “But he didn’t waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook.”

Fishback followed up the punch with an underhand smack to the face, after which the attacker walked away.

Shirts 0; skins 1.

A group of eight teenagers have broken a Guinness World Record after completing the London Tube Challenge nearly two hours quicker than the previous best.

The friends, aged 16 to 17, visited all 272 stations on the London Underground in 18 hours, 8 minutes and 13 seconds.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/24720114

SiegedSec, a collective of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers,” has claimed credit for breaching online databases of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that spearheaded the rightwing Project 2025 playbook. On Wednesday, as part of string of hacks aimed at organizations that oppose trans rights, SiegedSec released a cache of Heritage Foundation material.

In a post to Telegram announcing the hack, SiegedSec called Project 2025 “an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government.” The attack was part of the group’s #OpTransRights campaign, which recently targeted rightwing media outlet Real America’s Voice, the Hillsong megachurch, and a Minnesota pastor.

In his foreword to the Project 2025 manifesto, the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, rails against “the toxic normalization of transgenderism” and “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology.” The playbook’s other contributors call on “the next conservative administration” to roll back certain policies, including allowing trans people to serve in the military.

“We’re strongly against Project 2025 and everything the Heritage Foundation stands for,” one of SiegedSec’s leaders, who goes by the handle vio, told The Intercept.

If you thought £1.35 for a first-class stamp was pushing the envelope, then brace yourself: a postage stamp described as the most valuable in the UK has been put up for sale for £650,000.

The Penny Red is coveted by collectors as an extremely rare example of an imprint that should not exist.

The Penny Black was the world’s first postage stamp, launched in the UK in 1840. The Penny Red replaced it in 1841 and was issued until 1879.

Billions of the stamps were printed in sheets of 240, and philatelists are unlikely to get into a flutter about most of them, but this used Penny Red is from plate 77, one of just 240 printed in the early 1860s before the authorities realised the plate was defective and destroyed it, along with all but nine of the stamps.

The stamp up for sale on Wednesday was originally joined to another, now held by the British Library. It first appeared in the records of a Manchester stamp dealer in 1920 and has since been owned as part of several collections.

In 2012, it changed hands for £550,000, while in 2016 another from the batch was sold for £495,000.

...

The chief executive of Paul Fraser Collectibles, Mike Hall, said: “This stamp is legendary among collectors because it shouldn’t exist. While most people know the Penny Black was the first stamp, it’s plate 77 Penny Reds that send collectors into a frenzy.”

While £650,000 may sound eye-watering for a small patch of paper, it is far from being the world’s most expensive stamp. In 2021, an envelope bearing a Mauritius Post Office 1d red was sold for $11.2m (£8.7m).

Florida Satanists are volunteering to fill school counselor roles after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a law allowing religious chaplains into public schools amid staffing shortages.

“Nothing in the text of the bill serves to exclude us, and no credible interpretation of the First Amendment could. Should a school district now choose to have chaplains, they should expect Satanists to participate as well,” Lucien Greaves, cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, said in a statement to The Hill on Monday.

Back when DeSantis signed the bill in April, he described Satanism as “not a religion” and said its members would not be allowed to participate in the program.

...

The Florida move allowing chaplains to serve as public school counselors comes as more states are aiming to inject Christianity into public school environments, including by mandating that the Bible or Ten Commandments be taught in classrooms.

The Satanic Temple has increasingly leaned into the fight over freedom of religion in public schools, including through the establishment of After School Satan clubs.

The temple, founded in 2014, says its mission is to “encourage benevolence and empathy, [and] reject tyrannical authority.”

A man has been caught trying to smuggle more than 100 live snakes into mainland China by cramming them into his trousers, according to the country’s customs authority.

The unnamed traveller was stopped by customs officers as he sought to slip out of semi-autonomous Hong Kong and into the border city of Shenzhen, China Customs said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Upon inspection, customs officers discovered that the pockets of the trousers the passenger was wearing were packed with six canvas drawstring bags and sealed with tape,” the statement said.

“Once opened, each bag was found to contain living snakes in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours,” it added.

The statement said officers seized 104 of the reptiles, including milk snakes and corn snakes, many of which were non-native species.

An accompanying video showed two border agents peering into transparent plastic bags filled with squirming red, pink and white snakes.

The UK's "biggest man cave" is finally being dismantled after a ten-year planning dispute, with its roof now stripped away. Graham Wildin, 70, a millionaire, has persistently ignored court orders to demolish his massive 10,000sq/ft leisure complex and has even been incarcerated for his defiance.

The controversy began in 2014 when Wildin constructed the 'man cave', complete with a bowling alley, casino, and cinema behind his house without the necessary permissions. Demolition by the Forest of Dean District Council commenced in June, and recent developments have seen the roof removed, exposing the hollowed interior.

Aerial images reveal the bare structure of the building located behind Wildin's residence in Cinderford, in the Forest of Dean. Gone are the luxurious squash courts, children's play area, and bowling lanes that were visible in an earlier video showcasing the complex.

A Coastguard Rescue Team and RNLI lifeguards were called to a north Cornwall beach yesterday evening to check on the safety of a van driver - after an ice-cream van was dramatically swept out to sea by rough waves. The vehicle was dragged out at high tide yesterday afternoon (Sunday, July 7), and quickly filled with seawater as waves broke over it.

Crowds of people even rushed into the sea, wading waist-deep into the water at Harlyn Bay, near Padstow, in efforts to stop the ice-cream van from being washed away completely. And as a result, the Coastguard and lifeguards were called, and confirmed they attended the scene in order to check on those involved.

...

"The driver was safe and well and not in the vehicle. The owner arranged a recovery vehicle which recovered the van at around 9:45pm when tide receded enough for it to be safe to do so. Coastguard rescue officers left once the vehicle was recovered and in a safe location."

...

One eyewitness reported that the driver of the van left the scene, leaving their van to be swept out to sea. Footage captured from the beach shows the ice cream van being thrown around the bay, with huge waves flooding the inside of the van and crashing over the freezers inside.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/14383028

Reform UK has come under pressure to provide evidence its candidates at the general election were all real people after doubts were raised about a series of hopefuls who stood without providing any photos, biographies or contact details.

Reform insists every one of its 609 candidates on 4 July were real, while accepting that some were in effect “paper candidates” who did no campaigning, and were there simply to help increase the party’s vote share.

However, after seeing details about the apparently complete lack of information about some candidates, who the Guardian is not naming, the Liberal Democrats called on Reform to provide details about them.

A Liberal Democrat source said: “This doesn’t sound right and Reform should come clean with evidence. We need Reform to show who they are. People need to have faith in the democratic process.”

A series of candidates listed on the Nigel Farage-led party’s election website only show their name and the constituency they stood in, without any information about them, or contact details beyond a generic regional email address.

Many of these people have no visible online presence, and did not appear to do any campaigning. Photographs of the electoral counts for some of the relevant constituencies show that the Reform candidate was the only person not to attend.

A faraway planet known for its dire weather also whiffs of rotten eggs, according to a new study.

Scientists studied the atmosphere of HD 189733 b, which has scorching temperatures and precipitation akin to raining glass, using data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Hydrogen sulphide, which also exists on Jupiter, makes up most of HD 189733 b's atmosphere, and emits a bit of a pong, according to researchers. The gas is also emitted during farts.

The design uses a wholly different method to the one employed by many players of Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Rather than simply throwing passengers off the end of the track, it employs a method which could be considered more 'humane', as much as a death-coaster could ever be considered 'humane' that is.

But if it doesn't rely on catapulting passengers off into the distance, then what other means could a rollercoaster use?

The answer is not particularly pleasant, fair warning.

TikToker Luke Davidson posted about the coaster, and explained that it uses extreme G-force to achieve death.

It starts with a large drop, followed by several extreme loops which get progressively smaller.

...

"Julijonas Urbonas designed this roller coaster called the Euthanasia Coaster. It's capable of holding up to 24 passengers. Once they're all on board there's a slow ascent to the top, which is 510 [metres] in the air - that's just a little bit smaller than the tallest building in America.

"Once they're at the top it gives everyone the decision to stop and go back down safely. After that, everyone has to manually press a button to start the ride."

That's something, I suppose! But what happens next?

Luke said: "Then it falls at a speed of 223 miles per hour, and goes through seven loops that keep getting smaller."

The ride becomes increasingly intense until the doomed passengers pass out from the force and soon die.

He explains: "Riding the coaster's track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death."

But what is it that actually kills the passengers?

Luke said: "It is exactly this cerebral suffocation, also known as cerebral hypoxia, that is going to kill you.

"The rest of the ride [...] proceeds with your body being numb, ensuring that the trip ends your life. You die, or, more accurately put, your brain dies of complete oxygen deprivation, a legal indicator of death in many jurisdictions.

"The biomonitoring suit double-checks if there is a need for the second round, which is extremely unlikely, as the result is guaranteed by seven-fold repetition."

A bow-tie wearing duck has been injured in a drunken pub brawl with a local dog in Chulmleigh, Devon.

The booze-loving bird, affectionately named Star, was enjoying a pint in The Old Courthouse Inn with his handler, Barrie Hayman, when Hayman's canine Meggie sparked a bar brawl.

Star was left with injuries to his beak after the fight.

"Star pushed his luck too far and Meggie snapped - splitting Star's bottom beak right down the middle," Hayman, 69, told the Cheddar Valley Gazette.

"He gave her a stare, then promptly stood on her back. It was not pretty and not nice. We were so scared we would lose Star.

...

Hayman has cared for Star ever since he was a chick, carrying him around in his pocket. Once the duckling grew up, he developed a taste for real ale and started following his owner to the pub.

"He just won't leave me and so we go everywhere together," Hayman said. "I've not trained him to follow me. He just seems to like it and he is one fantastic duck.

"He loves to come to the pub, where everyone loves him. He is such a personality and attracts so much attention."

If you look up the St. Louis suburb of Des Peres, Missouri, on Wikipedia, you'll see the usual entries about its history, population, etc. Des Peres, however, is unique in that it also has an entry under "Jar of Pickles," notes the Wall Street Journal. It seems that more than a decade ago—maybe 2011 or 2012—someone placed a jar of pickles atop a concrete barrier along the exit of Manchester on I-270. A commuter named Barb Steen noticed the oddity and started a Facebook page devoted to it. The jar remained in place for a few years until disappearing around 2015—only to be replaced by another. And another. And all these years later, the jar has become something of a cultural phenomenon.

"They were just always there," Steen recalls to Fox 2 Now of the early days of the pickles. "I would Snapchat them to friends or coworkers or share them on my Facebook." The page she created for the jar now has more than 29,000 followers from around the world. "Word got out in some way somehow, and it exploded," she says. The brand of pickle, incidentally, has varied over the years. A Journal reporter investigated a recent iteration—a jar of Mt. Olive Kosher Dill affixed to the barrier with some kind of caulk.

The continued popularity of the jar has raised concerns that it might someday cause a traffic accident if a passerby slows to gawk or take a photo. So far, however, the city has received no complaints, says public safety director Eric Hall. "I don't suspect our people," he adds, referring to speculation that employees of his department might be behind the jar, given their official 24-hour access to the area. "But you never know."

Westminster Magistrates Court heard that 30-year-old Paolo Bollag stripped off in central London's Kensington Gardens last April and indulged in a series of lewd acts.

Bollag, from west London, denied a charge of outraging public decency, and opted for a crown court trial. He was bailed on the condition that he does not enter the park again before it begins.

Magistrates heard Bollag had been pleasuring himself before 'thrusting' into an unspecified tree in the park, which it situated next to Kensington Palace.

The court further heard that the investment manager, whose LinkedIn profile says works at Oakley Capital, rammed soil into his underwear and rubbed his crotch.

Archive (original link - warning, it's The Daily Fail)

Allen Ray McGrew, 41, from South Carolina, was seen dancing in his star-spangled suit on his favorite holiday as members of the neighborhood gathered for a street party in Summerville, Dorchester County. Carelessly enjoying the festivities, Allen was seeing dancing a jig just minutes before tragedy struck.

His wife Paige told how her husband had placed the large firework on top of his head to "show off" after drinking for several hours during the day, reports the Post and Courier. Paige told the publication: "He was holding this firework over his top hat I thought he was just showboating before he set it on the ground. I didn’t realize he had already lit it."

Paige described how she urged her husband to stop before it suddenly erupted and he fell to the floor. Coroner Paul Brouthers said the exploding device caused massive head injuries that would have killed McGrew instantly. He was officially pronounced dead at the scene at 11:10 p.m.

The grieving widow said her husband died doing what he loved, adding how July 4 was his favorite holiday. Paige said: "Allen loved this holiday," she said. "He was a patriot; he was proud of his son and he was excited to have a new daughter-in-law. He was living his best life last night."

Firefighters from the Colorado Springs Fire Department were dispatched about 4:45 a.m. on June 26 to a home on the city's south side for a reported fire, according to a Facebook post. The homeowners had alerted authorities of a "fire on the stove in their home that had been extinguished by one of the homeowners."

Firefighters and rescue teams didn't find an active fire when they got to the home and learned a resident had extinguished the blaze before crews arrived, the department said. The resident was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. No other injuries were reported.

But investigators found an interesting culprit when they examined surveillance footage from the home.

"After talking to the homeowners and looking through their home security footage, we determined their pup got a bit curious and accidentally switched on the oven which had some boxes on top of it," the fire department said.

Video footage captured by the home's security camera shows the dog jumping on the stove and sniffing the boxes before scampering away. Seconds after dog leaves, the boxes on the stove catch fire and the whole kitchen is engulfed in smoke.

A Kelowna household was the latest subject of a covert restoration project undertaken by an 'un-gnome' organization.

The group calls themselves the 'Gnome Restoration Society,' and Kelowna resident and gnome-owner Kelly Blair has no idea who or how many people may be involved in the secretive organization.

In late June, Blair was sad to discover that his beloved, albeit weathered and worn, gnomes were missing from his front lawn.

Having already had a few items – including a canoe – go missing from his property over the last few weeks, Blair assumed that thieves had snatched his gnomes and accepted the fact that the tiny men were likely never to be seen again.

"They were just gone," said Blair.

However, on July 3, Blair curiously heard a knock at his backdoor.

There stood an elderly woman who presented a perplexed Blair with a blank envelope addressed to "The Homeowner."

Inside the envelope was a cut-out image of a gnome with the words "The Gnome Restoration Society" inscribed on the back.

The woman, would not answer any questions, then instructed Blair to follow her to her vehicle.

"The lady wouldn't tell me anything," said Blair.

The woman told him that she was simply delivering the gnomes and was unable to answer any questions about the gnomes had been or who was involved in the secret society.

She told Blair, "These folks want to remain anonymous."

Then, she opened the back of her car and there they were – all of Blair's gnomes in pristine condition.

Every single gnome that had gone missing from his lawn, plus two extra had been cleaned, painted and were smiling up at him from boxes in the back of the mysterious woman's vehicle.

"The gnomes are home," said Blair, to Black Press, in disbelief that he had been involved in such silly and wonderful mischief.

Rangers who oversee a herd of clifftop goats have urged people to contact them rather than the emergency services if they spot any problems.

The herd of 50 goats graze the steep cliffs between West Cliff and Southbourne in Bournemouth.

The plea comes after firefighters were called to the cliffs when a goat got its head stuck in a fence on Monday.

Kid goat, King, was freed by the goat's grazier and has since been fitted with a dowel between his horns to stop him getting stuck again.

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The goats have become something of a tourist attraction since being introduced in 2009 and even have their own social media accounts.

With a consistent flow of passers-by, it is normally moments before any issues are raised, their grazier Mark Jackson said.

They live on a seven-mile (11km) stretch of cliffs year-round to graze back the invasive plants on the steep inaccessible cliffs.

Before the herd was introduced to munch the vegetation, BCP Council had to foot the cost of using specialist cliff teams to clear the cliffs.

The goats are part of a Environmental Stewardship agreement between the council and Natural England.