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Air pollution causing 1,100 cases a year of main form of lung cancer in UK
Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:56:36 GMT
Exclusive: Health experts and cancer charities say findings should serve as wake-up call to ministers
More than 1,100 people a year in the UK are developing the most prevalent form of lung cancer as a result of air pollution, the Guardian can reveal.
Exposure to toxic air was attributed to 515 men and 590 women in the UK in 2022 getting adenocarcinoma – now the most dominant of the four main subtypes of lung cancer – an analysis by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency found.
Continue reading...Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil
The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.
Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Trump and US democratic deficit | Report cards | Train strain | Musk’s brain power | Prostate cancer anxiety
Scandalous as Donald Trump’s actions may be, they do not constitute the greatest scandal (Trump’s foreign aid cuts could be ‘big strategic mistake’, says Lammy, 7 February). That lies rather in the fact that a system purporting to display democracy to the world allows so much power to be concentrated in one individual’s hands. The eventual departure of the individual person will do nothing to rectify that colossal democratic deficit.
Keith Graham
Emeritus professor of social and political philosophy, Bristol
• “Robert works hard, not always with success”, a Cardiff secondary school teacher once wrote on my report (Letters, 6 February). Another noted that my essays “would be improved with the inclusion of facts”. Fair play.
Rob Skinner
Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire
Set in the London comedy world, this provocative and funny debut novel explores the grey areas of coercion and intimacy
Ali Lauder isn’t having the best 40th birthday. The heroine of Julia Raeside’s debut novel has already had a humiliating run-in with the wife of the colleague she’s been sleeping with, and been brushed off by Paul Bonatti, the celebrity comedian she’s supposed to recruit to host a new radio show – a show she’d hoped might signal her breakthrough as a producer. Now, thanks to a backstage tipoff, she’s learned that Bonatti, her boss’s pick, is “not a good choice if any women work at your radio station”.
Don’t Make Me Laugh is, at its most straightforward, a robustly funny and fleetingly soulful revenge caper, set in a comedy world that’s about to have its (long-overdue) #MeToo moment, but Raeside’s freewheeling style – a perfect match for lonely, lackadaisically flawed Ali – allows her to edge into some discomfiting, provocatively grey areas. Because while Bonatti is clearly a dangerous creep, it’s a certain type of self-styled “good guy” that the author dares to expose here.
Continue reading...Leading climate group warns of damage to green agenda if giant project goes ahead
Keir Starmer will do huge damage to the global fight against climate change if he gives in to political pressure and allows the development of a giant new oilfield in the North Sea, according to an analysis by the country’s leading environmental institute.
Chaired by Nicholas Stern, the Grantham Institute on Climate Change will fire a warning shot to ministers not to give the green light to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, after suggestions that the Treasury is now in favour of allowing drilling to maximise economic growth.
Continue reading...Inquiry uncovered health problems in neighborhood near Monterrey-area plant that processes US hazardous waste
Mexican environmental regulators say they have discovered 30,000 tons of improperly stored material with “hazardous characteristics” in the yard of a Mexican plant that is recycling toxic waste shipped from the US.
The authorities ordered “urgent measures” to get the materials into proper storage as part of inspections they are conducting in response to an investigation from the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab, which raised questions about contamination around the plant, located in the Monterrey metro area.
Continue reading...Billions of pounds from energy bill payers to run out in 2027 but could be extended as soon as Monday
Green campaigners fear ministers are poised to award billions of pounds in fresh subsidies to Drax power station, despite strong concerns that burning trees to produce electricity is bad for the environment.
Drax burns wood to generate about 8% of the UK’s “green” power, and 4% of overall electricity. This is classed as “low-carbon” because the harvested trees are replaced by others that take up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.
Continue reading...EU monitor says global temperatures were 1.75C above preindustrial levels, extending run of unprecedented highs
A run of record-breaking global temperatures has continued, even with a La Niña weather pattern cooling the tropical Pacific.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the warmest January on record, with surface – air temperatures 1.75C above preindustrial levels.
Continue reading...
SEMrush and Ahrefs are among
the most popular tools in the SEO industry. Both companies have been in
business for years and have thousands of customers per month.
If you're a professional SEO or trying to do digital
marketing on your own, at some point you'll likely consider using a tool to
help with your efforts. Ahrefs and SEMrush are two names that will likely
appear on your shortlist.
In this guide, I'm going to help you learn more about these SEO tools and how to choose the one that's best for your purposes.
What is SEMrush?
SEMrush is a popular SEO tool with a wide range of
features—it's the leading competitor research service for online marketers.
SEMrush's SEO Keyword Magic tool offers over 20 billion Google-approved
keywords, which are constantly updated and it's the largest keyword database.
The program was developed in 2007 as SeoQuake is a
small Firefox extension
Features
Ahrefs is a leading SEO platform that offers a set of
tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors, and monitor your
niche. The company was founded in 2010, and it has become a popular choice
among SEO tools. Ahrefs has a keyword index of over 10.3 billion keywords and
offers accurate and extensive backlink data updated every 15-30 minutes and it
is the world's most extensive backlink index database.
Features
Direct Comparisons: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Now that you know a little more about each tool, let's
take a look at how they compare. I'll analyze each tool to see how they differ
in interfaces, keyword research resources, rank tracking, and competitor
analysis.
User Interface
Ahrefs and SEMrush both offer comprehensive information
and quick metrics regarding your website's SEO performance. However, Ahrefs
takes a bit more of a hands-on approach to getting your account fully set up,
whereas SEMrush's simpler dashboard can give you access to the data you need
quickly.
In this section, we provide a brief overview of the elements
found on each dashboard and highlight the ease with which you can complete
tasks.
AHREFS
The Ahrefs dashboard is less cluttered than that of
SEMrush, and its primary menu is at the very top of the page, with a search bar
designed only for entering URLs.
Additional features of the Ahrefs platform include:
SEMRUSH
When you log into the SEMrush Tool, you will find four
main modules. These include information about your domains, organic keyword
analysis, ad keyword, and site traffic.
You'll also find some other options like
Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have user-friendly dashboards,
but Ahrefs is less cluttered and easier to navigate. On the other hand, SEMrush
offers dozens of extra tools, including access to customer support resources.
When deciding on which dashboard to use, consider what
you value in the user interface, and test out both.
If you're looking to track your website's search engine
ranking, rank tracking features can help. You can also use them to monitor your
competitors.
Let's take a look at Ahrefs vs. SEMrush to see which
tool does a better job.
The Ahrefs Rank Tracker is simpler to use. Just type in
the domain name and keywords you want to analyze, and it spits out a report
showing you the search engine results page (SERP) ranking for each keyword you
enter.
Rank Tracker looks at the ranking performance of
keywords and compares them with the top rankings for those keywords. Ahrefs
also offers:
You'll see metrics that help you understand your
visibility, traffic, average position, and keyword difficulty.
It gives you an idea of whether a keyword would be
profitable to target or not.
SEMRush offers a tool called Position Tracking. This
tool is a project tool—you must set it up as a new project. Below are a few of
the most popular features of the SEMrush Position Tracking tool:
All subscribers are given regular data updates and
mobile search rankings upon subscribing
The platform provides opportunities to track several
SERP features, including Local tracking.
Intuitive reports allow you to track statistics for the
pages on your website, as well as the keywords used in those pages.
Identify pages that may be competing with each other
using the Cannibalization report.
Ahrefs is a more user-friendly option. It takes seconds
to enter a domain name and keywords. From there, you can quickly decide whether
to proceed with that keyword or figure out how to rank better for other
keywords.
SEMrush allows you to check your mobile rankings and
ranking updates daily, which is something Ahrefs does not offer. SEMrush also
offers social media rankings, a tool you won't find within the Ahrefs platform.
Both are good which one do you like let me know in the comment.
Keyword research is closely related to rank tracking,
but it's used for deciding which keywords you plan on using for future content
rather than those you use now.
When it comes to SEO, keyword research is the most
important thing to consider when comparing the two platforms.
The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer provides you with thousands
of keyword ideas and filters search results based on the chosen search engine.
Ahrefs supports several features, including:
SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool has over 20 billion
keywords for Google. You can type in any keyword you want, and a list of
suggested keywords will appear.
The Keyword Magic Tool also lets you to:
Both of these tools offer keyword research features and
allow users to break down complicated tasks into something that can be
understood by beginners and advanced users alike.
If you're interested in keyword suggestions, SEMrush
appears to have more keyword suggestions than Ahrefs does. It also continues to
add new features, like the Keyword Gap tool and SERP Questions recommendations.
Both platforms offer competitor analysis tools,
eliminating the need to come up with keywords off the top of your head. Each
tool is useful for finding keywords that will be useful for your competition so
you know they will be valuable to you.
Ahrefs' domain comparison tool lets you compare up to five websites (your website and four competitors) side-by-side.it also shows you how your site is ranked against others with metrics such as backlinks, domain ratings, and more.
Use the Competing Domains section to see a list of your
most direct competitors, and explore how many keywords matches your competitors
have.
To find more information about your competitor, you can
look at the Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools and type in their URL
instead of yours.
SEMrush provides a variety of insights into your
competitors' marketing tactics. The platform enables you to research your
competitors effectively. It also offers several resources for competitor
analysis including:
Traffic Analytics helps you identify where your
audience comes from, how they engage with your site, what devices visitors use
to view your site, and how your audiences overlap with other websites.
SEMrush's Organic Research examines your website's
major competitors and shows their organic search rankings, keywords they are
ranking for, and even if they are ranking for any (SERP) features and more.
The Market Explorer search field allows you to type in
a domain and lists websites or articles similar to what you entered. Market
Explorer also allows users to perform in-depth data analytics on These
companies and markets.
SEMrush wins here because it has more tools dedicated to
competitor analysis than Ahrefs. However, Ahrefs offers a lot of functionality
in this area, too. It takes a combination of both tools to gain an advantage
over your competition.
When it comes to keyword data research, you will become
confused about which one to choose.
Consider choosing Ahrefs if you
Consider SEMrush if you:
Both tools are great. Choose the one which meets your
requirements and if you have any experience using either Ahrefs or SEMrush let
me know in the comment section which works well for you.
The Trump minion has said Jan. 6 defendants should get cash reparations and those responsible for the charges should get jail time.
The post The Capitol Rioters Are Free — But Ed Martin’s Crusade Against Jan. 6 Prosecutors Is Just Getting Started appeared first on The Intercept.
An old north London boozer has found new life as an Indian restaurant, and redefined ‘gastropub’ along the way
The Great Indian, 139 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NU. Small plates
£7.50-£11.50, large dishes £9.50-£23.50, desserts £6.50, wines from £23, Cobra £6.30
At the top of the menu at the Great Indian, a new and thoroughly delightful food pub in London’s Archway, there’s a set of slogans of a sort guaranteed to make my teeth itchy. It says things like “comfy”, “social” and “vibe dining”. I looked up the last one. Apparently, it means the place is, y’know, nice. We can all get behind nice. It was, however, another phrase that really stood out. It said “Indian influenced”. The Great Indian is owned by Aman Dhir who already has a takeaway of the same name in Hackney where they serve chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, aloo gobi and the rest. The executive chef here is Surjan Singh, an experienced restaurant consultant from India known there as Chef Jolly and familiar as a judge on MasterChef India. He has been spending time in Archway, alongside his Indian cooks and the Indian front of house team. The charming head waiter who served us had not long arrived in the UK from India.
Continue reading...The Washington Post is reporting that the UK government has served Apple with a “technical capability notice” as defined by the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act, requiring it to break the Advanced Data Protection encryption in iCloud for the benefit of law enforcement.
This is a big deal, and something we in the security community have worried was coming for a while now.
The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment...
As Trump aims to dismantle large swaths of US government, growing outcry from Democrats appears to be having an effect
When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend.
But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his right-wing agenda.
Continue reading...In South Africa, a 36-year-old living with HIV since childhood fears she will lose access to treatment due to Trump’s policy.
The post Global HIV Care Thrown Into Chaos by Trump: “I Will Be Sick and Maybe Die” appeared first on The Intercept.
If the State Department takes over USAID, experts fear foreign assistance will stop unless it has a perceived benefit for Trump.
The post Trump’s Attacks on USAID Spark Fear That Lifesaving Care Will Become “Transactional” appeared first on The Intercept.
Betar U.S. said it has shared with the Trump administration a list of the “names of hundreds of terror supporters.”
The post The Far-Right Group Building a List of Pro-Palestine Activists to Deport appeared first on The Intercept.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey and its militias have cut off the Kurdish city of Kobane from the rest of Syria.
The post Twelve Days in Kobane, Where Syrian Kurds Are Under Attack by Turkey appeared first on The Intercept.
Following Trump’s executive order, a trans woman held at a federal prison was told she would be moved to a men’s prison.
The post Trans Women in Federal Custody Face the Terror of Being Transferred to Men’s Prisons appeared first on The Intercept.
UNRWA delivered the majority of food aid during the war and sheltered more than 1 million people. What happens when it’s banned?
The post Israel Bans UNRWA as Trump Throttles Foreign Aid appeared first on The Intercept.
Gabbard is a rare Washington politician who defended the NSA whistleblower. But she has also changed positions and even political parties.
The post Tulsi Gabbard Once Called for an Edward Snowden Pardon. Will She Flip-Flop Now? appeared first on The Intercept.
The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
The post A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported appeared first on The Intercept.
With the Democratic Party reeling from its losses, the DNC is voting on a new chair. Will it choose to reform its top-down model?
The post The Democratic National Committee Is Undemocratic. That’s by Design. appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump’s recent executive orders show unwavering support of Israel and the further dehumanization of Palestinians.
The post Trump’s Nightmare Plan for Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Facing more than a dozen questions about her views on the NSA leaker, Gabbard held her ground at her DNI confirmation hearing.
The post Tulsi Gabbard Refused to Back Down on Edward Snowden. It Could Tank Her Nomination. appeared first on The Intercept.
Best European film at Goya awards goes to musical at centre of storm over past social media posts written by its star
The multi-Oscar-nominated narco-musical Emilia Pérez, whose success has been overshadowed by the emergence of a series of racist and Islamophobic social media posts written by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, won best European film at Spain’s prestigious Goya awards on Saturday night.
Gascón, the first out transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, stayed away from the ceremony after posts came to light in which she called George Floyd “a drug addict swindler”, denigrated China, and said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity”.
Continue reading...With the rise of hair transplants, many men are opting out of baldness. But why is it so hard to accept this natural part of ageing? Stuart Heritage and Rudi Zygadlo explain
Once, Stuart Heritage’s head was covered in thick, golden, shiny hair. But then, when he was in his early 20s, he noticed a small patch of scalp showing through. At first he tried a hair regrowth treatment, but it didn’t make much difference. As this patch grew, he began brushing his hair over the bald area. Before he knew it, he says, he was horrified to find he was sporting a combover. “Going bald is horrible,” he says ruefully.
Once you have accepted this loss, however, and that it means you are ageing, actually “being bald is fine”. And not just fine – commonplace. He tells Helen Pidd that about 55% of Caucasian men aged over 75 will have experienced some hair loss. Which is why bald heads used to be ubiquitous in popular culture. There were bald footballers, bald movie stars and bald prime ministers. Yet today they seem to be fading from view.
Continue reading...
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
An old north London boozer has found new life as an Indian restaurant, and redefined ‘gastropub’ along the way
The Great Indian, 139 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NU. Small plates
£7.50-£11.50, large dishes £9.50-£23.50, desserts £6.50, wines from £23, Cobra £6.30
At the top of the menu at the Great Indian, a new and thoroughly delightful food pub in London’s Archway, there’s a set of slogans of a sort guaranteed to make my teeth itchy. It says things like “comfy”, “social” and “vibe dining”. I looked up the last one. Apparently, it means the place is, y’know, nice. We can all get behind nice. It was, however, another phrase that really stood out. It said “Indian influenced”. The Great Indian is owned by Aman Dhir who already has a takeaway of the same name in Hackney where they serve chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, aloo gobi and the rest. The executive chef here is Surjan Singh, an experienced restaurant consultant from India known there as Chef Jolly and familiar as a judge on MasterChef India. He has been spending time in Archway, alongside his Indian cooks and the Indian front of house team. The charming head waiter who served us had not long arrived in the UK from India.
Continue reading...Ten people died in the crash on Thursday, and authorities are still trying to piece together why the aircraft went down
The remains of all 10 people killed when their small plane crashed into ice on the Bering Sea have been recovered, authorities said.
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department made the announcement on its Facebook page Saturday afternoon. Recovery crews had been racing to recover the bodies before a winter storm was expected to hit the region.
“All 10 individuals aboard the Bering Air plane have been officially brought home,” the fire department wrote in the social media post at about 3pm.
Crews were still working on recovering the aircraft, the fire department said.
The Bering Air single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared on Thursday afternoon. It was found the next day after an extensive search with all nine passengers and the pilot dead.
Continue reading...Palestinians from Gaza responded with outrage to Trump’s proposal to expel them from their homes.
The post “You Don’t Own Gaza, Donald Trump”: Palestinians Vow to Remain and Rebuild appeared first on The Intercept.
In South Africa, a 36-year-old living with HIV since childhood fears she will lose access to treatment due to Trump’s policy.
The post Global HIV Care Thrown Into Chaos by Trump: “I Will Be Sick and Maybe Die” appeared first on The Intercept.
Vehicles stranded, trains and planes cancelled, and schools closed after record 129cm of snow falls in 12 hours
Record-breaking snowfall has engulfed swaths of northern Japan, causing widespread disruption. Areas of low pressure and strong north-westerly winds brought cold air from other parts of Asia, causing the extreme weather.
In the Takachi district of Obihiro, a city in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, a record 129cm (4ft) of snowfall in 12 hours was measured this week. The conditions affected travel, with many vehicles stranded, trains and planes cancelled, and hundreds of schools closed.
Continue reading...Almost three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, what is the situation like on the ground in Kyiv? And is there a path to peace? Pippa Crerar travelled to the war-ravaged country with the foreign secretary to find out
Continue reading...Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey and its militias have cut off the Kurdish city of Kobane from the rest of Syria.
The post Twelve Days in Kobane, Where Syrian Kurds Are Under Attack by Turkey appeared first on The Intercept.
Video:
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A group of volunteers is spending two months lying in bed—with their feet up and one shoulder always touching the mattress—even while eating, showering, and using the toilet. But why? This extreme bedrest study is helping scientists understand how space travel affects the human body and how to keep astronauts healthy on long missions.
Microgravity causes muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts, and other physiological changes similar to those experienced by bedridden patients on Earth. By studying volunteers here on Earth, researchers can develop better countermeasures for astronauts and even improve treatments for medical conditions like osteoporosis.
In this study, participants are divided into three groups: one stays in bed with no exercise, another cycles in bed to mimic astronaut workouts, and a third cycles while being spun in a centrifuge to simulate artificial gravity. Scientists hope artificial gravity could become a key tool in protecting astronauts during deep-space missions.
The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
The post A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Betar U.S. said it has shared with the Trump administration a list of the “names of hundreds of terror supporters.”
The post The Far-Right Group Building a List of Pro-Palestine Activists to Deport appeared first on The Intercept.
The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
The post A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported appeared first on The Intercept.
If you can find a workout you always look forward to, you’re far more likely to stick with it and keep fitter for longer. Trainers give their pointers – and pitfalls
Only an idiot would claim to love every form of exercise. At 61, I believe it’s the only way to delay the body’s slow crumble, but ugh, so much of it is unpleasant, or dull, or just not for me. I don’t think I will ever not hate Bulgarian split squats. I’m bored to tears by the static bike. Football, rugby, tennis, cricket? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.
But that’s OK, because there’s a lot that I adore. Running. Lake swims. Yoga. Skiing, snowshoeing, anything snow-related. Just bloody walking! And above all, calisthenics – dangling from gymnastics rings, standing on my hands, trying to hoist and fold and balance myself in ways that demand far more strength and control than I can usually muster. I will never be cool, but “cali” is.
Continue reading...
Democrats struggle to counter Trump’s renewed agenda.
The post Why Are Dems Surprised? appeared first on The Intercept.
As Trump aims to dismantle large swaths of US government, growing outcry from Democrats appears to be having an effect
When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend.
But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his right-wing agenda.
Continue reading...Betar U.S. said it has shared with the Trump administration a list of the “names of hundreds of terror supporters.”
The post The Far-Right Group Building a List of Pro-Palestine Activists to Deport appeared first on The Intercept.
The US president has recognised something that is rarely acknowledged: monetary policy is political. The question is how to make it democratic
If I asked you to list the things that make democratic politics meaningful, what would you include? Most likely elections and education. Perhaps the NHS, or the armed forces, or the justice system. I’m guessing that interest rates didn’t come to mind, which is strange, because they’re crucial to democracy. Last week, Donald Trump reignited a debate about who should be in charge of the monetary system that controls a country’s interest rates. You may disagree with Trump on a lot of things, but he’s not wrong to recognise that monetary policy – a subject that can seem dull and horribly technical – is fundamentally political, and tells us a lot about democracy.
Interest rates shape everything. They influence whether you can buy a house, and how many houses get built. They affect which businesses expand, what new technologies emerge, and which towns thrive or flounder. In the 1990s, central bankers hailed the “great moderation”, a period of low and stable prices dominated by central bank independence. Then came the financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, and then the pandemic. The giant bailouts that followed these events were often described as “unconventional”. But perhaps they simply uncovered a fact that was always there – that monetary policy is not as apolitical as some would like people to believe.
Leah Downey is a junior research fellow at St John’s College Cambridge and the author of Our Money
Continue reading...After plunging USAID and its network of contractors into chaos, communications breakdowns and bureaucratic snafus leave projects stalled.
The post Marco Rubio’s USAID “Humanitarian Waiver” Isn’t Helping Restart Lifesaving Programs appeared first on The Intercept.
The Trump minion has said Jan. 6 defendants should get cash reparations and those responsible for the charges should get jail time.
The post The Capitol Rioters Are Free — But Ed Martin’s Crusade Against Jan. 6 Prosecutors Is Just Getting Started appeared first on The Intercept.
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Coalition backs healthcare package
Gallagher welcomed the opposition backing Labor’s package for women’s health this morning. She said on ABC Insiders:
We know Peter Dutton wanders around saying he’s going to cut a whole range of things. He’s clear he sees a lot of our investments in Medicare as wasteful spending. But these are really good investments into women’s health. And it will make a difference for millions of people across the country including women who are going through men who really have felt left behind by the health system and hopefully these new measures will address all of those issues.
It’s come down quite obviously for women across the country, the use of contraception, going through different stages of your life, including menopause, that these are areas that either haven’t been addressed for decades, or haven’t been met appropriately through the Medicare system. So, you know, we have landed the hospital deal, keep investing in the public health system, we have got a lot of initiatives about strengthening Medicare and this builds on that.
Continue reading...Greens concede loss to Liberals in Prahran and ALP on a knife-edge in Werribee
The Greens have conceded the loss of the Victorian state seat of Prahran to the Liberals, while the result in the once-Labor stronghold of Werribee remains too close to call.
The Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, said on Sunday the result in the inner-Melbourne seat was close but that it was clear the minor party will “fall just short” when counting resumes on Monday.
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Continue reading...Netanyahu and Gallant could show up and contest the charges against them. Obstructing justice is not the answer
Donald Trump’s executive order reauthorizing sanctions against international criminal court (ICC) personnel reflects a disgraceful effort to ensure that no American, or citizen of an ally such as Israel, is ever investigated or prosecuted. Quite apart from this warped sense of justice – that it is only for other people – the president’s limited view of the court’s powers was rejected in the treaty establishing the court and repudiated by the Joe Biden administration and even the Republican party. But that didn’t stop Trump.
The US government traditionally has had no problem with two of the three ways that the court can obtain jurisdiction because it could control them. Washington is fine with the court prosecuting citizens of states that are members of the court because it has no intention of joining them. And it accepts that the United Nations security council can confer jurisdiction because it can exercise its veto to block prosecutions it doesn’t like.
Continue reading...Open panic has yet to set in but MPs voice growing fears over leader’s approach and threat from Reform UK
On Monday, it will be 100 days since Kemi Badenoch became the leader of a demoralised rump of 121 Conservative MPs. So, at this traditional moment for gauging initial success, how well is she doing? It depends, perhaps inevitably, on how you measure it.
“What you have to remember is that for the first 18 or so months after you lose an election, especially as badly as we did, no one cares what you do,” one Tory MP said. “From that point of view, Kemi’s caution in not rushing into policies makes sense. No one is listening yet. She has time.”
Continue reading...Deputy PM acknowledged there wasn’t ‘a consensus’ over future of tower block after her decision to dismantle it
Angela Rayner has defended her handling of a meeting with bereaved families and survivors of the Grenfell disaster after some said they felt ignored by her decision to tear down the tower.
The deputy prime minister did not feel she had been “aggressive” during the meeting on the future of the site, she said, despite criticism from some of those present. “If anyone felt that way, then I would be sincerely upset about that,” she added.
Continue reading...One federal Labor MP said his party’s brand has ‘taken a dive’ in Victoria – but others at the state level believe time is on their side
Counting in the Werribee byelection is still under way. But even if Labor manages to scrape through, the Victorian government is just a few hundred disgruntled votes away from losing its grip on this heartland seat.
That is a problem Jacinta Allan knows cannot be ignored.
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Continue reading...Trump and US democratic deficit | Report cards | Train strain | Musk’s brain power | Prostate cancer anxiety
Scandalous as Donald Trump’s actions may be, they do not constitute the greatest scandal (Trump’s foreign aid cuts could be ‘big strategic mistake’, says Lammy, 7 February). That lies rather in the fact that a system purporting to display democracy to the world allows so much power to be concentrated in one individual’s hands. The eventual departure of the individual person will do nothing to rectify that colossal democratic deficit.
Keith Graham
Emeritus professor of social and political philosophy, Bristol
• “Robert works hard, not always with success”, a Cardiff secondary school teacher once wrote on my report (Letters, 6 February). Another noted that my essays “would be improved with the inclusion of facts”. Fair play.
Rob Skinner
Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire
Project 2025 architects are among those behind the American Accountability Foundation and their blacklists targeting people of color
A rightwing non-profit group that has published a “DEI Watch List” identifying federal employees allegedly “driving radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives” is bankrolled by wealthy family foundations and rightwing groups whose origins are often cloaked in a web of financial arrangements that obscure the original donors.
One recent list created by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) includes the names of mostly Black people with roles in government health alleged to have some ties to diversity initiatives. Another targets education department employees, and another calls out the “most subversive immigration bureaucrats”.
Continue reading...Minister says Labour is looking into ‘whole incident’ as Andrew Gwynne sacked over allegedly offensive messages
Labour has launched an urgent investigation into a WhatsApp group in which the Labour MP Andrew Gwynne posted “completely unacceptable” messages, a minister has said.
Gwynne, 50, was sacked as a health minister after reports he shared racist remarks about Diane Abbott and sexist comments about Angela Rayner, and joked about an elderly woman dying before the next election.
Continue reading...The bromance may fade, but the two megalomaniacs could still reshape the US as long as Trump’s fickle affections hold
A picture is worth a thousand words – or, more precisely, $288m. That was the sum tech entrepreneur Elon Musk donated to Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign. His reward was dramatically illustrated by the cover of this week’s Time magazine: an image of Musk, coffee cup in hand, sitting behind the Resolute desk used by every US president since Jimmy Carter.
Some speculated that the picture of “President Musk” was designed to provoke the thin-skinned Trump, who is known to revere Time magazine and has twice been named its “person of the year”. The president reacted on Friday with a pointed joke: “Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.”
Continue reading...The rise of Nigel Farage’s party is a concern for many MPs in seats where Reform came a close second at the general election
Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is now neck and neck with Labour largely because its stance on immigration is proving attractive to floating voters, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
The rise of the populist rightwing party is causing increasing concern in the Labour high command and among the many Labour MPs who hold seats where Reform came a close second at last summer’s general election.
Continue reading...In South Africa, a 36-year-old living with HIV since childhood fears she will lose access to treatment due to Trump’s policy.
The post Global HIV Care Thrown Into Chaos by Trump: “I Will Be Sick and Maybe Die” appeared first on The Intercept.
If the State Department takes over USAID, experts fear foreign assistance will stop unless it has a perceived benefit for Trump.
The post Trump’s Attacks on USAID Spark Fear That Lifesaving Care Will Become “Transactional” appeared first on The Intercept.
Stuart Machin also speculates about whether successive governments have been guilty of ‘snobbery’ towards retail
The chief executive of Marks & Spencer has called on the UK government to delay or ease planned tax and recycling charges, claiming the retail industry is being “raided like a piggy bank”.
Stuart Machin said that without pausing or staggering the changes to national insurance and business rates, which come into effect this April, UK retail would get smaller. He also speculated on whether successive governments were guilty of a “snobbery” about retail.
Continue reading...Industry insiders say it will be ‘tricky’ to find suitable candidate who would agree to location and civil service pay
Britain’s state-owned energy company faces a “challenging” task to find a chief executive for its Aberdeen HQ when it begins recruiting this month, senior industry sources have said.
Great British Energy is poised to begin the hunt, but sources claim there are still no obvious frontrunners for the top job almost six months after the £8.3bn publicly owned clean energy company was formed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Poll reveals 72% of UK voters favour ban on zero-hours contracts, including majority of Tory and Reform supporters
Labour should fight Conservative and Reform criticism of a major expansion in workers’ rights because it has an “indisputable mandate” from the public, trade unions and MPs have said, after the biggest poll conducted on the issue showed huge support.
A mega-poll of 21,000 people, including deep dives into Reform constituencies, showed the ban on zero-hours contracts and other protections for workers were backed by the vast majority of voters for Nigel Farage’s party.
Continue reading...Whether in Gaza or the Chagos Islands, denying a people’s identity and rights paves the way to robbing them of their autonomy to govern
Sovereignty matters. Except when it doesn’t. And it doesn’t when another people’s sovereignty gets in the way of your nation’s needs. Then sovereignty (for any other country or people, at least) becomes so much dust blowing in the storm. It is something to which the peoples of the Chagos Islands and Gaza can attest.
Last year, Britain finalised an agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a shabby deal at the end of a sordid history of British rule. Much of the criticism of the deal is equally shabby.
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Continue reading...Pledge to fix broken welfare system follows new evidence that people are worried about returning to work for fear that benefits will be withdrawn
Britain’s broken welfare system is fuelling the “greatest unemployment challenge of a generation”, ministers have concluded as they draw up a root-and-branch overhaul designed to counter the spiralling numbers deemed too unwell to work.
Rules that force benefit claimants into an “all or nothing” choice between working and being deemed too sick to work are set to be redrawn, the Observer understands. It follows new evidence that thousands of people who want to work are worried about taking steps to return to the workplace out of fear that their benefits will be withdrawn.
Continue reading...By his destructive, vindictive, illegal and irrational actions, the US president sets himself beyond the pale
The 47th president of the United States is a danger to his country, Britain and the world. Who would have thought that sentence would ever be written? And yet, less than three weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, it is barely controversial to many people looking on from shell-shocked democracies beyond America’s shores. By his destructive, vindictive, illegal and irrational actions, Trump sets himself beyond the pale. In place of American exceptionalism, the world must now learn to manage, and if necessary confront, a gross American objectionablism.
Proof of these assertions is to be found in the White House’s daily outpourings. Seeking revenge against those who tried to punish his attempted 6 January 2021 electoral coup, Trump is weaponising the justice department by executive order. Political opponents, FBI agents, prosecutors, media outlets and journalists are in his sights. In contrast, about 1,500 convicted Capitol Hill rioters have been pardoned. He has even had the gall to withdraw the security clearance of his predecessor, Joe Biden, citing mental incapacity.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...Almost three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, what is the situation like on the ground in Kyiv? And is there a path to peace? Pippa Crerar travelled to the war-ravaged country with the foreign secretary to find out
Continue reading...‘Poll of polls’ gives prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata party a majority in the Delhi assembly, which would oust the reformist Aam Aadmi party (AAP)
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s party appears poised to win Delhi state elections, a victory that would end a 27-year drought, according to voter exit polls.
If the projections hold, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is set to end the reformist Aam Aadmi party’s (AAP) nearly decade-long rule in the national capital region and reclaim the Delhi assembly.
Continue reading...Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey and its militias have cut off the Kurdish city of Kobane from the rest of Syria.
The post Twelve Days in Kobane, Where Syrian Kurds Are Under Attack by Turkey appeared first on The Intercept.
Base rate cuts may ease borrowing costs but without stronger public spending and targeted tax relief, economic stagnation will persist
“It will be welcome news to many that we have been able to cut interest rates again,” said Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, last week. Plenty of mortgage holders would agree. Savers might not share Mr Bailey’s sentiments. However, he justified the cut, made despite inflationary risks, by arguing that falling worker bargaining power would see price pressures subside. Without rate cuts, the Bank warned, there was the risk of anaemic economic growth.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, backed the Bank, saying its action would “ease cost of living pressures”. That is true, but the benefits of lowering the burden of borrowing won’t outweigh the costs of Ms Reeves’ fiscal choices. She is counting on up to six base rate cuts by mid-2026 to buoy consumer sentiment. But relying solely on monetary policy is not effective economic management.
Continue reading...Protesters in Colorado express solidarity with the undocumented after dramatic raids throughout Denver
Thousands took to the streets on Wednesday and Saturday last week following a series of dramatic raids by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) throughout Denver as protesters expressed solidarity with the undocumented and rage at Donald Trump’s war on immigrants.
“We’re here to fight for our neighbors, to stand together and say no to the threats from the Trump administration,” Amanda Starks, a local artist at a rally on Saturday who’s been handing out literature to immigrants on their legal rights.
Continue reading...Russell Vought is now acting head of CFPB, created in wake of 2008 financial crash to supervise financial companies
Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s newly installed acting head of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced on Saturday he had cut off the agency’s budget and reportedly instructed staff to suspend all activities including the supervision of companies overseen by the agency.
Reuters and NBC News reported that Vought wrote a memo to employees saying he had taken on the role of acting head of the agency, an independent watchdog that was founded in 2011 as an arm of the Federal Reserve to promote fairness in the financial sector.
Continue reading...Trump tells the New York Post that he has a plan to end the war but declined to go into details
Donald Trump has said he held talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over a negotiated end of the three year Russia-Ukraine war, indicated that Russian negotiators want to meet with US counterparts.
Trump told the New York Post that he had spoken to Putin, remarking that “I better not say” just how many times.
Continue reading...In prison, Alaa taught me the power of this form of resistance. His mother, Laila Soueif, and I have used it to challenge Downing Street
Alaa Abd el-Fattah knows about hunger strikes. When I was locked up in a cell next to him in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison in early 2014, he and I would stride the exercise yard discussing Egyptian politics, history, political reform, and – yes – forms of protest and resistance, including starving yourself.
Hunger strikes, he explained, are the ultimate tool of the powerless. When all other forms of agency are stripped away, all that remains is to exercise control over the one thing left: your own body. That would become my first lesson in strikes.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Health experts and cancer charities say findings should serve as wake-up call to ministers
More than 1,100 people a year in the UK are developing the most prevalent form of lung cancer as a result of air pollution, the Guardian can reveal.
Exposure to toxic air was attributed to 515 men and 590 women in the UK in 2022 getting adenocarcinoma – now the most dominant of the four main subtypes of lung cancer – an analysis by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency found.
Continue reading...In power, Labour’s agenda has been stripped back to an empty obsession with growth and an imitation of Reform UK. The public isn’t falling for it
“Keir doesn’t engage in the political process. He got this far by not expressing any political opinions … He’s good with people, but he doesn’t debate big ideas.”
After 200 pages of a compelling new book about the Labour party’s return to power, the story falls into a run of these quotations. Get In, by the Westminster journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, makes it clear that after he became the Labour leader, Keir Starmer developed an incredible ruthlessness. Casting him as the kind of operator who ought to be renowned for the trail of human wreckage they leave in their wake, the book highlights the “many people whose careers have come to a brutal end at Starmer’s remorseless hand”. His readiness to behave like that, however, does not come from any ideological zeal, but rather its opposite: an absence of convictions and ideals that means he can shape-shift – and dispatch colleagues and allies – with a blithe ease.
Continue reading...Trump has teased two of the US’s biggest trading partners with levies but has moved the goalpost at least three times in two weeks
Donald Trump was in his element in the Oval Office this week. Surrounded by cameras, flanked by billionaire allies and confronted by a barrage of questions about whether he was really prepared to unleash a trade war on the US’s closest neighbors, the president talked tough.
By his telling, powerful economies were scrambling to bend to his will. Hours earlier, Mexico had announced a series of measures to shore up its border, prompting the White House to hastily postpone the imposition of 25% tariffs on all its goods; Canada would announce similar measures, and receive the same reprieve, later that day.
Continue reading...Corruption in Mexico is a problem, experts say, but any claim the two are linked shows a lack of comprehension
Mexico breathed a sigh of relief this week when Donald Trump delayed his threatened tariffs by a month, apparently swerving away from an economic crisis at the last moment.
But one aspect of the spat still rankles: the Trump administration’s vague but shocking accusation of an “intolerable alliance” between Mexico’s government and organised crime.
Continue reading...The Trump ally’s health plans have delighted his supporters – but others are horrified by the potential for harm
Americans suspicious of modern medicine and the status quo are watching Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination to secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) with a mixture of glee, astonishment and skepticism.
Last week, Kennedy used his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee to demonstrate how fully his wellness agenda, Make America Healthy Again, and Trumpism had fused – often to the delight of supporters.
Continue reading...Scrapping two-child benefit cap is among levers Rachel Reeves could pull – yet chancellor remains silent on ‘shameful’ levels of poverty
“Many of us had moments when we felt overwhelmed in sharing our stories. However, we pushed through, with the hope of changing policies that will improve the living standards of the many families living on low incomes who struggle in silence.”
Tayyaba Siddiqui was one of a group of parents and carers who sat around a table in Downing Street last month with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, and the employment minister Alison McGovern to discuss the challenges of raising children in poverty – and what needs to change.
Continue reading...In proclaiming their plans to end homelessness and transform early education, the royals are moving away from traditional duties. But are they at risk of stepping on political toes?
In William Wyler’s classic 1953 film Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn’s princess character breaks down in tears before briefly escaping the constraints of royal life.
“Please let me die in peace,” she cries, lamenting her stifling schedule of gladhanding, platitudes and plaque unveilings. The Oscar-winning romantic comedy was released in the summer of Elizabeth II’s coronation, as her sister, Margaret, struggled between her sense of duty and her forbidden love for a divorced RAF officer. It perhaps captured something of the reality of royalty’s gilded cage.
Continue reading...There’s no point trying to make plans around the whims of Trump. The PM instead needs to turn to Europe
To Elon Musk, I say this! To perform one Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration, while simultaneously offering full support to European neo-Nazis, might be considered a misfortune. To perform two Nazi salutes at Donald Trump’s inauguration, while simultaneously offering full support to European neo-Nazis, begins to look like carelessness.
I didn’t write that joke. I have cannibalised it from one by the gay Irish Victorian Oscar Wilde, a typical diversity hire who would have achieved nothing had his work not been promoted by the famously woke 19th-century British establishment. Luckily, Wilde was dead long before he had the opportunity to emigrate to the US and take an air traffic controller job from a more deserving straight white male, where his gayness would have caused planes to crash.
Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
Continue reading...Leading climate group warns of damage to green agenda if giant project goes ahead
Keir Starmer will do huge damage to the global fight against climate change if he gives in to political pressure and allows the development of a giant new oilfield in the North Sea, according to an analysis by the country’s leading environmental institute.
Chaired by Nicholas Stern, the Grantham Institute on Climate Change will fire a warning shot to ministers not to give the green light to the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, after suggestions that the Treasury is now in favour of allowing drilling to maximise economic growth.
Continue reading...Despite government pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers, headteachers are under renewed pressure to avoid going into deficit
Schools across England say they are being forced to make teachers and teaching assistants redundant to avoid going into deficit, in a serious blow to the new government’s plans to improve education.
Labour swept into government in July with a central promise to tackle the crisis in schools by recruiting 6,500 teachers. But unions have told the Observer that schools have already started making teachers redundant to balance their books, arguing that after more than a decade of funding cuts under the Tories there remain no less painful efficiencies to be made.
Continue reading...Writer and therapist Owen O’Kane believes we have become addicted to feeling anxious. Here, he explains how he learned to manage his fears
Key work events make me anxious. They give me chest pain, a churning stomach and disrupted sleep; my thoughts run through all the mistakes I could make and replay every bad experience in my past. Why put myself through this, I reason, which inevitably means that when, say, a high-stakes meeting is on the horizon, those feelings are worse, more intense, more prolonged. It’s a vicious cycle and one I admit early on when interviewing the anxiety expert Owen O’Kane.
O’Kane doesn’t seem surprised and why should he be? I bet everyone tells him about their anxiety. My dread, avoidance and catastrophising interior monologue are bog-standard these days: research by the Mental Health Foundation in 2023 found that 60% of UK adults reported experiencing “anxiety that interfered with their daily lives in the past two weeks”. We’re anxious about global geopolitics, the climate and the cost of living; our health, jobs, relationships and what strangers think of us. It takes children out of school and adults out of work. It’s an uneasy background thrum everywhere, something I have assumed to be a product of our ill-adapted, threat-seeking brains being constantly confronted with every terrible thing in the world through the shiny rectangles clutched in our sweaty hands (US psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt recently characterised a whole demographic of smartphone natives as “the anxious generation”).
Continue reading...National Institutes of Health said the $4bn loss will affect ‘indirect’ funding of buildings, equipment and staff
The Trump administration is cutting billions of dollars in medical research funding for universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions by reducing the amount they get in associated costs to support such research.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said that it was reducing the amount of “indirect” medical research funding going to institutions, which will cut spending by $4bn a year.
Continue reading...Shootouts are the least bad way the game has found to settle drawn matches, but they should be a last resort
So Uefa is considering doing away with extra time, at least in the knockout stage of the Champions League, another grand old tradition swept away as the arc of history bends towards the generation of revenue for the already wealthy. This is the way of the world and so it is the way of football, all that is great and glorious about the game desecrated to produce more content to be sold.
But first, a caveat, an increasingly necessary one as middle age hurtles by. Is this about age? Are our responses to extra time conditioned by our formative years? My first FA Cup final was 1982, a drab game enlivened by Glenn Hoddle putting Tottenham ahead after 110 minutes and Terry Fenwick heading an equaliser five minutes later (Spurs then won the replay). The Schumacher-Battiston World Cup semi-final in Seville came six weeks later: at 90 minutes it was 1-1, by the 98th minute it was 3-1 to France and by the end it was 3-3 and West Germany had won on penalties. The following year’s FA Cup final also went to extra time as Manchester United drew with Brighton; although there were no goals in the added 30 minutes, there was the drama of Gordon Smith’s late miss.
Continue reading...Leaders from across Africa call for immediate ceasefire at cross-party summit in Tanzania
A summit of regional leaders has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire within five days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, and the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, joined a summit in Tanzania on Saturday, where African leaders said they were deeply concerned by the crisis.
Continue reading...Palestinians from Gaza responded with outrage to Trump’s proposal to expel them from their homes.
The post “You Don’t Own Gaza, Donald Trump”: Palestinians Vow to Remain and Rebuild appeared first on The Intercept.
Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil
The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.
Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.
Continue reading...President halts plan to put tariffs on low-value packages but says he will impose duties on more countries next week
Donald Trump halted a key part of his tariff attack on China on Friday, as he threatened to impose new US duties on goods from many more countries next week.
Plans to ensure shipments from China to the US worth less than $800 still face tariffs – removing the longstanding duty-free status of low-cast packages – have been delayed to give more time to federal agencies to prepare for the change.
Continue reading...US had made inroads against Chinese influence in Panama, but Trump’s demands could help Beijing expand its regional power
When Panama’s then president Juan Carlos Varela was invited to the White House in June 2017, Donald Trump said the Panama canal was doing “pretty well” and described the bilateral relationship as “very strong”.
Just days earlier, Varela had broken ties with Taiwan to establish diplomatic relations with China, but there was no indication that this snub to a key US ally had clouded the meeting.
Continue reading...Army making rapid advances across the country and closing in on RSF-held Republican Palace in Khartoum
Sudan’s brutal civil war appears to be approaching a decisive phase as the country’s military reported sweeping gains in the symbolic battle for the capital.
As a ruinous conflict, often characterised by bloody stalemate, nears its two-year anniversary, the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) declared a string of rapid advances across the country against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Continue reading...Sudden suspension of aid funding a ‘perfect opportunity’ for Beijing to fill the gap and grow its own soft power
Donald Trump’s shutdown of USAid has already had disastrous effects on humanitarian aid and development programmes around the world, but it has also ceded ground to the US’s chief rival, China, analysts have said.
The result of the sudden 90-day suspension of USAid funding – which accounts for 40% of global foreign aid – has been chaos: employees locked out of offices, humanitarian shipments left to rot, and lifesaving assistance stopped. Around the world, development programmes previously assisted by the USAid are panicking, warning of disastrous risks of escalating famine, death and disease.
Continue reading...Billions of pounds from energy bill payers to run out in 2027 but could be extended as soon as Monday
Green campaigners fear ministers are poised to award billions of pounds in fresh subsidies to Drax power station, despite strong concerns that burning trees to produce electricity is bad for the environment.
Drax burns wood to generate about 8% of the UK’s “green” power, and 4% of overall electricity. This is classed as “low-carbon” because the harvested trees are replaced by others that take up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.
Continue reading...Elon Musk-led razing of US foreign aid agency led strong-arm rulers in Hungary, Belarus and elsewhere to celebrate
Moscow has welcomed the impending dissolution of USAid, joining a chorus of strongman leaders declaring victory over an organisation they have long portrayed as a vehicle of American political interference.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday described USAid as “anything but an aid, development and assistance agency” and instead branded it a “mechanism for changing regimes, political order [and] state structure”.
Continue reading...An FBI official urged the American Academy of Forensic Sciences to cancel a conference presentation titled “Taking on the FBI.”
The post Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. appeared first on The Intercept.
Voters who have become victims of crime wave linked to cocaine trade will determine outcome of presidential election
Ecuadorians are voting in a presidential election that has shaped up to be a repeat of the 2023 race, when they chose a young, conservative millionaire over the former leftist president’s protege.
Luisa González and the incumbent, Daniel Noboa, are the clear frontrunners in the pool of 16 candidates. All have promised to reduce the widespread crime that pushed the country into an unnerving new normal four years ago.
Continue reading...Fears of partition that arose during Trump’s first administration have re-emerged as PM Albin Kurti navigates tense relations with both US and EU
Kosovo goes to the polls on Sunday in an election that could mark a crossroads in the young country’s history and even determine its future territorial integrity in an increasingly hostile world.
With the election outcome very much in the balance, the prime minister, Albin Kurti, held a mass rally in Pristina on Friday evening, under the slogan “From corner to corner”. It celebrated the fact that Kurti has succeeded where his predecessors had failed, in tightening the control of the Albanian-majority government over a rebellious Serb area on its northern border.
Continue reading...One woman killed and another taken to hospital with injuries to hands and face, paramedics say
A woman has died after being hit by debris from a tree which exploded when it was struck by lightning in a town south-west of Sydney on Saturday afternoon.
Paramedics and a medical team rushed to the address in Cawdor about 5.30pm Saturday. New South Wales Ambulance said one woman had been fatally injured by shrapnel from the tree.
Continue reading...David Crisafulli says infrastructure to be replaced after floods needs ‘greater ability’ to withstand natural disasters
Queensland’s premier has vowed to rebuild “more resilient” infrastructure after devastating floods in the state’s north, as Queenslanders were warned not to panic-buy while they are cut off.
David Crisafulli said his government was here “for the long haul” of recovery, in an update on the state’s flooding on Sunday.
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Continue reading...Would be chancellor Friederich Merz breaks post-war convention of no political deals with far right
On a foggy, frigid morning in Saxony, far-right MP René Bochmann could not believe his party’s luck in the final days of the German election campaign, with all eyes on Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Since conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz signalled a taboo-breaking openness to AfD support for his hardline course on border policy, voters visiting Bochmann’s information stands in small towns such as Schkeuditz have had one issue at the front of their minds: immigration.
Continue reading...Baku reportedly preparing to appeal to ‘an international court’ unless Moscow takes responsibility for crash
Azerbaijan is escalating its rare standoff with the Kremlin as the fallout from the downing of an Azerbaijani passenger jet continues, highlighting Russia’s diminishing influence across the former Soviet Union.
Thirty-eight people were killed when an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed on 25 December near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after rerouting across the Caspian Sea from southern Russia.
Continue reading...Interesting analysis:
We analyzed every instance of AI use in elections collected by the WIRED AI Elections Project (source for our analysis), which tracked known uses of AI for creating political content during elections taking place in 2024 worldwide. In each case, we identified what AI was used for and estimated the cost of creating similar content without AI.
We find that (1) half of AI use isn’t deceptive, (2) deceptive content produced using AI is nevertheless cheap to replicate without AI, and (3) focusing on the demand for misinformation rather than the supply is a much more effective way to diagnose problems and identify interventions...
With the Democratic Party reeling from its losses, the DNC is voting on a new chair. Will it choose to reform its top-down model?
The post The Democratic National Committee Is Undemocratic. That’s by Design. appeared first on The Intercept.
Facing more than a dozen questions about her views on the NSA leaker, Gabbard held her ground at her DNI confirmation hearing.
The post Tulsi Gabbard Refused to Back Down on Edward Snowden. It Could Tank Her Nomination. appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump told reporters that he wants to expel “all” Palestinians from Gaza — not just during a period of reconstruction, but permanently.
The post Trump: “The U.S. Will Take Over the Gaza Strip” appeared first on The Intercept.
Gabbard is a rare Washington politician who defended the NSA whistleblower. But she has also changed positions and even political parties.
The post Tulsi Gabbard Once Called for an Edward Snowden Pardon. Will She Flip-Flop Now? appeared first on The Intercept.
An old north London boozer has found new life as an Indian restaurant, and redefined ‘gastropub’ along the way
The Great Indian, 139 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NU. Small plates
£7.50-£11.50, large dishes £9.50-£23.50, desserts £6.50, wines from £23, Cobra £6.30
At the top of the menu at the Great Indian, a new and thoroughly delightful food pub in London’s Archway, there’s a set of slogans of a sort guaranteed to make my teeth itchy. It says things like “comfy”, “social” and “vibe dining”. I looked up the last one. Apparently, it means the place is, y’know, nice. We can all get behind nice. It was, however, another phrase that really stood out. It said “Indian influenced”. The Great Indian is owned by Aman Dhir who already has a takeaway of the same name in Hackney where they serve chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, aloo gobi and the rest. The executive chef here is Surjan Singh, an experienced restaurant consultant from India known there as Chef Jolly and familiar as a judge on MasterChef India. He has been spending time in Archway, alongside his Indian cooks and the Indian front of house team. The charming head waiter who served us had not long arrived in the UK from India.
Continue reading...Emperor Kanye and his ‘chief architect’ Bianca Censori at the Grammys – guess which one wasn’t wearing any clothes? Roman Kemp opens up about his journey from viral radio presenter to mental health advocate. ‘I feel more secure than when I was earning’: meet the woman who lives without money. And ‘I’ve totally run out of patience with my chaotic husband’: Philippa Perry advises one reader
Continue reading...Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lucy Ward and Jonathan Liew as Liverpool make light work of the League Cup semi-final second leg against Tottenham
Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lucy Ward and Jonathan Liew as Liverpool make light work of the League Cup semi-final second leg against Tottenham Hotspur.
Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.
Continue reading...Tokyo remains, in the world’s imagination, a place of sophistication and wealth. But with economic revival forever distant, ‘tourism pollution’ seems the only viable plan. By Dylan Levi King. Read by Kenichiro Thomson
Continue reading...With the rise of hair transplants, many men are opting out of baldness. But why is it so hard to accept this natural part of ageing? Stuart Heritage and Rudi Zygadlo explain
Once, Stuart Heritage’s head was covered in thick, golden, shiny hair. But then, when he was in his early 20s, he noticed a small patch of scalp showing through. At first he tried a hair regrowth treatment, but it didn’t make much difference. As this patch grew, he began brushing his hair over the bald area. Before he knew it, he says, he was horrified to find he was sporting a combover. “Going bald is horrible,” he says ruefully.
Once you have accepted this loss, however, and that it means you are ageing, actually “being bald is fine”. And not just fine – commonplace. He tells Helen Pidd that about 55% of Caucasian men aged over 75 will have experienced some hair loss. Which is why bald heads used to be ubiquitous in popular culture. There were bald footballers, bald movie stars and bald prime ministers. Yet today they seem to be fading from view.
Continue reading...Parabon NanoLabs sells police composite images of suspects built on DNA. Critics say the product is snake-oil science fiction that can exacerbate problems in the criminal legal system.
The post A Forensics Company Tells Cops It Can Use DNA to Predict a Suspect’s Face. Scientists Worry the Tool Will Deepen Racial Bias. appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump’s recent executive orders show unwavering support of Israel and the further dehumanization of Palestinians.
The post Trump’s Nightmare Plan for Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
The American tradition of airstrikes against Somalia is continuing into Trump’s second term.
The post Trump the “Peacemaker” Ramps Up America’s Forever War in Somalia appeared first on The Intercept.
Following Trump’s executive order, a trans woman held at a federal prison was told she would be moved to a men’s prison.
The post Trans Women in Federal Custody Face the Terror of Being Transferred to Men’s Prisons appeared first on The Intercept.
As the second Trump presidency begins, John Harris and John Domokos go to a Staffordshire town whose economy went from coal to Amazon warehousing to find out if 21st century populism is cutting through. At a byelection down the road, meanwhile, there's a big question facing voters: Labour or Reform UK?
Continue reading...The founder of Mothers Against College Antisemitism says her 62,000-member Facebook group is influencing NYU policy.
The post A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported appeared first on The Intercept.
Aspiring emigrants seek help at ‘Visa Hanuman’ and ‘Visa God’ temples after US president demanded tougher vetting
Indian professionals have been flocking to Hindu temples believed to grant prayers for a US visa after Donald Trump signed several executive orders aimed at making immigration to the US more difficult.
The rush for divine help has been in evidence at Chamatkari Hanuman temple – popularly called “Visa Hanuman” – in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat.
Continue reading...We’d like to hear from people or anyone in their family who has been ‘evicted’ from a care home providing specialist care for vulnerable adults due to funding cuts
Residential homes providing specialist care to thousands of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities and severe autism have warned they are having to “evict” residents to avoid insolvency because of tax and wage rises and local authority funding cuts.
The annual Sector Pulse Check survey of more than 200 social care providers, both private and charitable, says many are on the brink as they struggle to remain viable in the face of cash-strapped councils’ refusal or inability to meet the rising cost of services.
Continue reading...
In the rapidly advancing landscape of AI technology and innovation, LimeWire emerges as a unique platform in the realm of generative AI tools. This platform not only stands out from the multitude of existing AI tools but also brings a fresh approach to content generation. LimeWire not only empowers users to create AI content but also provides creators with creative ways to share and monetize their creations.
As we explore LimeWire, our aim is to uncover its features, benefits for creators, and the exciting possibilities it offers for AI content generation. This platform presents an opportunity for users to harness the power of AI in image creation, all while enjoying the advantages of a free and accessible service.
Let's unravel the distinctive features that set LimeWire apart in the dynamic landscape of AI-powered tools, understanding how creators can leverage its capabilities to craft unique and engaging AI-generated images.
This revamped LimeWire invites users to register and unleash their creativity by crafting original AI content, which can then be shared and showcased on the LimeWire Studio. Notably, even acclaimed artists and musicians, such as Deadmau5, Soulja Boy, and Sean Kingston, have embraced this platform to publish their content in the form of NFT music, videos, and images.
Beyond providing a space for content creation and sharing, LimeWire introduces monetization models to empower users to earn revenue from their creations. This includes avenues such as earning ad revenue and participating in the burgeoning market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). As we delve further, we'll explore these monetization strategies in more detail to provide a comprehensive understanding of LimeWire's innovative approach to content creation and distribution.
LimeWire Studio welcomes content creators into its fold, providing a space to craft personalized AI-focused content for sharing with fans and followers. Within this creative hub, every piece of content generated becomes not just a creation but a unique asset—ownable and tradable. Fans have the opportunity to subscribe to creators' pages, immersing themselves in the creative journey and gaining ownership of digital collectibles that hold tradeable value within the LimeWire community. Notably, creators earn a 2.5% royalty each time their content is traded, adding a rewarding element to the creative process.
The platform's flexibility is evident in its content publication options. Creators can choose to share their work freely with the public or opt for a premium subscription model, granting exclusive access to specialized content for subscribers.
As of the present moment, LimeWire focuses on AI Image Generation, offering a spectrum of creative possibilities to its user base. The platform, however, has ambitious plans on the horizon, aiming to broaden its offerings by introducing AI music and video generation tools in the near future. This strategic expansion promises creators even more avenues for expression and engagement with their audience, positioning LimeWire Studio as a dynamic and evolving platform within the realm of AI-powered content creation.
The LimeWire AI image generation tool presents a versatile platform for both the creation and editing of images. Supporting advanced models such as Stable Diffusion 2.1, Stable Diffusion XL, and DALL-E 2, LimeWire offers a sophisticated toolkit for users to delve into the realm of generative AI art.
Much like other tools in the generative AI landscape, LimeWire provides a range of options catering to various levels of complexity in image creation. Users can initiate the creative process with prompts as simple as a few words or opt for more intricate instructions, tailoring the output to their artistic vision.
What sets LimeWire apart is its seamless integration of different AI models and design styles. Users have the flexibility to effortlessly switch between various AI models, exploring diverse design styles such as cinematic, digital art, pixel art, anime, analog film, and more. Each style imparts a distinctive visual identity to the generated AI art, enabling users to explore a broad spectrum of creative possibilities.
The platform also offers additional features, including samplers, allowing users to fine-tune the quality and detail levels of their creations. Customization options and prompt guidance further enhance the user experience, providing a user-friendly interface for both novice and experienced creators.
Excitingly, LimeWire is actively developing its proprietary AI model, signaling ongoing innovation and enhancements to its image generation capabilities. This upcoming addition holds the promise of further expanding the creative horizons for LimeWire users, making it an evolving and dynamic platform within the landscape of AI-driven art and image creation.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
Upon completing your creative endeavor on LimeWire, the platform allows you the option to publish your content. An intriguing feature follows this step: LimeWire automates the process of minting your creation as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), utilizing either the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. This transformative step imbues your artwork with a unique digital signature, securing its authenticity and ownership in the decentralized realm.
Creators on LimeWire hold the power to decide the accessibility of their NFT creations. By opting for a public release, the content becomes discoverable by anyone, fostering a space for engagement and interaction. Furthermore, this choice opens the avenue for enthusiasts to trade the NFTs, adding a layer of community involvement to the artistic journey.
Alternatively, LimeWire acknowledges the importance of exclusivity. Creators can choose to share their posts exclusively with their premium subscribers. In doing so, the content remains a special offering solely for dedicated fans, creating an intimate and personalized experience within the LimeWire community. This flexibility in sharing options emphasizes LimeWire's commitment to empowering creators with choices in how they connect with their audience and distribute their digital creations.
After creating your content, you can choose to publish the content. It will automatically mint your creation as an NFT on the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. You can also choose whether to make it public or subscriber-only.
If you make it public, anyone can discover your content and even trade the NFTs. If you choose to share the post only with your premium subscribers, it will be exclusive only to your fans.
Additionally, you can earn ad revenue from your content creations as well.
When you publish content on LimeWire, you will receive 70% of all ad revenue from other users who view your images, music, and videos on the platform.
This revenue model will be much more beneficial to designers. You can experiment with the AI image and content generation tools and share your creations while earning a small income on the side.
The revenue you earn from your creations will come in the form of LMWR tokens, LimeWire’s own cryptocurrency.
Your earnings will be paid every month in LMWR, which you can then trade on many popular crypto exchange platforms like Kraken, ByBit, and UniSwap.
You can also use your LMWR tokens to pay for prompts when using LimeWire generative AI tools.
You can sign up to LimeWire to use its AI tools for free. You will receive 10 credits to use and generate up to 20 AI images per day. You will also receive 50% of the ad revenue share. However, you will get more benefits with premium plans.
For $9.99 per month, you will get 1,000 credits per month, up to 2 ,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 50% ad revenue share
For $29 per month, you will get 3750 credits per month, up to 7500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 60% ad revenue share
For $49 per month, you will get 5,000 credits per month, up to 10,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
For $99 per month, you will get 11,250 credits per month, up to 2 2,500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
With all premium plans, you will receive a Pro profile badge, full creation history, faster image generation, and no ads.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
In conclusion, LimeWire emerges as a democratizing force in the creative landscape, providing an inclusive platform where anyone can unleash their artistic potential and effortlessly share their work. With the integration of AI, LimeWire eliminates traditional barriers, empowering designers, musicians, and artists to publish their creations and earn revenue with just a few clicks.
The ongoing commitment of LimeWire to innovation is evident in its plans to enhance generative AI tools with new features and models. The upcoming expansion to include music and video generation tools holds the promise of unlocking even more possibilities for creators. It sparks anticipation about the diverse and innovative ways in which artists will leverage these tools to produce and publish their own unique creations.
For those eager to explore, LimeWire's AI tools are readily accessible for free, providing an opportunity to experiment and delve into the world of generative art. As LimeWire continues to evolve, creators are encouraged to stay tuned for the launch of its forthcoming AI music and video generation tools, promising a future brimming with creative potential and endless artistic exploration
UNRWA delivered the majority of food aid during the war and sheltered more than 1 million people. What happens when it’s banned?
The post Israel Bans UNRWA as Trump Throttles Foreign Aid appeared first on The Intercept.
Are you looking for a new graphic design tool? Would you like to read a detailed review of Canva? As it's one of the tools I love using. I am also writing my first ebook using canva and publish it soon on my site you can download it is free. Let's start the review.
Canva has a web version and also a mobile app
Canva is a free graphic design web application that allows you to create invitations, business cards, flyers, lesson plans, banners, and more using professionally designed templates. You can upload your own photos from your computer or from Google Drive, and add them to Canva's templates using a simple drag-and-drop interface. It's like having a basic version of Photoshop that doesn't require Graphic designing knowledge to use. It’s best for nongraphic designers.
Canva is a great tool for small business owners, online entrepreneurs, and marketers who don’t have the time and want to edit quickly.
To create sophisticated graphics, a tool such as Photoshop can is ideal. To use it, you’ll need to learn its hundreds of features, get familiar with the software, and it’s best to have a good background in design, too.
Also running the latest version of Photoshop you need a high-end computer.
So here Canva takes place, with Canva you can do all that with drag-and-drop feature. It’s also easier to use and free. Also an even-more-affordable paid version is available for $12.95 per month.
The product is available in three plans: Free, Pro ($12.99/month per user or $119.99/year for up to 5 people), and Enterprise ($30 per user per month, minimum 25 people).
To get started on Canva, you will need to create an account by providing your email address, Google, Facebook or Apple credentials. You will then choose your account type between student, teacher, small business, large company, non-profit, or personal. Based on your choice of account type, templates will be recommended to you.
You can sign up for a free trial of Canva Pro, or you can start with the free version to get a sense of whether it’s the right graphic design tool for your needs.
When you sign up for an account, Canva will suggest different post types to choose from. Based on the type of account you set up you'll be able to see templates categorized by the following categories: social media posts, documents, presentations, marketing, events, ads, launch your business, build your online brand, etc.
Start by choosing a template for your post or searching for something more specific. Search by social network name to see a list of post types on each network.
Next, you can choose a template. Choose from hundreds of templates that are ready to go, with customizable photos, text, and other elements.
You can start your design by choosing from a variety of ready-made templates, searching for a template matching your needs, or working with a blank template.
Inside the Canva designer, the Elements tab gives you access to lines and shapes, graphics, photos, videos, audio, charts, photo frames, and photo grids.The search box on the Elements tab lets you search everything on Canva.
To begin with, Canva has a large library of elements to choose from. To find them, be specific in your search query. You may also want to search in the following tabs to see various elements separately:
The Photos tab lets you search for and choose from millions of professional stock photos for your templates.
You can replace the photos in our templates to create a new look. This can also make the template more suited to your industry.
You can find photos on other stock photography sites like pexel, pixabay and many more or simply upload your own photos.
When you choose an image, Canva’s photo editing features let you adjust the photo’s settings (brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.), crop, or animate it.
When you subscribe to Canva Pro, you get access to a number of premium features, including the Background Remover. This feature allows you to remove the background from any stock photo in library or any image you upload.
The Text tab lets you add headings, normal text, and graphical text to your design.
When you click on text, you'll see options to adjust the font, font size, color, format, spacing, and text effects (like shadows).
Canva Pro subscribers can choose from a large library of fonts on the Brand Kit or the Styles tab. Enterprise-level controls ensure that visual content remains on-brand, no matter how many people are working on it.
Create an animated image or video by adding audio to capture user’s attention in social news feeds.
If you want to use audio from another stock site or your own audio tracks, you can upload them in the Uploads tab or from the more option.
Want to create your own videos? Choose from thousands of stock video clips. You’ll find videos that range upto 2 minutes
You can upload your own videos as well as videos from other stock sites in the Uploads tab.
Once you have chosen a video, you can use the editing features in Canva to trim the video, flip it, and adjust its transparency.
On the Background tab, you’ll find free stock photos to serve as backgrounds on your designs. Change out the background on a template to give it a more personal touch.
The Styles tab lets you quickly change the look and feel of your template with just a click. And if you have a Canva Pro subscription, you can upload your brand’s custom colors and fonts to ensure designs stay on brand.
If you have a Canva Pro subscription, you’ll have a Logos tab. Here, you can upload variations of your brand logo to use throughout your designs.
With Canva, you can also create your own logos. Note that you cannot trademark a logo with stock content in it.
With Canva, free users can download and share designs to multiple platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack and Tumblr.
Canva Pro subscribers can create multiple post formats from one design. For example, you can start by designing an Instagram post, and Canva's Magic Resizer can resize it for other networks, Stories, Reels, and other formats.
Canva Pro subscribers can also use Canva’s Content Planner to post content on eight different accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slack, and Tumblr.
Canva Pro allows you to work with your team on visual content. Designs can be created inside Canva, and then sent to your team members for approval. Everyone can make comments, edits, revisions, and keep track via the version history.
When it comes to printing your designs, Canva has you covered. With an extensive selection of printing options, they can turn your designs into anything from banners and wall art to mugs and t-shirts.
Canva Print is perfect for any business seeking to make a lasting impression. Create inspiring designs people will want to wear, keep, and share. Hand out custom business cards that leave a lasting impression on customers' minds.
The Canva app is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. The Canva app has earned a 4.9 out of five star rating from over 946.3K Apple users and a 4.5 out of five star rating from over 6,996,708 Google users.
In addition to mobile apps, you can use Canva’s integration with other Internet services to add images and text from sources like Google Maps, Emojis, photos from Google Drive and Dropbox, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Bitmojis, and other popular visual content elements.
In general, Canva is an excellent tool for those who need simple images for projects. If you are a graphic designer with experience, you will find Canva’s platform lacking in customization and advanced features – particularly vectors. But if you have little design experience, you will find Canva easier to use than advanced graphic design tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator for most projects. If you have any queries let me know in the comments section.
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Continue reading...Elementary schoolers in the San Francisco Bay Area are embarking on tasting journeys of fruits and vegetables
On a crisp winter morning in San Francisco, a team of six-year-olds declare that their favorite fruits and vegetables are peaches and broccoli – but then again, they have yet to venture out into the farmers’ market where produce they have never tried before awaits them. With handfuls of tokens, they will purchase persimmons, pomegranates, Asian pears, purple potatoes, kale and more from the farmers who grew them – then embark on a tasting journey, featuring new and familiar spices.
The first-graders are visiting the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market – a Bay Area institution that draws more than 100 farmers to San Francisco’s waterfront three days a week – with 22 of their classmates from Lincoln elementary. That morning, the children had ridden the subway from their school in Oakland’s Chinatown into the city with parent chaperones and their teacher, Kitty Chen.
Continue reading...Local authorities urged to intervene earlier and charity preparing to launch dedicated support group
“I don’t remember ever having had a home-cooked meal,” says Richard, crunching over the food wrappers and crushed cardboard boxes that cover his mother’s kitchen floor.
He glances at the broken cooker, cracked microwave and windows blocked by piles of unwashed mugs, some inexplicably tightly wrapped in cellophane. There are no clear surfaces. Blackened, disintegrating cabinets sag under yet more wreckage. Not an inch of floor can be seen.
Continue reading...African nation relies on US and other foreign donors to help fund healthcare projects and schools
The freezing of funds from USAid, the world’s biggest development agency, has sent shock waves through the southern African country of Malawi, one of the world’s most aid-dependent states.
Elon Musk, the US president Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser, last week said he was working to shut down USAid, which disbursed $43.8bn (£35.2bn) globally in 2023. Chaos is reigning in the development sector. Supplies of lifesaving medication and children’s food in many countries have screeched to a halt.
Continue reading...From a 13th-century Yemen brew to the latest full-on blast of beans, the quest for the perfect caffeine hit continues
When a man called Jacob opened what’s thought to be the first British coffee house in Oxford in 1650, he cannot possibly have known what he was starting. Then, as now, coffee was fashionable. In France, which had beaten Britain in the race to bring the drink to western Europe, people were dazzled by the Turkish ambassador’s parties, at which he once served Isaac D’Israeli, father of Benjamin, “the choicest Mocha coffee in tiny cups of egg-shell porcelain”. Perhaps Jacob hoped this glamour would rub off on the Angel Coaching Inn (admission: one penny).
But coffee was then still a quite basic thing: fragrant, maybe, but incredibly bitter. It was a matter of one size fits all (and absolutely no caramel syrup). The only faux pas a person could commit in its vicinity was to grimace too vigorously on tasting it, a gaucherie grand ladies were able quickly to conceal with the careful deployment of their fans.
Continue reading...An old north London boozer has found new life as an Indian restaurant, and redefined ‘gastropub’ along the way
The Great Indian, 139 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NU. Small plates
£7.50-£11.50, large dishes £9.50-£23.50, desserts £6.50, wines from £23, Cobra £6.30
At the top of the menu at the Great Indian, a new and thoroughly delightful food pub in London’s Archway, there’s a set of slogans of a sort guaranteed to make my teeth itchy. It says things like “comfy”, “social” and “vibe dining”. I looked up the last one. Apparently, it means the place is, y’know, nice. We can all get behind nice. It was, however, another phrase that really stood out. It said “Indian influenced”. The Great Indian is owned by Aman Dhir who already has a takeaway of the same name in Hackney where they serve chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, aloo gobi and the rest. The executive chef here is Surjan Singh, an experienced restaurant consultant from India known there as Chef Jolly and familiar as a judge on MasterChef India. He has been spending time in Archway, alongside his Indian cooks and the Indian front of house team. The charming head waiter who served us had not long arrived in the UK from India.
Continue reading...Palestinians from Gaza responded with outrage to Trump’s proposal to expel them from their homes.
The post “You Don’t Own Gaza, Donald Trump”: Palestinians Vow to Remain and Rebuild appeared first on The Intercept.
Our resident perfectionist applies her forensic insight to the high street’s baked bean offerings
• The food filter: which supermarket has the best extra-virgin olive oil?
Baked beans are one of those homely foods that are so familiar that most of us don’t give them even a second thought on the shelf – we reach for our usual brand, tick it off the list and reserve our mental bandwidth for more exciting foodstuffs. After all, just how different can a tin of beans be? To my surprise, I discovered very striking disparities between the ones I tested, so if you’re someone who routinely decants excess juice or reduces the sauce to achieve that authentic school dinner effect, you might be better off simply switching allegiance. Similarly, the sugar content varied between 9% of your recommended daily allowance to 13%, so if that’s a concern, look out for reduced- or no-sugar brands instead.
There’s a significant price difference between supermarket own labels and the leading brands, too. If you’re after a gourmet experience, I’d recommend the Bold Bean Co’s rich tomato baked beans (£3.50), because they remind me of those homemade beans you sometimes get with a fry-up at fancy cafes: intensely savoury and packed full of herbs. They don’t qualify here, because they are to ordinary baked beans what rye sourdough is to white sliced, but they’re bloody lovely all the same. That said, you can’t go wrong with any of our best buys served on buttered toast with a light dusting of grated cheddar. Small pleasures don’t come much cheaper.
Continue reading...In South Africa, a 36-year-old living with HIV since childhood fears she will lose access to treatment due to Trump’s policy.
The post Global HIV Care Thrown Into Chaos by Trump: “I Will Be Sick and Maybe Die” appeared first on The Intercept.
After plunging USAID and its network of contractors into chaos, communications breakdowns and bureaucratic snafus leave projects stalled.
The post Marco Rubio’s USAID “Humanitarian Waiver” Isn’t Helping Restart Lifesaving Programs appeared first on The Intercept.
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...UNRWA delivered the majority of food aid during the war and sheltered more than 1 million people. What happens when it’s banned?
The post Israel Bans UNRWA as Trump Throttles Foreign Aid appeared first on The Intercept.
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
Continue reading... |
Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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