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Drivers in Braintree are facing delays this morning due to an obstruction on the A120 near Galley's Corner partially blocking the road.

The residents of picturesque Willows Green near Felsted were left watching in horror as travellers concreted over a field over the May bank holiday weekend.

My neighbour seems to think that I should go into his garden and trim his side of the hedge for him. After I refused, he has sent threatening messages.

fjo3 shares a report from Phys.org: Ever felt like mosquitoes bite you while ignoring everyone else? Scientists are now making progress in deciphering the complex chemical cocktail that makes particular people more enticing to these disease-spreading bloodsuckers. "It's not a misconception -- mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others," Frederic Simard of France's Institute of Research for Development told AFP. "But we are not all magnets all the time," the medical entomologist added. A range of sensory cues can cause mosquitoes to pick one human over another -- mainly the smell and heat our bodies give off, and the carbon dioxide we exhale. Female mosquitoes -- which are the only ones that bite -- detect these signals with finely tuned receptors, then choose their target accordingly. "We have known for over 100 years that mosquitoes are attracted by the carbon dioxide that we exhale -- this is the first signal that triggers their behavior" when they are dozens of meters away, Swedish scientist Rickard Ignell told AFP. Within around 10 meters, "mosquitoes will start detecting our odor, and in combination with carbon dioxide," this attracts them even more, said the senior author of a recent study on the subject. As they get closer, body temperature and humidity make particular humans even more enticing. [...] For Ignell's recent study, the researchers released Aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- known for spreading yellow fever and dengue -- on 42 women in a lab, to see which ones they preferred. "We have shown that mosquitoes use a blend of odorous compounds (we identified 27 that the mosquitoes will detect, out of the possible 1,000) for their attraction to us," Ignell said. The woman the mosquitoes most liked to bite -- which included pregnant women in their second trimester -- produced a large amount of a particular compound made by a breakdown of the skin oil sebum. That even a small increase of this compound -- called "1-octen-3-ol", or mushroom alcohol -- made a difference came as a surprise, Ignell emphasized.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Conservative council were voted to stay in place by residents last week

The Wall Street Journal has reported that 46-year-old China-born Changli 'Sophia' Luo has been charged with four counts, including blackmail, extortion and destruction of records, in federal court.

Sydney Sweeney couldn't contain her affection for boyfriend Scooter Braun in a new PDA-filled video she posted on Tuesday. The clip contrasted with her controversial porn-inspired scenes on Euphoria.

Today's anonymous submitter sends us two blocks. The first is a perfectly normal line of React code:

const [width, setWidth] = useState(false)

This creates a width variable, defaulting it to false, and a setWidth function, which lets React detect when you change the variable, and trigger a re-render. Importantly, this mutation only happens on the next render, which means if you call setWidth and then check width, you won't see your change happen.

As I said, this is perfectly normal React code. Well, almost. First, I have to ask: why on Earth is width being set to a boolean value? "How wide are you?" "Yes." It's possible that there's a good reason for this, though I suspect that it's unlikely.

The second issue, however, is that the linter complained that the setter was never actually used. That was odd, because if our submitter grepped the codebase, there were two calls to setWidth. Let's see what that looked like:

const show = (show) => { setWidth(show) setWidth(!show) }

We create a function show, where we expect a boolean value, and then we setWidth with that value, and then with the negation of that value. So show(true) will set width to be false. To make matters more confusing, we set width both ways, and I assume this is someone trying to get around React's state management. React won't trigger a re-render if you set the state to a value it already has. So I suspect they're twiddling to try and force it to re-render, and I also suspect that this might not work? Even if it does, this isn't how you should be using React. As I said, I'm no React expert, but as the saying goes: "I don't have to be a helicopter pilot to know that when I see a helicopter hanging upside down from a tree someone messed up."

Our submitter writes:

Got hired to cleanup a mission critical website for a company that had just learned that offshore teams might not be worth the cost saving measures.

"Pay me now or pay me later."

[Advertisement] ProGet’s got you covered with security and access controls on your NuGet feeds. Learn more.

Where it’s been well and truly forked, seemingly without Microsoft’s code locker noticing

Downing Street was a scene of farce, inside and out. Inside No 10, the Cabinet was informed by Sir Keir Starmer that it could not discuss the one thing gripping City markets and the country at large.

Demi Moore wasn't exactly hard to spot as she arrived in the French Riviera yesterday.

Tonight, A-listers will flock to the hallowed steps of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès on the French town's seafront to showcase the first of their ensembles for the annual 12-day occasion.

He gathered his Cabinet ministers around the table at No 10 for what was expected to be a high-stakes meeting, with some of his closest allies ready to tell him his time was up.

Every week in my Harley Street clinic, I sit across from women who are spending hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds a year on them.

The British Government has begun to look chaotic, changing leaders with alarming frequency. If Starmer is replaced before July, we will have cycled through seven prime ministers in a decade.

As the procession of ministers left Downing Street, following the most anti-climactic Cabinet meeting in memory, a handful deigned to talk to the media.

The Health Secretary has made no secret of the fact that he is preparing for a leadership contest and has a shadow team in place.

The application says there is a 'significant shortage' of nursery places in Brentwood

Keir Starmer was locked in an extraordinary standoff with his MPs last night after he brushed aside calls to quit and told rivals Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner to put up or shut up.

A common herb used in perfumes and makeup may help ward off pesky mosquitoes that cause dengue fever and Zika virus, a study from researchers in Brazil suggests.