Democratic Socialist Wisconsin gubernatorial hopeful Francesca Hong is facing a fresh political storm after a series of old social media posts criticizing – and in some cases mocking – traditional holidays resurfaced online.

The Korean-American chef-turned-lawmaker has been forced to defend past comments as critics seize on the posts, arguing they reveal a sharp divide between Hong's personal views and the customs celebrated by millions of Americans.

A 2021 controversial Thanksgiving post that has since disappeared from her X account read, 'Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.'

The message quickly became a target for Republican critics, who accused Hong of attacking one of America's most widely celebrated holidays.

It's a hot-button issue that could impact the Democratic primary, in the race to take on likely Republican Tom Tiffany.

According to the Marquette Law School Poll, Hong is currently leading the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor.

A July 22 poll showed Hong ahead in the Democratic primary with

This is the moment thieves fled with £60,000 worth of gold chains before attacking a jeweller who chased them.

Steve Sharp, 57, was punched and kicked after pursuing the men from his rural workshop near St Cleer, Cornwall, on Thursday afternoon.

The men were only on his property for three minutes but made off with eight 9ct gold hallmarked chains worth more than £60,000.

Steve allowed them through a security gate believing they were a customer who had made an appointment.

In CCTV footage obtained by the Daily Mail the men can be heard claiming to be on holiday in the area and heard about the shop.

Moments later they can be seen running down the drive and falling as Steve gives chase.

Mr Sharp said: 'They were talking in their own language which I think was Romanian or Albanian, they were asking about necklaces and I got a tray out of my safe and put it on my display counter.

'One guy grabbed a whole lot up still attached to a display case, he shook the case off and they just ran.

Daily Mail

A former Cambridge professor's dazzling claim he ran nine marathons with a broken leg that 'ballooned twice its size' was called into question after photos of the finish line appear to contradict his story. 

Jason Arday, 41, tells of a dramatic fundraising journey in his forthcoming autobiography, which saw him run an impressive 30 marathons in 35 days after just a few months' training.

The sociologist claimed that on day 21, he had a seizure and collapsed by the roadside – before doctors discovered a small hairline fracture in his right fibula in an X-ray scan.

Arday, who resigned from his post on Wednesday amid a bitter plagiarism row, was photographed at Piccadilly Circus in the summer of 2010, with two regular-sized legs.

And despite the 'two or three thousand people' he claimed in his memoir were waiting for him by the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, the photo shows a group of around 50 onlookers.

In the image, Arday walks through the finish line, applauded by a smattering of well-wishers standing under the sign for the former tourist exhibition, Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

It raises questions over the 'wave of sound', the 'crescendo of cheers' that Arday

A Texas Republican has accused President Donald Trump of 'destroying families' after ICE detained his young Venezuelan fiancée, as the internet ruthlessly mocked his loneliness as 'well deserved.' 

John Gannon, 75, said he regrets supporting Trump after his 45-year-old fiancée, Yasmin Suarez Reyes, was arrested by eight ICE agents at a Houston airport last month with 'no explanation,' according to CBS News. 

'I voted for Trump. They are picking up law-abiding citizens. They're destroying families, jobs,' the businessman told the outlet. 

'Seriously, it reminds me of a Gestapo system,' he added. 'I would never have thought the United States would act this way.'

His story quickly went viral online, where critics relentlessly ridiculed his 'victim mentality' while others questioned the couple's 30-year age gap.

'The mark of a true Republican is the ability to tolerate even the most egregious government overreach, as long as it's happening to someone else,' one comment read.

Another said: 'It's amazing how quickly cruelty becomes unacceptable when it finally knocks on your own door.'

'John is deeply upset his three-decades-younger mail-order bride is gonna

The wedding plans of Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez remained a mystery today after their rumoured marriage ceremony in a Madeira cathedral turned out to be for another couple.

The 41-year-old legendary Portuguese footballer and his model fiancée Georgina, 32, had been heavily tipped to be due to tie the knot in a ceremony at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Funchal, the capital of the island where he was born and grew up.

But as a crowd of more than 2,000 people gathered to watch the nuptials and film the expected celebrity guests on their mobile phones, it quickly became apparent that the couple were not getting married there at all.

The ceremony turned out to be for an entirely unconnected Portuguese couple from Madeira called Fabio Ramos and Fatima Nicole Cunha Teixeira who live in France and had returned to the island to get married.

Fans of Cristiano including many wearing number 7 football shirts bearing his name began flocking to the square outside the Cathedral amid a swirl of suggestions on social media that the superstar was getting married at the 15th century venue.

Friends

A Travelodge guest woke up with more than 100 bed bug bites after one night in its Cambridge hotel.

Hannah Stephenson, 31, suffered the bites after staying in the city's Travelodge on July 26, waking up the next day with itchy red lumps across her body and blood spots on the bedding.

Ms Stephenson, from Bassingbourn, South Cambridgeshire, had been out with friends in the city and booked a one-night stay at the Newmarket Road hotel to save money rather than hire a taxi to travel home.

But she woke the next morning to a 'horrible realisation' that she had been bitten more than 100 times by bed bugs.

Ms Stephenson said she had a 'lovely wholesome time' of 'sightseeing and pubs' which had been 'tarnished by these bed bug bites'.

'It wasn't until I saw the blood and the bugs that I realised what had happened,' she said.

'I woke up feeling itchy and I started to have lumps forming on my arms. When I got up, I saw spots of blood on the pillow and black dots. I looked closer and I actually saw a bug on the pillow.

'I

An anti-Semitic Cornell student who told a prospective employer he was 'Not interested in working for a Jew' recently posted a bizarre rant about 5G cell service, as well as a rambling white supremacist Substack article. 

Austin Franco, 19, incited fury online after he turned down an interview at a tech start-up over the founder's Jewish faith. 

Gabe Einhorn, the 24-year-old chief executive of anti-fraud platform VryfID, shared the message he received from Franco on the college career platform Handshake. 

A screenshot of Franco's comment, which Einhorn posted on X, read: 'Not interested in working for a Jew. Thanks.' Amid outrage over his remarks, Franco has doubled down and refused to apologize or walk back his stance.  

The student's horrified parents evicted him from their $1.75 million Virginia home on August 1, with his mother, Diana, telling the New York Post: 'We have seen our adult son fall under the influence of extremist online content.'

On August 2, after raising tens of thousands of dollars from sympathetic antisemites and moving into an apartment in Ithaca, New York, Franco posted

The stage has been styled to look like a child's bedroom. Toys are scattered across the floor, picture books lie abandoned and a wicker laundry basket overflows with tiny jumpers and socks.

It could be any young family's home and the apparently perfect backdrop to a one-woman show billed, in part, as an intimate portrait of motherhood.

The child herself - four years old, the audience learns - is unseen. Instead, her sweet and high-pitched voice occasionally punctuates the hour-long performance, drifting across the theatre through speakers.

Why doesn't her Elsa dress fit any more, she asks? Why did her baby brother bite her? And can she have spaghetti for dinner?

To that last question, at least, the performer - a 39-year-old brunette - has an answer.

'No can do, kiddo,' she replies. 'Mama has post-traumatic spaghetti disorder.'

It is a line that prompts laughter from the show's small audience.

Then again, as Amanda Knox declared ahead of the Edinburgh Fringe premiere of her stand-up show Cartwheel, the production is intended largely as a comedy. 'It's 70 per cent comedy, 30 per cent rage,' she told one interviewer. That's one way of describing it.

A musician whose band supported The Wombats has died after being hit by a tractor.

Nathan Smith died in hospital after the crash on Shelton New Road, in Cliffe Vale, Stoke-on-Trent, on Wednesday. 

Police, paramedics and an air ambulance raced to the scene at 8.20am that morning. 

The 45-year-old pedestrian was taken to hospital in a critical condition and died a short time later.

Staffordshire Police said the tractor driver remained at the scene to help the police with their enquiries.

Nathan, of Hartshill, ran a recording studio alongside playing in several bands including MFK, which played with The Wombats at Trentham Gardens.

In a statement, his family said: 'Nathan was a self-taught electric bass player, who played in various Stoke bands and ran the UTC recording studio in Longton with his friend and fellow Big Cash Prizes band member, Tom Bath.

'He was supremely talented and in recent years enjoyed success with a new Stoke band MFK, culminating in supporting The Wombats at Trentham Gardens.

'Nathan was so much more though. A wonderful son, grandson and an incredible father.

Daily Mail

A North Carolina elementary school is facing backlash after parents discovered a transgender music teacher was educating students while wearing a dress, causing a bitter divide. 

Middle Creek Elementary School in Apex, near Raleigh, went back to school on July 30, where students were met with a new music teacher, who is a 'transgender biological male, who dresses as a woman,' State Representative Erin Paré said in a statement. 

At a school board meeting on Tuesday, many parents said they were unaware of the new hire, with many finding out via social media, after popular creators, such as Libs of TikTok, posted about the teacher. 

The news bitterly divided parents over whether or not the educator should be allowed to wear clothing items, such as dresses and skirts, during school hours. 

Paré is also calling for a mandatory dress code for public school teachers, which would include 'requiring gender-appropriate professional attire,' she said. 

However, the Wake County School Board said implementing a new dress code would be unconstitutional and discriminatory. 

'Enforcing gender-differentiated clothing requirements based on traditional gender roles constitutes impermissible sex

Vital repairs to Scotland's scandal-hit flagship hospital are set to cost taxpayers an eye-watering £170million.

The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) – where police are investigating the deaths of three children and four adults who contracted infections – faces the huge bill to fix serious faults in the £1billion building.

It comes after NHS bosses finally admitted that contaminated water at the NHS hospital was likely linked to serious infections in young cancer patients – after denying any connection for six years.

Flaws have also been highlighted with the Glasgow hospital's ventilation system, particularly in areas which accommodate patients with very low immune systems.

Since the infections scandal broke, politicians and campaigners have claimed the building is still unsafe and have called for major improvements.

Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that £120million worth of repairs are needed at the hospital and the adjoining children's facility – on top of the £50million that has already been spent.

Demands are now being made for the Scottish Government and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) to explain exactly how the extra money

Plans to build a much-needed replacement for crumbling Monklands Hospital were already running two years late when they were scrapped by the SNP, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Campaigners and MSPs have now called on ministers to tell the truth about when the planned hospital will be completed, arguing there is little chance of a new facility being finished by 2031 as previously promised.

Documents obtained by the MoS also show NHS leaders' fears about the existing Monklands hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, which they said 'continues to fail on a daily/weekly basis', has 'endemic' infection prevention issues and fire safety concerns.

It comes after we revealed that the SNP was told to scrap plans for a replacement hospital in Airdrie months before the Holyrood election but failed to tell the public.

Scottish Labour's health spokeswoman Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'The SNP has been lying to the public for months about the Monklands hospital - it's time for them to start telling the truth.

'We need clear and honest timescales for when the new hospital will be delivered and a cast-iron pledge from SNP ministers that