In the News II

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An American tourist's visit to the Colosseum in Rome took a turn for the terrifying after the man impaled himself on a fence and was left dangling and screaming in pain, while other visitors looked on in horror, according to Italian news outlets.

The gruesome incident took place around 5 p.m. Friday, when the 47-year-old American attempted to climb over a fence in Piazza del Colosseo, presumably to get a closer look at the historic Roman amphitheater, according to reporting by Il Messaggero.

The man fell and was skewered by the sharp metal bars of the fence. He began screaming and bleeding profusely until he became unconscious, the newspaper reported.

An ambulance rushed to the scene, and medics found that the man had suffered a severe injury in his lower back that was preventing him from moving. They administered a sedative before carefully detaching him and applying a tight bandage to the wound.

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Televangelist Jim Bakker, who was at the heart of one of most notorious religious scandals of the 1980s, says he’s in desperate need of cash right now.

And if he doesn’t get $1 million, he will lose everything and be homeless.

“If everyone that watches this program will give $1,000, we’ll be able to pay our bills and stay on the air,” he said on his show on Tuesday. “Otherwise we got about another maybe a month.”

He said it’s not just his show that’s on the line.

“If they foreclose on this ministry, they will take my house too, so I’ll be on the street,” he said.

Bakker claimed he hasn’t taken a salary himself and has no money of his own.

“We have a big debt,” he said, saying an unnamed “they” has “taken millions of dollars from us.”

One of the show’s cohosts indicated the financial problems began in 2020, when Bakker was in trouble with a number of authorities for hawking “Silver Solution” during the COVID-19 pandemic. In one case, he reached a settlement with the Missouri attorney general that included restitution of $156,000.

Bakker at the time also used the threat of an impending bankruptcy to raise funds.

He said on Tuesday that those who give him money will reap other benefits.

“I guarantee you God’s going to do something,” he said, later adding: “God’s gonna bless you as you give, because when you give, you’re gonna receive.”

Bakker spent the 1980s turning his ministry into an empire that included a TV network and a resort. But it all came crashing down on him as he resigned amid a sex scandal and fraud allegations, the latter of which landed him in prison for four years.

In more recent years, Bakker has fashioned himself as something of a doomsday prophet ― saying on Tuesday, for example, that we’re in the “end times” ― and sells food buckets and other “prepper” items on his show and website.