US Army to expand weight rule
USA - The US Army will reportedly cancel weight limits for its troops, allowing obese soldiers stay in the service and continue to be eligible for promotions if they score well enough on their physical fitness tests. The rule change was revealed on Wednesday by the Army’s highest-ranking enlisted leader, Sergeant Major Michael Grinston, according to Military.com. Speaking to soldiers at an Army conference in Washington, Grinston said, “If you score high on the ACFT (Army Combat Fitness Test), you should be good.”
Other changes to policies relating to weight are being considered and will be finalized by June, Grinston said. It hasn’t been decided when the rule changes will go into effect. The Army has historically required weigh-ins at least every six months and has barred troops who are considered too fat from reenlistment, promotion, transfers or eligibility to attend professional schools.
'Transgenderism is a Full-Blown Attack Against Motherhood'
VATICAN - In his January 8 sermon on the family, Father Chad Ripperger, a Catholic priest and exorcist, explained that "transgenderism" is a direct attack "on "motherhood," and added that "the entire feminist movement is an assault on motherhood." While discussing marriage and how it is under constant attack by our culture, Father Ripperger said, “Things like transgenderism is a full-blown attack against motherhood. People usually don’t put it together. Why is it an attack on motherhood?"
"It is the family that is the building block of society." “If you can destroy the family life, you will de facto destroy the culture," said Father Ripperger.… "They’ve [feminists] torn down the magnificence of motherhood and the magnificence of what it truly means to be a woman." "And now we also see," he added, "now masculinity is under full-blown attack because of the absolute hatred the demons have for God the Father, and the fact that men are in the image of God the Father.”
California experiencing both drought and flood emergencies
USA - Storms have not let up in California over the past few weeks, causing widespread flooding and leading many to believe that the state’s ongoing drought may be coming to an end soon. However, officials announced Tuesday that it may take much more rain and snow for that to happen. “California is experiencing coincidentally both a drought emergency and a flood emergency,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
According to the US Drought Monitor, 71 percent of California is still experiencing what the monitor terms as severe, extreme or exceptional drought — the three most severe tiers of drought status. The California Department of Water Resources states that most of the state’s largest reservoirs are still below average, including Lake Oroville, which has risen 77 feet since December 1, 2022, but is only at 44% capacity with plenty of room to store more water.
“Our larger reservoirs are really depleted from this extreme drought, to get them to the top of conservation would take more storms,” said state climatologist Dr Michael Anderson. At least three more storms are in line for California before the end of January, which will give officials more information on what is needed to end drought conditions. “As our traditionally wet season progresses … and we have a better understanding of what’s happening in different parts of the state, relative to water supply availability, that’s how we’ll start to emerge out of a drought emergency,” Nemeth said.
The carnage storms have inflicted on California
USA - Multi-million dollar beach homes battered by winds, cars swallowed up by sinkholes, and over a dozen people killed - after weeks of extreme storms, California is at a breaking point. The state's famously sunny southern coast has been battered by storm after storm since the December holidays, eroding roads, felling trees and causing landslides. More than 22 million people are currently under flood watch, according to the National Weather Service - almost as many as the population of Australia - and thousands have had to evacuate.
California deluge forces mass evacuations
USA - As another powerful storm walloped California, a 5-year-old boy was swept away by floodwaters Monday on the state’s central coast and an entire seaside community that is home to Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities was ordered to evacuate on the fifth anniversary of deadly mudslides there.
Tens of thousands of people remained without power, and some schools closed for the day. Streets and highways transformed into gushing rivers, trees toppled, mud slid and motorists growled as they hit roadblocks caused by fallen debris. The death toll from the relentless string of storms climbed from 12 to 14 on Monday, after two people were killed by falling trees, state officials said.
UK hit by more than 160 flood alerts
UK - Families and businesses were forced to flee homes and premises yesterday as floodwaters left Tewkesbury and its 12th-century abbey marooned. Images show the medieval market town in Gloucestershire, where the rivers Severn and Avon meet, surrounded by water like Holy Island in the North Sea. The latest weather emergency for the flood-prone Cotswolds beauty spot came as the number of alerts in England, Scotland and Wales rose to 166 this week – including 29 red warnings. The Met Office is also issuing yellow alerts for 50mph-plus winds across the North. Meanwhile, data shows that Europe had its hottest summer and its second-warmest year on record in 2022. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said autumn was the continent’s third hottest on record.
Heatwave hits South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA - The South African Weather Service has cautioned people to keep hydrated and out of the sun as four provinces experience a heat wave. Weather forecaster Mbavhi Maliage said parts of the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Free State would be experiencing temperatures as high as 40ºC. By this afternoon (Wednesday), Upington in the Northern Cape had reached 41ºC, with temperatures expecting to rise to 42ºC tomorrow (Thursday). In Bloemfontein the temperatures have peaked at 34ºC and are expected to climb to 35 tomorrow.
'Dangerous' Tunisian droughts threaten food security
TUNISIA - Three years of drought have dried up Tunisian reservoirs, threatening harvests that are critical to the North African country's battered economy and pushing the government to raise tap water prices for homes and businesses. Since September only 110 million cubic meters of rain fell in Tunisia, about a fifth of the normal rate, and officials in the farmers union and the main trade union warn that grain crops will suffer - adding to existing problems of food supply.
"The situation is very dangerous because of years of continuous drought," said Hammadi Habib, an Agriculture Ministry official. "Dams are only at 25% of their capacity and some dams have only 10%," he added. At the Sidi El Barrak dam in Nafza, 140km (80 miles) west of the capital Tunis, the dry ground behind a dam is cracked, with trees slowly dying - the result of another failure of rainfall.
Empty dams across the fertile northern hills and eastern plains are alarming farmers who produce crops of olives and wheat that once made Tunisia a breadbasket to the ancient world. Olive oil is still the country's most important export.
Tunisia already has food supply problems thanks to high global prices and the government's own financial difficulties, which have reduced its capacity to buy imported food and subsidise farms at home. The drought has pushed up fodder prices, contributing to a crisis for Tunisia's dairy industry as farmers sell off herds they can no longer afford to keep, leaving supermarket shelves empty of milk and butter.
TURKEY: Heavy rain expected in west, storm in south
TURKEY - The Turkish State Meteorological Service has declared a “yellow alert” warning for 11 provinces, mostly in the south and west of the country, warning citizens to be careful and cautious against the possibilities of floods, lightning, landslides, and strong winds. The latest weather report of the bureau said the wind will blow strong in the western Mediterranean as of today, suggesting that it will continue until January 14.
As torrential rain is also expected to lash down in the coastal provinces, the report also urged citizens to be careful and cautious against disruptions to transportation due to icing and frost, especially on the Antalya and Konya highway, and against conditions such as floods, strong winds and lightning on the coastline. Meanwhile, heavy rain is expected to batter the inner parts of the Aegean as of today, as sleet and heavy snowfall are expected in places above 1,200 meters altitude.
The metropolitan city of Istanbul, separately, where the risk of water scarcity became one of the most urgent problems, will witness slight rain until January 15, the bureau said, noting that the precipitation could increase further in the next two days. The drought experienced over the autumn period has continued since the beginning of the winter in the megacity.
Extreme weather events cause $270 billion loss worldwide in 2022
GERMANY - Hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters inflicted $270 billion in damage worldwide in 2022, less than the "extremely costly 2021" with $320 billion, a German reinsurer said in a report. "2022 joins the recent run of years with high losses," the report by Munich Re said. The costliest natural disaster in 2022 was Hurricane Ian in the US, which caused losses of around $100 billion, Xinhua news agency cited the report as saying. The natural disaster figures for 2022 were dominated by events that were more intense or occurred more frequently, he added.
The second costliest and greatest humanitarian disaster in 2022, with at least 1,700 deaths, was the severe flooding in Pakistan resulting from "record-breaking monsoon rainfall". Rainfall there in August was five to seven times heavier than usual, and accelerated glacier melt due to high temperatures "significantly increased the flooding". the report said.
In many countries in Europe, the summer of 2022 was marked by extreme heat and drought followed by severe thunderstorms. In France as well as in parts of Spain, heavy storms brought "hailstones the size of tennis balls" that caused losses in the billions. The river Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway, saw water levels fall to record lows, forcing ships to carry less cargo. "It is difficult to quantify the indirect economic consequences of climatic events like these," Munich Re said.
Vatican plot to force Pope Francis to resign
VATICAN - Conservatives in the Vatican are said to be plotting to put Pope Francis under such pressure that he is forced to resign. The move to oust the liberal-minded pontiff, 86, began in earnest just days after the death of his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on December 31. Although Pope Francis has previously declared he would step down if his health deteriorates, it was deemed unlikely to happen while Benedict XVI was alive in order to prevent an unprecedented situation of three Popes living at the Vatican, The Telegraph reports.
The speculation grows as the Pope met with Archbishop Georg Gänswein on Monday, the longtime secretary of Pope Benedict XVI and a key figure in his recent funeral. Gänswein has released an extraordinary memoir in which he casts Francis in a deeply unfavorable light. The Vatican provided no details about the content of the private audience, other than to say that it happened.
Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that a cardinal had told them the conservative faction is ready to move against the 'communist' Pope. The cardinal was quoted as saying: 'The secret plan will be formulated on various axes and phases, but it will have one objective - to place the pontificate under such stress that Francis will have to resign.
German Catholicism faced a major crisis
GERMANY - In Germany, where compulsory church tax allows the numbers leaving the Church to be counted, because they sign forms to halt the tax, 359,338 Catholics officially left in 2021. The figure represents a dramatic increase of 86,338 on 2019 when 272,000 left. The statistics, which omitted the “Covid” year of 2020, were published by the German bishops’ conference on 27 June.
The bishops’ conference president claimed that the figures were to be explained by the fact that the changes recommended in the synodal pathway on which the German Church was embarked had not “filtered through”. “This is nothing to gloss over.
Catholics who reside in Germany have to pay a compulsory church tax of 8-9 per cent of their net income tax. If they are not prepared to pay the tax, they have to officially sign out of the Church. This means signing a form at their local registry office which states that they no longer wish to be a member of the Catholic Church. This is then noted on the back of their baptism certificates.
Putin to Mobilize Another Half Million Military
UKRAINE - The Ukrainian military is warning that Putin is planning to mobilize up to half a million new troops in preparation for a new offensive in Ukraine. Speaking to the German news site T-Online, Andriy Chernyak, a Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service representative, said that they believe the mobilization will be announced on January 15, after the Orthodox Christian Christmas.
Chernyak estimated 500,000 people would be mobilized, with those living in cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg to be most impacted. Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy military intelligence chief, said the recruits would be used in attacks that will begin in the spring in the east and south of Ukraine, reported the Evening Standard.
“We expect them to conduct offensives in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, as well as possibly Zaporizhzhia but to defend in Kherson and Crimea, this is the number of men they will need for such a task,” said Skibitsky. “If Russia loses this time around, then Putin will collapse,” said Skibitsky, according to reports.
Supermarkets are running out of eggs
WALES - It is complicated and there are many factors at play. Ultimately, it comes down to supply issues but the reasons for those supply issues are quite varied. Avian flu has had an input but posting on Instagram in November, well known Welsh farmer Ioan Humphreys said: "There are not many eggs on the shelf to buy, not free range, not organic, nothing. So you are struggling to find eggs. Supermarkets are going to tell you this is because of avian flu. Which to be fair, there has been a lot of cases of avian flu."
However, he added: "But you want to know the real reason why there's an egg shortage? It is because the supermarkets won't pay the farmers for the eggs. So the supermarkets have upped their price for you, the consumer. But they haven't filtered that price increase down to us, the farmers. So our cost of producing these eggs has skyrocketed, feed, electric, the price of new birds, they have gone up. But our price of eggs has stayed the same. So we physically can't afford to produce these eggs."
"They're going to blame the farmers. We can't afford to produce it. If the supermarkets paid us a fair price for our eggs, then we would stock our sheds, and there'll be more sheds going up and the UK could be self sufficient in great British eggs. But the supermarkets won't pay us."
Fears a new breed of 'super rodents' could be a 'threat to humans'
UK - A new breed of 'super rodents' which are resistant to common types of poison could be a threat to the health of humans and other animals, experts have claimed. According to research, almost all mice and rats in the UK have evolved to become resistant to a common type of poison in the past 20 years. Anticoagulant rodenticides are commonly found in poisons, powders, liquids and other forms of bait used to kill rats and mice - but some 95 per cent of house mice and 78 per cent of rats now have genes that allow them to tolerate these kinds of poisons, the Mirror reports.
Scientists who have spent two decades studying mice and rats have reportedly found the same gene in rodents all over the country, making them harder to kill. Pest expert Dr Alan Buckle said the worrying development could pose a threat to both animal and human health.
Anticoagulant rodenticides work by stopping blood from clotting. But continuing to use them even though rodents are able to tolerate the poisons could have major implications, Dr Buckle said.
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