Question: Q: EXCLUSIVE: Labour to ban strong cheap ciders sold in three litre bottles. He said products like Frosty Jacks and White Ace  fuelling teen drinking. Shadow health secretary said children as young as 11 drinking every night. Price of a three litre bottle so low children could 'cobble together' the cash.
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A: Super-sized bottles of cheap cider will be banned in a bid to tackle teenage drinking, under new Labour proposals set to be announced this week. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham wants to outlaw 'high-strength, ultra-low-priced white ciders' sold in three litre bottles. Mr Burnham told MailOnline products like Frosty Jacks, White Ace and White Strike were fuelling under-age binge drinking and alcohol addiction and needed to be tackled. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham wants to outlaw 'high-strength, ultra-low-priced white ciders' sold in three litre bottles. The Labour frontbencher said the high-strength ciders were cheaper than they used to be – meaning children could 'cobble together' enough money to get drunk all nights of the week. He said children as young as '11 or 12' were regularly boozing after school in a way their parents' generation would not have been able to afford. Many ciders available at pocket money prices have an alcohol content of 7.5 per cent – well above the strength of mainstream cider products – costing as little as 20p a unit. He said the cost and strength of cider made it 'very attractive to under-age drinkers, and it is also a major drink of choice for addicts and street drinkers'. Mr Burnham told MailOnline: 'These cider products are particularly used by children because of their low price and high strength. 'We've worked it out at 20p a unit. We're talking about which can be up to 7.5 per cent in strength but are retailing at £1.99 or less – and this is a two or three litre bottle. 'Young people can cobble together the money to get hold of them. Mr Burnham said the proposal was 'the start of the road' for improving public health. 'What we are trying to signal [is that] coming in with a sledgehammer approach and just hitting everybody – that just loses people. They think why is everyone being punished – what's fair about that?' He added that the proposal was 'the start of the road'. But Mr Burnham all-but admitted he had gone boozing with his friends as a teenager. The former health secretary said: 'I think we all grow up, don't we, and we learn as we go. 'I wasn't whiter than white in that respect. I did normal things that teenagers in the North West do.' Mr Burnham pointed to a survey of white cider drinkers by Alcohol Concern which found 50 per cent saying they drank more than three litres a day, and 42 per cent saying they had been drinking it for more than ten years. Mr Burnham is considering banning the sale of cider in bottles of more than one litre in size, or by taxing larger volume cider containers more heavily. The party is also looking at proposals to create a new cheap cider tax to increase the cost of cheap booze. A proposal to increase the minimum apple juice content that cider is required to contain will also be considered. This would increase the cost of producing white cider – forcing up the price in the supermarket. Labour said the ballooning cost of treating alcohol related illnesses meant tackling problem drinking was essential. The harmful use of alcohol costs the NHS in England around £3.5 billion a year and alcohol-related crime costs £11bn per year, the party said. One in five children who drink now consume 15 or more units per week – twice an adult woman's weekly recommended limit. Binge drinkers by 15 are four times more likely to be addicted in later life, and almost half of young people excluded from school in the UK are regular drinkers.


Q: Frostie has struggled to survive since being born with a hind leg infection he got from his umbilical cord. His autopsy showed his spinal column was riddled with abscesses that were preventing his stomach from functioning normally, causing severe bloat. Frostie had just turned two months old.
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Answer: Frostie, the two-month-old snow goat whose battle for survival won him millions of fans around the world, died on Monday, only about a week after he was able to walk for the first time. Edgar's Mission, a not-for-profit sanctuary for rescued farm animals outside of Melbourne, announced the news on its Facebook page today. An autopsy revealed that Frostie's spinal column was riddled with abscesses, with one so large that it was pressing on his small rumen, preventing the stomach from functioning properly and leading to bloat. Scroll down for video. Frostie the snow goat licks the nose of one of his handlers at Edgar's Mission, the animal sanctuary that took him under its wing in May. Frostie died on Monday after battling a hind leg infection since birth. 'In the early hours of Monday morning, the little champ told me he was not well, as his rapidly expanding stomach screamed bloat,' according to a post on the group's website. 'As the little guy took his last gasps of breath, he looked into my tear filled eyes as I begged him to stay. I told him I loved him and would do so forever more. It was not until I knew his spirit had passed that I would scream, “Why?” at the top of my lungs and sob inconsolably into his warm, sweet smelling white fur.' Frostie snuggles up in his bed in a picture likely taken not long before he died. His autopsy revealed that his spinal column was covered with abscesses. Edgar's Mission, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals, nursed the near-disabled baby goat back to health until he took a turn for the worst in recent days. Frostie's many admirers quickly began expressing their dismay at his passing on the website. 'No...not Frostie!! Im a bit shocked..Frostie was doing so well.' wrote Bronwyn Russell. Fostie was covered in lice, severely dehydrated and was unable to use his back legs when he was first brought to Edgar's Mission in May. At birth, he contracted a hind leg infection through his umbilical cord. An Edgar's Mission employee holds Frostie the Snow Goat in her arms an undated photo. Frostie is shown here about a week ago without the wheelchair he has used since May. The sanctuary fitted Frostie with a custom wheelchair so he could run around and play with the other animals. Pictures of the goat with his rear wheels rapidly went viral around the internet. Before being inherited by Frostie, the wheelchair belonged to Leon Trotsky - a baby pig who was injured when his mother sat on him, crushing his hind legs. Just last week it seemed all the antibiotics, painkillers and  tender love and care Frostie was receiving were doing the trick. For the first time, he was let out of his wheelchair and began running freely around the farm. 'That Frostie was a sickly little kid goat was something that we knew from the very day he came into our world,' Edgar's Mission said in the Facebook post. 'Frostie’s lot was not good, but no one told him that. He wanted to live, and that was just what we promised him we would help him do.' Despite being just one of 350 animals cared for, Frostie got all the attention he appeared to have needed at the sanctuary - which also houses cows, alpacas, deer, sheep, chicken, geese, ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs, peacocks and horses, in addition to goats and pigs. 'The fact that Frostie looked a little different was no justification to me for denying him the chance at life he so richly deserved - we would do no less if he were a puppy or kitten,' Edgar's Mission said. A staff member at Edgar's Mission holds Frostie, the snow goat that won the hearts of millions around the world as he struggled to walk and live.