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Get you up to speed: The ‘brown challenge’ is spreading across Spain – and it’s seriously disgusting | News World
More than 300 swimming pools in Spain have closed due to the ‘brown challenge’, a trend involving individuals defecating in or contaminating pool water. Local authorities are responding with fines and public alerts as the trend poses significant public health risks.
Authorities have indicated that over 300 swimming pools have closed across Spain due to the ‘brown challenge’ trend, which is exacerbating public health risks. Local councils are imposing fines between €1,000 and €5,000 on offenders, while police surveillance is being increased to deter further incidents, despite challenges in identifying those responsible.
In response to the rising incidents of the ‘brown challenge,’ around 50 municipalities in Spain have issued public alerts and are imposing fines ranging from €1,000 to €3,000 on offenders. Furthermore, local authorities in Picassent have escalated cases to court, imposing fines of up to €5,000, while police surveillance around pools is being increased to combat the issue.
What remains unclear — It is unclear how effective the current fines and surveillance measures are in deterring individuals from participating in the ‘brown challenge.’
Brown challenge poses health risks as hundreds of swimming pools close in Spain
Hundreds of swimming pools in Spain are at high risk of becoming a public health hazard due to a revolting trend.
If you’re eating, we suggest putting your food down before reading further.
Unfortunately, the so-called ‘brown challenge’ (reto marrón) is exactly what you probably think it is.
What started as an albeit very grim prank on Instagram and TikTok has grown into a very real health crisis, as it involves either defecating directly into a public pool or secretly putting faeces in a bag inside a swimsuit to release it in the water.
The idea is that the joker will record the moment and post it online with the aim of getting the pool to close.
Already, the ‘prank’ has caused more than 300 swimming pools to shut across the country.
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Hundreds of pools in Spain have become a health hazard thanks to a revolting online trend (Picture: Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images)
It goes without saying that such behaviour poses numerous hygiene hazards, as faeces can transmit bacteria and viruses into the water.
Viruses include norovirus, then bacteria such as Salmonella, and parasites such as Cryptosporidium, which pool chlorine does not kill.
Should a fellow swimmer accidentally swallow or inhale the dirty water, it can cause problems like stomach pains, vomiting, fever, diarrhoea, and more.
Children are most vulnerable in this case, as they swallow more water while swimming.
So, it’s no surprise that the disturbing trend is causing havoc in Spanish pools, which must be emptied and closed immediately if faeces are found.
By law, the pools should remain closed to the public for 24 to 48 hours, during which time the pools will be cleaned and filtered thoroughly before being tested several times to ensure the water is safe.
Madrid public pools reopened, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at Vicente del Bosque swimming pool in Madrid, Spain July 1, 2020. REUTERS/Susana Vera” decoding=”async” loading=”lazy”/>
Children are especially vulnerable to contracting infections as a result of the ‘brown challenge’ (Picture: Reuters)
In some instances, pools have had to be drained entirely and then refilled, using thousands of litres of water, which isn’t cheap, especially given how small-town pools are typically the most affected, as they’re hotspots for family gatherings.
Scheduled events then have to be cancelled, and locals are left without pools on some of the hottest days.
Attempting to crack down on the foolish antics, around 50 municipalities have issued public alerts.
Local councils are now punishing those responsible, too, with fines ranging from €1,000 to €3,000. Offenders will then, understandably, be banned from re-entering the pool.
But in places like Picassent, the city council is taking further action, having escalated cases to court and fined several youngsters €5,000.
Meanwhile, pools are also enforcing police surveillance, although identifying perpetrators can prove difficult, since pools cannot install cameras or demand ID on entry.
Alas, this is not a new phenomenon, as the city of Zamora has seen some of its pools close six times already this year.
In 2025, more than 300 swimming pools had to close for the same reason.
Apologies in advance to anyone holidaying in Spain this year.
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October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
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@MahaGaza
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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