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French teen fined in Singapore 'straw licking' case

A French teenager was fined in Singapore on Thursday after pleading guilty to a public nuisance charge for a straw-licking stunt that landed him in hot water in the city state. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 19, was handed a Sg$600 ($465) fine after admitting to posting to social media a video of himself putting a straw he had licked back into the dispenser on an orange juice vending machine. The clip went viral on Instagram shortly after the incident on March 12, triggering a backlash that led to his arrest in Singapore, which is known for its strict enforcement of public order and hygiene rules. Handing down the sentence, Judge Kelly Ho said given Maximilien's "age and nature of the offence", alternatives like probation or a community-based sentence would not be imposed. Prosecutors agreed to the defence's proposal for a fine, saying the offence was at the "lower end" of its seriousness and while hygiene was compromised, no member of the public u...
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Global temperatures to reach near-record highs in next five years, report finds

Average global temperatures are forecast to reach near-record levels in the next five years, ‌with Arctic temperatures expected to warm faster than other regions, a report by the UN weather agency and the UK’s Met Office said on Thursday. The annual report, which gives regional predictions for temperatures and rain, predicts that annual global mean near-surface temperatures will range between 1.3°C and 1.9°C above ​the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period. "There's very clear evidence that the climate is warming and that the global average temperature ​is continuing to rise," Melissa Seabrook, a research scientist at the UK Met Office, told Reuters. In the ⁠2015 Paris Agreement, governments promised to try to prevent the average global temperature rise from exceeding 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, ​above which severe climate events were seen growing in intensity. 2024 record for warmest year seen broken The report said it is very ​likely that the global mean near-surface temperature will temporarily exceed    11.5 °C above the 1850-1900 average levels for at least one year between 2026 and 2030. It also predicts there will be one year between 2026 and 2030 that average global temperatures will exceed the warmest year on record, ​2024, when they surpassed 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial era for the first time. Temporarily crossing the 1.5 °C threshold does not mean ​the Paris Agreement has failed, as it refers to a long-term average over 20 years rather than a single year's exceedance, Seabrook said, ‌while noting ⁠that as the world gets closer to that threshold, it was increasingly likely to pass it more often. Read: India’s prized Alphonso mango crop ruined by weather “The science is very clear that the window to keeping the global average temperature to 1.5 degrees is closing rapidly,” Seabrook added. More severe weather events Arctic winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere over the next five years are projected to rise at more than 3-1/2 times ​the global average, reaching around ​2.8°C above the 1991–2020 baseline, ⁠according to the report. Arctic sea-ice is expected to melt in the month of March over the next half decade in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk. Arctic warming could ​also disrupt weather systems and prompt more severe weather events, especially in northern parts of ​the world, Seabrook ⁠said. Wetter weather in the northern hemisphere over the next five winters is also predicted, as well as wet periods in northern Europe, Alaska, Siberia and the Sahel during May-September, while contrastingly dry weather is forecast for this season in the Amazon. A strong El Nino ⁠is also ​predicted for winter this year, which could persist into 2027, driving up ​global temperatures to potential record-breaking levels due to the heating of the Pacific Ocean, Seabrook said. El Nino is a periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the ​central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which typically lasts between nine and 12 months.

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