TikTok’s latest trend, parents cracking an egg on a young child’s head, has been criticised by medical experts over the potential damage it could do.
The videos, many of which use the hashtag #eggprank, usually show a parent with a young child in the kitchen.
The parent takes a raw egg and tells the child they’re going to crack it, but instead of doing so in a pan or a bowl, they crack it on the child’s head before pouring the egg into a bowl or pan.
The phenomenon has gone viral, despite it causing some of the children to cry or leaving them looking upset and stunned. In some instances, the child throws an egg back at the parent.
By Tuesday, videos using the hashtag had more than 670m views, according to NBC, and some of them were clocking up as many as six million views each.
However, medical experts have warned that the prank could have side-effects, including bruising on the head or spreading germs.
Dr Meghan Martin, a paediatric emergency medical consultant at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida, who has 1.3 million followers on TikTokherself, said: “I was not a big fan of this at all. This is not something that benefits kids in any way, and I honestly don’t find it entertaining.
“We’re literally smacking salmonella on their foreheads.
“It’s harder to get a toddler to drink fluids when they’ve got a stomach bug or food poisoning, and so they’re more likely to end up in the hospital for IV fluids.”
Amanda Mathers, a paediatric occupational therapist, who tried the prank out on herself, said it was “hard to crack that egg on my head and my fully developed skull.
“And I almost felt a shock of, like, tears behind my eyes just trying to slam that egg into my head.”
But Rebecca Burger-Caplan, clinical director of child, adolescent and family services at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said a one-off experience such as the egg prank is unlikely to have long-term ramifications.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:46
Hear Trump and his lawyer discuss hush money
The court also heard a recording of a conversation between Mr Trump and Mr Cohen over hush money said to have been paid to another woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who he also allegedly had an affair with.
Mr Cohen suggests in the recording setting up another company to repay David Pecker – who said he provided the $150,000 to cover up the story.
The former National Enquirer boss previously testified he bought the story to keep it hidden and eventually decided against seeking reimbursement.
Later in the recording, Mr Trump can be heard suggesting the $150,000 might be better off being paid in cash.
Mr Cohen told the court this was to “avoid any type of paper transaction”.
The 57-year-old – who once said he would take a bullet for Mr Trump – worked for him for nearly a decade.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law in 2018 over the Stormy Daniels payment and was jailed, but at the time prosecutors did not bring charges against Mr Trump.
Mr Cohen’s credibility is in the sights of defence lawyers as he has previously admitted lying under oath.
Mr Trump – who will take on Joe Biden in his bid to become president again in November – is unlikely to face a custodial sentence if found guilty.
His other cases are potentially more damaging but mired in delays.
They concern allegations of keeping stacks of secret documents after leaving office and trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He denies the claims.
A livestream portal between Dublin and New York was temporarily shut down after “inappropriate behaviour” in the Irish capital.
Thousands of people have visited the two-way portal, which allows people on either side to see and interact with each other.
And while there have been a number of wholesome moments – including Irish dancing and even a proposal – a handful of people have behaved “inappropriately”, Dublin City Council has said.
Videos on social media have shown people on the Irish side flashing body parts, and displaying images of 9/11 and swear words on phone screens.
A woman was also escorted away by police after being seen grinding against the portal.
In a statement issued on Monday evening, a spokesperson for Dublin City Council said “technical solutions” to address this are being implemented in the next 24 hours.
“We will continue to monitor the situation over the coming days with our partners in New York to ensure that Portals continue to deliver a positive experience for both cities and the world,” they said.
More from World
“The team at portals.org and partners are still working on improving the software for better stability and to prepare for Portals to expand to more locations on Earth.
“Those works are being done mostly at night and during those hours, the livestream might be paused.”
Advertisement
Dublin City Council noted there has been an increase in footfall since the Portal was unveiled in north Dublin, facing O’Connell Street. The New York portal is at the busy Manhattan junction of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street.
“The overwhelming majority of interactions are positive,” the spokesperson added. “We have seen families and friends unite, dancing moves being shared as well as new friendships being made. There was even a successful marriage proposal.
“The Portal offers a window to other cities and is connecting people and cultures in a unique manner – what we are seeing between Dublin and NY is reflective of a wider narrative of cultural behaviour.”
The Portals Organisation said: “We do not intend to suggest people to interact with Portals in any particular way – our goal is to open a window between far away places and cultures that allows people to interact freely with one another.
“We encourage people to be respectful and from our position as observers, we see that the absolute majority of experiences is on the bright side.”
In an earlier statement, they confirmed the livestream had been paused so they could “update the software used on the Portal”.
The new version of the ChatGPT AI chatbot has been unveiled and offers near-instant results across text, vision and audio, according to its maker.
OpenAI said it was much better at understanding visuals and sounds than previous versions.
It offers the prospect of real-time ‘conversations’ with the chatbot, including the ability to interrupt its answers.
The firm says it “accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs”.
GPT-4o is to be rolled out over the next few weeks amid a battle by tech firms to develop ever-more advanced artificial intelligence tools.
Monday’s announcement showed tasks such as real-time language translation; using its vision capability to solve a maths question on a piece of paper, and to guide a blind person around London.
GPT-4o can respond to audio in as little as 232 milliseconds, with an average of 320 milliseconds, which the company says is similar to human response time.
More on Artificial Intelligence
Related Topics:
To try to ease concerns over bias, fairness and misinformation, the Microsoft-backed company says the new version has undergone extensive testing by 70 external experts.
It comes after Google earlier this year had a major PR blunder over images generated by its Gemini AI system.
Advertisement
GPT-4o model will be free, but premium ‘Plus’ users get a greater capacity limit for messages.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News