South Australia Police are investigating an incident at Flinders Park last night where a car crashed into the front yard of a home, causing significant damage.
Key points:
A car crashed into the front yard of a Flinders Park home last night
Its driver lost control on Collingwood Avenue about 7.15pm, causing significant damage
There were no serious injuries
Sylvia and Giovanni — who did not want to provide their surname — said the car crashed into the yard of their Collingwood Avenue home about 7.15pm.
“I just heard this almighty bang, and it sounded almost like a bomb,” Giovanni said.
The car crashed into brick walls, a Stobie pole and two parked cars.
Giovanni said that, if the car had not hit the fence, it would have gone through their front windows.
“If you look at the marks on the road from the car, the trajectory, it would have been into our bedroom or lounge. [We’re] just lucky,” he said.
The crash caused significant damage to the front yard of Sylvia’s Flinders Park home. (abcnews)
Sylvia said the driver of the car was knocked unconscious.
“I rang up the police straight away … I saw the air bags and I saw two car seats at the back, children’s car seats, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I hope there’s no children in there’,” she said .
“I pushed the air bags away and no children but the driver was unconscious.”
A neighbor checked the man’s pulse while Sylvia was on the phone to the police.
“Then five minutes, he came to … and the next thing he pushed us and he just ran, he just bolted down the street, he was bleeding,” Sylvia said.
“There’s a young lad that chased after him around the corner. He should have gone in the Commonwealth Games, I said to him — and her ran in thongs — I don’t know how he did it.”
The driver was knocked unconscious but when he came to, he allegedly bolted down the street. (abcnews)
A 46-year-old man from Flinders Park was later taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with minor injuries.
Two cars had to be towed away and SA Power Networks had to attend to fix the Stobie pole, which had been badly damaged.
“It was just scary, the noise. We didn’t know what it was. My heart went out and you just don’t know, split second somebody could have been killed,” Sylvia said.
Drought has a way of revealing things. Receding waters can highlight the precarity of the crucial systems that keep functioning societies and expose hidden ancient cities.
In the case of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, diminishing waters have in recent months uncovered long buried secrets and other mysterious finds: at least three sets of human remains, including a body inside a barrel that could be linked to a mob killing, and a sunken boat dating back to the second world war.
A grueling drought in the American west has depleted the lake, a crucial water source for 25 million people, drying out tributaries, threatening hydropower production and closing boat ramps at the popular recreation site. It is now at its lowest level since the lake was being filled in 1937.
Officials expect more grim finds, and have already received calls from visitors about possible remains that turned out to be animal bones or prop skeletons left by local scuba divers years earlier.
A formerly sunken boat sits high and dry along the shoreline of Lake Mead in May. Photograph: John Locher/AP
“You will find things in the lake. It’s inevitable,” said Michael Green, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It’s been sad to watch the lake drop, the islands appear, the bathtub ring, the marina being moved out further and further.”
The recent spate of discoveries began in May when boaters spotted a barrel. Inside were the remains of a man who officials say was shot between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. The killing has the signature of a “mob hit”, the local Mob Museum said, and coincided “with the most violent period in Las Vegas’s past – an era of unprecedented street crime and underworld killings”.
A week after that discovery, two sisters paddle-boarding on the lake came across what they thought were the bones of a bighorn sheep, but which turned out to be another set of human remains.
“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains,” Ray Spencer, a lieutenant with the Las Vegas police, said in May.
Earlier this week, someone alerted park rangers to additional human remains, partially encased in mud, along a beach. The investigation is continuing, the park said in a statement.
But there aren’t just bodies in the water that comes in from the Colorado River, and experts say as the “bathtub ring” around the lake grows, more discoveries are waiting.
This summer a sunken second world war-era boat began to jut out from the water. The Higgins landing craft, models of which were deployed at Normandy, was once used to survey the Colorado River and then sold to the marina before it sank.
A sunken second world war-era Higgins landing craft that used to be nearly 200ft underwater rests on its side near the Lake Mead Marina on Thursday. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
A crashed B-29 plane has been in the water since 1948. It’s still far below the surface, but as the water levels fall light is reaching the plane for the first time in decades, 8NewsNow reported.
Lake Mead is not a natural body of water, Green points out. It was formed with the creation of the Hoover Dam, which submerged St Thomas, a Mormon settlement founded in 1865. One of the town’s final residents left in 1938 when waters reached his front door, according to the Deseret News. Declining lake levels, which have exposed St Thomas several times over the years, have kept the settlement visible for the last 10 years.
The lake also covered archaeological digs, said Green, who teaches about the history of Nevada and Las Vegas, meaning there could be historical items in the water.
“There might actually be some archaeological relics,” Green said, adding that a nearby museum has artifacts from the Puebloan people, who lived in the area about a thousand years earlier. “Archaeologists were working there until the lake was rising around them.”
The vast reservoir’s water level has dropped more than 170ft (52m) since 1983, the same year the Colorado River flooded the dam’s spillways. Over-extraction, extreme heat and decreased snowmelt have burdened the Colorado River Basin and nearly 40 years later, Lake Mead is down to about 27% of its capacity.
The forecast is grim – the Colorado River has endured a drought for two decades and project officials Lake Mead’s water levels will continue to fall, meaning that more discoveries will be unearthed.
“There tends to be plenty of stuff that goes to the bottom and you just wait around,” Green said. “Ideally we’ll get more water and we won’t find more.”
Australians are getting a rude shock as they open their superannuation statements. For most, it was a rare year of losses. Only three funds ended in the black. Callum Foote and Michael West investigate super returns and the best performing fund of them all, Hostplus.
It’s an obvious thing, but one worth nothing nonetheless. When interest rates rise, share markets tend to fall. And that is precisely what happened to the savings of millions of Australians for the year to June. Opening our superannuation fund letters, we discovered we are worth less than we were the year before.
The drop on sharemarkets had been compounded by an unusual phenomenon; bonds had failed too. Bonds are a key part of any “balanced” super portfolio, and when bond yields (interest rates on debt) rise, bond prices fall. The good news is the markets have sparked up since, so positive returns for the past seven weeks will have put most of us back in the black.
Drilling down in the league tables, historical trends prevailed, even in this volatile year to June 2022. Industry funds tend to perform better than retail funds. Their lower fees are reflected – better on a five year basis or longer – in higher returns. Ironically, not-for-profits do better than for-profits.
That said, the boast of industry funds that takeovers work – that is, taking over other funds so you can manage more money on the same cost base means greater efficiencies, ergo better returns – still remains a mirage. Industry juggernaut Australian Super is no more efficient despite its enormity, indeed it recently hiked its admin fees.
SuperRatings found industry superfund Hostplus came out on top as the best performing balanced superfund of the year, with Qantas and Christian Super options coming in next as the only three funds with positive results for the year to June. Were their results bolstered by valuation chicanery? We will get to that shortly.
Balanced superfunds are those with a third to three-quarters exposure to what are known as growth assets. Growth assets are those with more volatile returns – not as safe – such as shares; and these are favored by those looking to take a higher risk approach, mostly younger people.
So it was that safer options did better and those weighted with shares did worse. The bright spots were gold, infrastructure and cash – the safest options, ‘defensive’ investments. And here was the big reason why industry funds did better last year, they hold long term, large positions in infrastructure: airports, ports, current property.
Hostplus and the super fund lurk
Is all as it seems though in the land of industry superannuation? While we have long applauded industry funds for their lower fees and higher returns, chastened retail funds – such as the shockers managed by ANZ and AMP where fees were ridiculously high and performance laughably low – have lifted their game. The banks which control them have been pressured into closing some and curtailing fees across the board.
This began around the time Chris Brycki, founder of Australia’s first digital investment provider which operates ETFs (exchange traded funds) began publishing his annual Fat Cats report which identified the worst performing super funds (and yours truly duly began to expose them).
ANZ chief, Shayne Elliott is said to have remarked to colleagues that he didn’t want to see his bank turning up on that Fat Cats survey any more so the super poor performers were closed to new investors and then flogged to IOOF.
Search for the biggest fat cat of the Australian super fund industry
Where retail funds, those operated by banks, invest in publicly listed markets such as the ASX, industry funds are less transparent, making huge bets in unlisted investments such as infrastructure like airports and ports, even teaming up with foreign vulture funds (vid Hesta and KKR taking hospital group Ramsay private, and offshore). Yet the rules around disclosure and valuation are fluid; or perhaps suspect is a better word.
And this is where the performance of Australia’s top-performing fund Hostplus is deserving of scrutiny. Hostplus says it is happy with its valuations of unlisted assets. They trust their own valuations more than “the market” they say.
But as Chris Brycki puts it, “It’s like marking your own homework and bragging you came top of the class”. “There is a paucity of symmetric information out there.”
Hostplus has $12bn of unlisted assets, assets for which it can make its own valuations, and Brycki reckons the fund would have been down 2.8% for the year to June had it not been for the *amazing* performance of these assets. “To get from a return of negative 2.8% to positive 1.6%, they would have needed a return of 22% on the private assets on which there is no visibility.”
Listed markets were down, shares and bonds thumped, yet here was a balanced fund which produced a positive return amid all the volatility.
The Canva caper
“It seems not very feasible.” A prime example of the valuation issue is Canva, one of the hottest investments around last year, feted in the financial press with glossy pictures of its Young Rich List founders, breathless coverage of the Aussie success story. Indeed it is an incredible achievement – at $40bn it became on of the most valuable private companies in the world – but like every hot market play, there are characteristics of the bubble and therefore extreme changes in value.
When Canva’s value was knocked off its perch – a great software product but it ran too high on all the hype – some of its investors began marking down the value of their holdings. Investor Blackbird for instance marked its holding down by 36%. Hostplus has $2.5bn in Canva alone. at 40bn it was the most valuable private company in the world.
A generational challenge for younger Australians?
There is not enough visibility of super fund valuations, certainly for a market of this sheer size an importance. Here is a market where there is little price competition. People’s superannuation drops routinely into super funds, we are forced to have super and most people don’t think much about it, switch funds or demand to know from their fund manager what is going on with their investments.
And the funds get to decide their own valuations on the unlisted assets, the infrastructure assets. Whether and when they are marked up or down in value is up to the manager, not based on movements in say the ASX or bond markets. The temptation to ‘mark up’ is therefore strong, as it goes to performance and therefore the bonuses of the fund managers themselves.
As far as Hostplus is concerned a fund can get an external “independent valuation” on an asset but the Hostplus trustee allows the fund to override the valuer and put its own value on the investment.
So it was that last year the REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts listed on the ASX) were down by 11% for the year yet Hostplus marked up the value of its property assets by 17%. Did they just happen to own better buildings?
What i think will happen now, says Brycki, is that over the next ten years there will be an intergenerational problem where people will exit their super now at higher valuations leaving younger super holders vulnerable to lagged valuations (falling valuations) of the unlisted assets.
“They are clearly not marking them to market.”
The wash-up
SuperRatings is a website devoted to comparisons. Its executive director Kirby Rappell says: “Since the bottom of the GFC we haven’t seen huge amounts of volatility coming through, there have been a few moments, but we have seen extreme levels of volatility since COVID-19 hit and in terms of the menu for the year ahead, we expect to see more volatility.
“While the 2022 financial year has seen super funds record a modest fall, the benefits of diversification have shone through. When we compare returns for equity, bond and listed property markets to balanced style portfolios among super funds, these results should be reassuring to members.”
However, many Australians have chosen high growth options, which means more exposure to the stock market, have suffered worse.
According to super research company Chant West’s senior investment research manager, Mano Mohankumar: “Over FY22, Australian shares retreated 6.8%, while international shares were down 12.4% in hedged terms. It was the same story for listed property, with Australian and global REITs falling 11.2% and 10.5% respectively. That was bad enough, but what made the year even more challenging was that bonds didn’t play their usual cushioning role, with Australian bonds and international bonds falling 10.5% and 9.3%, respectively.”
Statistics from the Australian Association of Superannuation Funds Superannuation assets totaled $3.4 trillion at the end of the March 2022 quarter. Over the 12 months from March 2021 there was a 9.7 per cent increase in total superannuation assets.
As at the end of the March 2022 quarter, 56 per cent of the $2.2 trillion investments were invested in equities; with 24 per cent in Australian listed equities, 27 per cent in international listed equities and 5 per cent in unlisted equities.
However, Mohankumar says that diversification largely stemmed the losses to Australian superfunds: “Despite all this, the median growth fund was only down 3.3%. That’s mainly because most major super funds now invest far beyond these traditional asset sectors.”
Industry research shows that funds that have the highest exposure to the stock market have suffered the most in the financial year to date. Over the past 10 years, those with near total exposure to growth assets are roughly 20% higher than more conservative balanced funds.
Rising interest rates
The Reserve Bank has signaled that interest rates will continue to rise to curb growing inflation which means that the stock market will take further hits.
According to Brycki,“Unfortunately rising interest rates are something that doesn’t work too well for the sharemarket, so people are yanking their money out”. If investors can get higher rates of return on safer investment due to higher interest rates, the sharemarket looks less desirable as a result.
To end with our first market proposition – when interest rates go up, share markets to go down – a lot depends on rates. The outlook for the year ahead is not too flash, unless you take the view that central banks will quickly crush inflation and contain interest rates.
Callum Foote is a journalist and Revolving Doors editor for Michael West Media. He has studied the impact of undue corporate influence on Australian policy decisions and the impact this has on popular interests.
Michael West established michaelwest.com.au to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. Formerly a journalist and editor at Fairfax newspapers and a columnist at News Corp, West was appointed Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney’s School of Social and Political Sciences.
September 26, 2022, will be an exciting day for fans of World of Warcraft. The Lich King, who made his debut in the second expansion of World of Warcraft, will once again return to this world.
Players will explore Northrend’s Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord and witness epic spectacles and beloved storytelling from the Warcraft franchise, culminating in the overthrow of the Lich King at Icecrown Citadel domination.
Delve Dungeons & Raids
Explore Northrend
The fearsome death knight is World of Warcraft’s first hero, starting at level 55 and can join any faction. They will harness the forces of darkness against the evil that threatens Azeroth. At the time, players could only create one Death Knight character per server and required a level 55 character on that server, but in Wrath of the Lich King, players will no longer have to think about creating their first Death Knight character under these requirements.
Death Knight
In World of Warcraft®: Wrath of the Lich King Classic™, the introduction of the inscription profession allows players to scribe mysterious glyphs, change spell skills and attributes such as cooldowns and damage etc, as well as craft powerful accessories.
Master the Art of Inscription
The achievement system will be returned to the World of Warcraft Classic™, and the players will receive rewards for their great deeds and heroic feats.
Players will have access to a 50% bonus XP event during the pre-launch, which will last running until the launch day. In addition, all subscribers of WoW will be granted to create the opportunity to create up to one Death Knight per Classic realm. Don’t forget to make use of the Burning Crusade Classic™ as free content from the WoW subscription to bring the new character to level 70 if you would like. Other optional upgrades such as new cosmetic items and a level-70 character boost can also be purchased and to be used in the new release.
Joyous Journeys XP buff in preparation for Wrath Classic
Margot Robbie says she’s ‘eternally grateful’ to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood – and admits she only realized how popular the show was until she moved to London
By Monique Friedlander For Daily Mail Australia
Published: | Updated:
She’s arguably one of the biggest stars to come out of Australian soap Neighbours.
And Margot Robbie, who played Donna Freedman between 2008 and 2011, is under no illusion that the beloved show was integral in helping her break into Hollywood.
‘There are so many of us that owe them for giving us a big break,’ Robbie, 32, told The Sun on Saturday.
Margot Robbie, 32, (pictured) told The Sun on Saturday she’s ‘eternally grateful’ to Neighbors for helping her break into Hollywood
‘It wasn’t just about giving me a break either — it gave me a real chance to work on my craft. It was the perfect training for Hollywood, and I will always be eternally grateful.’
Robbie, who moved to London in 2013 after leaving Neighbours, said she only realized how popular the show was until she lived in the UK.
‘When I lived in London, I understood at its peak how big it was. People would come up to me and tell me how they watched it every day after school.’
Robbie played Donna Freedman between 2008 and 2011. She is pictured in character on the show in 2009
‘It wasn’t just about giving me a break either — it gave me a real chance to work on my craft. It was the perfect training for Hollywood, and I will always be eternally grateful.’ Margot is pictured in character with co-star Jackie Woodburne, who played Susan Kennedy, in 2009
During the Neighbors finale, Robbie made a floating appearance in a 14-second pre-recorded video message.
Robbie was unable to travel to Australia to film scenes as she’s currently busy filming the Barbie movie in America.
However, she did show her gratitude by sending the entire cast a bottle of pricey Champagne.
During the Neighbors finale, Robbie made a floating appearance in a 14-second pre-recorded video message. She is pictured in her final episode cameo
Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are among the other celebrities who returned to Neighbors to appear in the send-off of the Melbourne-based drama that helped launch their careers in acting and music.
Natalie and Holly filmed a scene together from the UK, which saw them bump into each other at a park before discovering they both once lived on Ramsay Street.
Neighbors was once a major hit in Australia and a bigger success in Britain, but has fallen victim to waning ratings in recent years.
Robbie was unable to travel to Australia to film scenes as she’s currently busy filming the Barbie movie in America. However, she did show her gratitude by sending the entire cast a bottle of pricey Champagne
Kylie Minogue (pictured), Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance are among the other celebrities who returned to Neighbors to appear in the send-off of the Melbourne-based drama that helped launch their careers in acting and music
Rather than receiving a silver medal for her efforts in the team pursuit, New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews was instead given an unusual prize — a AU$300 fine.
The Kiwi cyclist was a late addition to the New Zealand team who claimed silver in yesterday’s final at Lee Valley VeloPark, having ridden to the rescue following Ally Wollaston’s wrist injury, the NZ Herald reports.
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The highly fancied pursuit team needed four women on the start line to compete at these Commonwealth Games and, with no reserves in the squad, Andrews added to her busy schedule by filling the void.
With the team sprint her main focus on Saturday — an event in which she would later win gold — Andrews immediately dropped away from the quartet in both qualifying and the final against Australia, leaving her teammates to compete as a trio.
Michaela Drummond, Emily Shearman and Bryony Botha did a pretty good job of that, earning themselves and Andrews a silver medal that the sprint rider would have never expected before Birmingham.
And now it’s been revealed it’s one she will never get.
With her sprint duties taking obvious precedence, Andrews was missing from the medal ceremony when the Kiwis received their silver, and fell afoul of a bizarre UCI ruling.
According to an official communication released by the Commonwealth Games, Andrews has been punished for her absence with a fine of 200 Swiss francs, a loss of her silver medal and docking of any UCI points.
While the result will remain on Andrews’ record and she will still be known as a silver medalist in the team pursuit, she won’t have the shiny piece of metal to show for her efforts.
The 22-year-old will instead have to content herself with the team sprint gold she won yesterday — and any further medals the talented rider claims in her three individual events.
She told TVNZ she was not fussed about missing out.
“I’m really glad I could help them continue their race,” she said.
“I’m really really glad that they were able to get off the line.
“The three girls are the ones that did the work so I’m really proud they were able to get up there and get their silver medal.”
This article originally appeared on the NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission
Teachers, nurses, police officers, cleaners and public servants in Western Australia have been offered a six per cent pay rise as a buffer to rising inflation.
The WA government has increased its wage offer for 150,000 public sector workers to three per cent annually over the next two years, up from 2.75 per cent, along with an additional $2500 sign-on bonus.
Premier Mark McGowan said the move was in response to cost-of-living pressures and would cost the state budget an extra $634 million over the next four years.
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“This is designed to ensure that there is fairness across the board and the public sector … is properly rewarded in the environment that we are in,” he told reporters on Sunday.
The changes will immediately flow through to workforces that have already accepted the state government’s previous offer, including teachers and public hospital doctors.
Lower paid workers will get a bigger proportional pay increase through the sign-on bonus, with a patient care assistant who earns just over $55,000 a year set to effectively get a 7.5 per cent wage rise over the first year.
Perth’s consumer price index jumped 1.7 per cent in the June quarter, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week, pushing its annual inflation rate well above the national average to 7.4 per cent.
The McGowan government banked a $5.7 billion surplus in this year’s state budget, which included a one-off $400 electricity credit for every household.
But the premier said the new policy was his final offer, stressing the government cannot afford to match wage increases in the cashed-up private sector.
“We’re never going to be able to compete with the mining industry, no industry can,” he said.
“But a public sector job is a secure job. It’s a good job. It’s one that we want to properly reward and properly ensure that everyone gets a decent pay increase.”
Health workers and other WA public servants were lobbying for a pay rise above 2.75 per cent, with some holding stop-work meetings outside Perth hospitals in recent weeks.
Mr McGowan is hopeful the improved offer will be enough to stop any strike action, saying it’s more generous than those put forward to public sector workers in NSW and Victoria.
“We have provided something that no other state has, which is the across the board sign-on bonus,” he said.
“Other states have done it for certain parts of the workforce but not the entire workforce. We want to make sure the entire workforce is recognised, particularly because over COVID everyone put their shoulder to the wheel.”
Wildfires in California near the Oregon border and in Montana exploded in size overnight amid windy, hot conditions and were quickly encroaching on neighborhoods, forcing evacuation orders for over 100 homes Saturday, while an Idaho blaze was spreading.
In California’s Klamath National Forest, the fast-moving McKinney fire, which started Friday, went from charring just over 1 square mile to scorching as much as 62 square miles by Saturday in a largely rural area near the Oregon state line, according to fire officials .
“It’s continuing to grow with erratic winds and thunderstorms in the area and we’re in triple digit temperatures,” said Caroline Quintanilla, a spokeswoman at Klamath National Forest.
Check out The Oregonian/OregonLive’s new wildfire smoke map below. (click here if you don’t see the map.)
Meanwhile in Montana, the Elmo wildfire nearly tripled in size to more than 11 square miles (about 28 square kilometers) within a few miles of the town of Elmo. Roughly 200 miles to the south, Idaho residents remained under evacuation orders as the Moose Fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest charred more than 67.5 square miles in timbered land near the town of Salmon. It was 17% contained.
A significant build-up of vegetation was fueling the McKinney fire, said Tom Stokesberry, a spokesman with the US Forest Service for the region.
“It’s a very dangerous fire — the geography there is steep and rugged, and this particular area hasn’t burned in a while,” he said.
A small fire was also burning nearby, outside the town of Seiad, Stokesberry said. With lightning predicted over the next few days, resources from all over California were being brought in to help fight the region’s fires, he said.
McKinney’s explosive growth forced crews to shift from trying to control the perimeter of the blaze to trying to protect homes and critical infrastructure like water tanks and power lines, and assist in evacuations in California’s northernmost county of Siskiyou. The fire is west of Interstate 5.
Deputies and law enforcement were knocking on doors in the county seat of Yreka and the town of Fort Jones to urge residents to get out and safely evacuate their livestock onto trailers. Automated calls were being sent to land phone lines as well because there were areas without cell phone service.
Over 100 homes were ordered evacuated and authorities were warning people to be on high alert. Smoke from the fire caused the closure of portions of Highway 96.
“We’re asking residents all over the area to be ready,” Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Courtney Kreider said. “Last night we were pushing out evacuations about every hour, and there are large portions of the county that are in warning areas.”
Moments later, she said, “Oh — we just added another zone to the evacuation warning.”
The Pacific Coast Trail Association urged hikers to get to the nearest town while the US Forest Service closed a 110-mile (177-kilometer) section of the trail from the Etna Summit to the Mt. Ashland Campground in southern Oregon.
Oregon state Rep. Dacia Grayber, who is a firefighter, was camping with her husband, who is also in the fire service, near the California state line when gale-force winds awoke them just after midnight.
The sky was glowing with strikes of lightening in the clouds, while ash was blowing at them, though they were in Oregon, about 10 miles away. Intense heat from the fire had sent up a massive pyrocumulonimbus cloud, which can produce its own weather system including winds and thunderstorms, Grayber said.
“These were some of the worst winds I’ve ever been in and we’re used to big fires,” she said. “I thought it was going to rip the roof top tent off of our truck. We got the hell out of there.”
On their way out, they came across hikers on the Pacific Coast Trail fleeing to safety. They offered rides, but one hiker said he would just take a beer, which they gave him, she said.
“The terrifying part for us was the wind velocity,” she said. “It went from a fairly cool breezy night to hot, dry hurricane-force winds. Usually that happens with a fire during the day but not at night. I hope for everyone’s sake this dies down but it’s looking like it’s going to get worse.”
In western Montana, the wind-driven Elmo fire forced evacuations of homes and livestock as it raced across grass and timber, according to The National Interagency Fire Center, based in Idaho. The agency estimated it would take nearly a month to contain the blaze.
Smoke shut down a portion of Highway 28 between Hot Springs and Elmo because of the thick smoke, according to the Montana Department of Transportation.
Crews from several different agencies were fighting the fire on Saturday, including the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Fire Division. Six helicopters were making drops on the fire, aided by 22 engines on the ground.
In Idaho, more than 930 wildland firefighters and support staff were battling the Moose fire Saturday and protecting homes, energy infrastructure and the Highway 93 corridor, a major north-south route.
A red flag warning indicated that the weather could make things worse with the forecast calling for “dry thunderstorms,” with lightning, wind and no rain.
Meanwhile, crews made significant progress in battling another major blaze in California that forced evacuations of thousands of people near Yosemite National Park earlier this month. The Oak fire was 52% contained by Saturday, according to a Cal Fire incident update.
As fires raged across the West, the US House on Friday approved wide-ranging legislation aimed at helping communities in the region cope with increasingly severe wildfires and drought — fueled by climate change — that have caused billions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses in recent years.
The legislative measure approved by federal lawmakers Friday combines 49 separate bills and would increase firefighter pay and benefits; boost resilience and mitigation projects for communities affected by climate change; protect watersheds; and make it easier for wildfire victims to get federal assistance.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has sponsored a similar measure.
Winter might be a season of dormancy for many plants but for citrus trees — like lemons — it’s a time when they’re at their best.
Melbourne-based fruiterer Thanh Truong (aka The Fruit Nerd) shares a couple of tips to pick a good lemon and the best ways to cut and store them.
If you’re looking to grow your own lemons, he says there’s a trick to growing a big, juicy lemon tree — and it has to do with the type of fertilizer you use.
How to pick a juicy lemon
Thanh says dark yellow lemons are a sign they’re ripe and juicy inside.(ABC Everyday: Matthew Garrow)
What signs should you look out for when it comes to picking a ripe, juicy, lemon? Thanh says it’s all in the texture of the skin.
“Smooth skin lemons represent maturity or ripeness,” he says.
“It’ll mean there’s more juice and it’s heavier, whilst one picked a little less ripe [will] be bumpy and it’s not going to have as much juice in it.”
Farmers usually harvest lemons when they’re transitioning from white to yellow, so if you’re buying lemons from the supermarket, Thanh recommends picking one that’s “at a darker yellow stage”.
There are a few lemon varieties grown in Australia: Eureka, Lisbon and Meyer (each with different benefits). If you’re a fan of citrus fruit like Thanh, then a Meyer lemon could be a good option for you.
“This is my favorite lemon,” he says.
“It’s half a lemon and half a mandarin, which gives it the qualities of both — it’s got the aroma and perfume and sweetness of a mandarin, but it’s got the sourness and tang of a lemon.
“My hack if you can’t buy a Meyer lemon, is to squeeze one part lemon and one part mandarin and you get the perfect, zesty, sweet tang,” he says.
Urinating on your lemon tree can help it grow
For a long time, people have sworn by urinating on citrus trees to help them grow and Thanh says this underrated hack can produce some good results.
“Urinating on a lemon tree will give you [a] comparable amount [of nutrients] to a general fertilizer. These nutrients help with tree health, more flowering and more fruits,” he explains.
If you’d rather stick to a store-bought product, Thanh says a good fertilizer for your lemon tree generally includes nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) in the ingredients list.
Cutting and storing lemons
You might have noticed chefs rolling their lemons before they cut them and then wonder why they do this extra little step?
Juicing a lemon can be a tough job, but Thanh explains when you roll a lemon before cutting it, it makes juicing easier.
“When you roll the lemon, you’re actually crushing the vesicles, so the juice is going to be easily accessible once you squeeze it” he says.
What you’re using your lemons for will determine the best way to cut it.
If you want to get the most juice out of your lemon, Thanh says cut it horizontally.(ABC Everyday: Matthew Garrow)
If you’re making homemade lemonade or cooking a recipe where you want to get all the juice out of your lemon, Thanh recommends cutting it horizontally rather than vertically. This way you’ll squeeze all the juice out of each segment.
But if you’re looking for lemon wedges to have alongside your food — like fish and chips — then cutting it vertically is the way to go.
The great thing about lemons — unlike some other fruit — is they last a long time. If you store them in a fridge, you’ll be able to keep them for up to six months.
Is bottled lemon juice a good alternative?
Bottled lemon juice could be a good alternative but there is a difference in taste.
“Bottled lemon juice has got preservatives in it and might have been cooked to make it shelf stable so it’s going to have a much more mellow lemon taste,” Thanh says.
“If you want something zingy and you’re going to eat it fresh, [like in salads, cocktails, or oysters] then a fresh lemon is the way to go.
“If you’re cooking a savory dish and [cooking] the lemon juice down, bottled juice is actually a good option,” he says.
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For the past week I’ve been testing Google’s newest budget smartphone, the Pixel 6a. And although the ‘affordable’ phone comes in at $749, it shares a lot of features with Google’s premium $999 Pixel 6 smartphone.
Unboxing and design
The phone comes in three fresh colors including ‘Sage’, which is a light green, ‘Chalk’ which is white with a gray accent and ‘Charcoal’ which is a predominantly dark grey. I got my hands on Sage, which has to be my favourite.
There was a similar colorway on the Google Pixel 6 called Seafoam and it looks just as good on this budget phone. In fact, the device looks like they took a shrink ray to the Google Pixel 6. It’s identical at a glance, with the same FHD+ OLED display and in-screen fingerprint reader, with only a visible difference in its size.
The Pixel 6a has a 6.1” display in comparison to the Pixel 6’s 6.4” screen. And even though the Pixel 6 has a more premium glass back housing, the Google Pixel 6a is indistinguishable even though it’s only made of plastic.
Looks-wise, you’re certainly getting to flaunt the illusion of owning a premium phone for a more affordable price point.
Unfortunately, you get the same in-the-box contents that’s become the norm with premium phones though, meaning no charging brick in the box. All you get is the phone, a USB-C charging cable and a USB-A to USB-C adapter. Google sells their fast charging USB-C adapter separately at check out.
cameras
The Google Pixel 6a has a strip on the back of the phone that houses the cameras and protrudes from the device. I kind of dig this design as it means the phone is balanced when placed camera-side down on a table, whereas some phones wobble due to balancing on the cameras that are positioned to one side.
There are two back cameras including a 12.2 MP wide camera and a 12 MP ultrawide camera. And although these can’t really compete with many phones in this price bracket, Google’s in-camera tech allows for high quality photos with balanced, bright, true to life colors.
Even though these lenses are somewhat outdated, traditionally the Pixel’s camera hardware in tandem with its software has always brought about great results and it’s the same for the 6a. Nightmode is especially impressive and the camera performs well in all conditions.
On the front you get a reasonable selfie camera too. It’s only 8 megapixels but believe it or not it’s the same front camera that’s in the premium Pixel 6.
Tech specs
There are a couple of notable sacrifices you’ll make with this more budget phone and that’s a 60hz refresh rate. If you don’t know what that means then honestly, you probably won’t notice the difference.
On the flip side, if you’ve experienced a higher refresh rate on a phone such as 90Hz on the Pixel 6, you’ll notice the phone doesn’t scroll as ‘smoothly’.
Additionally, there’s only 6GB of ram in the phone so, technically, it has a little less processing power but it’s not really noticeable with Google’s new Tensor chip.
This is the same chip in, not only the Pixel 6, but Pixel 6 Pro. It allows the phone to perform awesome new features such as live translate, which lets you chat in 11 languages in real time. Additionally, the phone is launched with Android 12, the latest operating system.
Battery life
You can’t share your battery with others with this phone but you can keep the battery going for over 24 hours, or at least that’s what Google quotes.
The phone has an adaptive battery that’s able to learn how you use your device and will turn lesser used apps off in the background to save battery life.
I found that over time, my battery was able to consistently last around 20 hours if I didn’t spend too much time binging video content.
And if you’re in a pinch you’re also able to use the ‘Extreme Battery Saver’ to bump up the battery life (but only really to keep it alive for that last phone call or Uber ride to get you home).
Should you buy it?
This is a great phone, but I do miss the headphone jack that was previously seen on the Google Pixel 5a 5G.
There are some new software features that do set the Pixel 6a apart from its predecessor, including the Tensor processor. However, I’m a big fan of the rugged plastic, slim, design of the previous Pixel 5a, which I still think holds up really well.
Overall, this is a sleek little 5G Pixel 6 clone, which does a great job of offering you the latest and greatest performance and style of the Pixel 6 on a budget. So, if you want to stand out from the crowd but still save some cash then the $749 Pixel 6a is where it’s at.
Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @elliawesometech | Youtube
