tomatolung

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20923780

Household paper products have the highest rate of shrinkflation, the LendingTree analysis found. Out of 20 products it tracked from prior to the pandemic until today, about 60% had reduced their sheet count, the study found. (Only one item, a 2-pack of Scott multipurpose shop towels, declined in price per 100 count, according to the data.)

Breakfast foods had the second-highest rate of shrinkflation, with LendingTree finding that about 44% of the items they tracked were now sold in smaller portions. Family-sized Frosted Flakes, made by Kellogg's, has slimmed from 24 ounces to 21.7 ounces, resulting in a 40% increase in per-ounce pricing, the analysis found. 

About 38% of candy items are now sold in smaller amounts, including party-size Reese's miniatures (35.6 ounces now versus 40 ounces in 2019-2020) and party-size milk chocolate M&M's (38 ounces now versus 42 ounces previously.)

About 27% of snacks had gone through portion reductions, LendingTree said. That includes party-size Cheetos, made by Frito-Lay, which shrank to 15 ounces from 17.5 ounces while its per-ounce price rose to 40 cents from 17 cents. 

Other snacks that have gotten smaller but pricier include party-size sour cream and onion Lay's, family-size original Wheat Thins and party-size original Tostitos, LendingTree said.

New Jersey is one of many states that contracts with private telecom companies to provide communication services for its prisons, including phone calls, electronic messaging, and video calls. The state currently contracts with two companies: ViaPath, formerly Global Tel Link, and JPay, a subsidiary of Securus Technologies.[viii] Founded in 1989, ViaPath was one of the first companies to transform prison phone calls into a multimillion-dollar industry.[ix] JPay, founded in 2002 as a prison money-wiring service, has since emerged as one of the largest prison technology contractors in the country.[x]

ViaPath and JPay make up nearly 80 percent of the prison communication market share in the United States, and their monopoly contracts allow them to charge exorbitant fees and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from incarcerated individuals and their families.[xi] The two companies have each faced their fair share of price-gouging complaints, with ViaPath, ordered to pay $67 million to settle a 2015 class-action lawsuit, and JPay ordered to pay $6 million in fines and restitution in 2021 for charging excessive and illegal fees.[xii]

“Shrinking the size of a product in order to gouge consumers on the price per ounce is not innovation, it is exploitation,” the Democrats wrote in their letters. “Unfortunately, this price gouging is a widespread problem, with corporate profits driving over half of inflation.”

The lawmakers pointed to a recent report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy that found that from 2018 to 2022, Coca-Cola made $13.4 billion but paid an average effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, PepsiCo made $22.4 billion but paid 15 percent and General Mills made $12 billion but paid 14.8 percent.

“No corporation should pay a lower tax rate than working Americans — especially when that same corporation turns around and gouges consumers on the other end through shrinkflation,” the lawmakers said.

Surrounded by more than seven miles of coastline and sitting just 14 feet above sea level at its highest elevation, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida juts out into Hillsborough Bay like a uvula.

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“Approximately 93% of MacDill AFB is within the 100-year floodplain,” according to a 2022 base resource management plan. “Tropical storms typically flood much of the southern and northwestern portions of MacDill, and all of the base proper would be flooded by a Category 3 or greater hurricane.”

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In the meantime, CENTCOM personnel are working out of several locations, including Raymond James Stadium and Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, where the Joint Operations Center will be set up, a U.S. defense official told The War Zone.

SOCOM “dispersed to three different locations,” Col. Alexandra Weiskopf, the command spokesperson, told The War Zone. “With our Washington D.C. office, we will have comms up in four different locations and there will be no degradation to our continuity of operations."

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“Space Launch Delta 45 is monitoring Hurricane Milton and will continue making preparations as weather dictates,” spokeswoman Maggie Nave told us. “Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station have entered [hurricane preparation] HURCON status, which will be adjusted based on the anticipated timing of storm impacts. At this time, tenant units have moved aircraft assets out of the local area.”

Naval Station Mayport has sent three Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers underway, while those vessels unable to leave are being placed on heavy moorings, spokesman David Holmes told us. The station has shut down operations and only essential mission personnel are allowed in.

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The preparations being made for Hurricane Milton are another stark reminder of how climate is affecting the military, especially in locations like Florida prone to these natural disasters

While there are no plans to shutter places like MacDill and Tyndall, the cost to keep them operational in the face of major hurricanes like Milton will only rise.

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Chemical spills, a ceiling collapse, indoor bears. Employees and park superfans blame the hospitality company Aramark.

Aramark’s contract in Yosemite, worth approximately $2 billion over 15 years...

... park insiders say the industry still holds considerable sway. Yosemite is among America’s most lucrative and popular parks, with almost 4 million visitors accounting for roughly $140 million in annual concessions revenue. The NPS has a $3.5 billion annual budget, a $21 billion maintenance backlog and little power to punish a disappointing contractor. “If you kick them out, then what do you do?” asks Jon Jarvis, who ran the park service during the Obama years. “We don’t have rangers to change bed linens.”

France has unveiled plans to develop a new uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) that will complement the forthcoming Rafale F5 crewed fighter, as part of a new-look French Air and Space Force. The industrial side of the drone program will be headed up by Dassault Aviation, drawing upon its previous nEUROn UCAV demonstrator, which has already been used in trials with crewed combat aircraft.

Track The Tropics has been the #1 source to track the tropics 24/7 since 2013! The main goal of the site is to bring all of the important links and graphics to ONE PLACE so you can keep up to date on any threats to land during the Atlantic Hurricane Season! Hurricane Season 2024 in the Atlantic starts on June 1st and ends on November 30th. Love Spaghetti Models? Well you've come to the right place!! Remember when you're preparing for a storm: Run from the water; hide from the wind!

An interesting aggregation of lots of great sites, their graphics, and the information from around the web and world.

A dog saved her owner – who hurt his leg at home in rural Washington state, fell and couldn’t get up for hours – by walking to a road, sitting in the middle of it until a local sheriff’s deputy stopped, and leading the officer to him, according to authorities.

Gita’s ability to be “a good girl and true hero” in her 84-year-old owner’s moment of need after his injury at their cabin on 25 September led to her “saving his life that day”, the Stevens county sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“The loyalty and heroism of our furry friends never cease to amaze us,” the agency added.

Senior Airman Devon Word, a conventional munitions crew chief from the U.S. Air Force’s 48th Munitions Squadron, solved a perennial ammunition handling issue faced by the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., which often saw 20 mm rounds jamming while moving from the replenisher table to the ammunition loader. The frequent  jamming makes manual intervention necessary, with “15 minutes of troubleshooting per jam” required which “may also cause injury to the operator.”

In fiscal year 2023, according to the press release, there were 319 operations resulting in an average of 957 instances of jams using the replenisher table. These accounted for approximately 798 man-hours due to the need for at least four personnel during operations.

Word developed a specially designed 3D-printed insert that addressed the old design issue causing the stoppages – a gap between the rounds and the top of the replenisher table. The unit-level innovation could save the 48th FW and U.S. Air Force over 750 man-hours annually, the unit said.

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...some predictions estimate that there may be hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths from famine in Sudan in the coming year or two.

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In my research so far into models predicting famine numbers, however, I have been surprised at the extent to which the models are not transparent. That is, when two models disagree, with one claiming very high death estimates and others predicting more limited famine (there is clearly a famine already underway in some parts of Sudan), it’s unclear what drives these differences. If the data and code were publicly available, we could compare the models, see where they differ, and then identify which of these differences are in turn responsible for the different predictions they make. So that’s what I’ve set out to do, with hopes that I will find some fellow travellers along the way.

​Ukraine's Troops Were Reinforced by the American M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle

November 4, 2023

Ukraine became only the second operator of the M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle (M1150 ABV) in the world after the USA, while their number is very small even in the US Army

The Armed Forces of Ukraine received the M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle that is U.S. military mine- and explosives-clearing vehicle, based on the M1 Abrams chassis. This is seen in the video that was published by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi were he is awarding and congratulating defenders on the Day of Rocket Forces and Artillery as well as the Engineering Troops Day.

There were no separate reports on the delivery of the M1150 ABV from the US, but it is likely that it arrived together with the Abrams tanks, the batch of which was received by Ukraine no later than mid-October. And thus the Armed Forces of Ukraine became the second in the world after the USA and the first foreign operator of this vehicle (in 2021, Australia received permission to purchase, but nothing has been reported about the signing of the contract as well as its implementation at the moment).

The M1150 ABV is a new vehicle for creating passages in mine barriers, for which it combines two systems at once. The first is a a mine plow.

The second is a system for launching line charges, as implemented in the M58 MICLIC system. That is, the vehicle can blast passages in minefields about 100-150 meters long at a time.

But if the MICLIC has only the charges themselves and is based on the M113 armored personnel carrier, then the M1150 ABV is a more versatile and, most importantly, much more protected vehicle. The latter allowed it to be used in the role of a truly assault tank to defeat the enemy's protected positions.

At the same time, their number in the US army is quite small, according to Military Balance - only 149 units, although an order for 187 units was made for the ground forces during the operation in Afghanistan. Moreover, the US Army's available M1150 ABVs include an estimated 30-50 that were transferred from the US Marine Corps following the decision to withdraw the tanks from the Marines.

In view of the above, it can be concluded that the transfer of the M1150 ABV to Ukraine is a rather serious step for the USA - in view of the obvious shortage of such systems. This also means that the USA is very careful about meeting Ukraine's needs in combat systems, which are necessary to solve the tasks currently facing the Armed Forces of Ukraine - breaking through the enemy's defenses and completely liberating the temporarily occupied territories and restoring the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.