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| ===== April Fools' Day is celebrated with pranks and hoaxes worldwide ===== | ===== Austria welcomes JJ back home with cheers, hugs and roses after he wins the Eurovision Song Contest ===== |
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| By HALLIE GOLDEN Associated Press | By PHILIPP JENNE and KIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press |
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| From France to Iceland to the United States, April Fools' Day will be celebrated on Tuesday with practical jokes and elaborate hoaxes, so make sure to triple check viral posts and don't leave your back open to any stray sticky notes. | VIENNA (AP) — Austrian fans enthusiastically welcomed classically trained singer JJ back home at Vienna airport on Sunday after he won the 69th Eurovision Song Contest with "Wasted Love." |
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| The jokesters' custom has been around for hundreds of years, although its exact birth is difficult to pinpoint. These days, depending on your location, it could be marked with a fish secretly pinned to someone's back or a whoopee cushion or even news reports of flying penguins (yes, that actually happened ). | As JJ walked through the gate, hundreds of fans cheered, some played his song and others surrounded the new star, hugging him and asking for autographs. |
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| In the U.S., the pranks are typically followed by screams of "April Fools!" to make sure all are aware that they were the unsuspecting recipient of a practical joke. | The 24-year-old countertenor, whose winning song combines operatic, multi-octave vocals with a techno twist, and who also sings at the Vienna State Opera, held up his trophy in one hand and a big bouquet of roses in the other. He smiled, wiped away tears and told the crowd "that victory is for you." |
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| Here are some thing to know about April Fools' Day and its history: | JJ, whose full name is Johannes Pietsch, was Austria's third Eurovision winner, after bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst in 2014 and Udo Jürgens in 1966. |
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| **Where did April Fools' Day come from?** | "This is beyond my wildest dreams. It's crazy," said the singer when being handed the microphone-shaped glass Eurovision trophy after his win in the Swiss city of Basel on Saturday night. |
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| There are plenty of theories about where this day of pranks and hoaxes came from. It's not clear exactly which one might be true. But what is clear is that April Fools' Day has roots stretching back hundreds of years. | On Sunday night, JJ told reporters in Vienna that "I don't think you'll realize that you did it at all until you're on your deathbed." |
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| One idea is that it dates back to France in 1564, when King Charles IX moved the New Year celebration from its weeklong observance beginning March 25 to a celebration on Jan. 1, according to the Library of Congress. Those who forgot or were never told about the change were mocked. Although the library notes that the true history of the New Year is more complicated, as different parts of the country observed it on different days. | **'All of Austria is happy'** |
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| A similar theory ties April Fools' Day to the 1582 change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, according to the library. But it explains that this type of origin story has been used to explain several holidays and may be more of a "migratory legend." | Austria's president, Alexander van der Bellen, celebrated JJ in a video posted on X. |
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| And then there's the theory that it could be connected to the March 21 vernal equinox, which is known as a day when people are tricked by unexpected weather changes, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. | "What a success! What a voice! What a show!" he exclaimed. "All of Austria is happy." |
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| Whatever its origin, the first time there was clear documented reference to the day was in 1561 when the Flemish writer Eduard De Dene wrote in his poem about a nobleman sending his servant on pointless tasks, according to the Library of Congress. The servant soon realizes that he has been "sent on 'fool's errands' because it's April 1," the library states. | Chancellor Christian Stoecker wrote on X: "What a great success — my warmest congratulations on winning #ESC2025! JJ is writing Austrian music history today!" |
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| **What are some of the most famous April Fools' Day pranks?** | The Vienna State Opera also expressed joy over the win. "From the Magic Flute to winning the Song Contest is somehow a story that can only take place in Austria," opera director Bogdan Roscic told the Austrian press agency APA. |
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| In 2021, then-first lady Jill Biden pretended to be a flight attendant on an airplane traveling from California to Washington. She wore a "Jasmine" nametag and passed out Dove ice cream bars while wearing a black mask, black pantsuit and wig. A few minutes later, "Jasmine" reemerged without the wig — revealing herself to be Jill Biden, laughing and proclaiming, "April Fools!" | Several Austrian cities were quick to show their interest in hosting next year's contest. Innsbruck Mayor Johannes Anzengruber told APA that "not everything has to take place in Vienna. ... Austria is bigger than that," and the towns of Oberwart in Burgenland and Wels in Upper Austria also threw their hats into the ring. |
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| Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin became known for announcing outlandish ideas every April Fools' Day soon after starting their company more than a quarter century ago. One year, Google posted a job opening for a Copernicus research center on the moon. Another year, the company said it planned to roll out a "scratch and sniff" feature on its search engine. | JJ himself said he hoped that Vienna would get the next ESC which he would love to host together with his mentor, Conchita Wurst. |
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| In 1992, NPR 's "Talk of the Nation" program announced that former-President Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974, would be running for president, according to the Museum of Hoaxes. A comedian had impersonated Nixon to say, "I never did anything wrong, and I won't do it again." | **A nail-biting final** |
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| Outside of the U.S., one of the most notable pranks involved the BBC World Service in 1980 declaring that Big Ben would become a digital clock and renamed Digital Dave, according to the UK Parliament. | Israeli singer Yuval Raphael came second at an exuberant celebration of music and unity - JJ won after a nail-biting final that saw Raphael scoop up a massive public vote from her many fans for her anthemic "New Day Will Rise." |
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| **How is April Fools' Day celebrated around the world?** | At a post-victory press conference, JJ said the message of his song about unrequited romance was that "love is the strongest force on planet Earth, and love persevered. |
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| From Scotland to Iceland to the U.S., the day is honored in a wide array of ways. | "Let's spread love, guys," said JJ, who added that he was honored to be the first Eurovision champion with Filipino heritage, as well as a proudly queer winner. |
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| In France, the day is known as poisson d'avril, or "April Fish," and has long had a fish-themed pranking tradition. In modern times, it's become more of a day for children to relish in attaching paper fish to their friends' backs, Atlas Obscura says. | **Eclectic and sometimes baffling** |
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| In Scotland, April Fools' has a history of being a two-day event. April 1 is known as "Gowkie Day" or "Hunt the Gowk," explained Encyclopedia Britannica. Gowk is a term used to describe a fool. On April 2, the celebration may become more physical, with children attaching "kick me" signs to people's backs. | The world's largest live music event, which has been uniting and dividing Europeans since 1956, reached its glitter-drenched conclusion with a grand final in Basel that offered pounding electropop, quirky rock and outrageous divas. |
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| The day is also celebrated in Iceland, with the aim being to get people to "hlaupa apríl," or "make an April run." In other words, to trick someone in a way that makes them travel to a different location. News agencies have also been known to participate in pranking people. In 2014, for example, Iceland Review ran a story with the headline, "Google Signs Deal with Iceland," saying the fake news was part of "a long-standing tradition of the Icelandic media." | Acts from 26 countries — trimmed from 37 entrants through two elimination semifinals — performed to some 160 million viewers for the continent's pop crown. No smoke machine, jet of flame or dizzying light display was spared by musicians who had three minutes to win over millions of viewers who, along with national juries of music professionals, picked the winner. |
| ===== Why does the US restrict its presidents to 2 terms? A look at the tradition Trump is questioning ===== | |
| | Estonia's Tommy Cash came third with his jokey mock-Italian dance song "Espresso Macchiato." Swedish entry KAJ, which had been favorite to win with jaunty sauna ode "Bara Bada Bastu," came fourth. |
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| | The show was a celebration of Europe's eclectic, and sometimes baffling, musical tastes. |
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| | Grieshaber reported from Berlin. Associated Press writer Jill Lawless in Basel, Switzerland contributed to this report. |
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| | ===== The UK and the EU hail a new chapter as they sign fresh deals 5 years after Brexit ===== |
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| | By SYLVIA HUI Associated Press |
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| | LONDON (AP) — Britain and the European Union hailed a new chapter in their relationship Monday after sealing fresh agreements on defense cooperation and easing trade flows at their first formal summit since Brexit. |
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| By BILL BARROW Associated Press | Five years after the U.K. left the EU, ties were growing closer again as Prime Minister Keir Starmer met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other senior EU officials in London for talks. |
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| ATLANTA (AP) — Only one person in U.S. history has defied the two-term example set by the first president, George Washington. And voters responded by forbidding future presidents from being elected more than twice. | The deals will slash red tape, grow the British economy and reset relations with the 27-nation trade bloc, Starmer said, while von der Leyen called the talks a "historic moment" that benefits both sides. |
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| President Donald Trump has alluded to arcane legal arguments in repeatedly suggesting he could seek a third term. Besides challenging long-settled readings of the U.S. Constitution, a Trump move to run in 2028 would challenge the precedent that voters have repeatedly upheld when given the opportunity. | "Britain is back on the world stage," Starmer told reporters. "This deal is a win-win." |
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| Here is an explanation of the historical and legal tradition behind the presidency being a job for a maximum of two terms and two terms only. | He hailed Monday's agreements — the third package of trade deals struck by his government in as many weeks following accords with the U.S. and India — as "good for jobs, good for bills and good for our borders." |
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| **Washington set the example of voluntary limits** | But Britain's opposition parties slammed the deals as backtracking on Brexit and "surrendering" anew to the EU. "We're becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again," Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said. |
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| It seemed a foregone conclusion that Washington, president of the 1787 convention that yielded the U.S. Constitution, also would become the nation's first federal executive, even as anti-federalists worried that he'd be reelected again and again, becoming a quasi-king by acclamation. | Here are the main takeaways from the summit: |
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| Washington began his presidency in 1789, leading an executive branch of government that the Constitution's authors balanced with two others: Congress and the judiciary. | **Cutting red tape on food trade** |
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| Besides those structural guards against concentrations of power, Washington put aside his military garb and title, opting for the era's formal attire and the honorific of "Mr. President" to underscore his status as an elected civilian. He considered not standing for reelection. He even had James Madison draft a farewell address before ultimately seeking and winning another term in 1792. Four years later, he tasked Alexander Hamilton with dusting off and polishing up Madison's farewell draft as he announced his retirement from public life. | Officials said they will remove some routine border checks on animal and plant products and align with EU regulations, which will reduce costs on food imports and exports and make it easier for goods to flow freely across borders. |
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| There was no legal barrier to a third Washington term. But his decision set the tone. Four of the next six presidents won a second term but passed on a third. The last of that group, Andrew Jackson, was the first president not to have worked with Washington or have known him. Yet by the time Jackson endorsed his own successor, Martin Van Buren, two terms had become the standard. | Businesses have complained about trucks waiting for hours at borders with fresh food that cannot be exported to the EU because of laborious post-Brexit certifications. |
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| **A few pushed against the Washington rule – and failed** | The changes will mean the U.K. can sell products like raw British burgers, sausages and seafood to the EU again, officials said. The benefits will apply also to movements between the British mainland and Northern Ireland, where post-Brexit customs checks have been a thorny issue for years. |
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| Historians have debated whether Abraham Lincoln might have pursued a third term after the Civil War had he not been assassinated in 1865 at the outset of his second term. | While the EU is the U.K.'s largest trading partner, the government said the U.K. has been hit with a 21% drop in exports since Brexit because of more onerous paperwork and other non-tariff barriers. |
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| Ulysses S. Grant, Lincoln's victorious Civil War general and president from 1869 to 1877, led Republican delegates' initial voting at their 1880 convention. But he could not win a majority. | **Defense procurement pact** |
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| Theodore Roosevelt, elected vice president in 1901, served nearly a full presidential term after William McKinley's death in 1901. When Roosevelt was elected in his own right in 1904, he promised he would not run for what he called a third term. | A new security and defense partnership will pave the way for the U.K. defense industry to access a new EU loan program worth 150 billion euros ($170 billion.) That will allow Britain to secure cheap loans backed by the EU budget to buy military equipment, in part to help Ukraine defend itself. |
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| Delegates at the 1908 GOP convention chanted "four more years," but Roosevelt kept his word. He backtracked in 1912 but lost the nomination to his successor, incumbent William Howard Taft. Roosevelt launched a failed third-party campaign and lost, pilloried by critics for his broken third-term promise. One scathing political cartoon depicted the ghost of George Washington chiding Roosevelt. | The EU has said that the loan program will help boost the readiness of European defense as well as enable more coordinated support for Ukraine. |
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| **FDR used World War II to win additional terms** | **Fishing rights** |
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| In 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the only president to successfully win a third election, doing so as World War II raged in Europe ahead of the eventual U.S. entry. | The deal included a 12-year extension of an agreement allowing EU fishing vessels to operate in U.K. waters until 2038, which angered U.K. fishermen and their supporters. |
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| Biographer H.W. Brands reasoned that FDR saw the global conflict as a "chance to write his name in bold letters across the history of the world." But the 32nd president carefully couched his decision as one of necessity, not ambition. "Precisely when he determined to try for a third term is unclear," Brands wrote. "He never revealed his thinking on the subject." | While economically minor, fishing has long been a sticking point and symbolically important issue for the U.K. and EU member states such as France. Disputes over the issue nearly derailed a Brexit deal back in 2020. |
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| Roosevelt sidestepped reporters' questions about his plans in 1940. At that year's Democratic convention, his ally Sen. Alben Barkley of Kentucky told delegates, with FDR's blessing: "The president has never had and has not today any desire or purpose to continue in the office. … He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate." | Elspeth Macdonald, head of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, called the agreement a "horror show for Scottish fishermen" that was granted in order to secure other objectives. Scottish First Minister John Swinney said the deal was "the direct opposite of what was promised by Brexit." |
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| But at the same time, and also with FDR's blessing, Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly was working delegates for the president. After securing a third nomination that had eluded Grant and his distant cousin, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR accepted it in a radio address: | **Easing movement for young people** |
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| "I have had to admit to myself, and now to state to you, that my conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service," he said. "The right to make that call rests with the people through the American method of a free election. Only the people themselves can draft a president." | Post-Brexit visa restrictions have hobbled cross-border activities for professionals such as bankers or lawyers, as well as academic and cultural exchanges, including touring bands. |
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| **Voters reelected Roosevelt twice more – but decided never again** | The U.K. and EU said they agreed to co-operate on a youth mobility plan that's expected to allow young Britons and Europeans to live and work temporarily in each other's territory, though no details were provided. |
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| FDR won two more terms, though not without critics. His first vice president, John Nance Garner, sought the 1940 nomination in Chicago. Some Capitol Hill allies quietly grumbled as well about a figure they saw as holding power too tightly. | British officials insisted that numbers would be capped and stays would be time-limited. |
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| And while Roosevelt won Electoral College landslides in each of his four victories, his share of the popular vote dwindled from his 60.8% peak in 1936 to 54.7% in 1940 and 53.4% in 1944. | The free movement of people remains a politically touchy issue in the U.K., with the youth mobility plan seen by some Brexiteers as inching back toward completely free movement for EU nationals to move to the U.K. The U.K. has similar youth mobility arrangements with countries including Australia and Canada. |
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| Roosevelt died in April 1945. Vice President Harry Truman replaced him. | **Cutting airport waits** |
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| Not long after Roosevelt's death, Congress began earnest consideration of what became the 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two elections. Without naming Truman, lawmakers exempted the president serving at the time while also carving out a narrow way for someone to serve more than eight years: Someone who ascends from the vice presidency for less than half of one term could still win and serve two full terms of their own. | British passport holders will be able to use e-gates at more European airports as part of the deal. |
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| Truman, who served nearly all of FDR's last term plus his own, did not immediately swear off another term in 1952. But in a stinging defeat for a sitting president, he lost the New Hampshire primary — and quickly declared would not seek another term. | Since Brexit, many British travelers cannot use automated gates when they arrive at EU airports. The new measure will end "the dreaded queues at border control," officials said. |
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| **Every future president has been bound by the 22nd Amendment** | **Opposition objects to a 'surrender'** |
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| Lyndon Johnson met a similar fate 16 years later. Because he served less than half of the slain John F. Kennedy's term, Johnson was still eligible to be elected twice. He won a 1964 landslide for a full term. But the Vietnam War chipped away at his popularity thereafter. | Britain's opposition parties have criticized Starmer's bid to reset relations with the EU. The pro-Brexit and anti-immigration Reform U.K. party, which recently won big in local elections, and the Conservatives have called the trade-offs in the deals a betrayal of Brexit. |
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| Johnson performed poorly in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968. On March 31, he told a national television audience, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president." | Starmer is "taking us backwards. We left the European Union. That was settled, we drew a line under that," said Badenoch, the Conservative leader. "This deal is taking us to the past and that is why we call it surrender." |
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| There has been occasional talk of repealing the 22nd Amendment since. | Starmer stressed that he did not violate his "red lines": The U.K. won't rejoin the EU's frictionless single market and customs union, and will not agree to the free movement of people between the U.K. and the EU. |
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| President Ronald Reagan, another two-term president, publicly supported repeal, telling an interviewer, according to The New York Times, that he "wouldn't do that for myself, but for presidents from here on." | David Henig, a U.K. trade policy expert at the European Centre for International Political Economy, suggested that while some will continue to argue against agreeing to EU regulations, most Britons likely believe it's time to move forward. |
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| Trump, on the other hand, makes clear that any changes in law or tradition would be for his benefit. | "Simply following EU rules in some areas is going to be controversial to those who thought that Brexit means casting off all influence from the EU entirely," he said. "That wasn't realistic for a trading nation like the UK., where 50% of our trade is with the EU." |
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| "I'm not joking," he told NBC News. "There are methods which you could do it." | Pan Pylas and Jill Lawless in London and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed reporting. |
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