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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Should irresponsible hikers be forced to pay for their rescue? This sheriff says yes
The number of rescues in the wilderness areas around Mt. St. Helens keep going up — and the actions of some of those before they call for help have drawn criticism as reckless. One man, 21, kayaked over a waterfall, suffering a spinal injury. A 54-year-old woman glissaded down Mt. St. Helens — sliding down a snow-covered slope — and suffered a head injury when she struck a rock. Each of those rescues in May, in a remote, mountainous county, required six-hour efforts. And one West Coast sheriff is now pondering sending the most egregious victims a bill. The idea would involve a new county ordinance where a person could be cited 'if they are found to be reckless or negligent in their actions where search and rescue is requested to respond,' according to the Sheriff's Office in Skamania County, the remote, sparsely populated county in Washington that is home to Mt. St. Helens. 'I need to find a creative way to deter the current behavior we are witnessing while attempting to recoup the financial burden placed on our county,' Sheriff Summer Scheyer said in a statement. 'This ordinance is still in the planning phase, but I believe it would be an added deterrent for those who take exceptional risks.' The number of search-and-rescue missions soared in May in Skamania County compared to the same month last year, the Sheriff's Office said, with a number of missions taking four to nine hours to complete the rescue. Skamania County isn't alone. In southern Utah, the Garfield County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday announced it was requiring permits for some of the most remote and challenging slot canyons, noting 'a significant increase in search and rescue operations.' Nationwide, the number of national park search-and-rescue operations is in the thousands — 3,308 in 2023 — which can entail anything from a child who is separated from their parents to a hiker who is lost in the backcountry. The idea of forcing irresponsible hikers to pay for their rescue has come up before. In New Hampshire, the state says people may be required to pay back the costs to rescue them. One way to avoid such charges is buying 'Hike Safe Cards' — $25 per person and $35 per family — that supports the state's search-and-rescue efforts. One recent rescue that gained attention involved a pair of hikers who had to be rescued after they hiked despite a forecast of rain, sleet and snow in the middle of January, went off a marked trail and feared they were hypothermic. Rescuers had to break a trail — for three-quarters of a mile in steep terrain — to get to the hikers. 'The pair were found to be inadequately prepared for the conditions that were forecasted,' the Fish and Game Department said in a news release, and neither had Hike Safe Cards. In 2013 in California, a massive search-and-rescue operation was launched in Orange County for two hikers, Nicolas Cendoya, 19, and Kyndall Jack, 18. They called for help after going on an Easter Sunday hike in Trabuco Canyon and became lost. The cellphone they used to make the call stopped working before authorities could identify their location. Cendoya was found three days later, shoeless and disoriented half a mile from their car, and Jack, the day after, in shoulder-high brush. After authorities found methamphetamine in the vehicle, which the pair had parked before the hike, some government officials called for the $160,000 rescue bill to be paid back. Cendoya pleaded guilty to one felony count of drug possession but was eligible for a drug-diversion program, which if completed successfully would mean he could have the case against him dismissed. Court records indicated the case was dismissed in 2015. A judge, however, denied the Orange County Fire Authority's request that the agency get back the $55,000 it spent on the search for the pair, saying the fire agency was not a victim of a crime and couldn't seek restitution. In response, California lawmakers changed the law to allow government officials to seek reimbursement for future rescues, with certain conditions. Signed into law in 2015, the law allows a county or city to seek reimbursement for the costs of a rescue if it required 'the use of extraordinary methods,' and 'was caused by an intentional act in knowing violation' of any law 'that resulted in a criminal conviction of that person for that act.' But a county can't collect if the person rescued can't afford to pay. The county also can't collect more than $12,000 unless the person rescued was convicted of a felony. Although Orange County did not recoup its costs, the hikers did face other legal action to hold them financially accountable. Jack was sued by a volunteer rescuer who was injured during the search, falling more than 100 feet, according to the rescuer's attorneys. The volunteer, who accused Jack of negligently putting rescuers in danger, received $100,000 as part of a legal settlement, paid from a homeowner's insurance policy held by Jack's mother. The rescuer's attorney said Cendoya also settled with the rescuer for an undisclosed amount of money. Some search-and-rescue organizations don't support the idea of charging people needing rescue. 'No one should ever be made to feel they must delay in notifying the proper authorities of a search or rescue incident out of fear of possible charges,' the Mountain Rescue Assn. says. In a position paper in 2009, the association said that most services that rescue people in the mountains in the U.S. 'are provided by teams of unpaid professional rescue mountaineers who give up their own time to participate in search and rescue activities.' 'The typical search and rescue mission is over within a matter of a few hours, and with the vast majority of the work performed by unpaid professional volunteers, the costs are generally very low,' Charley Shimanski, then the president of the Mountain Rescue Assn., said in a statement. 'It's true that teams are sometimes over-taxed, and that newcomers to the backcountry call 911 in questionable circumstances,' the Colorado Search and Rescue Assn. said. 'Yet we still don't believe charging for services is the answer. We know from experience that when people think they're going to be charged, they often delay calling, or even intentionally evade, rescuers.' Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth contributed to this report.
See - Sada Elbalad
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
Discover Aliaa Hassan's Delicious Chicken and Freekeh Salad
Pasant Elzaitony - Yara Sameh It's summertime and food blogger Aliaa Hassan has been searching for simpler recipes to make her life easier. Hassan shared with "SEE" one of her discoveries, the chicken and freekeh salad. She swears by the recipe and describes it to be "a quick, simple salad" and "a whole meal that satisfies my taste buds". Hassan recommends serving the salad with a light dressing and a drizzle of honey on top with fresh mint and coriander. Ingredients: One cup of freekeh was soaked in water for a couple of hours. Half a kilo of chicken breast 100 grams of feta cheese Fresh mint and coriander for garnish 1 tablespoon of flax seeds Chicken seasoning: 1/2 teaspoon of salt 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika Dressing: 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. 1/2 teaspoon of salt 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper 2 tablespoons of olive oil 1 tablespoon of honey Directions: In a medium-sized pan put the freekeh in water with a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil and turn down to cook it for about 20 minutes or until it's just tender. Drain and leave it to cool down. In a larger skillet add a tablespoon of vegetable oil season the chicken and grill it for about 3 minutes on each side. Mix dressing ingredients very well and add them to warm freekeh. Then start mixing the meal. Add sliced grilled chicken on top of freekeh, then add cubes of salty feta cheese. Add fresh greens, flax seeds, and a drizzle of honey on top for more sweetness. Serve it warm and enjoy. read more 15 Ludicrous Cosplay Costumes That Will Blow You Away Watch... Dorra's natural beauty will blow your mind in latest photo session Exercising For As Little As 150 Minutes A Week Will Make You Happier، Study Claims ARIES: Your Horoscope for April 7 FDA Now Considers Vaping A Rising Epidemic In High School Lifestyle How to make Dried salted fish (feseekh) -By Chef El-Sherbini Lifestyle Batarekh Dip & Sardine Dip Lifestyle Best of Easter cookie and cakes Lifestyle ARIES friendship News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks Videos & Features Video: Trending Lifestyle TikToker Valeria Márquez Shot Dead during Live Stream News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan Technology 50-Year Soviet Spacecraft 'Kosmos 482' Crashes into Indian Ocean News 3 Killed in Shooting Attack in Thailand
National Geographic
3 hours ago
- National Geographic
What it's like to celebrate midsummer in Sweden
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). As my Swedish army bike rattles down the last hill, I place a hand on the basket to secure my Midsummer contributions: two king-size sausage rolls and a green bean and orange salad. The wide-open fields of southern Sweden's fertile Söderslätt plain, yellow with rapeseed flowers, stretch out to my right, while to my left, the Baltic Sea has just slipped out of sight, having been there for most of my 20-minute ride from the station. When I turn into the gravel drive, Malin and Christian's century-old brick villa, Källbacken, meaning 'hill with a spring', is already clattering with preparations. Malin and her seven-year-old daughter Edith have been out picking the flowers and greenery that will decorate the midsommarstång, or maypole, which they've laid out neatly on a table. I place my sausage rolls alongside and am immediately marshalled into scrubbing potatoes. For Malin and Christian, new potatoes, dug up only days before from the patch at the bottom of their garden, are central to the feast. 'Unlike Easter and Christmas, you don't normally have hot food at Midsummer: it's about potatoes, and herring,' Malin says. The preparations began months ago. 'We actually start preparing for Midsummer in February," she explains, describing the family's annual trip to buy early-maturing Swift potatoes, which then stand, packed in egg cartons, in the barn for three months before being planted in early May. It feels a fitting ritual ahead of this festival, which originated back when Sweden was an agrarian society. Midsummer celebrations not only marked the longest day of the year but welcomed in a new season of fertility. Many Swedes still head to the countryside to celebrate. Although this is my tenth Midsummer in Sweden, the celebrations I've been to have been low-key affairs eschewing tradition: a barbecue, games, but no maypole. Malin and Christian, however, go all in. As well as the potatoes, the couple provide home-grown chives, pickled herring, Christian's home-brewed IPA, and a bottle or two of snaps or akvavit, the Swedish spirit used for toasts and to accompany singing. This celebration is unusual, though, for the lack of heavy drinking – because there are many babies and small children present. Midsummer, more than Christmas or New Year's Eve, is when Swedes really let loose, taking full advantage of daylight that lasts until close to midnight, and singing and dancing until sunrise. Midsummer is when Swedes let loose, taking advantage of daylight that lasts until close to midnight, singing and dancing until sunrise. Photograph by Getty, Fredrik Nyman In previous years, Malin made her own pickled herring, but this year there are five varieties supplied by Abba (the fish-canning giant, rather than the sequin-clad Seventies four-piece), and she's also made gubbröra, meaning 'old bloke's mix'. It's a salty spread combining chopped, soused and spiced sprats, hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise and dill. As I'm scrubbing potatoes, more people start to arrive and, as with every Midsummer I've ever been to, it's a mix of Swedes and internationals, the language bouncing between English and Swedish. By the time I come outside, the table is crammed with dishes. Magnus, a childhood friend of Christian's, has brought a silltårta, a traditional cake made of herring and creme fraiche thickened with gelatine and served on a butter and breadcrumb base. Someone else has brought the obligatory västerbottenpaj, a quiche flavoured with a pungent hard cheese from the far north, and there's another quiche with salmon and spinach. Then there are two enormous sourdough loaves, with dark, decorated crusts and some fröknäcke, a heavily seeded crispbread. The only classic dish missing is gravlax – salmon cured with salt, sugar and dill. Once the potatoes are fully cleaned, Malin throws a handful of dill into the pan and begins the boiling. Swedes take potatoes seriously. All will own a potato-tester, a metal spike the thickness of a needle, with a blunt end and a plastic handle, which is pushed into potatoes to judge their firmness. My wife, I tell Malin as we chitchat, is adamant that you must leave part of the spuds poking above the water, cook them at no more than a simmer, and steam them dry in a pan afterwards. But Malin has no time for such fussiness. 'I know people who, after half the boiling time, pour out some of the water and add new water, and things like that,' she says. 'But I just boil them – not for too long, since they're new potatoes – but I don't understand why it should be so difficult.' Once done, the potatoes are placed in a bowl outside to be served with butter and chopped dill and chives, and sliced hard-boiled eggs laid alongside. A Swedish Midsummer meal is often formal, with places neatly laid on a long table outside, folded napkins and garnished dishes. But this year, thanks to all the young guests, it's a come-and-go affair, with guests sitting down with different neighbours every time they refill their plates. The conversation touches on the shortage of another Midsummer essential: strawberries, which a bad harvest has pushed above 80 kronor (£6) a litre, if you can get hold of any at all. I pile three sorts of herring onto some crispbread, its saltiness setting off the sweet-and-sour bite of the pickle, and also indulge in some gubbröra, enjoying the cinnamon, allspice and sandalwood spicing of the sprats. The potatoes are firm, sweet and a little nutty, the perfect partner to the stronger flavours of the other dishes. I also take some västerbottenpaj, which is so rich with Västerbotten cheese — somewhere between a mature cheddar and a parmesan in strength — that I have to stop at a single helping. The silltårta, an old-fashioned addition even to this very traditional celebration, has a jelly-ish consistency that doesn't quite appeal to me, but goes down well with the other guests. After the meal is over, I join the children and some of the adults walking it off in the surrounding fields and picking flowers for the midsommarkransar, Midsummer crowns made of birch twigs woven together. When we return, we get to work erecting the maypole, about three metres tall, with a crossbar. While it's commonly believed to be a pagan fertility symbol, representing male genitalia, experts insist each year in Swedish newspapers that there's no evidence to back it up – but looking at it, I find it hard to see what else it might be. Soon, adults and children alike are holding hands, circling around the pole, pretending alternately to be a musician playing a violin, someone washing clothes, and, in the most raucous of the dances, jumping like a frog. The celebrations segue into a house party, and then, later in the evening, a barbecue. Christian pulls a pile of waste wood from the barn and lights a fire, which we sit around as the mothers and daughters go out once again to pick flowers. 'You have to jump seven fences and pick one flower in each field, and you're not allowed to speak to one another. You have to be quiet the whole time,' Malin explains of this last ritual. 'And then you have this small bouquet; you put it underneath your pillow and you're supposed to dream about who you're going to marry.' This is one part of the celebrations I can't partake in, but as I bed down on a mattress upstairs, I feel satisfied that I've truly welcomed the summer. Midsummer feasts to visit While most Swedes will celebrate Midsummer in friends' country or island homes, there are organised celebrations for visitors. In 2025, Midsummer falls on 21 June. Tällberg, Dalarna Dalarna county is renowned for traditional Midsummers, with folk costumes, folk music and dancing. Åkerblads Hotel, in Tällberg on Lake Siljan, serves a traditional Midsummer smörgåsbord, with herring, new potatoes and västerbottenpaj, after which you can go into town and take part in the celebrations. Alternatively, at Våmhus Gammelgård, an old farm maintained by Sweden's main conservation organisation, you'll be served kolbulle, a thick pancake with diced, salted or smoked pork. Ringsjön, Skåne Bosjökloster, a country house and former nunnery on the shores of Lake Ringsjön in Skåne, Sweden's southernmost county, puts on a lavish Midsummer spread. Expect all the classics, plus specialities containing ingredients foraged in nearby forests, and plenty of vegan and vegetarian options. Once the buffet's over, join the dancing around a maypole erected on lawns leading down to the lakeshore – one of the most popular celebrations in Skåne. Småland Getnö Gård, a resort on Lake Åsnan in Småland, offers a traditional Midsummer buffet – served, untraditionally, after the maypole dances – including a strawberry cake prepared to a recipe handed down by the owner's grandmother. Most visitors stay over in the campsite or cabins. Fjäderholm In Stockholm, the archipelago is the place to celebrate, and Fjäderholm is the closest island, 30 minutes by ferry from the centre. Rökeriet Fjärderholmarna, a smokery, serves a traditional Midsummer buffet, with all the essentials and more. There's also live music and dancing around the maypole on the island. Väderö Storö The Väderöarnasor 'weather islands', a 35-minute ferry ride from Fjällbacka on the west coast, are the most far-flung islands off the Bohuslan coast. Väderöarnas Värdshus restaurant on Väderö Storö, the biggest island, lays on a Midsummer buffet, picking guests up from nearby Hamburgsund. Published in Issue 26 (winter 2024) of Food by National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
Fashion United
3 hours ago
- Business
- Fashion United
UK: Retail sales take a hit in May as consumers cut back spending
New figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown a drop of 2.7 percent in retail sales volumes during May, representing the largest monthly fall since December 2023. The decrease comes after a more promising April, in which volumes rose 1.2 percent. Sales were also down by 2.7 percent compared with pre-Covid levels in February 2020, and thus reached their lowest level since December 2024. In contrast, over the three months to May, volumes increased marginally by 0.8 percent when compared with the three months to February 2025. When compared to the same period last year, sales were up 1.7 percent. While food sales took the largest hit at 5 percent, non-food stores saw sales volumes drop by 1.4 percent over the month, mainly due to a decline in clothing and household goods sales. Textile clothing and footwear stores reported a decrease in sales volumes of almost 2 percent. This was even more significant online, where monthly sales dropped by just over 3 percent for such stores. This was compared to an overall 1 percent drop in online spending values over the month to May 2025. In a statement to FashionUnited, Matt Jeffers, MD, retail strategy and consulting at Accenture, said 'retail sales suffered as consumers continued to feel the squeeze from rising household bills and an extended period of cost-of-living pressure'. Jeffers continued: 'While improving consumer confidence offered a glimmer of hope, that sentiment didn't translate into spending and sales were the lowest in months, with food hit particularly hard. Fashion, household goods and big-ticket purchases all saw weaker performance, with many households opting to cut back or trade down. 'Some of May's softness likely reflects summer purchases brought forward into April, when Easter and spring bank holidays coincided with exceptionally sunny weather. But recent cybersecurity issues faced by a number of retailers will also have had an impact, disrupting stock availability.'
IOL News
5 hours ago
- Politics
- IOL News
Shivambu remains with Zuma's party despite plans for new political formation
Floyd Shivambu. Image: Tumi Pakkies FORMER uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) secretary-general Floyd Shivambu will remain a member of the Jacob Zuma-led party despite his intention of forming a new political party. "I'm saying that we are going to consult with the people of South Africa and if uMkhonto weSizwe believes that going to listen to people violates that constitution then it will tell me that." His stance appears to mirror Zuma's move when he refused to terminate his ANC membership after he had announced that he would be leading the MK Party. Shivambu told a media briefing in Johannesburg that his removal from his position was due to a fake intelligence report claiming he wanted to overthrow Zuma. According to Shivambu, the fake intelligence report alleged that he was accumulating supernatural powers to make people disappear and was plotting to dethrone Zuma. "It was extremely bizarre and a fake intelligence report that I was about to overthrow Zuma and that I had supernatural powers to make people disappear." Shivambu claimed that Zuma is surrounded by "political scoundrels" who are taking advantage of his age and kindness to influence him to make decisions that favour their agendas. He further alleged that these individuals are siphoning off millions from the party and that his leadership was being undermined. Shivambu's demotion was announced by the party on June 3, with the reason cited as his visit to fugitive pastor Shepherd Bushiri's church in Malawi over the Easter weekend. However, Shivambu said Zuma had initially agreed to his trip to Malawi, but later reversed his decision after being influenced by those around him. Shivambu's future in the party has been uncertain since his removal as secretary-general. In response, he announced that he would consult with various communities and groups to gauge whether he should launch his own political party. Shivambu said he would never join the ANC because it was disorganised and the EFF a cult.
