cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20587575

> > Glass cases house beautifully displayed arm-candy at the latest new entry on a reviving Oxford Street in central London. > > > >This is not a designer handbag purveyor but a store dedicated to Ikea’s signature bright blue Frakta carrier bag – a pop-up shop paving the way for the home furnishing retailer’s delayed move into a larger store on-site, which is due to open next year. > > > >Filled with quirky social-media-friendly gimmicks including a service button to call up blue candy floss from a curtained window and a blue mirrored room intended to mimic entering a Frakta bag, the small shop has opened after construction issues prompted delays to the main store. Ikea had originally hoped to open the larger store last autumn, but building work was delayed by problems including water leaking into the basement.

> A New Mexico man received what lawyers are calling the largest medical malpractice payout in history. A jury decided this week that he will receive more than $400 million in damages for botched penile injections. > >The $412,005,149 verdict was against NuMale Medical Center on Wyoming and Paseo for what attorneys called fraud and unfair business practices. According to the lawsuit, the man in his 70s sought treatment for fatigue and weight loss at NuMale’s Albuquerque clinic in 2017. > >Attorneys said the clinic misdiagnosed him and unnecessarily treated him with “invasive erectile dysfunction shots,” causing irreversible damage. “This corporate scheme manipulates and uses fear as a tactic to convince these men to do this,” Nick Rowley, a trial lawyer, told KRQE News 13. > > The lawyers said their client went through multiple rounds of medication and procedures, and he underwent surgery by an unqualified physician assistant.

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> This ruse went up in smoke. > >A New Jersey Uber Eats driver thought she was delivering a customer a burrito when a strong, unmistakable odor led her to discover she was actually muling marijuana, according to police. > >The woman picked up what appeared to be a normal food order from a location in Lindenwold, Camden County, on Friday night — a burrito wrapped up in tin foil, a soup and a water bottle, according to Washington Township Police. > > But as she was driving she recognized the odor coming from the bag of food — and it wasn’t carnitas. > > ... > > She pulled over and called the police. > >An officer arrived and “inspected the package curbside and determined that it was not a burrito meal,” said Gurcsik. > >“There was no meat, or lettuce or beans or rice. It was actually an ounce of marijuana,” he said.

> A unique hotel in the Philippines has set a new Guinness World Record for being the world’s largest building shaped like a chicken. > >The 10-storey-high rooster hatched at the Campuestohan Highland Resort in Negros Occidental earlier this month. > >Measuring 34.931m in height, 12.127m in width and 28.172m in length, the giant chicken hotel has been built to withstand the mountainous municipality’s storms and typhoons. > >Guinness World Records officially declared the Campuestohan Highland Resort’s newest structure the “largest building in the shape of a chicken“ on 8 September. > >Inside the big bird are 15 windowless hotel rooms featuring “comfortable beds”, TVs and showers, with rates starting at around £60 a night for travellers keen to get cooped up with a chick flick.

>29-year-old Daisy Link was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade County, Florida, when she met 24-year-old Joan Depaz, initially contacting him through the vents in their prison cells, according to WSVN7. > >"You would knock on it and you can hear the people from the different floors. You would stand on the toilet actually to be able to talk to them," said Link. "Being in isolation for so long you begin to spend hours and hours talking to this person, you know, to the point where it's almost as if you're in the same room with them." > > ... > > After Link and Depaz began a romantic relationship, Depaz shared his ambitions to have a child with Link, according to WSVN 7News. > >"I always really wanted to have a baby. And I'm not gonna get to do that for a really long time," said Depaz, recounting what he told Link. "So if I had to choose somebody, you know, it would be you. And she was like, 'Yeah, we could do that.'" > >Depaz and Link then hatched a plan to create a direct line between each other's cells using bedding. Once they had established this, Depaz began sending Link his own semen wrapped in saran wrap. > > ... > > "I put the semen in Saran Wrap every day like five times a day for like a month straight" he continued. > >Link described receiving the packages, which were rolled up "almost like a cigarette", administering them to herself using yeast infection applicators. > >After a couple of attempts, Link became pregnant with "a miracle baby", conceiving "like the Virgin Mary," according to Depaz.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20492674

> > A Buddhist monastery in Thailand is under investigation after authorities discovered more than 40 bodies on site which were allegedly used for meditation practices, police said Sunday. > > > >Forty-one cadavers were found at Pa Nakhon Chaibovorn monastery in Thailand's Phichit province on Saturday, a senior police officer told AFP. > > > >"The bodies were accompanied with death and body donation certificates," he said, adding that so far no charges have been filed. > > > >He said police were reaching out to relatives of the deceased to confirm that the bodies were donated willingly. > > > > ... > > > > The search came days after police discovered 12 bodies at another monastery in neighboring Kamphaeng Phet province on Wednesday, according to Thai local media. > > > >The head of the Phichit province monastery, Phra Ajarn Saifon Phandito, told Thai PBS television channel that the use of corpses was part of a "meditation technique" he developed. > > > >"Many of the people who come to learn are abbots and all these monks... pass on the knowledge," he said. "I don't know how many have adopted my technique." > > > >He also told another local TV station that "practitioners meditate in pavilions that hold coffins with the human remains." > > > >Kom Pattarakulprasert, director of the Phichit Office of Buddhism, told the Bangkok Post that the inclusion of bodies in meditation was unusual. > > > >"I asked Phra Ajarn Saifon Phandito if there were any cadavers and was told that there were none," Kom told the outlet. "But when journalists discovered the 41 bodies, I was taken aback by the conflicting stories. I will discuss whether this practice is appropriate with the local head of the clergy."

> China’s Pizza Hut franchise is serving customers deep-fried frogs on top of their pies. > >David Henke, a global food trendwatcher and industry consultant, posted on X/Twitter, unveiling a picture of the specialized pizza that’s supposedly being offered for a limited time. > >Alongside an advertisement for the creation, Henke wrote: “Per@Technomic Global Navigator, in proof that other countries/cultures prefer different types of proteins, Pizza Hut is offering a pizza topped with a frog for a limited time offer in China - and frog is trending.” > >The thick-crust pizza features a red sauce base under a bed of parsley with a whole fried bullfrog on top. Two halves of hard-boiled egg with black olives appear as the “eyes” of the frog. > >It is unclear how long Chinese Pizza Hut will be offering the protein-packed pizza and the company does not specify on their website either. > > ... > > According to Korean news outlet Maeil Business Newspaper, the pizza has been launched in collaboration with Dungeons and Dragons and is named “Goblin Pizza” after one of the popular game’s characters. > > ... > > Pizza Hut isn’t the only fast-food chain in Asia that’s put controversial pairings on its menu. > >In 2020, McDonald’s locations in China added a sandwich made with two slices of Spam and an Oreo crumb topping mixed with its famous burger sauce. > >And in 2022, Domino’s Pizza Japan introduced Crispy Fish and Chipa Pizza that came with fried fish and potato slices, basil, tartar and tomato sauces and lemon slices.

> “Marley was dead: to begin with,” begins Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the ghostly morality tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge who, through a series of encounters with spirits in the early hours of Christmas morning, realises he needs to change his ways. > >It is an imagined story – there is no Scrooge and, unlike his unfortunate business partner, he is not dead. But that does not appear to have mattered to a vandal in Shropshire, where a gravestone of Scrooge used in a 1984 film adaptation has been smashed into multiple pieces. > >The prop, a heavy piece of stone several centimetres thick engraved with the name “Ebenezer Scrooge”, has lain in the graveyard of St Chad’s church, Shrewsbury, since the movie 40 years ago starring George C Scott. > >While Scrooge is definitely fictional, the stone may have belonged to an unknown real person whose name was weathered away over hundreds of years, according to a BBC interview with Martin Wood, Shrewsbury’s town crier, who was a body double in the film. > >It can be seen in the scene where Scrooge, described by Dickens as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner”, is taken to the grave of an unloved man by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and discovers it bears his own name. > >Town council clerk Helen Ball said the prop was a popular attraction in the village. “It’s one of those things that is very dear to everybody’s hearts,” she told BBC Radio Shropshire. “When you look at the Facebook messages that people put on yesterday, it’s united a community in terms of the disgust that somebody can do that.” > > ... > > She said: “Maybe if it’s someone in their drunken revelry, they might have posted it on Facebook or something, and maybe somebody with a bit of conscience might let us know who that is. > >“Or equally,” she said, providing a potentially satisfying ending, “the person who did it may have a conscience and decide to own up”. > >Ball added, in true Victorian style, it would be a “good reason to bring the stocks back”.

>As the commissioner for women affairs and social welfare in Anambra state, Ify Obinabo has plenty of experience in resolving family disputes - but this is no ordinary disagreement. > >Five members of Ike’s family, who are also present in the room, do not believe Hope is the couple’s biological child, as Chioma and Ike claim. > >Chioma claims to have “carried” the child for about 15 months. The commissioner and Ike’s family are in disbelief at the absurdity of the claim. > > ... > > Nigeria has one of the highest birth rates in the world, with women often facing social pressure to conceive and even ostracisation or abuse if they cannot. > >Under this pressure, some women go to extremes to realise their dream of motherhood. > >For over a year, BBC Africa Eye has been investigating the “cryptic pregnancy” scam. > >Scammers posing as doctors or nurses convince women that they have a “miracle fertility treatment” guaranteed to get them pregnant. The initial “treatment” usually costs hundreds of dollars and consists of an injection, a drink, or a substance inserted into the vagina. > >None of the women or officials we spoke to during our investigation know for sure what is in these drugs. But some women have told us they led to changes in their bodies - such as swollen stomachs - which further convinced them they were pregnant. > >Women given the “treatment” are warned not to visit any conventional doctors or hospitals, as no scan or pregnancy test would detect “the baby”, which the scammers claim is growing outside the womb. > >When it’s time to “deliver” the baby, women are told labour will only begin once they are induced with a “rare and expensive drug”, requiring further payment. > >Accounts of how the “delivery” happens vary, but all are disturbing. Some are sedated only to wake up with a Caesarean-like incision mark. Others say they are given an injection that causes a drowsy, hallucinatory state in which they believe they’re giving birth. > >Either way, the women end up with babies they are supposed to have given birth to. > > ... > > The extent to which the women involved genuinely believe the claims is unclear. > >But clues as to why they would be susceptible to such brazen lies can, in part, be found in online groups where disinformation around pregnancy is widespread.

> A court in South Korea has found a man guilty of trying to avoid mandatory military service by deliberately gaining weight, local media report. > >The 26-year-old began binge eating before his physical examination for the draft, a judge in the capital, Seoul, said. He was categorised as obese, allowing him to serve in a non-combat role at a government agency. > >The defendant received a one-year suspended sentence. A friend who devised a special regimen that doubled his daily food intake got a six-month suspended sentence, the Korea Herald newspaper reports, external.

> An Indian man who was declared dead woke up on his funeral pyre moments before he was nearly set on fire. > >Rohitash Kumar, 25, had been suffering from ill health and on Thursday was taken to a hospital in the western state of Rajasthan, India. > >It's reported that Kumar had an epileptic fit, which prompted the hospital visit. > > ... > > When he arrived at the hospital, Kumar was pronounced dead after doctors attempted CPR and saw his heart flatline on the electrocardiogram. > >Doctors at the Bhagwan Das Khetan (BDK) district hospital unusually sent Kumar straight to the mortuary, instead of carrying out a postmortem to confirm his cause of death. > > ... > > In accordance with Hindu rites, from the mortuary Kumar's body was placed on a funeral pyre. However, witnesses noticed Kumar was moving moments before the burning took place, saving his life. > >"The situation was nothing short of a miracle. We all were in shock. He was declared dead, but there he was, breathing and alive," a witness at the crematorium told ETV Bharat. > > ... > > After Kumar woke up on the pyre, he was rushed back to BDK hospital's ICU. However, his condition did not improve. After an attempt to refer him to the SMS hospital, Kumar sadly died en route.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15479109

> AI is coming for us all. Writers, doctors and artists – among many others – all stand to have their livelihoods decimated by artificial intelligence. And the next potential victim? The Son of God. > >Peter’s Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, recently unveiled “Deus in machina,” an “experimental art installation” that features an AI version of Jesus in the confessional booth, according to its website. > >The church has encouraged visitors to “share their thoughts and questions” with AI Jesus, though it clarified that this shouldn’t be considered the Sacrament of Confession. > >AI Jesus, whose likeness appears on a screen in the confessional, may “create a sacred moment,” the church said. Peter’s Chapel added that the installation is meant to encourage visitors “to think critically about the limits of technology in the context of religion.” > > ... > > About two-thirds of participants told the outlet that they came out of the tech-assisted confessional having had a spiritual experience.

> Officers in the southern Netherlands have found a garden gnome weighing nearly 2kg (4lb) and made of the drug MDMA. > >"Drugs appear in many shapes and sizes, but every now and then we come across special things," Dongemond Police said in a translated social media post. > >The gnome was found among suspected narcotics during a large drug search. > >"In itself a strange place to keep your garden gnome," the force said. "That's why we decided to test [it] for narcotics". > >"The gnome himself was visibly startled," police said, referring to the gnome having its hands covering its mouth.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20300930

> > A farm in East Ayrshire has launched the UK’s most expensive coffee to help fund a zero-waste dairy facility. > > > >Mossgiel Farm announced the £272 flat white, which includes 34 shares in their business, will turn customers into investors in sustainable dairy farming. > > > >The drink consists of espresso and steamed milk from Mossgiel Farm in Mauchline. It will be available at 13 Scottish cafes on November 23. > > > >Mossgiel’s coffee is the most expensive in the UK, a title previously held by a flat white at Shot London in Mayfair, which cost £265 and was made with Japanese Typica beans. > > > >It comes as part of Mossgiel Farm owner Bryce Cunningham’s drive to raise funds for a state-of-the-art, zero-waste dairy facility, which will give them the backing needed to “revolutionise” milk consumption.

> Contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” – a banana duct-taped to the wall, exactly 160 centimeters from the floor – sold for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction this week, in the latest iteration of a saga that first captured the art world in 2019. > >Cattelan, an Italian, is known for his satirical and tongue-in-cheek art work. Among his most famous pieces are a solid gold, fully functional toilet entitled “America” and “La Nona Ora,” a sculpture of a pope laying on the ground after getting hit by a meteorite. > >Chinese crypto guru Justin Sun announced that he purchased “Comedian” in a Wednesday evening post to X. Sun will reportedly pay the $6.2 million to Sotheby’s using crypto-currency. > >“This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community. I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history,” Sun wrote on X. > >“In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture. Stay tuned!”