The Know Daily - Thursday 29 February 2024

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Manatees - adorably also known as “sea cows” - are bouncing back in Florida. Efforts by wildlife officials to protect the species and improve water quality have been credited with their resurgence, and last month, Blue Spring State Park saw record numbers seeking warm waters in the spring 👇 

🏫 Schools shake-up

Fines for unauthorised school absences in England are set to go up by 33%. 

What’s the story?
From September, parents who take their children out of school without permission - including for family holidays - will face slightly higher fines. The government plans to raise penalties by 33%, from £60 to £80. 

The Department for Education said that fines “must be considered” if more than five days of school are missed for unauthorised absence. At present, local authorities have their own policies on when to issue fines.

Why are fines going up? 
It’s all part of a government drive to get attendance back up “from its post-Covid slump”, explained The Guardian. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told BBC News that most fines were for unauthorised term-time holidays, with a record 350,000 parents in England fined over term-time holidays last year.

What’s the other side?
The new approach will prove controversial with parents “struggling to afford a holiday or who feel let down by the school system”, said the BBC.

Bridget Phillipson, Labour's shadow education secretary, said that the government’s move addressed “the symptoms of absence but not the cause”, overlooking issues such as “growing unaddressed mental ill health” and “a breakdown of trust between schools and families”. 

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, stressed that most fines were applied to children taken on holidays during term time. And according to the BBC, headteachers will retain “some discretion” over which cases to send to the council for potential fines and “where support is needed”.

🍚 Soaked smartphones

Apple has warned customers to stop putting their wet iPhones in rice.

Wait - since when?!
For as long as we can remember, when faced with a wet device, leaving it in a bag of rice to draw out the moisture was a perfectly acceptable course of action. But despite the technique’s enduring popularity, experts have “long warned against it”, said the BBC - and now Apple has weighed in on the matter. 

Why is it a bad idea, exactly?
Putting your device in a bag of rice “could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone”, said the tech giant in a recent support note, first spotted by MacWorld. Alongside the risk of damage, testing has suggested that uncooked rice is “not particularly effective” at drying a device either, noted The Guardian.

And if leaving your phone in rice does appear to save your soaked device, this is likely down to leaving it alone for a few days, suggested The Verge’s Emilia David.

So what’s the best course of action?
According to Apple, when faced with a wet device, other things you shouldn’t do include drying it using an “external heat source or compressed air” (read: the radiator or a hairdryer) - and you definitely shouldn’t “insert a foreign object” such as a cotton bud into the connector, either. 

Instead? Recommended steps include tapping the phone “gently against your hand” - but it’s probably worth reading Apple’s guidance in full (and sharing it with any clumsy friends!).

🇫🇷 "Huge progress": France’s Senate has voted overwhelmingly to enshrine a women’s right to abortion in the country’s constitution.

🇺🇸 US politics: The Supreme Court will decide this spring if former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

🍪 UPFs unravelled: Ultra-processed foods are linked to 32 health problems, per new research.

🐳 Whale of a time: Humpback whales were observed mating for the first time ever, with the historic moment having a “twist”, said National Geographic - both whales were male. 

📸 Worth a scroll: The finalists for this year’s Sony World Photography Awards 2024 have been announced, and Euronews has picked out the very best snaps. 

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Trivia answer: C) The Summer Olympics - as well as the US presidential election - are among the events that typically coincide with leap years. And happy birthday to all born on February 29th!

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