logo
In this year's least surprising news, Fyre Festival 2 has been postponed

In this year's least surprising news, Fyre Festival 2 has been postponed

Yahoo17-04-2025

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
To absolutely no one's surprise at all, Fyre Festival 2, the upcoming Mexican festival promoted by convicted fraudster Billy McFarland, has reportedly been postponed for a second time.
The festival – the sequel to the disastrous 2017 event that spawned two documentaries, Hulu's Fyre Fraud and Netflix's Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened – was originally scheduled to take place in 2023
According to ABC News, ticket holders daft enough to part with up to $25,000 for admission have now received an email reading, "The event has been postponed and a new date will be announced. We have issued you a refund. Once the new date is announced, at that time, you can repurchase if it works for your schedule.'
The news comes a week after the proposed host city, Playa del Carmen, denied all knowledge of the event in an official statement.
The statement read: "Regarding the information that has begun to circulate about a supposed event called 'Fyre 2', the municipal government of Playa del Carmen informs that no event of that name will be held in our city.
"After a responsible review of the situation, it is confirmed that there are no records, plans, or conditions that indicate the holding of such an event in the municipality.
"This municipal government is acting responsibly and with commitment, always prioritising public order, safety, and social harmony.
In response, McFarland posted, "Fyre has been working directly with the government of Playa del Carmen (PDC) and their officials since March 5, 2025 to ensure a safe and successful event. All media reports suggesting our team has not been working with the government of PDC are simply inaccurate and based on misinformation."
Fyre 2 was scheduled to take place from 30 May to 2 June 2025, with tickets on sale for $1400 to $25,000. At the time of writing, tickets are still listed as available for purchase on the festival's website.
The original Fyre Festival, scheduled to be held in the Bahamas in 2017, swiftly descended into chaos and ended with zero artists performing, panicked guests fighting over lodgings and food scraps, festival producer Andy King being encouraged to perform fellatio to obtain water and promoter McFarland sentenced to six years in jail after defrauding investors of $27.4 million.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump demands arrests of masked protesters — as violent anti-ICE protests spread to San Francisco
Trump demands arrests of masked protesters — as violent anti-ICE protests spread to San Francisco

New York Post

time35 minutes ago

  • New York Post

Trump demands arrests of masked protesters — as violent anti-ICE protests spread to San Francisco

President Trump demanded the arrest of all rioters wearing face masks as violent clashes between thousands of anti-ICE agitators and law enforcement rock Los Angeles — and spread to San Francisco. 'ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!' the president boomed on Truth Social late Sunday. Trump's order comes as more than 2,000 protesters assaulted cops, set fire to vehicles, blocked traffic and ransacked shops, bringing downtown LA to a standstill as the unrest continues into its third consecutive day. 6 A man waves a Mexican flag as smoke and flames rise from a burning vehicle. REUTERS On Saturday, Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to respond to the growing protests, which centered around federal buildings in downtown LA, where ICE officials were detaining immigrants to be deported. The president had also placed 500 Marines on standby as chaos continues to unfold. 'BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' Trump again ordered on Truth Social late Sunday. 'Jim McDonnell, the highly respected LAPD Chief, just stated that the protesters are getting very much more aggressive, and that he would 'have to reassess the situation,' as it pertains to bringing in the troops. He should, RIGHT NOW!!! Don't let these thugs get away with this,' he shot off in another social media post. Chief McDonnell had said the police force is 'overwhelmed' by the protests, as rioters armed with hammers and cinder blocks hurled concrete at officers. 'Tonight, we had individuals out there shooting commercial-grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you,' McDonnell said Sunday. Many of the protesters wore face masks, directly defying the president's no-mask mandate. 6 The POTUS declared 'bring in the troops' in a Truth Social post Sunday night as carnage continues to spread in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Getty Images 6 Protesters vandalized and set fire to vehicles, ransacked shops and built barricades, bringing downtown LA to a standstill as the unrest continues into its third consecutive day. AFP via Getty Images Meanwhile, the chaos also spilled into San Francisco, where rioters tore through buildings and violently clashed with police decked out in riot gear. San Francisco Police said two officers were injured in the financial district. 6 On Saturday, Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to respond to the growing protests. AP 6 A burnt US flag is seen on the ground amid clashes with law enforcement. AFP via Getty Images 'My first priority as mayor is, and has always been, the safety of everyone who lives or works in San Francisco,' Daniel Lurie, the mayor of San Francisco, wrote on X late Sunday night. 'Everyone in this country has a right to make their voice heard peacefully, and local law enforcement will always protect that right and the rights of everyone in our city to be safe. But we will never tolerate violent and destructive behavior, and as crowds dwindled, a group that remained caused injuries to police officers, vandalized Muni vehicles, and broke windows of local businesses.' Lurie said that law enforcement has arrested approximately 60 rioters. 'Violence directed at law enforcement or public servants is never acceptable. We are working right now to clean up damage, get Muni back to full operations, and coordinating across departments to remain fully prepared for any upcoming activities,' he added. 6 Protesters ignited tinder and hurled it at the demolished police squad cars. @camhigby/X 'We will continue San Francisco's decades-long practice of prioritizing everyone's safety by supporting community organizations, investing in immigrant legal services, and continuing to build trust with local law enforcement,' he concluded.

Colombian soldiers fought guerrillas. Now they're fighting for Mexican cartels
Colombian soldiers fought guerrillas. Now they're fighting for Mexican cartels

Los Angeles Times

time40 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Colombian soldiers fought guerrillas. Now they're fighting for Mexican cartels

MEXICO CITY — Dangerous new hired guns have arrived on the battlefield of Mexico's cartel wars: Colombian mercenaries. Former combatants in Colombia's long-standing internal conflict are increasingly being lured to Mexico by criminal groups to train hitmen, build bombs and fight bloody turf battles. Eleven Colombians were arrested in Michoacán state last week in connection to a roadside bomb attack that killed eight members of Mexico's National Guard. Colombia's foreign ministry said all of the detained men had once been soldiers. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on X that a cartel known as Los Reyes had 'hired the Colombian mercenaries to confront the Mexican state.' The phenomenon highlights the growing intensity of Mexico's cartel warfare as well as the expanding role of Colombian combatants in conflicts globally. Recruited via private companies and even via TikTok, Colombians have fought in Sudan, Yemen and Ukraine. More than 300 Colombian fighters have died defending Ukraine from Russian attacks, Colombian officials say. Haitian authorities allege 26 Colombian mercenaries participated in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. Colombians also were implicated in the 2023 killing of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Many of the fighters are former military personnel with meager or no pensions and little training for any activity other than war. 'You have this pool of human resources that is poorly compensated and not utilized to their full potential,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst with the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit think tank. 'They're being swept up with these attractive offers, both by states, by defense companies and also by criminal groups.' The soldiers are in demand because they have real-life experience battling narcos and guerrillas in their home country. Colombia's army is the largest and most professional in Latin America, the recipient of billions dollars in aid from the United States. Compared with American or European security contractors, Colombian fighters are cheap, Dickinson said: 'They're the ideal recruit.' Many Colombians say they were tricked into working with the cartels. Freddy, a 46-year-old who did not give his last name for fear of reprisals from a cartel, left the Colombian military at age 32 after more than a decade of intense combat fighting leftist guerrillas. He earned about $300 a month working for a private security firm in Colombia. When he heard about a supposed job with the French Foreign Legion offering $3,000 a month, he signed up, imaging a future guarding dignitaries or assisting in peacekeeping missions. He thought he would be making a quick stopover in Mexico City when his contacts flew him there last year. But once he arrived, he and the nine other Colombians he had traveled with were driven to an isolated encampment in Jalisco state. Their phones and passports were confiscated, and they were told they were now part of a cartel. Freddy said he was forced to participate in torture and killings. He said he would be killed if he did not oblige: 'It's either your life or the life of the person in front of you.' Two other Colombian fighters recently active in Mexico described being lured there with the promise of good-paying jobs, according to video footage reviewed by The Times. Upon arrival, they claimed, they were ferried to cartel hot spots, handed guns and told to fight — and warned that their families would be harmed if they deserted. 'They deceived me,' said one man who said he was pledged $3,000 monthly as a security guard, but who instead was made to work for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel for roughly $300 a month. He said he provided weapons training for about 100 cartel soldiers, many of whom were under 18 and there against their will. 'We were practically slaves,' he said. 'They tell you: 'Go fight, and whoever dies, dies.' They don't care about human life.' The other man, a former Colombian police officer, said he worked as a medic alongside other international mercenaries from Venezuela and Guatemala. He said he had seen several Colombians die on the battlefield. Mexican authorities have known for years that cartels are employing foreign fighters. A Mexican military intelligence report from 2021 said the head of an armed cell working under a cartel leader known as El Abuelo — The Grandfather — employed 26 Colombian 'guerrilleros' to fight rivals from the Jalisco cartel. The report, made public by the hacktivist group Guacamaya, said a drug lord from another group had hired 10 Colombians, paying them a weekly salary of around $600. Derek Maltz, who stepped down last month as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Colombian fighters have an obvious appeal. In addition to providing combat-seasoned muscle, the mercenaries operate in the role of player-coach, helping young cartel foot soldiers learn the art of war, Maltz said. 'They are wanted for their expertise with the use of IEDs — these guys are experts in these types of techniques. They are training all the gangster sicarios,' Maltz said, using the Spanish term for hitmen. The group headed by El Abuelo — whose real name is Juan José Farías Álvarez — is based in the western state of Michoacán, which sprawls from heart of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. His gang was included on the Trump administration's list of cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations earlier this year. The rebranding enables U.S. law enforcement to pursue harsher penalties, and could open the door to drone strikes or other U.S. military action in Mexico, a possibility Trump has repeatedly floated. Maltz said the U.S. has seen 'significant progress' from Mexico on security under Trump, but argued the presence of foreign fighters trained in bomb-making strengthens the case for U.S. intervention. 'If it comes down to it, the U.S. government should use all tools in the toolbox to neutralize them,' Maltz said. 'They need to feel pain like they've never felt before.' The Jalisco cartel, one of the most powerful criminal groups in Mexico, was also included in Trump's terror designation and is known to have strong Colombian connections. The Mexican military recently released photos that indicate that some Colombians working for the cartels have fought in wars the world over. One showed camouflage fatigues worn by a Colombian fighter festooned with patches that include the flag of Ukraine. Another showed a military-style beret with a logo referring to a Jalisco commander nicknamed 'El Yogurt,' reputed to lead an armed cell that includes Colombians. A narcocorrido ballad dedicated to El Yogurt boasts of his skills cooking methamphetamine ('In the kitchen, not a rival has been found…') and notes that he 'has a support team, his friends never leave him behind.' Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week that her country is in talks with Colombia about how to stop the flow of mercenaries. 'This is not the first time that people of this nationality have been arrested,' she said Thursday after the arrests of the 11 Colombians. The issue is a sensitive one in Colombia, where the participation of Colombians in high-profile crimes has been the source of national shame. President Petro is pushing a bill that would require Colombia to sign on to a United Nations convention against the recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries. Some veterans say it is discriminatory. Ricardo Rodríguez, who worked as a security contractor in the United Arab Emirates after leaving the Colombian military, said in an interview that veterans should be able to take their skills elsewhere. What former soldiers need, he said, is more support from the Colombian government. 'They're stuck. They don't have any hope of getting ahead,' he said, adding that the nation's veterans will continue to look elsewhere for work 'until the Colombian government gives them the opportunity to improve their lives.' After eight months, Freddy escaped the cartel. Because he lacked identity documents, he traveled back to Colombia overland. He's back home now, but is out of work and in debt. He is plagued by nightmares about what he saw — and did — in Mexico. To toughen up young fighters, he said, cartel leaders forced them to eat barbecued human flesh. Still, he is looking again for opportunities to go abroad as a mercenary. Europe — and the salary he could make there — still calls to him. 'I don't have a career. I don't have any other skills,' he said. 'When you spend so many years at war, you don't have a vision of doing anything else. I like guns. I like security. This is what I was trained for.' Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Hamilton from San Francisco. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.

'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment
'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment

USA Today

timean hour ago

  • USA Today

'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment

'Call Her Daddy' host Alex Cooper recalls 'psychotic game' of sexual harassment Show Caption Hide Caption Need a show to binge? These are the must watch shows this summer USA TODAY's TV critic Kelly Lawler breaks down the best TV shows you don't to want to miss this summer Alex Cooper, celebrated for her let's-go-there honesty on her chart-topping podcast "Call Her Daddy," is pulling back the curtain even further. The two-part Hulu docuseries 'Call Her Alex' (streaming June 10) captures the relentless drive that led Cooper, 30, to land a lucrative SiriusXM deal (reportedly worth up to $125 million). But it also reveals the low points of her life. Growing up, boys taunted Cooper, a natural redhead. Cruel kids made fun of her hair and thin frame. 'You're disgusting,' she says they taunted her. 'No one wants to touch you.' 'I hated myself,' Cooper adds. School 'was such hell,' but at home she poured her creativity into skits that she starred in, filmed and edited. Cooper started "Call Her Daddy" in 2018 with her then-roommate Sofia Franklyn, who left the podcast in 2020. 'People genuinely believed we were like sisters," Cooper said. "But our relationship was so awful.' Cooper also addresses a subject she rarely has: Claims of being sexually harassed by Boston University soccer coach Nancy Feldman as a member of the team in college. Boston University has not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Feldman could not be reached, and the documentary, directed by Ry Russo-Young, did not include a statement from the university or its former coach. No charges were ever filed. Alex Cooper remembers Boston University soccer coach Nancy Feldman 'really starting to fixate on me' Cooper, who loved playing soccer, was on the collegiate team at Boston University. She says she attended the school on a full scholarship to play for Feldman. Cooper says during her sophomore year, she noticed Feldman 'really starting to fixate on me, way more than any other teammate of mine. And it was confusing,' Cooper says, as 'it was all based in her wanting to know who I was dating, her making comments about my body and her always wanting to be alone with me.' Feldman would comment on her legs, Cooper says in the docuseries, and would put her hand on her thigh. Cooper says that once, Feldman found out she had been brought to campus by someone she was seeing. The coach asked her during a private meeting if she had had sex the previous night, and discouraged Cooper from sleeping off campus. 'I didn't know what to do,' Cooper says, 'and every time I tried to resist her, she would say there could be consequences, and there were.' 'It was this psychotic game of, 'You want to play? Tell me about your sex life,'' Cooper alleges. ''I have to drive you to your night class. Get in the car with me alone.'' Alex Cooper says sexual harassment claims were 'entirely dismissed' without an investigation Cooper says she confided in her mother, Laurie Cooper, who took notes on their conversations about the coach's behavior. Laurie, interviewed for the docuseries, says lawyers identified Feldman's behavior as sexual harassment. Alex Cooper says she and her parents met with the dean of athletics, whom her parents told that Cooper had been sexually harassed by Feldman for three years on campus. Cooper says she was then asked by staff, 'What do you want?' They wouldn't even look at Laurie's collection of Cooper's complaints. Cooper says the university refused to fire Feldman, but told Cooper she could keep her scholarship. There was 'no investigation,' Cooper says. 'Within five minutes, they had entirely dismissed everything I had been through. I got into the car with my parents and when the door shut, I immediately broke down and I just started sobbing.' (Feldman retired from BU in 2022.) Cooper returned to Boston University for the first time for 'Call Her Alex.' She said she cried as she looked at the field and reflected on what had been stripped from her. 'When I look back at that time in my life, I was scared, hopeless,' Cooper says. 'I had no resources and no options, and the minute I left that campus I was so determined to find a way where no one could ever silence me again.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store