A British police force, already in special measures over its long-term failures to protect people, has admitted to have not acted in a "wholly proportionate" manner after officers visited a feminist campaigner at home for being "untoward about paedophiles".

On Sunday, British YouTuber and feminist campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as Posie Parker, said that two police officers from the Wiltshire force came to her home to relay that there had been a complaint levied against her for one of her videos, saying: "Somebody's phoned up because one of your videos you're being untoward about paedophiles."

According to Keen, the officer admitted that he had not even watched the video in question, yet, because someone had been offended, they recorded it as a "hate crime". Keen said that the officer was unable to tell her if it was in fact recorded as a crime or the controversial "non-crime hate incident" category.

The Warsaw city administration is mulling the idea of limiting the number of decorative lights this Christmas or even turning them off completely to encourage Poles to save energy, local media reported on Wednesday, citing the mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski.

"We want to symbolically show the people of Warsaw that energy needs to be saved," Trzaskowski told Radia ZET, adding that this would not solve the energy crunch, but would demonstrate that Poland is serious about saving energy.

The festive lighting is usually placed along the Royal Route, which features many of the city's historic landmarks, including several palaces and churches.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia could cost thousands of New Zealand jobs, as her nation and neighbouring Australia stepped up border biosecurity restrictions.

"While not a threat to humans, it would devastate our national herd. Essentially, all animals that are of cloven hoof are at risk," Ardern told reporters in Wellington.

Ardern warned that the disease, first detected in Indonesia in April, has the potential to threaten up to 100,000 jobs in New Zealand's agriculture sector.

The Tavistock transgender clinic is to be shut down by the NHS after a review found it is "not safe" for children. The Telegraph has more.

NHS England will move young people who believe that they are trans into regional centres which will take a more "holistic" approach to treatment and look at other mental health or medical issues they may have.

The decision is a response to the interim Cass Review, which warned that medics in the Tavistock had felt "under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach" to gender identity rather than going through the normal process of clinic assessment with young people.

Dr. Hilary Cass, the consultant paediatrician who is leading the independent review, found earlier this year that the clinic as the only provider of gender identity services for young people in England was "not a safe or viable long-term option".

Announcing their response to Dr. Cass's recommendations, NHS England said that "given the urgent requirement to stabilise current service provision" they will establish two "Early Adopter services" run by specialist children's hospitals.

The centres, one in London and one in the North West, will take responsibility for all of the Tavistock clinic's patients and waiting lists with the aim to shut down the clinic by next spring.

NHS England have also committed to follow Dr. Cass's recommendation that they carry out "rapid" research on the use of puberty blockers by young people after it was noted there is currently "insufficient evidence" on their impact.

The Cass review was commissioned by NHS England in 2020 amid concerns that there was "scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making" which saw children as young as 10 given puberty blockers.

There were concerns over a sharp rise in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust - over 5,000 in 2021/2 compared to 250 a decade earlier and long waiting lists.

The city's public schools teach K-5 students to subvert the sexuality of "white colonizers" and begin exploring "the infinite gender spectrum."

Portland Public Schools has launched a war against the "gender binary" and adopted a radical new curriculum teaching students to subvert the sexuality of "white colonizers" and begin exploring "the infinite gender spectrum."

I have obtained a cache of documents from a source inside Portland Public Schools that exposes the nature of this curriculum. The lessons seek to turn the principles of academic queer theory into an identity-formation program for elementary school students; it has been adopted in many of the district's K-5 classrooms.

The Southern Co-Op chain is facing a legal challenge to its use of facial recognition technology to cut crime. Big Brother Watch has complained to the Information Commissioner's Office about biometric surveillance at its shops.

The privacy campaign group says the system at the convenience stores breaches data protection and people may end up on a watch-list without knowing. But Southern says it is only using the Facewatch system in shops with a history of crime, to protect its staff. The co-operative runs 200 convenience stores across southern England, of which 35 have the system installed.

A single camera captures the faces of people who enter the shops, and the images are analysed and converted into biometric data. This is then compared with a database of people the co-operative says have stolen from its shops, or been violent.

A spokeswoman said the watch-list was not a list of people with criminal convictions, but of people for which the business had evidence of criminal or anti-social behaviour. Any shopper previously banned would be asked to leave, and others would be approached by staff with an offer of "how can I help?" to make it clear their presence had been detected.

Germany may face shortages of such staples as toilet paper and cardboard if Russian gas supply dwindles in the coming months, German outlet Zeit Online reported on Wednesday.

Operating paper plants may become unprofitable if they are forced to produce at reduced capacity because of gas shortages, the publication cites Jürgen Schaller, Chairman of the Board of the Bavarian Paper Associations, as warning. Producing paper requires a lot of water, electricity and gas, Schaller explained, adding that the technology is tried and tested and cannot be changed quickly.

Shaller told Zeit Online:

"Many employees in my company are already very worried. I can't blame them. Because if we can only produce 50 or 60 percent, the operation is not worthwhile for us. To be honest, I worry too."

Germany and the EU as a whole have recently seen a reduction in natural gas supplies from Russia, which led to numerous warnings of possible industrial shutdowns. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline is currently operating at 20% capacity due to technical issues with turbines at the Portovaya compressor station. Gazprom is unable to use another transit route, via Ukraine, to full capacity because, according to the Russian energy giant, Ukraine's gas transport network has been rejecting its transit applications.

The Donbass official urged residents to stay vigilant for banned explosive devices

Ukrainian forces airdropped banned PFM-1 anti-personnel landmines on the capital of the Donetsk People's Republic on Wednesday night, Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin said.

The mayor wrote on his Telegram channel that mines were discovered on several streets in the northwestern part of the city.

"A bomb squad and rescuers have been working on the site since the early morning. A vehicle equipped with a loudspeaker is alerting local residents," Kulemzin said, urging people to be vigilant and not approach the mines.

An occupational hazard of suggesting that the US, NATO or Ukraine's own government did things that made Russia's invasion of Ukraine more likely is that you will be accused of being a "Putin apologist" or "stooge of the Kremlin".

This is clearly an attempt to win the argument through name-calling (like claiming it's "racist" to criticise Black Lives Matter). But that hasn't stopped it becoming a standard debating tactic. Of course, there may be commentators who genuinely support Putin, in which case "Putin apologist" would be an accurate descriptor. But most do not.

The latest example of the 'compare your opponent to Putin' tactic is a list of individuals who "promote narratives consonant with Russian propaganda", compiled by the Ukraine Government's "Centre for Countering Disinformation".

This has been described as a "blacklist" by some critics, although so far as I'm aware, it does not call for any sanctions against the individuals listed. It really is just name-calling. Specific quotes written in Ukrainian are listed next to each speaker, but no refutations or counter-arguments are provided.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's office asked residents and businesses to conserve water amid a persistent heatwave, where some metro areas cracked over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for five consecutive days through Sunday.

"Now is the time for New Jersey to be especially mindful of water usage and proactively moderate our consumption," said Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette.

"Although our reservoirs and other indicators are healthy, persistent hot and dry weather coupled with the high water demands of summer can quickly impact water supply. Simple steps, like reducing lawn and landscape watering, go a long way in preserving our water supplies and avoiding the necessity of significant restrictive measures," LaTourette continued.

For the last three months, rainfall has been 11% to 25% below average in the state's south and north -- the combination of below-average precipitation plus excessive temperatures paints an ominous outlook.