By Adam Boulton, All Out Politics Presenter
So we're off. The trigger has been pulled, we are on the way out: soon-to-be ex-members of the EU.
For well over a year it's been Brexit means Brexit means more Brexit, whatever that means.
Now it's time to test your knowledge. Just how much do you know about the European Union - and the UK's imminent departure?
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Genital mutilation also occurs in the US, activists call on states to make it illegal
Every day, an estimated 8,000 girls worldwide are cut and marred in a debilitating process known as female genital mutilation, or FGM.
But survivors and experts stress that this is not a faraway human rights violation. A portion of it is happening right here in the United States of America.
“Not a day goes by where I am not contacted by a girl who has been cut in this country, or forced to visit another country to have it done,” Jaha Dukureh, an infant FGM survivor, activist and founder of the support and educational foundation Safe Hands for Girls, told Fox News. “Sometimes, it is doctors performing it under the guise of plastic or vaginoplasty procedures, or in quiet and underground settings.”
Expand / ContractJaha Dukureh, FGM survivor, activist and founder of "Safe Hands for Girls" campaigns for U.S lawmakers to do more to end the inhumane practice.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than half a million girls in the United States have endured, or remain at risk, of suffering FGM – a threefold uptick from their 1990 projection. FGM is considered a cultural practice that ensures “a girl’s purity and eligibility for marriage,” and typically involves the partial or complete extraction of the external female genitalia.
BRITAIN'S FAILURE TO TACKLE FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION A 'NATIONAL DISGRACE': LAWMAKERS
“There are many who are secretly doing it here in the USA,” noted Wahid Boctor, an Egyptian-American and former Director of Arab-American Television. “It is done very secretly and mostly women who do to their kids or grand kids.”
Beyond the brutality of the ritual procedure itself and the chance of death, FGM has a string of long-term consequences – from the physical to the psychological. Complications include sexual dysfunction, incontinence and increased risk of HIV transmission.
HONOR KILLING IN AMERICA: DOJ REPORT SAYS GROWING PROBLEM IS HIDDEN IN STAT
A bipartisan effort has sought to criminalize the practice. The 2013 Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to transport U.S girls abroad for FGM – sometimes referred to as “vacation cutting.” Since 1996, it has been a federal crime.
However, only 24 states have laws in place that designate FGM unlawful, while 26 do not. Activists assert that such legal loopholes need to close, and at least some states are trying to follow suit.
Last month, Virginia’s General Assembly unanimously passed legislation to criminalize the act as a Class 1 misdemeanor, which holds a maximum jail term of one year. Critics say that while that’s a step in the right direction, the punishment is significantly lower than the five-year sentence initially proposed by Republican State Sen. Richard Black.
“States need to make this illegal because the federal courts don’t have the time to prosecute these all over the country,” Black’s aide Michelle Stanton said. “States need to educate people and the federal law needs to add the civil liability – to give the girl standing to sue if mutilated – and that will make a big impact.”
Massachusetts has a bill in-motion seeking to prohibit FGM in the state as a form of gender-based violence – including jail time and financial penalties for practitioners and families that “perpetuate this abuse.”
Law enforcement agencies have pledged in recent times to make the issue a higher priority. Last month, the FBI recognized the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation and reiterated that individuals suspected of perpetuating or facilitating the crime will be investigated and prosecuted accordingly. Special Agent Kerry Sparks, who focuses on FGM cases as part of the bureau’s International Human Rights Unit (IHRU), stated that the practice continues at the hand of both medical practitioners and “female elders within the communities.”
“The FBI is dedicated to investigating this horrendous crime and works with U.S government and foreign law enforcement partners to gather intelligence and investigate any allegations of criminal activity,” said FBI spokesperson Samantha Shero.
Just two weeks ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported an Ethiopian man in Georgia to his home country – after he served 10 years behind bars – for the 2006 genital mutilation of his then 2-year-old daughter.
But, as Dukureh stressed, while laws are important – they are not the solution to ending the practice.
“Until we look at this from a holistic perspective, it will only be driven further underground. We need more educational programs, more awareness and we can’t forget about the girls who have already had to endure this and so we need more doctors helping,” she said.
Activists also underscore the importance of educating refugees and immigrants on arrival – especially from countries in the Middle East and Africa where it is widely practiced – of its strict illegality in the U.S., something which the State Department itself does not do.
According to Stanton, as long as the U.S. allows immigration from countries where it is widely practiced – from Egypt and Somalia to Iran, Iraq and Yemen – the problem “will continue to spread.”
“Immigrants are not educated that this is a human rights abuse with no health benefits and lifelong consequences,” said Amanda Parker, senior director at the women’s activist organization the AHA Foundation, founded by FGM survivor Ayaan Hirsi Ali. “Raising awareness with immigrants should be a priority for the administration to ensure that women and girls know their rights and their families and communities would know that this is a harmful practice that will not be tolerated.”
Chocolate bars could shrink in health watchdog bid to cut obesity
England's health watchdog says sugar reduction targets for the food industry intended to tackle the childhood obesity crisis can be met - despite only being voluntary.
Public Health England (PHE) has published guidelines for the food industry to cut overall sugar content across nine food groups - including chocolate confectionary, cakes and biscuits - by 20% in the next three years.
PHE believes the voluntary measures will cut 200,000 tonnes of sugar from children's diets each year and contribute to a 20% reduction in the number of overweight children in the next decade.
Currently a third of 11 year-olds are overweight and obesity is considered one of the gravest public health issues facing the NHS.
Under the guidelines, firms have been asked to reduce sugar by 5% this year and 20% by 2020.
However, there are no penalties for companies that miss the targets - meaning the Government's central strategy for tackling obesity is reliant on goodwill from manufacturers.
MPs on the House of Commons Health Select Committee are among critics who have accused the Government of watering down the strategy, but PHE says it believes the scheme will work.
Chief executive Duncan Selbie said: "We asked for this to be a voluntary plan because we did not want to spend two years trying to regulate and arguing whether a Jaffa cake was a biscuit or a cake.
"We think this is actually a pro-business plan, and this is the most ambitious anti-obesity plan anywhere in the world.
"British food manufacturers will be leading the world in this."
Food producers can meet the targets in three ways; by reformulating food with less sugar, increasing the volume of lower-sugar products they sell, or by reducing portion sizes.
The measures are intended to lead to lower sugar content across all categories, but the confectionary sector may be forced to reduce the size of chocolate bars and sweets.
Given the high volume of sugar in confectionary reducing portion size may be the only relevant option, a move that could prove controversial with consumers if it is not accompanied by a price cut.
The targets also apply to restaurants, fast food and coffee outlets, known as the "out-of-home" sector, which accounts for 20-30% of all food consumption and typically sells food with a higher proportion of sugar than the retail sector.
Mr Selbie insisted he is not instructing manufacturers to make smaller chocolate bars, but said the obesity crisis was too grave to ignore.
He said: "This is not moralistic and it is not hysterical, this is about children and we have a problem."
Public Health England (PHE) has published guidelines for the food industry to cut overall sugar content across nine food groups - including chocolate confectionary, cakes and biscuits - by 20% in the next three years.
PHE believes the voluntary measures will cut 200,000 tonnes of sugar from children's diets each year and contribute to a 20% reduction in the number of overweight children in the next decade.
Currently a third of 11 year-olds are overweight and obesity is considered one of the gravest public health issues facing the NHS.
Under the guidelines, firms have been asked to reduce sugar by 5% this year and 20% by 2020.
However, there are no penalties for companies that miss the targets - meaning the Government's central strategy for tackling obesity is reliant on goodwill from manufacturers.
MPs on the House of Commons Health Select Committee are among critics who have accused the Government of watering down the strategy, but PHE says it believes the scheme will work.
Chief executive Duncan Selbie said: "We asked for this to be a voluntary plan because we did not want to spend two years trying to regulate and arguing whether a Jaffa cake was a biscuit or a cake.
"We think this is actually a pro-business plan, and this is the most ambitious anti-obesity plan anywhere in the world.
"British food manufacturers will be leading the world in this."
Food producers can meet the targets in three ways; by reformulating food with less sugar, increasing the volume of lower-sugar products they sell, or by reducing portion sizes.
The measures are intended to lead to lower sugar content across all categories, but the confectionary sector may be forced to reduce the size of chocolate bars and sweets.
Given the high volume of sugar in confectionary reducing portion size may be the only relevant option, a move that could prove controversial with consumers if it is not accompanied by a price cut.
The targets also apply to restaurants, fast food and coffee outlets, known as the "out-of-home" sector, which accounts for 20-30% of all food consumption and typically sells food with a higher proportion of sugar than the retail sector.
Mr Selbie insisted he is not instructing manufacturers to make smaller chocolate bars, but said the obesity crisis was too grave to ignore.
He said: "This is not moralistic and it is not hysterical, this is about children and we have a problem."
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year
Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological surveyof North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There's a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.
Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world's entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be?
Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate in the journal the Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey in any given year. That means that spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion humans on the planet combined, who the authors note consume about 400 million tons of meat and fish each year.
Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison: The total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated to be 287 million tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons to account for the weight of kids, it's still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity.
In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.
To arrive at this number Nyffler and Birkhofer did a lot of sophisticated estimation based on existing research into A) how many spiders live in a square meter of land for all the main habitat types on Earth, and B) the average amount of food consumed by spiders of different sizes in a given year.
These numbers yielded some interesting factoids on their own. For instance, one study estimated that global average spider density stands at about 131 spiders per square meter. Some habitats, like deserts and tundra, are home to fewer spiders. On the other hand, spider densities of 1,000 or more individuals per square meter have been observed under certain “favorable” conditions — since Nyffler and Birkhofer don't define what “favorable” means in this context, I'm going to assume it refers to dark, dusty places like the area under my bed.
If you gathered up all the spiders on the planet and placed them on a very large scale, together they'd weigh about 25 million tons, according to Nyffler and Birkhofer. For comparison, the Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons. The mass of every spider on Earth today, in other words, is equivalent to 478 Titanics.
Spider biologists have also generally found that spiders consume approximately 10 percent of their body weight in food per day. That's equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day.
Conversely, it would take approximately 2,000 pounds of spiders to consume a 200-pound man in one day.
In the end, spiders' voracity actually works out to mankind's benefit. Since they primarily feast on bugs, their hunger means fewer pests in the garden, fewer mosquitoes in the yard and fewer flies in the house.
The Washington Post reached out to a spider for comment on this story. Its reply:
Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world's entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be?
Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate in the journal the Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey in any given year. That means that spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion humans on the planet combined, who the authors note consume about 400 million tons of meat and fish each year.
Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison: The total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated to be 287 million tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons to account for the weight of kids, it's still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity.
In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.
To arrive at this number Nyffler and Birkhofer did a lot of sophisticated estimation based on existing research into A) how many spiders live in a square meter of land for all the main habitat types on Earth, and B) the average amount of food consumed by spiders of different sizes in a given year.
These numbers yielded some interesting factoids on their own. For instance, one study estimated that global average spider density stands at about 131 spiders per square meter. Some habitats, like deserts and tundra, are home to fewer spiders. On the other hand, spider densities of 1,000 or more individuals per square meter have been observed under certain “favorable” conditions — since Nyffler and Birkhofer don't define what “favorable” means in this context, I'm going to assume it refers to dark, dusty places like the area under my bed.
If you gathered up all the spiders on the planet and placed them on a very large scale, together they'd weigh about 25 million tons, according to Nyffler and Birkhofer. For comparison, the Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons. The mass of every spider on Earth today, in other words, is equivalent to 478 Titanics.
Spider biologists have also generally found that spiders consume approximately 10 percent of their body weight in food per day. That's equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day.
Conversely, it would take approximately 2,000 pounds of spiders to consume a 200-pound man in one day.
In the end, spiders' voracity actually works out to mankind's benefit. Since they primarily feast on bugs, their hunger means fewer pests in the garden, fewer mosquitoes in the yard and fewer flies in the house.
The Washington Post reached out to a spider for comment on this story. Its reply:
Google Home smart speaker gets UK launch date
Google is to launch its voice-controlled smart speaker to rival Amazon's Echo in the UK on 6 April, the tech giant has announced.
Google Home is a small speaker controlled by using the phrase "OK Google", which will utilise Google Search as well as the maps and translation functions to answer questions and provide information.
Google Home's Suveer Kothari said: "A really useful assistant takes context into account, like using your location to give you accurate weather readings.
"But you are always firmly in control. We're sensitive to privacy and give users the choice of whether to make personal data accessible on Google Home.
"Our goal is to create a helpful assistant that is welcome in your home. We may not be perfect at the start, but we'll continue to add new features and get better over time."
The Google Home speaker can be used to play music and also uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand context and answer follow-up questions.
The device, which will cost £129 and be available in a range of colours, can also be used to control other smart home products such as light bulbs, thermostats and TVs.
The tech giant is also launching its Wifi router, Google Wifi, in the UK.
It will also cost £129 and uses technology called mesh Wifi, which the firm says uses multiple routers to evenly spread internet signal throughout the home.
Google Home is a small speaker controlled by using the phrase "OK Google", which will utilise Google Search as well as the maps and translation functions to answer questions and provide information.
Google Home's Suveer Kothari said: "A really useful assistant takes context into account, like using your location to give you accurate weather readings.
"But you are always firmly in control. We're sensitive to privacy and give users the choice of whether to make personal data accessible on Google Home.
"Our goal is to create a helpful assistant that is welcome in your home. We may not be perfect at the start, but we'll continue to add new features and get better over time."
The Google Home speaker can be used to play music and also uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to understand context and answer follow-up questions.
The device, which will cost £129 and be available in a range of colours, can also be used to control other smart home products such as light bulbs, thermostats and TVs.
The tech giant is also launching its Wifi router, Google Wifi, in the UK.
It will also cost £129 and uses technology called mesh Wifi, which the firm says uses multiple routers to evenly spread internet signal throughout the home.
Sky Data Brexit poll: Half of Britons happy about EU divorce process starting
Across the country, emotions ran high during the EU referendum campaign - but there is little sign of Bregret from voters as Theresa May prepares to pull the trigger on Brexit.
A Sky Data poll found one in two people were happy or very happy about the triggering of Article 50, while only 36% said they felt sad about leaving the EU.
That suggests that there has been little voter remorse for the referendum decision last June to quit the EU, when 52% of the population voted to leave while 48% voted to remain.
Sky News travelled to the East of England to take the Brexit temperature in one of the most eurosceptic parts of the UK.
Like many parts of the country, city dwellers were at odds with those living in neighbouring towns and villages.
University city Norwich was the only place in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex that voted remain, with 56% of local residents opting to stay in the EU.
Locals in Norwich told Sky News they were feeling ambivalent and sad about Theresa May pulling the trigger on Brexit.
As one market stall worker said: "I don't feel right about it. When unions break apart, it never ends well."
Leave the city centre and the surrounding towns and villages tell a very different story.
Just 20 miles away in Great Yarmouth, nearly three in four adults voted to quit the EU - making this seaside town the fifth strongest Vote Leave area in the UK.
Locals on the seaside promenade told Sky News they were happy with the result: they hope Brexit might bring some benefits for their seaside town ravaged by decades of neglect.
One local man, Carl, said he had voted to leave the EU and hoped Brexit might mean more attention; that Government funding might flow into the town where he was born and bred.
He said: "People have had enough. Hopefully it'll mean we can concentrate on the UK."
Great Yarmouth, like many other coastal towns, suffers from high rates of teenage pregnancy, social deprivation, low educational attainment and higher than average levels of unemployment.
Support for the UKIP has surged in Great Yarmouth, with the anti-EU party picking up four councils seats in last year's local council election - making it the second biggest party in local government behind the Tories, with 12 councillors.
A desire for change in a town with little to lose, Sky Data suggests voters up and down the country are braced for some sort of economic hit from Brexit - but are also undeterred.
In a Sky poll, 42% of respondents said they thought Brexit would be bad for the economy, while 36% thought leaving the EU will benefit the economy. The rest didn't know.
Chris Hanretty, lecturer in politics at the University of East Anglia, told Sky News there was little reason for people to feel Bregret at this stage of the process.
"There hasn't been much evidence at all of Bregret or remorse or people changing their minds, just because, well, they haven't seen much change - so far."
A Sky Data poll found one in two people were happy or very happy about the triggering of Article 50, while only 36% said they felt sad about leaving the EU.
That suggests that there has been little voter remorse for the referendum decision last June to quit the EU, when 52% of the population voted to leave while 48% voted to remain.
Sky News travelled to the East of England to take the Brexit temperature in one of the most eurosceptic parts of the UK.
Like many parts of the country, city dwellers were at odds with those living in neighbouring towns and villages.
University city Norwich was the only place in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex that voted remain, with 56% of local residents opting to stay in the EU.
Locals in Norwich told Sky News they were feeling ambivalent and sad about Theresa May pulling the trigger on Brexit.
As one market stall worker said: "I don't feel right about it. When unions break apart, it never ends well."
Leave the city centre and the surrounding towns and villages tell a very different story.
Just 20 miles away in Great Yarmouth, nearly three in four adults voted to quit the EU - making this seaside town the fifth strongest Vote Leave area in the UK.
Locals on the seaside promenade told Sky News they were happy with the result: they hope Brexit might bring some benefits for their seaside town ravaged by decades of neglect.
One local man, Carl, said he had voted to leave the EU and hoped Brexit might mean more attention; that Government funding might flow into the town where he was born and bred.
He said: "People have had enough. Hopefully it'll mean we can concentrate on the UK."
Great Yarmouth, like many other coastal towns, suffers from high rates of teenage pregnancy, social deprivation, low educational attainment and higher than average levels of unemployment.
Support for the UKIP has surged in Great Yarmouth, with the anti-EU party picking up four councils seats in last year's local council election - making it the second biggest party in local government behind the Tories, with 12 councillors.
A desire for change in a town with little to lose, Sky Data suggests voters up and down the country are braced for some sort of economic hit from Brexit - but are also undeterred.
In a Sky poll, 42% of respondents said they thought Brexit would be bad for the economy, while 36% thought leaving the EU will benefit the economy. The rest didn't know.
Chris Hanretty, lecturer in politics at the University of East Anglia, told Sky News there was little reason for people to feel Bregret at this stage of the process.
"There hasn't been much evidence at all of Bregret or remorse or people changing their minds, just because, well, they haven't seen much change - so far."
Police investigating after 'human waste' found in empty Coke cans
Police are investigating after cans delivered to a Coca Cola factory in Northern Ireland appeared to have been contaminated with suspected human waste.
The problem occurred at a Coke factory in Co Antrim where empty cans are filled with the drink before being sealed and sold across Northern Ireland.
Coke said the problem at their plant in Lisburn was "identified immediately through our robust quality procedures".
They also reassured the public that this was an "isolated incident" and had not affected any products currently on sale.
"All of the product from the affected batch was immediately impounded and will not be sold", a Coca Cola spokeswoman said.
"We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in co-operation with the PSNI."
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed they were investigating reports that a consignment of containers had been contaminated, but said there were no further details available at this time.
The Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland also said it was aware of a "physical contamination incident".
But an FSA spokeswoman said: "There is no evidence to suggest that any affected product has reached the market".
The problem occurred at a Coke factory in Co Antrim where empty cans are filled with the drink before being sealed and sold across Northern Ireland.
Coke said the problem at their plant in Lisburn was "identified immediately through our robust quality procedures".
They also reassured the public that this was an "isolated incident" and had not affected any products currently on sale.
"All of the product from the affected batch was immediately impounded and will not be sold", a Coca Cola spokeswoman said.
"We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation in co-operation with the PSNI."
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed they were investigating reports that a consignment of containers had been contaminated, but said there were no further details available at this time.
The Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland also said it was aware of a "physical contamination incident".
But an FSA spokeswoman said: "There is no evidence to suggest that any affected product has reached the market".
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