Daily News

[Moonlight]

Finally, a lesson in common sense! School tells parents it will NOT be providing litter trays for pupils who identify as cats and warns 'this kind of behaviour is not acceptable'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tify-cats.html

There's a simple solution to this fad that's pervaded the education system and that's to expel anyone who doesn't identify as a human.
Gillian Keegan the Secretary of State for Education should make this known in the House of Commons too, any Head Teacher who refuses to implement these new guidelines must be fired immediately, that should be the end of the furries me thinks......maybe.
Lets see how the parents cope with the fines for their children's non attendance at school, me thinks the onus should have always been on the parents to sort the little brats out and not the education system, I reckon some parents who don't conform to this Political correctness ideology will be warning their kids about actions and its consequences.

[Rockstar]

'Sand is like gold.' The pricey race to restore Florida beaches before the next hurricane

by Nicolas Rivero and Alex Harris

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-sand-g...a-beaches.html

Florida's sandy beaches aren't just beautiful and one of the biggest money-makers in the state's tourism-based economy. They're also the first line of defense against storm surge flooding during hurricanes.

Now, after hits on both coasts during the 2022 hurricane season that ended Wednesday, those beaches are in desperate need of repair. Even before hurricane season began on June 1, 426 of Florida's 825 miles of sandy beaches were listed as "critically eroded" in a June report from the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

Then, hurricanes Ian and Nicole delivered a one-two punch of beach-shredding wind and waves. The damage to beaches was severe, particularly along the the northeast Florida coast.

"Our dune system is a coastal protection system," said Jonathan Lord, the emergency management director for Flagler County in northeast Florida. "Because the dunes were so damaged from Ian, it didn't take much for Nicole to further damage them and cause flooding in many neighborhoods."

For decades, Florida has been restoring its beaches by dredging or trucking in more sand. But the practice is becoming more challenging—and expensive, thanks to the rising cost of beach-quality sand. Offshore sand deposits, especially on Florida's southeast coast, are dwindling after decades of repeated beach restoration projects. As local governments squabble over the right to use the remaining sand, its price is rising.

"Sand is like gold," said Michelle Hamor, the planning chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' office in Norfolk, Virginia, which is leading the effort to develop a $6 billion plan to protect Miami-Dade County from storm surge. "There are a lot of projects that rely on it, and it's a limited resource."

And looming sea level rise, which quickens the pace of beach erosion on developed coastlines, will only make Florida's future efforts to protect its beaches more complicated and costly.

The scarcity of sand

There's plenty of sand sitting in relatively shallow water on the continental shelf that rings Florida. But not all of it is good enough for the state's beaches. Sand that has the wrong color or grain type can harm plants and animals, like the sea turtles that build their nests along the Florida coast.

There are economic considerations, too: Florida spends billions of dollars a year advertising its pristine, white-sand beaches to tourists. Loading the shoreline up with inferior quality sand could make the state a less attractive vacation destination.

Since 1935, Florida has dredged or dug up about half a trillion tons of high-quality sand to maintain its eroding beaches, according to the National Beach Nourishment Database developed by the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and the Army Corps. But the state's supply of good sand is running low—and once those deposits are gone, they won't come back any time soon, according to Stephen Leatherman, a professor of coastal science at Florida International University.

"For all practical purposes, they're used up," Leatherman said. New sand takes thousands of years to form, and existing sand is hard to reuse. Once beach-quality sand gets eroded away from the shoreline, it winds up scattered across the continental shelf in thin layers that are too skimpy to dredge again.

Erosion woes in Miami Beach

Miami Beach may offer a vision of Florida's future. In 1968, the Army Corps began a beach restoration project for about a dozen miles of shoreline in Miami Beach, Surfside and Bal Harbour that is still running. But Miami-Dade County, which sits on an exceptionally narrow stretch of continental shelf that is just a mile and a half wide in some places, exhausted its offshore sand supply in 2014.

Ever since, Miami Beach has had to rely on sand trucked in from Central Florida, which is more expensive. Several mines are scattered along an inland sand deposit known as the Cypresshead Formation, a stretch of extinct beach that runs west of Lake Okeechobee up toward Jacksonville along what used to be Florida's coastline. Dump trucks haul the sand from Central Florida down to Miami Beach, trundling along Collins Avenue before dropping about a dozen cubic yards of sand onto the eroding beach.

The Army Corps is currently spending $40 million to truck in 835,000 cubic yards of sand to restore about two miles of shoreline in Miami Beach, a project that will require tens of thousands of truck trips. The budget comes out to a little less than $50 per cubic yard of sand—a once unthinkable price for beach restoration.

"For sand, you're now spending $30 to $50 a cubic yard," said Karyn Erickson, president of Erickson Consulting Engineers, a Sarasota-based firm that has been working on beach restorations in Florida for three decades. "In the mid-90s, we thought it was expensive if we were paying $12 per cubic yard. $10 to $12 was the standard rate."

Sea level rise amps up beach erosion
In the future, under current projections, Florida's beaches will likely erode more quickly thanks to climate change. "Sea level rise is responsible for beach erosion," said Leatherman. "There's no way around it."

Sea level rise threatens beaches in two ways. First, higher sea levels mean water will cover more of the beach. On empty, undeveloped coastlines, the sand from the beach would get pushed inland, causing the beach to retreat. But much of Florida's coastline is built up with homes, hotels, streets, seawalls and other structures that prevent the beach from moving backward. So instead of migrating, the beach will just get thinner, Leatherman says.

Meanwhile, higher sea levels also amplify the effect of waves and storm surge. Rising sea levels destabilize existing beaches and allow eroding sand to get pulled further out to sea, according to Leatherman. That way, when a storm comes, it can do more damage to the beach.

All that means Florida's erosion challenges are only going to get harder. Adding sand back to the beaches can offer the state some temporary relief, Leatherman said. "But you're just treating the symptoms, not curing the disease," he said. "The disease is sea level rise."

The cost of beach restoration

Over the past 87 years, Florida has spent at least $1.9 billion on beach nourishment, according to the National Beach Nourishment Database. The state government now spends about $30 million to $50 million a year maintaining its beaches, and local governments contribute about the same amount.

After a hurricane, the state and counties can usually convince the federal government to foot the bill for beach restoration. But outside of emergencies, the Army Corps only picks up a fraction of the tab, leaving Florida counties and the state to devote tens of millions of dollars of their budgets to beach nourishment.

State and local officials, however, have few other choices. Erickson, the coastal engineer, says Florida should build erosion-preventing infrastructure like coastal groins on more of its beaches. Lord, the Flagler County emergency manager, says Floridians may have to move away from the coasts eventually. But no one believes Florida and its local governments can just stop spending money on beach restoration.

"The answer is, yes, we're going to have to do it over and over again. As long as we want to protect what we've got," Leatherman said. "There's over a trillion dollars of real estate in Southeast Florida along the shore. Who's going to walk away from all that?"

[Jimbuna]

Anger as diner 'puts own hair on plate to get free meal'

Tom Croft, the owner of a pub in Lancashire, has spoken to the BBC after discovering that a pub diner, who was refunded the cost of their meal, appeared to plant hair on a plate in CCTV footage.

He said that the lady in question had dined at the Observatory in Blackburn before "kicking up a fuss" to bar staff.

Mr Croft revealed he found out about the alleged dining deception after reviewing the video to check if the pub had done anything wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-67374297

[Moonlight]

Revealed: Thug who punched defenceless man, 78, is a bare knuckle boxer from a famous traveller family who 'turned down a role in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' and planned to arrive at his own £60,000 nuptials in a helicopter but couldn't land in the car park

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-car-park.html

All I can say to this is, if he was a bare knuckle fighter he wasn't a bleeding good one, old men and bits of kids must be his speciality, what a plonker.

[Jimbuna]

Michael Jackson jacket sells for £250,000 at auction
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67388618

Someone has obviously more money than sense.

[Jimbuna]

Airport bosses have stressed that pilots will not be distracted by a large LED screen at a temporary drive-in cinema at its site in Essex.

London Stansted Airport is to host film screenings for charity in its JetParks car park for a week in December.

They include Christmas classics Elf and Home Alone, as well as Dirty Dancing, Grease and Top Gun: Maverick.

"The screen will be nowhere near the runway and certainly not on the flight path," a spokesman said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-67382059

[Jimbuna]

Oil giant Shell suing Greenpeace for £1.7m damages.

Shell is suing Greenpeace for $2.1m (£1.7m) in damages after environmental protesters occupied a vessel transporting one of the oil company's floating platforms earlier this year.

Activists boarded the White Marlin ship north of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic in January.

Shell said it was entitled to recover "the significant costs of responding to Greenpeace's dangerous actions".

However, Greenpeace said it planned to contest the action.

The environmental group described it as "one of the biggest legal threats" in its history.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...tland-67366921

[Moonlight]

The shattering of Schengen: The map that reveals how ELEVEN countries - from France to Slovakia, Sweden to Germany - are rebelling against EU free movement in the face of terrorism and out-of-control immigration

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...migration.html

28 years too late you bleeding idiots.

[Jimbuna]

Colombian rebels try to justify kidnapping of Luis Díaz's father

Colombians have reacted with outrage after the leader of the Colombian rebels, which held the father of Liverpool footballer Luis Díaz hostage, tried to justify his kidnapping.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) said it had to resort to kidnapping for ransom because it was "poor".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67403958

[Moonlight]

Outrage as charity for endometriosis - a painful womb condition - appoints a trans woman as CEO: Critics slam Labour activist's appointment as an 'insult to women'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...woman-CEO.html

Wow. Wokery has just hit the madness level.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Colombian rebels try to justify kidnapping of Luis Díaz's father

Just when you think you've found a country you might be able to retire in... Actually, I already felt it might be too dangerous for me, but the weather in Bogota is really to my liking.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by 2 day's WSJ

Oreos have been an evening ritual for Shane Ransonet for years.

So he was confounded a few months ago when he opened a package and, as had long been his custom, jabbed a fork into a cookie’s creme filling to dunk it into a glass of milk. The cookie broke. Ransonet, a bottled-water salesman in New Iberia, La., showed his wife, Christine, the offending Oreo. Like others in the box, the twin chocolate wafers were smeared with just a thin coat of creme, far less, he said, than the typical blob he was used to.

The couple thought it was a fluke. This fall, they decided to test Double Stuf Oreos, a variety Shane had never cared for—too much creme. This time, he recognized the cookie immediately.

“Here we go, that’s the regular Oreo,” Ransonet, 47, told his wife.

Ransonet is one of throngs of Oreo fans who have been perturbed in recent years by what some feel could be one of the biggest inflation scandals to hit supermarkets to date: “Double Stuf” Oreos with just a normal amount of creme, and even less in the original-sized versions. Some gripe that the filling no longer reaches the wafers’ edges. Others say the cookies now bear little resemblance to the creme-stuffed images on Oreo’s packaging.

Oreos, made by snack giant Mondelez, have long attracted a devout following, making them the world’s best-selling cookie more than a century since their creation. Now, suspicion over subtle changes has prompted some devotees to protest what they believe is the latest cookie conspiracy, or try to suss out the truth about creme.

Some fans are making videos of themselves twisting Oreos open to reveal scant filling. Others touted Hydrox, an Oreo competitor. Beverly Cooper, 60, of Lincoln, Neb., said she and her husband have withstood changes to many of their favorite foods recently, from cereal to ice cream. But finding what appeared to be a downsized dusting of creme in their Double Stuf Oreos last month was the last straw.

“It’s a sign of the times,” Cooper said. “This is the way of the world now.”

On r/shrinkflation, a 100,000-user-strong Reddit forum for consumers aggrieved about all kinds of products, users bemoan the perceived cutback in creme and argue about when it took place.

“Nowadays it’s barely even a sneeze of filling on the cookies.”

“Bought a full pack. EVERY SINGLE ONE had this little cream. I even called my mom to complain about it because I needed to vent it out.” (“Hell yeah, brother, let it out,” came a reply. )

Mondelez said it has used a variety of strategies in recent years to combat higher costs for ingredients such as cocoa and sugar, from raising wholesale prices to scaling back discounts to shrinking package sizes. It hasn’t fought inflation through big changes to its products, the company said, though it welcomes feedback from fans on how to make them better. “We would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we would start to play around with the quality,” said Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put.

Van de Put said Mondelez is always working to improve Oreos, but that it hasn’t messed with the cookie-to-creme ratio. He said Mondelez monitors its brands closely and hasn’t noticed significant creme-related complaints, nor have they affected the $4 billion brand, which sells some 40 billion cookies in more than 100 countries each year.

Oreos have undergone changes in the 111 years since their origin. Nabisco, now owned by Mondelez, removed lard and added vegetable oil in the 1990s, making the cookies kosher. In the 2000s, Nabisco’s then-owner Kraft Foods removed trans fats from Oreos, which involved reformulating their creme.

Lynn Dornblaser, director of innovation and insight at market-research firm Mintel, said a review of regular and Double Stuf Oreos since 2004 found no observable changes in their on-pack ingredient and nutrition statements. She said consumer complaints could reflect manufacturing issues in cookie plants, adding that it’s easy for fans to notice variations in products as specific and precise as Oreos. On a recent day in November, a pack of regular Oreos in Chicago contained cookies that appeared stuffed with varying amounts of creme. Some Double Stuf cookies were similar in width to the fattest regular Oreos but the creme often spread farther to the cookie’s edge.

People have tried to unwind the mysteries of Oreos’ filling before. In 2013, a high-school math teacher in New York spearheaded an effort in his classroom to measure the amount of creme in regular, Double and Mega Stuf Oreos. Double Stuf Oreos came up short, according to the students’ measurements, offering just 1.86 times the creme of a regular Oreo. <In 2013, a high-school math teacher in New York spearheaded an effort in his classroom to measure the amount of creme in regular, Double and Mega Stuf Oreos. Perception can easily cloud reality, according to food industry analysts and brand experts, who said consumers’ distrust of big companies has grown as inflation has required consumers to pay more for the same amount or less in almost every aspect of their lives. In many cases, price increases have come through stealth changes to products or services, leaving consumers on high alert, analysts said.
Nicholas Fereday, executive director of food and consumer trends for agricultural lender Rabobank, said whether warranted or not, consumers can get particularly feisty when they suspect tinkering with an iconic brand. “It’s crossing the Rubicon,” he said.
Tweaks to Mondelez’s products have provoked outcry in the past. Fans of Toblerone revolted when the company lengthened the gaps between the “peaks” of one of its chocolate bars in the U.K. in 2016. Mondelez blamed the rising cost of ingredients for forcing the changes, which reduced the weight of the bar sold by discount retailers. The company discontinued the lighter bar two years later.
In recent years, the company debuted an Oreo two-pack, a smaller size that costs less but carries a higher profit margin.
David DiLena, a 44-year-old physicist in Ellsworth, Maine, who works on helium recycling, was shocked by how little creme he found in the Double Stuf Oreos he bought this fall. Still, he left room for debate when he uploaded a video to his Facebook page: squeezing the cookie between his fingertips, he spread the dollop of creme in the middle to the edges to reveal a layer no thicker than the wafers themselves.
“Conjecture: a double stuff Oreo is a normal Oreo,” wrote DiLena. “Judge for yourself.”
In Long Island, N.Y., Brandon Grunther, who runs a pro-wrestling podcast, said he wondered “am I going crazy?” after opening a package of Double Stuf Oreos in June. He had just tucked into an afternoon snack when he noticed the creme filling was less thick than he remembered, and its circumference was smaller too. He described his experience on Twitter, now known as X, and tagged Oreo.

Grunther said Mondelez sent him a coupon for a package of Oreos in response, but he hasn’t used it yet—he’s waiting for the release of a new, unusual flavor.

“I appreciated it,” Grunther, 34, said. “Though I definitely would rather just have more creme.”

Good thing I stick with Fig Newtons!

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Good thing I stick with Fig Newtons!

I feel the need to find a sailing ship full of Oreos in a harbor somewhere.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists think ancient human species might still be alive on Flores Island.
https://www.ladbible.com/community/w...86999-20231113

[Jimbuna]

Well this certainly took some time in coming but better late then never I suppose.

France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source and plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday.

The judicial source told AFP Assad was also suspected of complicity in war crimes for the attacks, blamed by the opposition on the regime, that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013.

International warrants were also issued for the arrests of Assad's brother Maher, the de-facto chief of a Syrian elite military unit, and two armed forces generals.

The Paris court's unit concerned with crimes against humanity has been investigating the chemical attacks since 2021.
France claims worldwide jurisdiction for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The probe followed a legal complaint filed by the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) NGO, lawyers' association Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Syrian Archive, a body documenting human rights violations in Syria.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...393230fd&ei=12