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The Spill: A Border Farmer’s Trouble

Weekly news you can use.

By:  |  May 10, 2021  |    605 Words
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(Photo by Alex Widojo/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

“My Bad” a Farmer Relocates French/Belgium Border

The border between France and Belgium was agreed upon after Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and formally established by the Treaty of Kortrijk in 1820. But a Belgian farmer accidentally redrew the border when he moved a 331-pound fieldstone clearly marked with the year 1819.

The farmer was clearing his field for planting, and the stone was blocking his path. So, he moved it! Historians later noticed the move as they walked the line. The stone was only moved seven and a half feet, but that was enough to trim off some of the French village of Bousignies-sur-Roc, giving it to Belgium.

Officials of both countries plan on asking the farmer to put it back. There don’t seem to be any actual hard feeling or border disputes because of this, and the mayors of both the border towns – Bousignies-sur-Roc on the French side and La Voix du Nord on the Belgian side – joked around good naturedly about it. “He made Belgium bigger and France smaller; it’s not a good idea,” said David Lavaux, mayor of the Belgian village of Erquelinnes.

Aurélie Welonek, mayor of Bousignies-sur-Ro, joked that they “should be able to avoid a new border war.”

From the Desk of …

Facebook announced that it will keep its ban on Donald Trump. After the January 6 protest at Capitol Hill, the former president was banned by social media websites, including Twitter and YouTube. Facebook had temporarily blocked Trump. After months of review, the site’s Oversight Board has decided that Trump will continue to be banned from Facebook. However, the board told Facebook to review its rules and come up with a report within six months.

It seems Trump may have seen the result coming, as he recently launched a new website to communicate his message to supporters. The website, called From the Desk of Donald J. Trump, states:

“The Office of Donald J. Trump is committed to preserving the magnificent legacy of the Trump administration while at the same time advancing the America First agenda. Through civic engagement and public activism, the Office of Donald J. Trump will strive to inform, educate, and inspire Americans from all walks of life as we seek to build a truly great American Future.”

According to Trump’s spokesman, Jason Miller, this is a way to allow Trump to communicate with people who have an “America First” ideology. There is no ability for other people to post messages, but the Trump staff have hinted that a new social media platform may be in the works.

The Wave You Can’t See From the Beach

An Indonesian submarine, the Nanggala, was lost in April, causing an international search. New evidence suggest it might have been sunk by something called an internal wave. Internal waves are gravity waves that take place below the surface of a body of water. These waves can be huge, but they only occur where there are layers of water with different densities – which can be caused either by changes in temperature or salt levels. If an internal wave hit the Nanggala, the submarine could have been pushed significantly below its crush depth without much warning.

Matthew Alford of the Marine Physical Laboratory and Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement to the press: “Internal waves are very strong and are a hazard because they sweep ocean layers (and potentially anything in them including divers or subs) downwards hundreds of meters in just a few minutes.”

The loss of the Nanggala is currently under investigation, and additional research on internal waves continues.

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