The Lynx goes European

So, it seems we're not the only ones looking to reintroduce lynx into our countryside: conservationists in Spain have been rearing and releasing the Iberian lynx, bringing it back from the brink of extinction. 

You can never have too much eyeliner (or is it eyelioner?)

Over the past ten years, numbers of lynx have risen from 90 to 327 across south, central and western Spain and parts of Portugal.

There's hope for the Cumbrian lynx yet.

Local News

Coal mining in West Cumbria could also be making a comeback.

But we're not talking men with tin helmets tramping down a dirty hole, this is the 21st century.

Instead there will be drilling platforms designed to drill exploratory boreholes, a drift mine 400-600 metres deep under the sea, and some pretty high tech equipment

It's an industry that's likely to create quite a few jobs, not just operating the equipment, but monitoring safety and output too.

Seeing things differently

In defence of men everywhere, we can't help it

And finally...

National Citizen's Service continues through the summer: there are three weeks -- one week of hanging around at Summergrove Halls, trying not to get into trouble, a week's outward bound and a week of social action. With four rounds, each with around sixty young people, that makes about two hundred and forty teenagers looking for something to do. 

Which sounds like the rest of the Summer holidays really...

The wheels are rolling now

                              In it to win it

The labour leadership contender Liz Kendall has dismissed calls for her to pull out of the contest and back another candidate to defeat Jeremy Corbyn. After the YouGov poll for the times put the left wing Mr Corbyn ahead in the race and Ms Kendall in fourth. Ms Kendall said she had always been an outsider in the race but said there were 51 days left to get people's support. She said: "I'll be fighting for what I believe in until the very end." I think good on her for fighting for what she believes in you go girl.

     Local news

                                                                                                            Need a push

There was push cart racing in castle park Whitehaven on Sunday pitting 20 daring teams against the clock and each other for various charities raising over £2000. Hundreds of spectators lined the side of the track beginning with a downhill run and going through the centre of the park. The teams had their own carts some were a bit wacky including mini police cars, coast guard vehicles and a replica mini mystery machine and I’ve got to say it looks like a lot of fun.

Lib Dems brand new start

The Liberal Democrats got a hammering in the general election and lost the majority of their MPs. Nick Clegg, who was leader at the time, realised that he was about as popular as an eggy fart in a lift, so resigned.

Tina wished she'd listened to her mum and avoided the third helping of cabbage

So, the party members have had to choose a new leader and the winner is Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale (basically that's Windermere and Kendal)

Tim is liberal (obviously), which means that he believes in personal freedom: freedom to achieve what you want and freedom from being over-controlled by governments; he also has a focus on social justice, and that means fairness in our society, for example not having people starve while others make millions of pounds in profits  

Local news

Children had a look around Whitehaven police station to see what it’s like to be a local bobby. Organised by Howgill Family Centre it gave a dozen children the chance to see what it’s like to have your fingerprints taken and what life behind bars is really like, then police officers talked about what they do on a day-to-day basis. The idea was to show children how the police can help them if they ever needed it.

Finally, the Feds caught notorious jewel thief "Cutesy Malone"

In other news

Mexico says it has stepped up its search for drug lord Joaquin Guzman, who escaped from jail on Saturday. The Interior Ministry said it had deployed almost 10,000 police and 48 dogs to track down the fugitive leader of the Sinaloa cartel. Mexico is also co-operating with neighbouring Guatemala and the United States to increase border controls.

Guzman's escape from a top-security jail through a 1.5km-long tunnel is a major embarrassment for officials. It is the second time the drug cartel leader has escaped from a top-security Mexican jail.

Have they thought of putting him on the second floor?  

Seeing things differently

Watch this video of John Coffey displaying awesomeness at a festival in Holland.

Now read the comments, I know the likelihood that someone used that glass as a toilet before hurling it. Awesomeness turns to epic fail...

Budget news

So George Osborne announced yesterday how much things are going to cost, how much money the Conservatives are going to spend on things like wages, benefits and the NHS.

After last week's news that the Conservatives are going to redefine what it means to be poor, you might've thought that they would be thinking quite a bit about poverty and finding ways to reduce it.

Or not.

George made a commitment to introducing the Living Wage: £9 per hour by 2020. But there's a few points here: 

1. it's not compulsory, they haven't made it a legal requirement, so it might not happen; 
2. it could lead to job losses because if employers only have a certain amount of money to spend on wages, when the wages go up, they will save money by getting rid of staff; 
3. none of this applies to people under 25.

The other big news is that child benefit will now be limited to the first two children. So anyone who's ever heard me talk about having children to make money. Don't do it: it's not a good career move.

We asked our youth correspondent for an opinion

Local news

Young people have been offered a chance to develop life skills during the National Citizen Service summer scheme. 

It’s now running across West Cumbria, with three week initiatives. Places are still available for young people to join beginning on July 27. Aimed at 15-17 year old the national citizen service is an opportunity for young people to build life skills and have fun. It does cost: £50 for the three weeks with residential but it sounds like a lot of fun.

The first week is well worth attending, if only to hear outside speakers come in to share their knowledge on a range of topics, from sexual health to citizenship (the citizenship talk is awesome...) 

I also hope everyone had lots of fun at the 

vintage rally I sadly missed it.

And finally

A word of warning, always think through a plan:

Poverty redefined

Iain Duncan-Smith is a politician with the job of looking after benefits and pensions.

Now, it's not an easy job to manage billions of pounds (yes, that's right, billions), he has to decide who deserves benefits and who doesn't, how much money a person needs to survive, and he has to think of ways to reduce the amount of money spent by his department.

It's not a job I'd like to do.

That said, in the grand tradition of every person who's ever yelled a referee despite having no interest in the job, I'd like to say "I don't want the job, but you don't do it well".

Recently IDS (that's how he's commonly known) has decided that a good way of reducing spending is by reducing benefits to people.  That's hard to do if people are in need, so his efforts have been put into how to show people aren't in need.

Today's news is that he's redefining poverty.  Poverty doesn't mean 'not having enough money', it now means something about life choices.

My usual question is... why?

Why bother changing what a word means, what does that achieve?

Well, that's an easy question: if poverty means not having money, tackling poverty means giving people money (duh!), but if poverty means people making bad choices, then tackling poverty can be something else, something like teaching people to make better choices, or doing nothing and blaming people for the choices they made in the past.

(I'm buying myself a hoodie...)

In related news: don't feed the homeless, they'll come to expect food whenever they see humans.

Local News 

There's a new multi-million pound boost on the cards for Copeland towns - plans to build home for 4,000 nuclear workers along with a new train station in Mirehouse and the plans for the location homes are in Mirehouse, Cleator moor, Hensingham and Corkickle. 

If planning permission is given building work would start in 2017, this sound good but will the local people benefit? Will local tradesmen be building them? We'll have to see.

And finally...

Someone has decided that it would be a great idea to start using Minecraft for education, It is a great idea in some ways: the educators think that it will engage young minds better.  But of course, we all know it really means that it'll spoil Minecraft for millions of people.

When you start taking fun stuff and using it in schools you spoil the fun. You know that, I know that, how come the educators don't know that?

It would be a little bit like seeing some infant school kids playing hopscotch, having fun, and then making them do it for an hour in a PE class.

As soon as you're forced to do something in school, you don't want to keep doing it at home. 

What is this madness.... I reckon it's the death of Minecraft (you heard it here first)