Latest news with #dispersal
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Six dispersal notices handed out in town centre by police in one evening
SIX disperal notices were issued to young people in one evening ahead of a busy weekend. Dorset Police's Bournemouth Team issued six dispersal notices to youths to prevent further disorder as part of its "beach beat" on Friday evening. Some of these were issued in the central gardens as part of the overall operation. One unconscious man was dealt with by Insight Security Medics and then by the police and paramedics in the same evening. He was said to be "worse for wear from drink and nothing more sinister", anticipated to make a full recovery. READ MORE: One stop and search was conducted following information from venue security of a male in possession of a knife. He was located and a stop search was conducted. A small multi tool was located, but it was not illegal to possess. Bournemouth Police said: "Thanks to our multi agency team work, all incidents safely resolved and no issues. Lots of families enjoying the fireworks. "As the night continues, 25 police officers from Operation Nightjar are now out on foot patrols in Bournemouth Town Centre for the night time economy. Maintaining visible Policing and ready to help. "Let's look out for each other and enjoy the summer responsibly."
The Independent
07-08-2025
- Science
- The Independent
The surprising friendship habit female gorillas share with humans
Socialising with a new group of people can be daunting – but research suggests it's not just humans that rely on a mutual friend to break the ice. Female gorillas also look out for friends they have lived with in the past before moving to a new social group. A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B monitored multiple groups of wild mountain gorillas in Rwanda for 20 years and found females do not disperse randomly. It's common for animals to leave their birth group to join another. In a smaller number of species, including humans and gorillas, individuals can change between groups multiple times. This process, known as dispersal, plays a key role in avoiding inbreeding, spreading gene diversity and shaping social relationships. Researchers looked at 152 dispersals from 56 females and found females avoid males they grew up with when moving and looked for females they already knew. "Because female mountain gorillas do not know with certainty who their fathers are, they might rely on a simple rule like 'avoid any group with males I grew up with' as the likelihood of them being related will be higher than with males they did not grow up with," said lead author Victoire Martignac, a PhD student from the University of Zurich. Researchers explained female gorillas can move multiple times and will become familiar with males in each group, but when they move what seemed to matter more was the presence of females they had lived with before. "Going into a new group could feel pretty scary, with individuals usually entering at the bottom of the social hierarchy. A familiar female might help reduce this, providing a social ally," said Dr Robin Morrison, senior author on the study. "It could also act like a recommendation from a friend – if a female they know has chosen to stay in this group it could indicate positive things about the group as a whole or the dominant male leading that group." The study also found female gorillas gravitated towards other females they had spent at least five years with and those they have seen in the last two years. Researchers say this movement shows gorillas relationships, like humans, extend beyond group boundaries. "This mirrors a key aspect of human societies: the existence of strong ties between different social groups," added Dr Martignac. "As humans, we're constantly moving across jobs, cities and social groups. We do it so effortlessly that we forget how unusual this flexibility actually is within the animal kingdom." "This is a reminder of the meaningfulness of social relationships kept across boundaries and how this extended network of relationships might have played a key role in the evolution of larger and more cooperative societies."
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The smart way Ukraine is keeping its F-16s safe from Russia could be key to airpower survival in modern war
Ukraine has a new way to continue a key strategy for keeping its air force alive. It has new complexes to keep its F-16s moving, away from fixed bases. The West has been increasingly embracing dispersal, and Ukraine has shown how important it is. Being able to fight from non-traditional locations is a growing priority for the West amid concerns about peer-level conflict against a foe like Russia or China and the risk that fixed bases could be destroyed early in a conflict. For Ukraine, dispersal and mobility, while maintaining agility, have been critical to the country's air forces surviving Russia's onslaught. Ukraine is using two new truck-mounted complexes to support its US-made F-16 fighter jets with mission planning, maintenance, and munitions. These systems, developed and provided by the group Come Back Alive with support from Ukraine's military and energy sector, replace functions typically confined to fixed bases. One of the new complexes has a command post and workstations for mission planning and briefings for pilots, as well as space for personnel to rest, and another comes with a workshop for testing and prepping weapons and trucks for putting munitions on the planes. It's very important because "Ukrainian airfields are one of the enemy's priority targets, so it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep the aircraft safe," Come Back Alive said. Ukraine also has not been able to build the support infrastructure its F-16s need, so flexible solutions are required. Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK'S Royal Aeronautical Society, described it as a very innovative step that could be "critical" to helping Ukraine's few F-16s survive. "You actually need to keep F-16s on the move, shift these vehicles around, and allow them to keep operating in these conditions where Russia is looking for them," Robinson said. With steps like this, he added, Ukraine is "getting to where a lot of NATO would like to be." Ukraine's dispersal Keeping aircraft dispersed and disaggregated has stopped Ukraine's air force, far smaller than Russia's, from being wiped out. A US general said Ukraine lost relatively few of its aircraft on the ground in the first 18 months because "they very seldom will take off and land at the same airfield." Russia, on the other hand, didn't noticeably start trying to disperse its aircraft until Ukraine started hitting its bases with long-range drones, putting the war on Russian soil. And even though Russia now moves its aircraft to keep them safe, Ukraine continues to score hits on Russian aircraft due to the tendency to keep them clustered. Ukraine has had more success in targeting Russian air bases than the Russians have hitting the Ukrainian ones. Many Western nations depend heavily on permanent bases and fixed installations to support their aircraft fleet, which works well in peacetime or in conflict scenarios in which the opposing force lacks the means to reach them, as has been the case in Middle East conflicts over the past few decades. But countries with far more advanced arsenals and the capacity to eliminate enemy airpower on the ground make it necessary to have alternatives. A sense of urgency in the West The West has been leaning into dispersal, disaggregation, and fighting from austere locations amid concerns over both Russia and China. China's military has a growing reach, making US bases across the Pacific more vulnerable, and Russia is also on a war footing, increasing its missile output. Amid efforts to boost air defenses, others are aimed at ensuring essential allied airpower isn't a sitting duck. This is a driving force, for instance, behind what the US Air Force calls its Agile Combat Employment strategy, which involves operating from dispersed locations and keeping airpower agile and flexible. It considers this practice critical in the Pacific as China's military expands . The US and allies want less reliance on traditional runways because it is much harder to target every piece of concrete in a country than it is to prosecute air bases. Some fighter aircraft, like Sweden's Gripen, are built for rugged operations, and aircraft like MQ-9 Reaper drones and A-10 Warthogs have taken off and landed on dirt airstrips. Other jets like F-16s and newer F-35s have executed highway landings alongside other planes, and big C-130 transport aircraft have even landed on beaches. The urgency has been ramped up as militaries closely watch Russia's war to see how it is fighting and to see what sort of changes they may need to make. Robinsons said many Western militaries were already looking at dispersal, but "Ukraine has just kind of accelerated that, fast-tracked it, and put it back into people's minds." A French lieutenant colonel, for instance, said that a 2023 dispersal exercise conducted involving British, American, and French air forces was "the new way of doing it, in order to face the peer threats that we are having at the moment." The US has also noted the change. Gen. Kevin Schneider, Commander of US Pacific Air Forces, said in March that "the days of operating from secure, fixed bases are over," saying that the threats in the Indo-Pacific region require "a flexible, resilient force that can operate from multiple, dispersed locations under contested conditions." Jarmo Lindberg, a former Finnish fighter pilot who served as commander of the Finnish Defense Forces, told Business Insider last year that front-line NATO countries should adopt more dispersal tactics. He said Finland, which borders Russia and designed its military with a Russian threat in mind, has embraced the idea of dispersal for decades, including by having road bases and jets that can use civilian airfields, not just military ones. Big changes, though, are hard, hugely expensive, and can make air operations less efficient. A former Western air force intelligence officer, who spoke to BI on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak about what he learned in the role, said it's "a cultural thing that most Western air forces are used to operating from centralized bases." But he said there needs to be some change away from full centralization, as "lining them all up to get whacked is not really an option." A different sort of war Ukraine's fight against Russia isn't necessarily what a peer-level conflict involving the West would look like. The West has far larger air forces and more advanced jets than Ukraine's. Kyiv, meanwhile, has Soviet-era jets and only a handful of used F-16s and Mirages. There are still important lessons in this war, though. Warnings that the West may not be ready for a major war with a near-peer adversary are now sparking major defense spending, and the air war is front of mind. Watching Ukraine, there's a growing realization, for example, that there is a huge shortage of ground-based air defenses in the West. These are vital systems for protecting bases and other targets. Taras Chmut, the director of Come Back Alive, highlighted how different this fight is for Ukraine compared to how the jets were used by Western partners. "The aircraft received by Ukraine appeared and existed in a closed ecosystem," he said. "They were not used the way we use them. Ours operate under the conditions of a full-scale war — with constant sorties and continuous Russian hunting for the aircraft." He suggested the West wouldn't need to copy this exact solution. Ukraine doesn't have time "for the full deployment of infrastructure for the F-16; the most rational solution is to invest in a mobile ecosystem." Developments in Ukraine are driven by immediate necessity, but the West is paying attention. "Turning F-16 style, permanent base ops into Gripen-style dispersed operations is something that I think a lot of air forces will be looking at with interest," Robinson said. Read the original article on Business Insider
BBC News
07-05-2025
- BBC News
Seven held and dispersal powers after Rotherham street disorder
Seven held and dispersal powers after disturbances Police were called to disturbances on Ferham Park Avenue in Rotherham Seven people have been arrested and a dispersal order is in place after two violent disturbances in Rotherham, police said. Officers were called to the Ferham Park Avenue area of Kimberworth following reports of disorder just after 15:30 BST on Tuesday, and returned to the same road after a reports a man was slashed at 22:30 BST. Seven people were held on suspicion of offences including assault causing grievous bodily harm, assault of an emergency worker and possession of an offensive weapon. A Section 35 order, giving officers powers to disperse people from an area to minimise crime, has been imposed until 11:44 BST on Friday.
