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Costa Coffee, a British coffee chain owned by The Coca-Cola Company, is facing fierce backlash over a cartoon advertisement that features a transgender man with scars on his chest after an apparent double mastectomy.

The image on the mural — which was spotted on the side of a Costa Express van and shared on the recently renamed Twitter app X — shows a surfer with large pink lips and bright blue hair sipping coffee from a to-go cup.

But it is the scars symbolizing a breast removal operation that’s causing a fury of criticism and calls for boycott — an echo of the push to cancel Bud Light over its tie-up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

“Costa Coffee deserves the full Bud Light treatment for glorifying women and girls cutting their breasts off in the name of gender identity,” media personality Oli London tweeted.

“Why is a coffee chain pushing sex change surgeries on customers that just want to drink coffee?” he questioned.

“Its off my list of coffee shops,” another chimed in.

“They deserve more than bud light, this is appalling and sadistic on so many levels,” yet another disturbed user replied.

Costa Coffee — based in Buckinghamshire, England — has over 4,000 locations in more than 32 countries.

It opened its first stateside location in Atlanta, Ga., last August.

A Costa Coffee spokesperson told The Post in a statement that “the mural, in its entirety, showcases and celebrates inclusivity.”

“At Costa Coffee we celebrate the diversity of our customers, team members and partners. We want everyone that interacts with us to experience the inclusive environment that we create, to encourage people to feel welcomed, free and unashamedly proud to be themselves,” the spokesperson added.

“This is the sickest ad campaign in the history of marketing. Stop female breast and genital mutilation,” one user posted.

One reply featured a coffee cup on a Costa-branded saucer that was smeared with blood with a surgical blade in place of a spoon. “Bloody disgusting,” the gory photo was captioned.

“What about women who have had mastectomies as cancer treatment? They don’t need this shoved in their faces either,” another wrote.

One response pointed out that “there is a current trend in advertising to use images which some people might find offensive. It makes no sense to alienate potential customers.”

The tweet was seemingly in reference to a slew of companies’ progressive moves that, instead of inspiring positivity and inclusivity, have influenced consumers to push a “go woke, go broke” narrative.

Aside from Bud Light — whose parent company lost $27 billion in market cap since its controversial ad debuted on April 1 — Target also found its company bleeding value when it launched an LGBTQ-friendly Pride collection featuring items geared towards children and infants.

Just this week, the New York Times was bashed for publishing an article ranking the five best clitoral vibrators, but never mentioning the word “woman” unless it were part of a vibrator’s name.

Instead, the piece said the vibrators were for and tested on people with vulvas.

Last month, the CEO of tampon maker August, Nadya Okamoto, was dragged for promoting her brand on a segment of CBS Mornings and calling her customers “menstruators” instead of “women” as she claimed that tampons can be “gender inclusive.”

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Missouri bill proposes Bitcoin reserve fund for state investments

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Missouri bill proposes Bitcoin reserve fund for state investments

House Bill 1217, introduced by Representative Ben Keathley, aims to establish a Bitcoin reserve fund for Missouri and mandate crypto acceptance for state payments.

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World

Australian politician changes his name to ‘Aussie Trump’

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Australian politician changes his name to 'Aussie Trump'

An Australian politician has legally changed his name to Austin Trump in a move inspired by Donald Trump – in what he said was a protest against the country’s ruling centre-left Labor Party.

Ben Dawkins – who is an independent MP in Western Australia’s upper house of parliament where Labor holds a majority – is now listed as “Aussie Trump” on the WA parliamentary website.

He has also changed his username to “Hon. Aussie Trump MLC” on his X account.

“I’ve launched a political protest against the tyranny and systematic corruption of the Labor government in WA,” he wrote, in a post on the social media platform, signing off as “Aussie”.

“Vote Labor Out! & Drill Baby Drill!,” he wrote in a second post, appearing to echo the US president’s plan to increase the extraction of oil and gas in the United States.

He also posted a photo showing legal confirmation of the name change from Western Australia’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

“I want to be like Trump in the sense of calling out woke leftist nonsense,” he told 9News.

“I would love you to reach out Donald, just ring the office here.”

Read more from Sky News:
Trump sanctions International Criminal Court
Make the Moon Great Again – or lose it to China?

“This is simply attention-seeking stuff,” said Western Australia’s Premier Roger Cook, the state’s Labor leader, at a news conference on Thursday.

“I’m not sure how much lower he can go.”

Western Australia state elections are due to take place in March, before the country goes to the polls in a nationwide vote that must be held before 17 May.

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US

Search under way in Alaska for missing Bering Air plane carrying 10 people

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Search under way in Alaska for missing Bering Air plane carrying 10 people

A search for a missing plane carrying 10 people is under way in Alaska.

The Bering Air flight left Unalakleet at 2.38pm on Thursday but contact was lost less than an hour later, the firm’s operations director David Olson said.

Officials are trying to work out its last-known position but the coastguard said the Cessna Grand Caravan was 12 miles offshore as it flew across Norton Sound.

Tracking site Flightradar24 reported it at 5,300ft before contact was lost.

It was travelling from Unalakleet, a community of about 690 people in western Alaska, to Nome, a gold rush town just south of the Arctic Circle.

The flight time is normally just under an hour.

In a post on Facebook, Nome’s fire department said: “We are currently doing an active ground search from Nome and from White Mountain.”

It added: “We ask the public to please think of those who may be missing at this time, but due to weather and safety concerns please do not form individual search parties.”

Weather in Unalakleet at take-off time was -8.3C (17F) with fog and light snow, according to the US National Weather Service.

Bering Air serves 32 villages in western Alaska and air travel is often the only option of travelling long distances in rural parts of the US state, especially in winter.

“Staff at Bering Air is working hard to gather details, get emergency assistance, search and rescue going,” said Mr Olson.

Read more from Sky News:
Cold snap on way as temperatures set to plummet
Gino D’Acampo denies inappropriate behaviour

Nome in Alaska.
Pic: AP
Image:
The plane was heading to Nome, just south of the Arctic Circle. Pic: AP

It comes soon after two major air accidents in the US in recent weeks.

Sixty-seven people were killed when a jet and helicopter collided in Washington DC and seven died when a medical plane crashed in Philadelphia.

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