Plan To Be A Jerk On A Flight? Plan To Pay For The Privilege.

Good morning! It’s Saturday, Aug 21, and the start of the summer slip — that is, it’s one of the last weekends before school starts up again in the closest thing we’ve seen to normal operation since the beginning of the pandemic. Today, we’ll tell you about:

• The FAA has had it with people who are losing their cool on flights.
• A “fairy trail” in New Jersey will restore your faith in humanity.
• More battle lines are being drawn around COVID-19 vaccines as millions of U.S. kids prepare to go back to school.
• How has it taken an organization with an entire unit named Brownies this long to come up with a brownie-inspired Girl Scout cookie?

Unruliness For Half A Million Dollars

If you think those stories about people who have to be duct-taped to their airplane seats because they’re activating unruly or groping flight attendants are one-offs, think again.

So far this year, the Federal Aviation Administration has taken 3,889 reports of unruly passengers — more than two-thirds of them related to masks. Federal law requires that all flyers, including children and those who are fully vaccinated, wear face masks while in an airport or aboard an airplane.

The FAA on Thursday proposed $531,545 in civil penalties against 34 airline passengers accused of acting up while aboard airplanes. Some persons are facing fines of up to $9,000 for their actions. » Unruly, Maskless Flyers Face Thousands Of Dollars In Fines, via Across America Patch

Sprite Start To The Weekend

You may want to travel deep in a New Jersey forest to see this delight for yourself. But in the meantime, take a photo tour of a fairy village of tiny, handcrafted houses that have popped up along a half-mile stretch of the South Mountain Reservation, a 2,112-acre nature preserve in Essex County.

In true Frank Lloyd Wright fashion, the miniature feats of architecture blend almost seamlessly into the woods, always a half-step hidden behind the nearest tree root or boulder. Move too quickly and it's easy to miss the couch made of a hunk of mushroom, the doors constructed out of tree bark and the chairs crafted from acorns.

For years, the creator of the so-called "South Mountain Fairy Trail" remained a mystery, until she was revealed as local artist and special education teacher Therese Ojibway.

Now, the trail is an immensely popular, family-friendly destination for people seeking to get outdoors and reconnect with nature, sometimes attracting hundreds of visitors a week. » Take A Photo Tour Of This Amazing ‘Fairy Trail,’ via West Orange, New Jersey, Patch.

• More Saturday Smiles: Let’s keep that gentle Saturday breeze wafting by with 11 good news stories from Patch editors writing about communities all across the country. You’ll find that and much more on Across America Patch.
• Also This Weekend, A Rare Blue Moon: Also on Across America Patch, a rare seasonal blue moon rises Sunday. Did you know there are two types of blue moons (and neither is served in a bar with a slice of fresh orange)?

Made From Real Brownie Scouts?

It seems inconceivable that it took the Girl Scouts this long to release a brownie-inspired cookie, especially considering the organization refers to an entire group of its scouts as Brownies.

But when the 2022 cookie sales begin, a cookie-brownie combo called Adventurefuls will be among the choices.

And, sorry/not sorry, but we can’t help recalling perhaps one of the most appreciated lines in film history, from “Addams Family Values,” when Wednesday Addams asked of a persnickety young Girl Scout peddling her cookies: “Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”

That never gets old. Rest assured, no Brownies were harmed in the making of theses cookie-brownies. » New Girl Scout Brownie-Cookie Debuts in 2022, via Across America Patch.

Vaccine Politics & Public Health

As the 2021-22 school year starts, many school districts have found themselves at the crossroads of public health and partisan politics. The school board in Middletown, New Jersey, has turned the rhetoric up a notch by considering a policy forbidding teachers from talking about the coronavirus vaccine with students.

• Couple Presents Fake Vaccination Card In Hawaii, via Miami Patch
• Biden Jumped Gun On Vaccine Booster Plan: Scientists, via Kaiser Health News on Across America Patch
• U.S. Extends Ban On Nonessential Border Crossings To Slow COVID, via Across America Patch

The policy, which comes up for a final vote Tuesday, seeks to prohibit teachers from influencing students to either get or eschew the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines now that are approved for children over 12. » School Board May Stop Teachers From Talking About COVID Vaccines, via Middletown, New Jersey, Patch.

Quotable

“If they asked why, I told them COVID is a miserable way to die, and I can't watch them die like that.”

— Alabama physician Dr. Jason Valentine on his decision not to treat patients who haven’t gotten COVID-19 vaccine shots.

» ‘I Can’t Watch Them Die’: The Doctor Is Out For Unvaccinated Patients, via Across Alabama Patch

Around ‘The Patch’

• ‘We Will Get You Home,’ Biden Tells Americans In Afghanistan, via Across America Patch
• ‘You Earned It’: Server Gets $1,000 Tip, via Norwalk, Connecticut, Patch
• MN GOP Official Resigns After Donor Indicted For Sex Trafficking, via Southwest Minneapolis Patch

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