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Joyous parades and parties kick off New Orleans’ Mardi Gras

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Joyous parades and parties kick off New Orleans' Mardi Gras

The lead-up to New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras season intensifies Friday with major nighttime parades down historic St. Charles Avenue and animal lovers gathering at a venerable French Quarter restaurant to pay tribute to four-legged faux royalty.

Galatoire’s Restaurant, a fine dining fixture on Bourbon Street, will relax its jackets-required dress code and temporarily ditch its no-pets policy to host the king and queen of the Mystic Krewe of Barkus — two silver Labrador retrievers — at a morning event heralding the Sunday pet parade.

On Friday night, three parades with marching brass bands and colourful floats with costumed riders are to step off in the Uptown area. Other Friday night parades are scheduled in neighbouring Metairie, and there will be more than two dozen celebrations almost nightly until Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which this year falls on Feb. 21.

“If you think about the complex logistics, over multiple neighbourhoods, multiple krewes, multiple law enforcement agencies — this is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve for two weeks,” Kelly Schulz of New Orleans & Company, the city tourism industry’s trade association, said during a city news conference Thursday.

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Complicating that effort has been a rise in crime and a shortage of police officers, which somewhat muted the celebration’s comeback last year. Since parades in 2021 were cancelled because of security concerns and the pandemic, some of the routes for the 2022 parades were trimmed.

This year the original routes have been restored and the local police department is bolstered by a contingent of 125 troopers from other parts of the state to help keep order. By various estimates, the local police force has dwindled to about 900 members, which is hundreds fewer than what local experts say is needed.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city officials said they are confident safety can be maintained.

Joe Bikulege — co-owner of Le Bon Temps Roule, a neighbourhood bar and music club on Magazine Street — said that businesses and residents welcome the restored routes. “People get traditions and routines based around seeing certain parades,” he said in a recent interview.

“That’s been taken away for three years,” he said.

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And, Schulz said, it appears tourists are planning to return in strong numbers.

“We are seeing strong hotel bookings so far,” Schulz said. “We are seeing a lot of pent-up demand for travellers to come back to New Orleans. For many this will be their first time, since before COVID, experiencing Mardi Gras.”

Mardi Gras is the culmination of Carnival season — which officially begins each year on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, known as King’s Day, in New Orleans and closes with the arrival of Lent on Ash Wednesday.

New Orleans’ raucous celebration is the nation’s most well-known, but the holiday is also celebrated throughout much of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. Mobile, Alabama, lays claim to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the country.

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Batman wins EU trademark dispute with Italian designer

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Batman wins EU trademark dispute with Italian designer

Caped crusader Batman won a trademark fight with an Italian clothing retailer after Europe’s second-top court sided with an EU patent office, ruling that the Batman logo is distinctive enough to warrant its EU trademark.

Warner Bros Discovery’s DC Comics, which registered the Batman logo with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) more than two decades ago, faced a challenge from Commerciale Italiana Srl in 2019.

The Italian company had asked EUIPO to annul the trademark for clothing and carnival items, saying that it lacked a distinctive character.

After EUIPO rejected its application, Commerciale Italiana Srl took its grievance to the Luxembourg-based General Court. Judges backed the EU trademark body.

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“The evidence submitted to the General Court is not sufficient to show that the EU trade mark representing a bat in an oval surround was devoid of distinctive character on the date of filing of the application for registration,” the Court ruled. “For the relevant public, that distinctiveness makes it possible to associate, according to EUIPO, the goods covered by the trade mark with DC Comics and to distinguish them from those of other undertakings.”

The Italian company can appeal to the EU Court of Justice, Europe’s highest, on points of law.

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Taylor Swift accidentally swallows a bug during Chicago show

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Taylor Swift accidentally swallows a bug during Chicago show

American singer Taylor Swift accidentally swallowed a bug during her concert.

During her Sunday night Eras Tour performance at Soldier Field Chicago, the Grammy-winner briefly paused for a mild coughing fit. “I swallowed a bug,” explained the singer as she turned away from the crowd to cough. “I’m so sorry. It’s totally fine. It’s just stupid.”

“That was delicious,” the singer joked, as the crowd erupted in laughter. She added, “Is there any chance none of you saw that?”

Swift was in the middle of introducing the newest member of her band, pianist Karina DePiano, when the offending bug flew into her mouth.

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“This is going to happen again tonight,” Swift warned the audience. “There’s so many bugs. There’s 1,000 of them.”

The Grammy winner then finished the introduction and segued into the Evermore era of the show. Later, she introduced DePiano properly, coughed a bit more, and moved on to singing “Tolerate It.”

At the risk of consuming more bugs, Swift has several stops ahead on her Eras tour — including newly added concerts in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, where she’ll be joined by pop singer Sabrina Carpenter. In announcing those eight additional dates on Twitter, Swift promised “LOTS more international dates to come soon!”

As the name implies, Swift has divided The Eras Tour concert into sections paying tribute to every phase of her 17-year music career. The tour originally scheduled to end in August with the Los Angeles shows now allow the singer a few weeks off before continuing on to Latin America. The additional dates bring the Eras tour total concert count to 60, an especially impressive feat given the reported 3 hour length of her onstage performance.

While swatting flies onstage will certainly keep her busy, the “Mastermind” singer has more than just concerts on her summer agenda. Swift is fast approaching another album release, with her latest re-recording, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), set to debut on July 7. Earlier this week, she revealed that Fall Out Boy and Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams will be featured on two separate bonus tracks.

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Iftikhar Thakur got emotional talking about Madina

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Iftikhar Thakur got emotional talking about Madina

 Iftikhar Thakur is a famous Pakistani comedian and actor. He is considered one of the accomplished comedians of Pakistan. He has worked internationally as well.

Recently, he appeared in a podcast where he got emotional while talking about his visit to Madina. He said that he has been to more than forty countries but no place is like Madina.

He said, “my blood pressure was constantly getting low when I was visiting Baab Ul Salam. I was in shivers while visiting Roza E Rasool, it was a task for me to cross that place because of respect, it’s another feeling which I can’t explain. He started crying while sharing his experience of visiting Madina.

He further said that your life remains in peace till you are in Madina. 

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He got emotional on various occasions in the podcast while describing his experience in the holy city. The podcast host also started crying on his narration. Iftikhar Thakur said that he cried a lot seeing Bab Ul Bilal. 

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