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WHAT THE WORLD

Fed-Up French Mayor Bans Snow From Falling

Icy roads, electricity outages, whiny city folk … There's only one solution to ending winter chaos.

Google Street View screenshot of Cerdon, in eastern France

No snow (for now, and forever?) in Cerdon

Rozena Crossman

No one’s dreaming of a white Christmas in the town of Cerdon, in eastern France. Marc Chavent, mayor of this municipality tucked into the Jura mountains, apparently has a very different dream: So frustrated by the difficulties his community faced due to snowfall that earlier this week, the mayor banned the chilly precipitation altogether.


Wait, what? The bonafide decree (see below) was of course an act of legislative symbolism, drawing attention to very real issues: As French news website actuLyon reports, the town’s electricity often gets cut as soon as it begins to snow, and a few weeks ago Cerdon’s snow removal tractor broke down.

The plague of neo-rurals


“It’s difficult to invest 150,000 euros in new snow removal material,” Chavent wrote in the mandate, blaming the larger French government’s endless red tape for hampering the financial autonomy of small cities and towns.

The mayor also took a swipe at a new part of Cerdon’s population — “neo-rurals who, despite having made the choice to live in a mountainous region during winter, believe themselves to be in downtown Lyon” — who apparently find that snow is cold, wet and slippery.

Well, if Chavent's law can't stop the snow, maybe there's an app for that?

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Society

Brother Boys, The Real Lives Of Hong Kong's Male Sex Workers

Hong Kong only decriminalized homosexuality in 1991, but there had long been an underground LGBTQ+ culture, including male sex workers. They have learned to survive in difficult conditions, but their experiences are far from how they're portrayed in films.

Photo of Hong-Kong streets

Hong Kong at night

Shuhua Zheng

HONG KONG — David's working place is in an old Cantonese style building from the sixties, with a massage bed placed right in the center. There is a TV and a sofa, with walls painted his favorite shade of white. The room is bright and cozy – unlike how certain films would portray the working environment of sex workers.

David entered this profession 20 years ago "as an act of impulse". Now nearly 70 years old, he speaks of his job with a smile on his face. His clients ranges from 18-year-olds who call him "uncle/daddy", to elderly people in their nineties who still have sexual needs to be fulfilled.

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