New Delhi:

On Halloween evening, US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted a memorable trick-or-treat event, marking the last Halloween celebration for the 81-year-old during his current term at the White House. 

Amid a festive atmosphere, Biden had a series of light-hearted interactions with young visitors, including a humorous moment where he pretended to bite the leg of a baby dressed as a chicken. All the while the iconic theme from Jaws played in the background. 

U.S. President Joe Biden bites a baby during a trick-or-treaters celebration for Halloween at the White House in Washington. Photo by @SmileItsNathan pic.twitter.com/VXzvtI3IZo

— corinne_perkins (@corinne_perkins) October 30, 2024

First Lady Jill Biden also participated in the festivities dressed as a giant panda – a nod to her earlier collaboration with the National Zoo to celebrate the return of pandas to Washington, DC. 

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden — dressed as a panda! — hand out candy for Halloween at the White House, including to Sec. of State Blinken’s kids. Theme is Hallo-read pic.twitter.com/dSrswXITT2

— Maddie Gannon (@maddiegannon3) October 30, 2024

FLOTUS also delighted the kids with a reading session, introducing the educational theme of “Hallo-Read”. Earlier in the day, she shared a spooky pumpkin story with a group of costumed kids on the White House lawn.

jill biden being fully dressed up for halloween ad a panda is actually hilarious pic.twitter.com/uSUvf6EPxq

— annika ???????????? (@theannikaj) October 31, 2024

As evening fell, the couple spent over an hour distributing goodies to up to 8,000 attendees, including local students and families with military backgrounds. President Biden, in a suit and tie, filled children’s treat bags with White House-branded Hershey’s Kisses, while the First Lady handed out copies of 10 Spooky Pumpkins. The White House grounds were decorated with festive decorations, including a large orange moon, stacks of books and cardboard cutouts of Willow, the family’s cat.

An Air Force band played spooky tunes throughout the evening. 

On Halloween, former President Donald Trump is set to visit Albuquerque, New Mexico, to appeal to Latino voters and promote his immigration policies. Despite New Mexico’s predominantly Democratic and Hispanic population, Trump aims to leverage recent Republican gains among Latino men. His visit is significant, especially following a rally in New York where inflammatory comments about Puerto Rico were made, raising tensions with Latino communities.

Trump’s campaign focuses on New Mexico’s proximity to the border and its oil and gas industry, hoping to attract conservative Latinos employed in these sectors. However, Democrats argue that his claims about energy production are misleading, as oil and gas output has increased under President Biden.

The visit will occur at a private venue after the state declined Trump’s requests for public spaces due to maintenance claims. Critics, including New Mexico Democratic spokesperson Daniel Garcia, argue that Trump’s past actions, including unpaid debts from previous campaign visits, indicate he is unlikely to succeed in swaying voters in the state.

Aarhus University researchers in Denmark have put up a theory that explains why jump scares frequently cause anxiety to transform into laughing. Under the direction of Marc Hye-Knudsen, the study looks at how humour allows individuals to chuckle after a panic by involving a perceived violation that is acknowledged as harmless.

Based on research on haunted houses and kid-friendly games like peekaboo, the findings point to a “sweet spot” where humour and horror coexist, providing guidance for pranksters trying to achieve the ideal ratio of fun to fear.

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“The problem with that theory is that we find all sorts of things funny that aren’t surprising, and there are lots of surprises that we don’t find funny,” Marc Hye-Knudsen, a PhD fellow and humour researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Haunted house attractions and horror films both deliberately immerse audiences in their make-believe worlds to increase their general state of fear, which makes their startle responses to the jump scare bigger. But that startle also immediately pulls them out of that narrative world, so they can reappraise it as benign,” said Hye-Knudsen.

“Seeing a video of a complete stranger being the victim of a scare prank may not register as much of a violation because you’re not socially close to them, so online pranksters must spice up their pranks to get a bigger response,” Hye-Knudsen said. The research was published in Evolutionary Psychology.

Photo Credit: AFP

The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie “Train to Busan”, in which a father and daughter trapped on a moving train battle zombies hungry for human flesh.

All seemed normal at first as the bullet train made a peaceful departure Saturday evening, but it wasn’t long until the first gory attack.

The victims — actors planted in seats by the organisers — jerked in agony and then underwent a terrifying transformation before starting a rampage against their fellow passengers.

Photo Credit: AFP

Event organiser Kenta Iwana of the group Kowagarasetai, which translates to the “scare squad”, said they wanted to “depict the normally safe, peaceful shinkansen — something we take for granted — collapsing in the blink of an eye”.

‘Like I was in the film’

Sitting next to one of the actors was Joshua Payne, one of many foreign tourists on board.

“I literally felt like I was in the film, just sitting here watching it take place in front of me,” the 31-year-old American told AFP.

“The fact that we can physically go from Tokyo to Osaka right now and have this whole performance at the same time… I think is really cool and maybe a little bit groundbreaking,” he said.

It was far from Central Japan Railway Company’s first experiment with the usually dazzlingly clean, accident-free shinkansen, a Japanese institution that turned 60 this year.

Photo Credit: AFP

After demand for long-distance travel plunged during the Covid-19 pandemic, the railway operator started renting out bullet train compartments for special events to diversify its business.

A sushi restaurant, a bar and even a wrestling match have been hosted on the high-speed train, and carriages can also be reserved for private parties.

Marie Izumi of JR Central’s tourism subsidiary told AFP that she was surprised by the idea for a zombie-themed commute when Kowagarasetai approached her, thinking it would be “almost impossible to pull off”.

But the event has convinced her of “new possibilities” for the bullet train, Izumi said, adding that concerts and comedy shows might be a good fit in the future.

Thriller

On Saturday, toy chainsaws and guns were used as props, but depictions of extreme violence and gore that could tarnish the shinkansen’s squeaky-clean reputation were avoided.

Photo Credit: AFP

To counterbalance the subdued horror, the two-and-a-half-hour tour was peppered with light-hearted performances by zombie cheerleaders, magicians and comedians, including a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

“Nobody wants to sit tight for such a long time being constantly exposed to horror,” said Ayaka Imaide from Kowagarasetai.

Many aboard the zombie-infested train said the experience alone was worth the ticket price of up to 50,000 yen ($335).

“It was very immersive,” Naohiko Nozawa, 30, told AFP. “And the appearance of so many different kinds of zombies kept me entertained all the way.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A 43-year-old man in the United States has been arrested for allegedly pointing a gun at a 6-year-old boy over Halloween candy. According to NBC News, the incident occurred on Saturday in New York. Michael Yifan Wen was arrested and charged with menacing and second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, Nassau County police said in a statement. 

The incident began when a mother drove her daughter, two sons, and a nephew to a nearby residence to drop off a goody bag. Her 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son rang the doorbell and dropped off a Halloween goody bag on the porch for the girl’s friend. However, when the children returned to the car, the girl told her mother the address may have been incorrect, so they drove back, and the boy went to the porch to get the bag full of candy.

This is when the man opened the door and pointed a handgun at the boy’s head, the outlet reported. The Nassau County Police Department were immediately notified of the incident and the 43-year-old suspect was arrested. 

Mr Wen’s attorney, however, said that his client is presumed innocent. “These are just allegations,” the lawyer said. He also asked the public to refrain from jumping to conclusions “before the facts come out”. 

According to ABC News, the investigation into the incident is currently ongoing. 

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Meanwhile, this comes amid a time when US is reeling under the uncontrolled and widespread use of guns across the country which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians over the years. The country has recorded over 500 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a non-governmental organization that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.

Notably, the recent shooting in Maine left 18 dead. This attack was the deadliest mass shooting in 2023 so far, according to the GVA’s data.