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!”

A surprise amount of Brits say they would take anti-obesity drugs if they were given to them for free on the NHS.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist are a family of medications that help manage blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes, but have also been found to help obese people lose weight.

The drugs include Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide, and semaglutide, which is sold under the brand names Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus.

The survey of 1,078 adults, carried out by Ipsos, found 24% of people would use weight-loss jabs if they were provided for free by the health service.

When asked about their own body image, four in 10 told the survey they think they are overweight or obese.

Police in Lincolnshire have urged motorists to stop chasing an on-the-run emu in off-road vehicles.

Officers in Boston said there had been sightings for a "couple of weeks" in the Spilsby area but the bird is at risk of being injured and people should not approach it.

It's currently unclear where the emu escaped from.

Posting on Facebook, police said: "Experts have been trying to gain her trust by feeding her in the same spot for a while, however, efforts are being scuppered and staff and volunteers are concerned because members of the public have been chasing her in 4x4s.

...

The National Exotics Animal Rescue Service is on the scene and has called in a specialist team to coordinate the emu's capture, police said.

If you’re a Tom Hardy fan, you’ve always wanted to see him cause real havoc. Sure, across his career he’s manufactured mayhem, proffered pain, brought memorable muscle – but you’ve never seen him go really all-out. That’s about to change. Next year finally brings the release of HAVOC, the new film from The Raid legend Gareth Evans, returning from the high-octane small-screen antics of Gangs Of London, and ready to send Hardy into the hardman stratosphere.

The film has been a longtime coming – partly owing to additional photography that required a cast and crew of booked-and-busy brawlers to all be available. But as Evans promises, HAVOC is worth the wait. “It’s had a profound effect on the film,” he tells Empire of the extra shooting. “It allowed me to better streamline it, and make it what it was always intended to be, which is a blistering, fast-paced action-thriller with nods to the Hong Kong cinema that I grew up watching.” Sounds like a Gareth Evans film, then.

The Predator franchise has, over the years, given us all kinds of heroes. We got Arnie’s rippling muscles in the original; Danny Glover’s LA cop in the sequel; a gaggle of reprobates in Predators; and, most recently, Amber Midthunder’s Comanche warrior Naru in Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey. But for his next Predator outing, Trachtenberg has something very different planned. 2025 will see the release of Predator: Badlands (as well as another film in the franchise that he shot simultaneously in secret), which isn’t exactly a follow-up to Prey but a future-set tale taking place on an alien planet. And, most importantly, it brings a very different kind of Predator protagonist: the Predator itself.

“The creature is front and centre, leading the charge,” Trachtenberg grins, speaking to Empire in the Andor Season 2 issue. “He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea, he says, came from a desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.” Finally, the ugly mother-effer’s day has come.

Tales of the Unexpected (1979–1988) started off with a foundation of Roald Dahl-based stories, but over time, this classic television anthology sought out other inspirations. One such source was Elizabeth Taylor, an esteemed English author whose short piece of fiction, “The Flypaper,” was adapted in 1980.

Fans of the show will often cite this episode as one of the best, not to mention the scariest. In the troubling episode, a schoolgirl is hounded by a stranger, only to then realize her peril is greater than first imagined. Now, Tales of the Unexpected did not always live up to its title; some stories were more foreseeable than others. “The Flypaper,” however, caught everyone off guard, including the young and unfortunate protagonist who, despite her efforts, could not escape harm.

An admiring Dahl wished he had written Taylor’s short story himself. And during the adaptation’s introduction, the host went on to tell viewers to watch carefully, for the episode does not give anything away until the very end. That preface, while enticing, is not quite true when comparing the two versions of “The Flypaper”; Taylor kept a tighter lip, whereas the teleplay, written by Unexpected regular Robin Chapman, was more forthcoming. The conclusion is identical in both forms, but the dramatization gives the audience a substantial preview of what awaits poor Sylvia (Lorna Yabsley).

A Philadelphia man sustained third-degree burns “and has been left with disfiguring scars on his penis, testicles and thighs” following a hot tea spill while flying home aboard Frontier Airlines, according to a federal lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

Sean Miller’s injuries include “highly unsightly and embarrassing discoloration on his penis, scrotum/testicles,” along with “significantly decreased sensation in his penis,” “post-traumatic stress disorder,” and “lack of self-esteem,” plus at least one herniated disc he suffered while writhing in distress, the lawsuit states.

Miller, 56, was rushed to the hospital immediately upon landing, after which he was transferred to an area burn center for specialized treatment “due to the severity” of his wounds.

“Due to the tightly-situated plane seat configuration, Mr. Miller was unable to get up from his seat after the spill and, instead, was trapped in agonizing pain while his body was being burnt,” his attorney, Adam S. Barrist, told The Independent.

Miller, a warehouse worker, has been left with “permanent scarring” on and around his genitalia, and “has been encountering sexual dysfunction since this incident,” Barrist said.

The cost of the UK’s unhealthy food system amounts to £268 billion every year, according to a report.

The Food Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) report calculated the direct and indirect impact of diet-related ill health by combining the cost of healthcare and social care, welfare spending, productivity losses and the human consequences of chronic disease, and identifying what proportion relates to food.

The food-related cost of chronic disease in the UK includes £67.5 billion in healthcare, £14.3 billion in social care, £10.1 billion in welfare, productivity at £116.4 billion and £60 billion that can be linked to the chronic disease attributable to the current food ecosystem, the research states.

Prof Tim Jackson, the director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at Surrey University, who carried out the analysis, said: “The connection between diet and health is often discussed, but the economics of that link are staggering.

“When we factor in the health impacts, we discover that the true cost of an unhealthy diet is more than three times what we think we’re paying for our food.

"We received a report from the security staff at the Jorge Chaves International Airport," said Pilar Ayala, a biologist with SERFOR (Peru's National Forestry and Wildlife Service). "In the report they indicated that they found a Korean citizen in possession of wildlife specimens."

Security staff at the airport became suspicious when they noticed that a 28-year-old South Korean passenger had an "unusually swollen" stomach, according to local reporting referenced by Reuters.

"It was observed that the citizen had placed these specimens in small ziploc bags with filter paper," Ayala continued. "They were placed around his body, contained by two girdles."

Authorities reported the suspect was attempting to smuggle 320 tarantulas (35 of which were the size of a human hand), 110 centipedes, and nine bullet ants on his body.

An anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist who encouraged violence against Prof Sir Chris Whitty on social media has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Patrick Ruane, 55, from Paddington, west London, was convicted of two charges of encouraging terrorism on social media in 2021, following a trial at the Old Bailey.

Ruane believed in conspiracy theories about the government having a "hidden agenda" to the coronavirus epidemic which he shared with thousands of users in Telegram groups, the trial heard.

His posts referred to "serious violence" including the use of explosives such as Semtex as well as criminal damage and the disruption of electronic communication systems, said the prosecution.

Ruane had suggested "whacking" the Chief Medical Officer for England, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, and referred to executing politicians.