Not The Onion

16768 readers
1375 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
1
 
 

Look, I get it. The gargantuan shit-show that is U.S. politics and the American descent into fascism is on everyone's minds. It's certainly on mine.

But the point of this community is to highlight weird news stories that make you go, "By golly, I thought I was reading a headline from The Onion. You know, America's finest news source." A lot of stories being posted lately don't even remotely fit that.

That doesn't mean political stories aren't allowed here, but they must have headlines that would make people pause and wonder if it's a story from The Onion. Straight up regular, non Onion-y headlines don't fit.

2
 
 

As protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts continue around the country, kids have begun creating their own protests online using the popular gaming site Roblox.

Videos of such protests have been shared to TikTok, where players can be seen holding signs with anti-ICE slogans behind what appear to be police barricades as sirens flash and whir in the background.

3
4
 
 
5
6
 
 

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/207763

Your next phone could run on Trump Mobile

Donald Trump might be planning to launch a mobile network and a Trump-branded phone. DTTM Operations LLC, the company Trump uses to manage his trademarks, has applied to use both “Trump” and “T1” for telecoms, mobile accessories, and even phones themselves.

The applications, filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office last Thursday, cover wireless phone services, mobile phones, cases, and chargers, plus retail stores to sell them all.

A trademark application doesn’t guarantee that a Trump mobile network is about to launch, but it does signal intent. “The specificity of the applications points to serious consideration,” patent attorney Josh Gerben wrote in a blog post on Friday, noting that as part of the filing a lawyer for Trump will have “signed a sworn declaration affirming the company’s genuine plans to bring these goods and services to market.”

Trump launching a mobile network could have complications. For one, Gerben points out that T-Mobile might have a thing or two to say about the application, since “T1” could infringe on its own trademarks. That’s before we get to the question of how FCC chairman Brendan Carr will handle regulating a network owned by his boss.

Trump isn’t the only public figure with his sights set on telecoms. While Ryan Reynolds has gotten out after selling his stake in Mint Mobile to T-Mobile in 2023, just last week saw the launch of SmartLess Mobile, brought to you by the podcast of the same name hosted by Hollywood stars Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes.


From The Verge via this RSS feed

7
 
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31446248

Donald Trump's administration on Saturday was accused of promoting the Russian flag, on Flag Day.

The Department of Defense over the weekend wished social media a "Happy Flag Day!"

"Let us honor the emblem of our nation and the stars and stripes that unite us all. As we display our nations flag and reflect on the values it represents, let’s celebrate the freedom, courage and resilience that makes our country great," the department stated Saturday.

The image attached to the post included two small images that appear to represent the Russian flag.

8
9
10
11
12
13
 
 

It is, apparently, always possible for there to be less clothing.

14
71
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

The tale of the stolen gold toilet has come to a close. [...] Two men who stole an 18-carat commode from Blenheim Palace in England in 2019 were sentenced on Friday to two to four years in prison for their roles in the theft.

15
 
 

Police in South Carolina engaged in a not-so-hot pursuit as they chased a tractor excavator down a main highway for more than an hour at the speed an average adult walks.

The chase reached speeds of 3 mph (4.8 kph) early Sunday morning in North Charleston, police said. [...]

16
17
 
 

there's no disputing a ~100-foot-deep (~30-m), 226-foot-wide (69-m) pit of relentless fiery fury that's been burning for around 50 years in the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan

18
19
20
21
 
 

A B.C. man convicted on child pornography charges has been allowed to serve his sentence in the community, in part because of the “relatively modest” size of his collection, a judge has ruled.

“Although there is no strict mathematical relationship between the size of the collection and the length (or indeed type) of sentence, the size of a collection has often been held to be an aggravating factor,” Tam wrote.

Despite pleading guilty to the charges, Keenan maintained that he is not sexually attracted to children, and had only stumbled upon the child pornography in 2017 while “searching for other images such as sunsets and beaches,” according to the decision.

Keenan said was appalled by what he found, and decided to start a Tumblr blog to lure out paedophiles so he could report them to the site’s moderators in a kind of “undercover sting.”

The judge was not convinced.

22
 
 

While practicing lawyers embrace generative AI as a quicker and more efficient avenue to sanctions (Opens in a new window), law professors have mostly avoided AI headlines. This isn’t necessarily surprising. Lawyers only get into trouble with AI when they’re lazy. It becomes a problem when someone along the assembly line inserts AI-generated slop without taking the time to properly cite check. Legal scholarship, on the other hand, is all about cite checking — usually to a comically absurd degree. [...] The Texas A&M Journal of Property Law, decided to take the bull by the horns — horns down, as the case may be — and begin grappling with AI-assisted scholarship with a full volume of AI-assisted scholarship.

23
24
25
view more: next ›