Author: USA Facts News

But his time at the business mascot has seen better days, with the clownish character not seen as much as he would like nowadays. And the reason for this is rather eerie.

Since first appearing back in the 1960s, old Ronald with his white face makeup and bright red hair has been a figure of modern pop culture that goes hand-in-hand with a post-war United States.

And with McDonald’s becoming one of the largest and most recognisable businesses in the world, he quickly became the poster boy for the fast food restaurant across the world.

Yep, believe it or not, once upon a time kids used to actually run towards the clownish creature in a yellow boiler suit and sinister smile.

Pals with Grimace and other creations such as the Hamburglar, these characters would inhabit the virtual world of McDonaldland and were often associated with the Happy Meal, which to this day is aimed at children.

And with toys in modern years replaced by books or other learning tools, they are one of the all-time great measures taken in the world of marketing.

He’s not been the omnipresent clown that he once was, though. Certainly not in the last decade.

Think back, and the last time you might have spotted him could have been just short of 10 years ago. Let’s say 2016.

We say that year in particular because that’s when the genuine phasing out of Ronald began.

He wasn’t to blame. Maccies hadn’t done anything wrong. Nope, it was in response to a rather disturbing social media trend (not you, Mannequin Challenge).

August 2016 was the time that the worrying trend of killer clowns sent the world into a frenzy for a short period of time. If you weren’t around for that, it was a worrying time where people dressed up as sinister-looking clowns and terrorised strangers.

From sharing photos of themselves looking creepy on to social media, it took a sinister turn with people dressing up as them near schools. Incidents were reported in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The trend first started as a marketing stunt for a horror film that simply got out of hand through no fault of the marketing team itself.

It then got really serious when a family in Florida was attacked by a group of 20 people wearing clown masks. And in the UK, the Sun reported that one person in a clown mask allegedly pulled out a knife and started running after a boy on his way to school.

Overnight, the world’s attitude towards Ronald changed. Maccies released a statement at the time, which read: “McDonald’s and franchisees in the local markets are mindful of the current climate around clown sightings in communities and as such are being thoughtful in respect to Ronald McDonald’s participation in community events for the time being.”

A statement on the UK McDonald’s website also said: “We’re afraid that Ronald McDonald no longer appears in McDonald’s UK advertising, but he is still very busy working for us. He often travels up and down the country to help promote some of our exciting new activities and visits our restaurants to make sure everyone is enjoying their meals.”

From issuing World War III warnings to sending scathing messages to the ‘entire world’ as he hikes up tariffs, he’s also set to update restrictions on travel.

It’s reported the Trump administration is considering issuing a travel ban on citizens from a list of countries. An internal memo seen by Reuters lists over a whopping 40 countries split up into three separate groups.

While it is yet to be fully set and approved, this move would be pretty reminiscent of when the US president placed a ban on travellers from seven majority-Islamic nations during his first term in 2018.

He’s already started a crackdown on immigration since being sworn back into office, and this dramatic memo sees the likes of key allies of Moscow being placed under heavy sanctions.

The three separate groups of the list see the first set for a full ban on travelling into the US and the second would face partial suspensions impacting the likes of tourist and student visas as well as other immigrant visas.

And the third, biggest group, would be considered for a partial suspension if the countries’ governments don’t ‘make efforts to address deficiencies within 60 days’.

First reporting on the list, officials spoke anonymously to New York Times and cautioned that it had been developed by the State Department several weeks ago.

They added that changes were likely by the time it reached the White House.

Some of the countries on this draft list were already sanctioned by Trump in those travel bans made during his first term, but the majority of them are new

Draft list of countries with all travel banned

· Afghanistan

· Bhutan

· Cuba

· Iran

· Libya

· North Korea

· Somalia

· Sudan

· Syria

· Venezuela

· Yemen

Draft list of countries with visas strictly restricted

· Belarus

· Eritrea

· Haiti

· Laos

· Myanmar

· Pakistan

· Russia

· Sierra Leone

· South Sudan

· Turkmenistan

Draft list of countries with 60 days to address concerns

· Angola

· Antigua and Barbuda

· Benin

· Burkina Faso

· Cambodia

· Cameroon

· Cape Verde

· Chad

· Republic of Congo

· Democratic Republic of Congo

· Dominica

· Equatorial Guinea

· Gambia

· Liberia

· Malawi

· Mali

· Mauritania

· St. Kitts and Nevis

· St. Lucia

· São Tomé and Príncipe

· Vanuatu

· Zimbabwe

Citizens in the second group of countries would potentially be able to enter if they’re affluent business travellers but not those on immigrant or tourist visas. They may also be subjected to in-person interviews in order to get their visa.

A boom mic is that big fluffy one that looks like someone took the dearly departed family feline and stuck it on the end of a pole, and indeed among some it’s gained the nickname ‘dead cat’.

The US president glared at the person who’d been holding the giant fluffy microphone and then quipped that ‘she just became a big story tonight’.

He then continued to answer a few more questions before things wrapped up.

Beyond the amusement involved in the world’s most powerful man being biffed in the gob by a giant mass of fluff on a stick there were some people who seemed to be taking the whole thing altogether too seriously.

“Where’s the secret service,” some of Trump’s supporters asked online as to how a person could get so close to him and clonk him with a large object.

Others wondered whether it could class as ‘assault on the president’, while some in the nether regions of social media cooked up a conspiracy that the boom mic might have been ‘laced with a poison’ or ‘infected with the next pandemic’.

They said that the ‘mic needs to be tested for all agents’ and suggested what sort of substances might be smeared on the recording equipment, with some of the more outlandish suggestions including ‘fentanyl, anthrax, herpes’.

One person called for the reporter’s crew to be ‘arrested and all equipment seized and tested for biological weapons or poisons’, claiming that ‘this should be treated as an assassination attempt’.

Meanwhile, besides being clonked in the face by microphones Trump has been busy threatening to take Greenland once again despite them not wanting to be occupied by the US.

Trump also keeps talking about making Canada ‘our cherished 51st state’ against their wishes, and NBC reports that the US president has asked the military to come up with options for occupying the Panama Canal.

He’s also been throwing out more tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, the UK and the EU as he seems intent on starting a trade war with friends, neighbours and rivals alike.

Trump has also been ordered to rehire scores of workers who had been laid off as part of the cost cutting agenda he and Elon Musk had pursued.

A wayward boom mic seems like the least of people’s worries right now.

The 78-year-old alluded towards efforts to reach peace between Russia and Ukraine, highlighting the importance of the situation not just to America, but the entire world.

Earlier this week, the US leader suggested the two European nations agree to a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukraine accepted, but Russian President Vladimir Putin swiftly rejected.

He later followed up and said that he ‘absolutely supports’ the idea, though certain criteria would need to be met.

Trump is determined to strike a deal for peace between the countries, despite his public outburst at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a meeting at the Oval Office last month.

Yesterday (14 March), the president became the first leader since Obama to speak to the Justice Department, and he took the opportunity to highlight the risks of World War III, warning it would be ‘a war like no other’.

He claimed the nation is ‘in pretty good shape’ to reach a peace deal with Russia, and stated that its leader has ‘respect’ for the US.

Trump stated: “I think we’re doing well with Russia, we’re speaking with President Putin, we want to get the war over.”

The president further claimed that the US ‘sent nearly $350 billion to Europe’ in military aid, adding: “We’ve had some very good calls today with Russia, and with Ukraine, they’ve agreed to a ceasefire if we can get it with Russia. And it’s not easy. It’s a tough one.”

“I think we have it, I think we have it, but this could lead to World War III, very easily, could very easily lead to World War III. But I think we’re in pretty good shape, a lot better than where we were before we got involved,” Trump said.

“That was heading into World War III territory, that would’ve been a war like no other because of nuclear weapons, and other types of weapons that you don’t even wanna know about.”

Trump also claimed that ‘there would have been no war had I been president. It just 100 percent would not have happened.’

US envoy Steve Witkoff has presented plans of a ceasefire to Putin in a meeting on Thursday, with a phone call between the two leaders set to take place in the coming days.

G7 allies, including the UK, stated on Friday that they were calling for a ceasefire with ‘no conditions’ to end the battle in Ukraine.

Putin has previously said in a televised statement: “We are sympathetic to President Trump’s call.

“If they lay down their arms and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and dignified treatment.”

The former-KGB operative went on: “In order to effectively implement the US president’s call, (there needs to be) a corresponding order from Ukraine’s military-political leadership to its military to lay down their arms and surrender.”

Trump had announced in a social media post about Ukrainian soldiers that were ‘completely surroundeded’ in Kursk.

“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II,” he stated.

Cameron Callaghan was flying with Etihad Airways from Manchester to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi in January when he became unwell.

The former delivery driver had eaten an egg sandwich three hours before the plane and was served a pasta meal after take-off. The ‘flight from hell’ had been delayed for five hours and the man reckons the food hadn’t been stored properly during that time.

“When we finally got on, they offered us some food so I ate that and put a movie on. It was a tomato, cheesy, chicken pasta,” Cameron explained.

“It did smell a bit weird but all plane food kind of does.”

Etihad Airways insist they ‘prepared and stored the food under strict temperature-controlled conditions’ and no other passengers who had the same food reported issues.

But he says about 20 minutes later he had ‘diarrhoea twice’ and then was just ‘constantly throwing up for the duration of the flight’.

The Bolton lad continued: “I threw up probably about 30 times. I had to sit at the back of the plane with an air hostess while she kept the toilet free for me.

“I was going to the toilet every five minutes, laying in the foetal position and towards the end of the flight, I’d emptied my body so much that I couldn’t even stand up.”

Cameron claims that by the time they landed at Zayed International Airport, Abu Dhabi, he was so dehydrated he couldn’t even life his head up.

“So they had to get a wheelchair and they wheeled me to the medical room in Abu Dhabi’s airport,” he added.

He’s sure the egg butty beforehand ‘definitely wasn’t the cause’ as was sat in the airport for three hours after it and ‘felt completely fine’.

“I didn’t even eat the night before because I was stressed because of the delayed flight,” the traveller said.

A doctor at the airport assessed him and gave him an IV and anti-sickness drip, with the incident leaving him feeling ‘so weak’ at the start of his holiday.

“The next two or three days after arriving in Bangkok I was just bedbound,” Cameron said. “It was only on the third day I actually left the hotel and started exploring.”

Sure he wouldn’t have been sick so soon after eating the pasta ‘if it didn’t come from their food’, the man wants a refund for the flight from Eithad Airways.

“I want acknowledgement about the food poisoning and for them to say sorry,” he said, adding the claim: “They’ve not taken the food poisoning seriously, they’ve not taken the proper precautions. It’s unprofessional how they’ve handled everything.”

Cameron says it was ‘embarrassing’ on the flight and ‘ruined the first few days’ of the holiday he has planned for the last three years.

Now, he says he’ll ‘starve myself’ on the flight back so it doesn’t happen again.

An Etihad Airways spokesperson said: “We are aware of the recent report of a passenger falling ill on board our flight from Manchester on 06 January, 2025.

“We take all such matters very seriously and investigate thoroughly.

“Our food on this flight, as with all our flights, was prepared and stored under strict temperature-controlled conditions to ensure safety and quality.

“We did not receive any reports of illness from other passengers on this flight who were served the same meal. Our first priority is always the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew.”

Taking to social media, the financial journalist said there had been a ‘huge announcement’ by the Financial Conduct Authority when it came to the selling of car finance in the United Kingdom before 2021.

The FCA has for some time now been investigating the mis-selling of car finance between the years of 2007 and 2021, with hidden fees placed on agreements that consumers did not know about when signing off at the dealership.

Applicable to both personal contract purchase (PCP) or hire purchase (HP) deals, these fees – known as discretionary commission arrangements (DCAs) – applied to cars, vans, motorbikes, and even camper vans.

FCA car finance investigation latest

The FCA has given finance companies until 4 December, 2025 to respond to complaints, meaning there is still plenty of time to get your complaint in if you bought a car on PCP or HP during the qualifying period.

Previously, it had said that after May 2025, a decision will be made on how compensation may be given to consumers who have valid claims.

How much money could you get? Well, previous data from the FCA said that car buyers paid £1,100 more interest on a typical £10,000 four-year car finance deal. Take that as a good starting point to try and gauge what you could be owed.

The situation has now changed, though, as Lewis has pointed out.

You won’t need to complain directly

In a new explainer to the UK public, Lewis said explained how the FCA will now introduce an industry-wide ‘redress scheme’ if payments are confirmed (something Lewis is incredibly sure about).

Critically, it means that people aren’t going to have to put complaints in to get money.

“The regulator is going to tell lenders, ‘find everybody who was mis-sold under the criteria we give you, and then pay them out based on a formula that we’re going to give you’,” Lewis said in a video on TikTok.

“So it’s going to be masses more people… because it’s going to be proactive, rather than people having to complain.”

Don’t lose out on the full amount

As Lewis explains, some firms have said they will handle your complaint for you. And that’s for a fee, usually 25 percent of the final settlement figure you’re given.

Time to nip that in the bud, Lewis says, explaining: “It’s very likely, if a payout is going to come, you’re going to get that money automatically.”

More than two million complaints were lodged with car finance companies via Lewis’ free form he produced over on the Money Saving Expert website.

All in all, he reckons the final sum could be ‘tens of billions of pounds’ under a redress scheme similar to what was seen in the PPI scandal.

Technical issues on their Boeing Starliner spacecraft prevented them from returning after stepping aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024.

Ever since, a return date for their return has been up in the air, and delayed numerous times.

There was hope this week, as a potential launch date was set for 12 March by NASA and SpaceX, who have been working on the Crew-10 mission, though this has been delayed due to a hydraulic fault.

It could still launch this evening (14 March) with four astronauts on board, with a potential return for Wilmore and Williams on Monday (17 March).

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been working to get the pair back down to Earth, but even their extended stay in space doesn’t come close to what NASA astronaut Frank Rubio experienced in 2023, after spending 371 days in space, setting an American record.

After more than a year in space, he set foot on Earth on 27 September, 2023, and went through several bodily changes as he readjusted to life with climate and gravity.

Rubio’s mission was intended to be six months long, but as his time was more than doubled, we got to find out the effects of living gravity-free for an extended period of time.

While the vast majority of humans will never get the opportunity to visit space, this might be the closest we can get.

So, what are these effects, and how many of these might apply to Wilmore and Williams?

The lack of gravity causes a decrease in muscle mass and even bone loss within just the first couple months of a mission – let alone the year Rubio spent up there.

At the time of the NASA astronaut’s landing, Dr Jennifer Fogarty, chief scientific officer at Baylor College of Medicine’s Translational Research Institute for Space Health, told ABC News: “How do you coordinate movement like walking, which you haven’t done for a long period of time, and then the idea of balance?

“When you put those two together, it can kind of create a little bit of a precarious situation and something that’s very well-monitored with the crew members when they land on Earth.”

The expert also added that the longer the time in space goes on for, the longer the time it takes for the astronaut to reacclimatise when they get back.

So while Wilmore and Williams may take some time to get back to normal, it will be nowhere as extreme as Rubio’s experience.

Also, when living in space, an astronaut’s blood flow can be heavily affected.

This can cause symptoms including blurred vision or eye swelling due to something known as Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome.

According to the co-director of the Center for Aerospace Physiology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Dr Michael Decker, our veins have handy-dandy valves in them to make sure ‘blood doesn’t flow backwards when we stand up’.

And being enclosed in a weightless room for a long period of time will certainly impact the body’s blood flow.

He added: “Some of this increased intracranial pressure can actually impact the eye and lead to visual impairment.

“Sometimes when astronauts land, that visual impairment does not necessarily resolve.”

The TikToker took it upon herself to practice the diet when she was in university, but paid the price with a trip to the hospital.

Eve Catherine, from Dallas, USA, has over 49,000 followers on her account, with her story about how her carnivore diet caused her to end up in the hospital going viral with over 154,000 views.

But with the diet being backed by celebrities such as Joe Rogan, the social media influencer is determined to spread word that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

As explained by Harvard Medical School, the carnivore diet can be hazardous to your health, despite being a popular ‘keto’ option for those looking to lose fat.

In fact, it can result in you having high levels of LDL cholesterol, known as bad cholesterol, as animal fat mostly contains saturated fat.

It can also lead to impaired kidney function.

A carnivore diet usually consists of meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, some dairy products, and water.

Vegetables, fruits, or any greens for that matter, are off limits, which is why it’s known as the ‘zero carb’ diet.

Eve explained that she was in her ‘era of being a carnivore’, saying in the video: “I was eating a New York strip steak every single night my senior year of college. In the morning, I would eat two or three eggs.

“I would eat this specific type of yogurt that had 19 grams of protein in just one cup. Any snack that I had or anything had to be protein-centric,” she pointed out.

While a regular physical indicated that she had high protein levels, things started to go downhill as she thought she was going to die after seeing blood in her urine.

After being taken to the Emergency Room, she revealed that she was ‘screaming’ when she went to the toilet, as she passed a kidney stone.

Despite this, Eve was made to wait.

Kidney stones can be caused from excess waste product and forms in the ureter, which connects your kidneys to your bladder, according to the NHS.

In a painful process, your body will try to pass it out when you pee – kidney stones can also lead to infections or malfunction of the organ if untreated.

After finally seeing a doctor, he questions if it’s just her period, which she rejects, explaining that she passed a kidney stone moments before.

“He does the X-ray thing to make sure there’s not anymore. I had to be put on morphine because it hurt so bad,” she recalled.

Diets with high protein can cause the body to excrete more calcium through urine, and the excess amount of calcium can cause the body to make uric acid, and too much of this can result in the build up of uric acid stones in the kidneys.

Kidney stones can also be formed from excess calcium and oxalates from plant-based foods and the body.

Eve concluded the video, urging viewers: “Don’t eat too much protein, OK?

“Don’t neglect your fiber intake.”

Kidney stones are common in the UK, with more than one in 10 people suffering with the condition.

This murder, committed by Lonnie Loren Kocontes, was the focus of a Channel 5 documentary The Push: Murder on a Cruise Ship, airing last night, March 13.

Kocontes, a lawyer, killed his ex-wife Micki Kansaki in May of 2006.

Whil

he was an initial focus of investigations, the lawyer would not be caught for seven years.

Kocontes had thrown Micki Kansaki overboard on a cruise ship for financial gain, hoping to gain access to her almost £800,000 fortune.

In addition to this he hoped to sell her home for profit.

The pair had divorced prior to her death, but had recently reconciled and were making plans to get remarried.

Kocontes and Kansaki had made one another the executors of each other’s estates.

Julie Sanarita, the niece of Kansaki, told Dateline: “He said he was going to change, he was going to work less, and things were going to be better. She was just so happy.”

The man claimed that he had taken a sleeping pill on May 25, waking the next morning to find his ex-wife missing.

This, however, was found to be a lie as he was eventually discovered to have murdered her.

A statement from the Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer called the lawyer’s murder the ‘perfect crime’, but revealed one key detail led to his arrest.

He said: “Despite all of his painstaking planning to pick the perfect ship, the perfect room and the perfect time to commit a murder, the fact that he strangled her before throwing her overboard gave us the very evidence to convict him of murder.

“She couldn’t breathe in water because she was dead long before her body ever hit the ocean and when authorities found her, her cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation – not drowning.”

Kocontes told police: “I can’t rule suicide out. When she would be sad and she would drink, she talked in general terms wishing that she were dead.

“She’s talked about wanting to kill herself in the past.”

An FBI investigation into the death began when, in 2008, Kocontes tried to to move nearly the full sum of money in Kansaki’s bank account into his own.

He was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison in 2020, 14 years after her murder.

The Push: Murder on a Cruise Ship can be watched online on Channel 5.

Mute Egede, known also as the Premier of Greenland, has responded to claims from the US President that he would take the country ‘one way or another’, while incoming Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has also shared his opinion on the comments.

When speaking in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump told the press that the country needed Greenland for ‘international security’.

He claimed: “Well I think it will happen, I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought – but I’m sitting with a man who could be very instrumental.

“You know Mark, we need it for international security, not just security, but international.”

However, Rutte replied: “When it comes to Greenland, I don’t want to drag NATO into that,” adding that his focus is on the Arctic and that ‘certain Arctic countries working together on this under US leadership’ is key.

Earlier this month, Trump also told Congress: “We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.

“We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.”

He then highlighted: “We need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Reluctance has come from Greenland and Denmark, the latter of which Greenland is an autonomous territory under.

The incoming Greenland Premier, Jans-Frederik Nielsen, has now released a firm statement about the American President’s claims, saying: “Trump’s statement from the US is inappropriate and just shows once again that we must stand together in such situations.”

Nielsen’s Demokraatit party won Greenland’s parliamentary election on Tuesday (11 March).

In his victory speech, he powerfully claimed: “We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes.

“We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

Current leader Mute Egede echoed these sentiments, saying ‘Kalaallit Nunaat is ours’ (Kalaallit Nunaat is the Greenlanders’ name for their country), explaining: “We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that.

“We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland.”

Egede would later add: “The U.S. president has once again aired the thought of annexing us.

“Enough is enough.”

He also said in a statement that Trump hasn’t showed Greenlanders ‘respect’ since taking office, even claiming: “The recent things that the American president has done mean that you don’t want to get as close to (the US) as you might have wanted in the past.”

Greenland have widely remained against an annexation throughout Trump’s plan to take the nation of 56,000 over.