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‘Natty or not?’: how steroids got big
Thu, 06 Jun 2024 04:00:42 GMT
Once upon a time, it was only hardcore bodybuilders who pumped themselves up with testosterone. Today it is no longer niche. But how dangerous is it?
Dave is an ordinary office worker in the north of England. He is about average height for a British man – 5ft 10in – and to catch a glimpse of him between 9am and 5pm, the only hint that his leisure time is spent shattering the natural limits of human growth might be his slightly ill-fitting XXL shirt, or the fact that he sometimes wears women’s trousers, to better accommodate the steep slope between his trim waist and bulging thighs.
But in the videos and photos Dave posts online, to approving comments from other weightlifters (“huge progress ”), he is a total beast. His chest looks herculean, and the skin on his legs is pulled so tight that it has ceased to conceal the striated landscape of muscles underneath. Looking at him brings to mind the peeled-back diagrams of an undergraduate anatomy textbook. You can imagine attentive medical students poring over him, admiring the clarity – there the brachioradialis, there the palmaris longus. He looks impossibly strong, and he is. His record deadlift is 250kg, about the weight of three average men.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
With 50 days to go before the Paris Olympics start, the Ukrainian high jumper on preparation amid the turmoil of Russia’s invasion
Yuliya Levchenko arrives full of apologies, although they are not at all necessary. She has crossed Kyiv after watching her younger sister Polina, a fellow high jumper, compete at a local event and the reason for her half-hour delay was wearyingly familiar. An air raid warning disrupted proceedings midway through and, as usual, the athletes had to shelter until the skies were deemed sufficiently safe. She beams when recounting that Polina, who has accompanied her to this quiet cafe on the city’s left bank, still recorded a personal best.
It is an everyday snapshot of the challenges Ukraine’s athletes must surmount, and so often do with astonishing results, in trying to make a career. Gorgeous late-spring days such as this one contain an undercurrent of horror. “You know, it looks like we’ve adapted to this situation,” Levchenko says. “It’s horrible, because it’s nonsense really, but now we adapt to it. Here in Kyiv it’s safer now than in Dnipro or Kharkiv. It’s safety, but it’s not safety.”
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
A lively chat saw different views on gas-guzzling cars and whether we are able to halt the climate emergency, but could they at least agree on air pollution?
Bob, 76, Portishead
Occupation Retired, former IT director
Continue reading...Richard Tice made some eye-opening statements on the climate, and the manifesto is packed with even more falsehoods
Despite 40C record heat in 2022 and the wettest 18 months on record this winter, this general election seems set to test the UK’s political consensus on climate change like never before.
Reform UK, the rightwing party that describes itself as offering “commonsense” policies on immigration and energy, has eschewed the consensus in favour of outright climate scepticism. So what exactly does the party have to say about global heating and the UK’s net zero target?
Continue reading...Reconstructing buildings destroyed in first four months of Israeli assault will generate nearly 60m tonnes of CO2 equivalent – study
The carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza will be greater than the annual greenhouse gas emissions generated individually by 135 countries, exacerbating the global climate emergency on top of the unprecedented death toll, new research reveals.
Reconstructing the estimated 200,000 apartment buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, bakeries, water and sewage plants damaged and destroyed by Israel in the first four months of the war on Gaza will generate as much as 60m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), according to new analysis by researchers in the UK and US. This is on a par with the total 2022 emissions generated by countries such as Portugal and Sweden – and more than twice the annual emissions of Afghanistan.
The planet-warming emissions generated by aerial and ground attacks during the first 120 days of the war on Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of 26 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations including Vanuatu and Greenland, according to the research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed.
More than 99% of the estimated 652,552 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2 equivalent/CO2e) estimated to have been generated in the first four months after the Hamas attack on 7 October are linked to Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza.
Almost 30% of the total CO2e emissions were generated by the 244 American cargo planes known to have flown bombs, munitions and other military supplies to Israel in the first 120 days.
According to the calculation, which is almost certainly a significant underestimate due to missing military emissions data, the carbon cost of the first 120 days of Israel’s assault on Gaza was equivalent to the combined annual energy use of 77,200 American households.
Hamas rockets fired into Israel between October 2023 and February 2024 generated an estimated 1,140 tCO2e. Another 2,700 tCO2e were attributed to the fuel stored by the group prior to 7 October. Combined, the Hamas carbon footprint over the first 120 days was equivalent to the annual energy use of 454 American homes.
Continue reading...Low-carbon electricity investment driven by solar projects but oil and gas spending still too high to meet climate goals
Global investment in low-carbon electricity will rise to 10 times as much as fossil fuel power this year due to an increase in spending on solar projects, according to the International Energy Agency.
The global energy watchdog has predicted that investment in clean energy including renewables and nuclear power as well as electric vehicles, power grids, energy storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps will reach $2tn this year.
Continue reading...Party has put state-owned power company at centre of its plans for decarbonisation, security and energy bills
Labour is to put a government-owned power company at the heart of the UK’s energy system for the first time since the privatisation of the industry in 1990, in one of Keir Starmer’s boldest pledges so far.
Great British Energy, with £8bn of investment, forms the centrepiece of Labour’s promise to decarbonise the electricity supply by 2030. This would stop well short of any form of renationalisation: GB Energy would be a state-owned investment vehicle and company working alongside and often in partnership with the existing private sector suppliers. The plan is for it to be largely invisible to households, not offering electricity directly to consumers but financing and helping to build low-carbon infrastructure, from windfarms to – potentially – nuclear reactors.
Continue reading...Forests across Europe, the US and Canada have been hard hit by drought, fires and bark beetles. Now scientists fear the northern hemisphere’s greatest carbon sink is nearing a tipping point
The giant sequoia is so enormous that it was once believed to be indestructible. High in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains, the oldest trees – known as monarchs – have stood for more than 2,000 years.
Today, however, in Sequoia national park, huge trunks lie sprawled on the forest floor, like blue whale carcasses stranded on a beach. Many of these trees were felled by a combination of drought and fire. But among the factors responsible for the rising toll is a tiny new suspect: the bark beetle.
Continue reading...Scientists say calamities on same scale as disaster that has killed 169 will become more common if emissions not cut
The unusually intense, prolonged and extensive flooding that has devastated southern Brazil was made at least twice as likely by human burning of fossil fuels and trees, a study has shown.
The record disaster has led to 169 deaths, ruined homes and wrecked harvests, and was worsened by deforestation, investment cuts and human incompetence.
Continue reading...Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
All small business owners need a drive to succeed, but can it go too far? Recent research suggests that hustle culture can have its toxic side – with the potential to hit the bottom line for entrepreneurs and the UK economy
Starting a business can take drive and determination, so it’s not surprising that the so-called “hustle” has become a buzzword among some entrepreneurs. The notion is characterised by hard work and a desire to succeed, with entrepreneurs often required to hustle for business.
But while these are generally constructive traits, there can be a downside to hustle culture if they are taken too far. For example, when an “always on” work mentality leads to chronic overworking, and burning ambition turns into burnout. Those running a small- to medium-size enterprise (SME) – many of whom are pursuing their own passion – can find themselves susceptible to what Barclaycard Payments describes as “toxic hustle culture”.
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.
Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
All over the country, architecture firms make the case for bigger jails — then get hired to design them.
The post The Little-Known Reason Counties Keep Building Bigger Jails: Architecture Firms appeared first on The Intercept.
It is revealing how casually the prime minister has abandoned any attempt at integrity under the pressure of an election
The function of televised election debates is an airing of rival policies by competing candidates, allowing an audience to judge which has more merit. In practice it has become a game in which the object is to project scripted attacks into the public arena – an opportunity to frame the terms of combat for the rest of the campaign. That is not debating in the traditional sense, but it is a legitimate use of a broadcast platform. The whole exercise is corrupted, however, if the power of message amplification is used to spread falsehood.
This is what Rishi Sunak did in the first televised debate of the election campaign when he claimed that “independent Treasury officials” had costed Labour plans and calculated an increased household tax burden of £2,000. That number is a fiscal fiction drawn up by the Conservative campaign. The permanent secretary at the Treasury has made it clear that the civil service does not recognise Mr Sunak’s analysis and that it should not be presented as having official endorsement.
Continue reading...Researchers tested for bias in Facebook’s algorithm by purchasing ads promoting for-profit colleges and studying who saw them.
The post One Facebook Ad Promotes a For-Profit College; Another a State School. Which Ad Do Black Users See? appeared first on The Intercept.
Party says it has reached out to opposition leaders after election result as it looks to form coalition
An influential committee in the African National Congress (ANC) has recommended the party form a government of national unity, as the group tries to build a coalition after losing its parliamentary majority in South Africa for the first time since it swept to power at the end of apartheid.
The second largest party, the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA), has ruled out working with the fourth-largest, Marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). However, some analysts said that the lure of power may end up bringing most of the largest parties together.
Continue reading...In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
The leader of the Morena party could pass legislation and budgets unopposed through congress
Claudia Sheinbaum seems poised to cement her historic victory as Mexico’s first female president with a supermajority in congress that would let her party pass legislation and budgets unopposed – and perhaps even change the constitution without need for compromise.
Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with 59.5% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority.
Continue reading...Party will have to pick coalition partners and then try to reform itself in response to declining support
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has lost its three-decade electoral majority in devastating fashion. As the former liberation movement faces the task of building a coalition government, it remains to be seen how it will respond to the message sent to it by voters.
The ANC’s vote share collapsed from 57.5% in 2019 to 40.2% in last week’s elections, amid chronic unemployment, degraded public services and high rates of violent crime.
Continue reading...Government prosecutors claimed they didn’t know a former detainee recanted his testimony in interviews with the government.
The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.
The megadonor’s plan for a $25 million research center at Cornell fell apart. So he took his money to Texas A&M.
The post Leonard Leo Built the Conservative Court. Now He’s Funneling Dark Money Into Law Schools. appeared first on The Intercept.
Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
The Guardian’s John Harris is on the road, visiting Jeremy Hunt’s seat in Godalming and Ash and Michael Gove’s Surrey Heath constituency to find out why lifelong Conservative voters are abandoning the party
Godalming and Ash constituency candidates:
Jeremy Hunt – Conservative and Unionist Party
Paul Follows – Liberal Democrats
James Walsh – Labour Party
Steve Williams – Green Party
Graham Drage – Reform UK
Surrey Heath constituency candidates:
Ed McGuinness – Conservative and Unionist Party
Alasdair Pinkerton – Liberal Democrats
Jess Hammersley-Rich – Labour Party
Jonathan Campbell – Green Party
Sam Goggin – Reform UK
The draconian restrictions on asylum-seekers owe a lot to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, but the path was paved by Democrats.
The post Joe Biden’s Cruel Border Shutdown Follows in Clinton and Obama’s Footsteps Too appeared first on The Intercept.
Hester apologised for being rude about Abbott but did not accept that what he said about her was racist
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said the revelation that the Tories are still taking money from Frank Hester shows Rishi Sunak has “no integrity”. In a statement she said:
Rishi Sunak has proven he is a man with no integrity.
He is too weak to return the money donated by a man who has made violent, misogynist, and racist remarks which belong nowhere near our politics.
Continue reading...Douglas Ross says he will ‘lead from the front’ after David Duguid not selected in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East
The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, has announced he plans to stand again for Westminster in a key Scottish National party target seat, after the party blocked the anticipated candidate who is recovering from a serious illness.
Reversing repeated commitments to focus on his duties at Holyrood, Ross said he had decided to “to lead from the front” after the former Scotland office minister David Duguid, who had been expected to stand for the new seat of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, developed “serious health issues”.
Continue reading...Our panel on why they’re politically at sea, the policy that could win their vote – and that paddleboarding video
As many as 15% of British voters are still undecided about who to vote for. How they make up their minds will have seismic consequences for the UK’s political future – so the Guardian has spoken to a range of undecided voters from across the country. In the first of this series, we hear how they are grappling with their decision, and how they’re responding to the campaign so far.
As told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson
Continue reading...Action against five accused, including Jeremy Corbyn’s former chief of staff, estimated to have cost £1.5m
Labour has withdrawn a costly lawsuit against five former staffers accused of leaking an internal report on antisemitism and “conspiring” against Keir Starmer.
The legal action is expected to have cost the Labour party more than £1.5m and it was estimated the party could have spent almost £900,000 more, according to documents shown in open court last year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: as Reform courts Tory vote, chancellor insists election campaigns are won from the centre ground
At the first three doors that Jeremy Hunt knocked on during his canvassing session in leafy Godalming earlier this week were voters who said they would back the Conservatives.
The chancellor, looking a bit embarrassed, admitted that they were not representative of what his team have been seeing across this Surrey constituency, where his 8,800 majority is under threat from the resurgent Liberal Democrats.
But at the fourth door, Tory voters Stephen and Caroline told him they felt it was time for change. “The Conservatives have had a good crack at the whip,” said Stephen. “Unfortunately I think they’ve lost their way.”
Many in Westminster were surprised when Hunt announced that he would be running again, with former colleagues like Theresa May and Michael Gove having decided it was time to stand down after 14 years running the country.
After almost 20 years in parliament and a string of senior cabinet jobs, including foreign secretary and chancellor, and with the Tories on course to lose the next election and with it swathes of constituencies – including his own of Godalming and Ash – some expected Hunt to retire from parliament.
Yet he had no such plans. “I think I can hold it,” he said in an interview with the Guardian in the Inn on the Lake pub in the town. “But it’s going to be a very big fight, the biggest I’ve ever had.”
Like many fellow Conservative candidates, Hunt is getting squeezed from both the left – with the Lib Dems on course to take the seat – and the right, from what he describes as “Boris Conservatives” who will presumably now drift to Reform.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss the first TV head to head between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak
Continue reading...Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.
The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.
Local members voice anger in Basildon and Billericay, where Richard Holden was put forward as only candidate at last minute
The Conservative chair, Richard Holden, has been selected at the last minute for a safe seat 300 miles from his former constituency, triggering anger among members.
Holden was chosen to stand in Basildon and Billericay in Essex on Wednesday night after being the only candidate on the list.
Continue reading...It is revealing how casually the prime minister has abandoned any attempt at integrity under the pressure of an election
The function of televised election debates is an airing of rival policies by competing candidates, allowing an audience to judge which has more merit. In practice it has become a game in which the object is to project scripted attacks into the public arena – an opportunity to frame the terms of combat for the rest of the campaign. That is not debating in the traditional sense, but it is a legitimate use of a broadcast platform. The whole exercise is corrupted, however, if the power of message amplification is used to spread falsehood.
This is what Rishi Sunak did in the first televised debate of the election campaign when he claimed that “independent Treasury officials” had costed Labour plans and calculated an increased household tax burden of £2,000. That number is a fiscal fiction drawn up by the Conservative campaign. The permanent secretary at the Treasury has made it clear that the civil service does not recognise Mr Sunak’s analysis and that it should not be presented as having official endorsement.
Continue reading...Readers respond to Tuesday night’s TV debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, and a new book in the Mr Men series
This is the big red bus all over again. The row over the Tories’ £2,000 Labour tax claim is straight out of the Dominic Cummings/Boris Johnson playbook (Reeves accuses Sunak of lying after Treasury’s warning on ‘£2,000 tax rise’ claim, 5 June). In the 2016 EU referendum, the leave campaign invented an eye-watering figure for our EU contributions and painted it on to their campaign bus. Remainers came out in force to expose the lie, publishing their reasoning far and wide; but in doing so they unwittingly propagated and disseminated the lie itself, paradoxically enhancing its impact in a society more interested in headlines than arithmetic.
I fear that we are about to make the same mistake with the Tories’ latest lie. I’d suggest that we drop the “£2,000” from future news reports and opinion pieces, focusing instead on the Tories’ well-established woeful relationship with the truth.
Neil Farquhar
Edinburgh
Nigel Farage has announced that he will stand in Clacton for the Reform UK party in the general election, his eighth attempt to become an MP after seven previous failures as a Ukip candidate. Farage, who recently said he would not stand in the election, told a press conference that he had a ‘terrible sense of guilt’ for not putting himself forward after speaking to people during the campaign, saying he felt he was ‘letting them down’
Continue reading...Activists suing the Biden administration over Gaza policy are demanding the judge recuse himself over the sponsored trip.
The post A Federal Judge Visited Israel on a Junket Designed to Sway Public Opinion. Now He’s Hearing a Gaza Case. appeared first on The Intercept.
Andrew Bailey’s office has a losing record of fighting against exonerations recommended by local prosecutors — but it’s not giving up.
The post Missouri’s Attorney General Is Waging War to Keep the Wrongly Convicted Locked Up appeared first on The Intercept.
Find out who’s up and who’s down in the latest polls – and how many seats each party is likely to win in the 2024 general election
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called the next UK general election for 4 July 2024.
After 14 years of Conservative rule, Keir Starmer’s Labour has been consistently ahead in the polls since the start of 2022.
Continue reading...July’s general election is likely to be most expensive since regulation of party spending began in 2000
The UK’s most expensive general election is widely believed to have been in 1880, when at least £170m in today’s terms was spent by candidates, with the increased cost of campaigning to an expanded electorate and a peak in corruption that led to the first regulatory controls on political spending.
After more than 140 years, and scandals ranging from cash for honours to foreign money and dodgy donors, parties and candidates are now subject to rules on expenditure and donations. An increase in spending limits, announced last year, means this general election is likely to be the most expensive since regulation of party spending began in 2000.
Continue reading...Exclusive: After ruling out rises in VAT, income tax or NICs, shadow chancellor said to be weighing other options to raise cash in an autumn budget
Rachel Reeves is under pressure from Labour shadow ministers to raise capital gains tax as part of an autumn budget at which the shadow chancellor is considering up to a dozen new revenue-raising measures.
Members of the shadow cabinet want Reeves to increase rates of capital gains tax (CGT) as a way to raise billions more to pay for public services, as the shadow chancellor has already ruled out raising income tax, national insurance and VAT.
Continue reading...The first minister’s supporters insist that he can survive a no-confidence vote, but his position is surely untenable
The way in which Vaughan Gething secured his victory in the race to become Labour’s leader in Wales – and the nation’s first minister – was bound to store up problems for him and his party. Bad enough was the crude way in which the largest trade unions placed their collective thumb on the scale in his favour. More damaging still was Gething’s decision to fund his leadership campaign through a £200,000 donation from a company controlled by a businessman found guilty of environmental crimes. As a result, the legitimacy of his wafer-thin victory over his rival, Jeremy Miles, was always going to be open to question.
What was in doubt was the extent to which Gething would be able to rebuild the bridges that his leadership campaign had burned, so that he might at least lead his party into the next devolved election due in May 2026. Wednesday’s events in the Senedd suggest that is now unlikely. While Gething and his remaining allies persist in trying to make the frankly absurd case that it matters not if the first minister loses a confidence vote in the Welsh legislature, wiser heads are recognising that his position is becoming untenable.
Richard Wyn Jones is professor of Welsh politics and director of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre
Continue reading...Our system is designed for the powerful to retain control. Participatory democracy and a lottery vote are just two ways to gain real representation
Everything hangs on them but little changes. For weeks or months, elections dominate national life. Media reports and public conversations are monopolised by furious jostling and frantic speculation. All else – policymaking, problem-solving, reason itself – grinds to a halt. Unsurprisingly, when the frenzy is over, we discover we have solved almost none of our problems.
An election is a device for maximising conflict and minimising democracy. Parties gain ground by sowing division and anger, often around trivial issues that play to their advantage. At the same time, as the big players seek to appease commercial lobbies and the billionaire press, they converge disastrously on far more important issues, such as austerity, privatised public services, massive inequality of wealth and the unfolding genocide in Gaza. Many of those who seek election manipulate, distract and lie.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Centrists and pragmatic rightwing parties could at least compromise on the most urgent global threats
Few issues divide reliable centrist dads from rightwing and leftwing outliers as much as the European Union. Traditionally, the idea of European integration was favoured by the sensible majority. The proud nation state, on the other hand, was brandished by troublemakers with a penchant for collective self-harm. But could this all be about to change?
Europeans have reaped the dividends of the US security umbrella and of a western-led world economic order for decades. Our tanks rusted and our factories exported. The centrist dads unimaginatively administered the placid world of yesterday; the troublemakers protested against fictitious EU rules on the curvature of bananas.
Lorenzo Marsili is a philosopher, activist, author and director of the Berggruen Institute Europe
Continue reading...Party has put state-owned power company at centre of its plans for decarbonisation, security and energy bills
Labour is to put a government-owned power company at the heart of the UK’s energy system for the first time since the privatisation of the industry in 1990, in one of Keir Starmer’s boldest pledges so far.
Great British Energy, with £8bn of investment, forms the centrepiece of Labour’s promise to decarbonise the electricity supply by 2030. This would stop well short of any form of renationalisation: GB Energy would be a state-owned investment vehicle and company working alongside and often in partnership with the existing private sector suppliers. The plan is for it to be largely invisible to households, not offering electricity directly to consumers but financing and helping to build low-carbon infrastructure, from windfarms to – potentially – nuclear reactors.
Continue reading...Strongman-style leader set for historic third term but with authority diminished after loss of majority
Narendra Modi has secured the backing of his political allies in order to form a government and is expected to be sworn in over the weekend, after a dramatic election in which his party failed to secure an outright majority.
At a meeting in Delhi after Tuesday’s shock results, parties in the National Democratic Alliance, which is led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), pledged their support to Modi and backed his return as prime minister for a historic third term. “We, the leaders of the NDA, unanimously elect Narendra Modi as our leader,” the party leaders said in a resolution.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak’s assertion that people would pay £2,000 more in tax under Labour was called a lie by the shadow chancellor today. Archie Bland reports
Continue reading...The Labour party suddenly and controversially stripped her of the chance to be one of its MPs last week. She talks about why she’s still determined to represent Chingford and Woodford Green
Faiza Shaheen is composed when I meet her at home in Chingford, north-east London, all things considered. It is three days after she had been summoned to an interview with three members of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) to answer for a series of tweets dating back to 2014, which they said damaged the party’s electoral chances. “They decided my fate, on a 40-minute Zoom meeting, half of which the baby was crying through,” she says. She’s holding her four-and-a-half-month-old son now. He beams at me throughout our interview.
She was deselected as Labour’s candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green on Wednesday 29 May. It’s a move that stunned her supporters locally, and reverberated far beyond her constituency. A recording of that meeting made it on to the Today programme. A week later, Shaheen has announced her decision to stand as an independent. “If you’d told me a week ago that this is where we’d be, I wouldn’t have believed it,” she messaged me. “I’ve had hundreds of messages from people in my community, urging me to run. They are tired of the Tories but now feel they can’t trust Labour.”
Continue reading...The Guardian is reporting from the constituency of Clacton to find out what issues people there care about most – and we want your help
The Guardian will be reporting from Clacton ahead of the general election, where Nigel Farage said he would stand as an MP and take over as leader of Reform UK, after changing his mind while spending time on the campaign trail.
This will be part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters most to the people who live there.
Continue reading...Party says it has reached out to opposition leaders after election result as it looks to form coalition
An influential committee in the African National Congress (ANC) has recommended the party form a government of national unity, as the group tries to build a coalition after losing its parliamentary majority in South Africa for the first time since it swept to power at the end of apartheid.
The second largest party, the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA), has ruled out working with the fourth-largest, Marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). However, some analysts said that the lure of power may end up bringing most of the largest parties together.
Continue reading...The leader of the Morena party could pass legislation and budgets unopposed through congress
Claudia Sheinbaum seems poised to cement her historic victory as Mexico’s first female president with a supermajority in congress that would let her party pass legislation and budgets unopposed – and perhaps even change the constitution without need for compromise.
Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won the presidency with 59.5% of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority.
Continue reading...I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to predict that artificial intelligence will affect every aspect of our society. Not by doing new things. But mostly by doing things that are already being done by humans, perfectly competently.
Replacing humans with AIs isn’t necessarily interesting. But when an AI takes over a human task, the task changes.
In particular, there are potential changes over four dimensions: Speed, scale, scope and sophistication. The problem with AIs trading stocks isn’t that they’re better than humans—it’s that they’re faster. But computers are better at chess and Go because they use more sophisticated strategies than humans. We’re worried about AI-controlled social media accounts because they operate on a superhuman scale...
In today’s newsletter: After pollsters and pundits predicted a sweeping victory that never came, is India’s prime minister entering his final act in politics?
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Good morning.
For months, the consensus was that India’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) was going to win a thumping majority in the general election. A few days ago, exit polls indicated the BJP was going to secure a sweeping victory, and could even gain seats to win a two-thirds majority in parliament. The party’s confidence came through most clearly in its highly publicised goal of winning 400 seats.
Israel-Gaza war | At least 30 Palestinians including five children have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school housing displaced people in al-Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, medical officials have said, with dozens more wounded. The Israeli military confirmed it had targeted a UN school in al-Nuseirat, saying it had been housing Hamas terrorists from the 7 October attack on Israel who were planning further attacks.
Wales | The Welsh first minister, Vaughan Gething, has lost a no-confidence vote less than 12 weeks after taking office, following a series of scandals that have called into question his judgment and transparency.
General election 2024 | The UK Statistics Authority has opened an investigation into remarks made by Rishi Sunak about the economy “going gangbusters” amid concerns that politicians could misuse economic data in the run-up to the election. The watchdog’s intervention came soon after the chair of the organisation began a review of Sunak’s claim that the Treasury calculated that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 for everyone if it won the election.
Climate crisis | Fossil fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
NHS | A cyber-attack thought to have been carried out by a Russian group has forced London NHS hospitals to resurrect long-discarded paper records systems in which porters hand-deliver blood test results because IT networks are disrupted.
Continue reading...Sir Robert Chote to see if PM repeated ONS analyst’s comments taken out of context to exaggerate Tory economic record
The UK’s statistics watchdog has opened an investigation into remarks made by Rishi Sunak about the economy “going gangbusters” amid concerns that politicians could misuse economic data in the run-up to the election.
Sir Robert Chote, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, will examine whether the prime minister repeated comments that were “taken out of context” and exaggerated the Conservative party’s economic record.
Continue reading...A proposed New York training facility shows how establishment politicians only understand governance through policing.
The post New York Spends $225 Million on Its Own “Cop City” — to Make the Whole City Run on Cops appeared first on The Intercept.
Latest results reveal unexpected blow to PM, forcing negotiation with coalition partners to regain power
Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has lost its parliamentary majority, dealing an unexpected blow to the prime minister and forcing him to negotiate with coalition partners in order to return to power.
With all votes counted early on Wednesday morning, it was clear that the landslide for the BJP predicted in polls had not materialised and instead there had been a pushback against the strongman prime minister and his Hindu nationalist politics in swathes of the country.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer went head to head in the first TV debate before the general election on 4 July. The debate was dominated by a row on taxes after the prime minister repeatedly told the audience Keir Starmer would raise families' taxes by £2,000. Starmer responded by calling this nonsense. The two party leaders went on to debate immigration, the Rwanda scheme, funding the NHS and what their plans are to help the younger generation
Reality check: how do the leaders’ claims in TV debate stack up?
Sunak and Starmer scrap over tax and immigration in heated first TV debate
Richard Tice made some eye-opening statements on the climate, and the manifesto is packed with even more falsehoods
Despite 40C record heat in 2022 and the wettest 18 months on record this winter, this general election seems set to test the UK’s political consensus on climate change like never before.
Reform UK, the rightwing party that describes itself as offering “commonsense” policies on immigration and energy, has eschewed the consensus in favour of outright climate scepticism. So what exactly does the party have to say about global heating and the UK’s net zero target?
Continue reading...Party will have to pick coalition partners and then try to reform itself in response to declining support
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has lost its three-decade electoral majority in devastating fashion. As the former liberation movement faces the task of building a coalition government, it remains to be seen how it will respond to the message sent to it by voters.
The ANC’s vote share collapsed from 57.5% in 2019 to 40.2% in last week’s elections, amid chronic unemployment, degraded public services and high rates of violent crime.
Continue reading...Data also shows party accepted £150,000 from Hester days after comments about Diane Abbott were revealed
Frank Hester, the businessman at the centre of a row about comments condemned as racist and misogynistic, gave the Conservative party a further £5m in January, figures released by the Electoral Commission show.
The donation, made by his company, the Phoenix Partnership (TPP), cements his status as the Tories’ single biggest donor, with a total of £15m now given by Hester either personally or through his company.
Continue reading...How does it feel to report on the refugee crisis when it’s also the story of your own family? Aamna Mohdin explains
Aamna Mohdin was a young rookie reporter when she got her first foreign assignment. She was being sent to Calais to write about “the Jungle”, an informal refugee camp that had sprung up, made up of people hoping to cross the Channel for a better life in the UK. She was nervous about doing a good job but as she walked around the chaotic maze of tents with people cooking on open fires she began to feel strange and uneasy.
It wasn’t just the sadness of the stories she was hearing but something more like deja vu. When she told her mother about her trip, her mother asked a question that astonished Aamna: why would she want to go to a refugee camp when they had risked everything to flee one themselves? The question sent Aamna spiralling as she realised she had repressed her own memories of living in a camp in Kenya as a child, and how they had fled to the UK.
Continue reading...Found guilty on 34 counts by a New York jury, Trump might find himself campaigning behind bars.
The post These Convictions Thwart Trump’s Plan to Pardon Himself appeared first on The Intercept.
Voting in the EU elections begins Thursday and ends on Sunday
Turnout in the Netherlands stood at 7% at 10:30am, according to Ipsos, NOS reported.
This is in line with turnout during the time in the previous election.
I made a concept called Europe first, instead of made in China. This was trying to focus on industrial production in Europe and to ramp it up and to become more independent … So we need more investment in our future, meaning also in industry and in production, in green projects, saying we need solar panels on our roofs, but not imported from China, but to produce them in Europe and to put it on our European roofs.
Secondly, social Europe: defending what we achieved, for minimum age, platform workers, pay transparency, working time limitations for truck drivers, but also asking for abolishing unpaid internships, and also having something like Erasmus for the elderly, and fair taxation.
Continue reading...27-member bloc will have to adjust to new reality as rightwing groups expected to have real influence for first time
When the results of the European parliamentary elections start to emerge on Sunday night, polls suggest they will show that the world’s only directly elected transnational assembly will have tilted, unambiguously, to the right.
Yet, for all the talk of a significant surge in support for the forces of Europe’s hard right, their gains should prove broadly in line with a steady progression over the past couple of decades or more. The difference will be in the response.
Continue reading...Result of ballot, which will return 720 MEPs to next parliament, could have major impact on bloc’s political direction
Elections to the world’s only transnational assembly get under way in earnest on Thursday as Dutch voters go to the polls in a four-day, 27-country ballot that will return 720 MEPs to the next European parliament.
The results of the elections, which will shape the makeup of the next European Commission and could have a major impact on the bloc’s political direction in key areas including immigration and climate action, are expected on Sunday evening.
Continue reading...Recovering PM posts video in which he calls would-be assassin ‘messenger of evil’ but offers forgiveness
The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has blamed the country’s opposition for fostering the “hatred” that led to his assassination attempt in his first appearance since he was seriously wounded in a shooting three weeks ago.
In a pre-recorded speech posted on Facebook on Wednesday, in the run-up to the European elections, Fico described the shooter as an “activist of the Slovak opposition … a messenger of evil and political hatred that the politically unsuccessful and frustrated opposition has fanned to unmanageable proportions”.
Continue reading...INDIA alliance prevents Modi’s BJP from forming majority, but analysts say keeping it united will be difficult
In the months building up to India’s election, many pundits had already written obituaries for the country’s beleaguered political opposition.
Over his decade in power, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government have been accused of using the full might of the state against political opponents, with agencies harassing and jailing opposition leaders or intimidating them into switching sides.
Continue reading...Anger at rampant unemployment, stagnant wages and inflation led to surprise losses in Uttar Pradesh
It was less than six months ago that Narendra Modi walked solemnly through the ornate surroundings of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and one of its most politically crucial. His appearance in the holy city to inaugurate the newly constructed Hindu temple, built on the ruins of a mosque demolished two decades earlier, was cast as the pinnacle of the prime minister’s decade in power – the crowning glory of his Hindu nationalist agenda and his ticket to a third term in office. The ceremony was deemed to mark the unofficial launch of his election campaign.
But on Tuesday evening Modi was faced with a rude awakening. His Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which has ruled India with an iron grip for a decade, has lost its majority as a single party and will have to rely on coalition partners to return to government. The losses were particularly heavy in Uttar Pradesh, long considered to be the BJP’s bastion – and nowhere more so than in Ayodhya.
Continue reading...Narendra Modi says India has placed its faith in the ruling coalition ‘for a third consecutive time’, as figures show his BJP party unlikely to secure an overall majority
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance, the NDA bloc, is enjoying an early lead as votes are counted, pulling ahead in 154 seats of the total 543 in the lower house of parliament.
Early trends show the opposition INDIA alliance leading in 120 seats.
The first votes counted are postal ballots, which are paper ballots, mostly cast by troops serving outside their home constituencies or officials away from home on election duty.
This year, postal votes were also offered to voters over 85 years of age and people with disabilities to allow them to vote from home.
According to some exit polls, Modi and the BJP could be headed for a two-thirds majority in parliament, giving them an even stronger victory than in the 2019 elections.
Continue reading...Exit polls had projected overwhelming victory for the BJP and an even stronger mandate for India’s strongman
India’s elections may return Narendra Modi to power for a third term but Tuesday’s results did not have the flavour of victory for the strongman prime minister.
Indeed, as the early counts of the votes began to roll in, it was clear this was going to be one of the most humbling moments for Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in over a decade.
Continue reading...The charge of an illegitimate marriage is all that’s left after a court acquitted Khan over his handling of a classified cypher.
The post Imran Khan Remains Imprisoned Over His Wife’s Menstrual Cycles. State Department Says That’s “Something For the Pakistani Courts to Decide.” appeared first on The Intercept.
Technology was once simply a tool—and a small one at that—used to amplify human intent and capacity. That was the story of the industrial revolution: we could control nature and build large, complex human societies, and the more we employed and mastered technology, the better things got. We don’t live in that world anymore. Not only has technology become entangled with the structure of society, but we also can no longer see the world around us without it. The separation is gone, and the control we thought we once had has revealed itself as a mirage. We’re in a transitional period of history right now...
Twelve jurors in New York have presented their fellow Americans with a simple question: are you willing to elect a convicted criminal to the White House?
On Thursday, Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The verdict makes him the first president, current or former, to be found guilty of felony crimes in the US's near 250-year history. Regardless, the conviction does not disqualify Trump as a presidential candidate or bar him from again sitting in the Oval Office.
Trump, who opted not to take the stand during the trial, has denied wrongdoing, railed against the proceedings and ahead of the verdict compared himself to a saint: “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. The charges are rigged,” he said on Wednesday. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is expected to appeal the verdict.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine has been in court over the last several weeks covering all the developments – here are three testimonies he found most memorable.
Could Trump go to prison? Here’s what happens next after the guilty verdict
Biden's plan to cozy up to Arab dictators is right out of Donald Trump's playbook — but even worse.
The post Joe Biden’s Terrible Israel Policy Is Really About Getting in Bed With Saudi Arabia appeared first on The Intercept.
A lively chat saw different views on gas-guzzling cars and whether we are able to halt the climate emergency, but could they at least agree on air pollution?
Bob, 76, Portishead
Occupation Retired, former IT director
Continue reading...Hesen Jabr’s story is a chilling reminder that employers in the US have far too much power over workers’ speech
Hesen Jabr, a labor and delivery nurse, was recently honored by her employer, NYU Langone Health in New York, for her work with grieving mothers who had lost babies during pregnancy and childbirth. A supervisor read from a note that said Jabr “not only provides stellar patient care, but also provides support for the rest of the nursing staff so that we can all live up to her example”. Jabr, who is Palestinian American, graciously accepted the award and took the opportunity to devote a small portion of her remarks to draw a connection with grieving mothers in Gaza.
When she reported to her first shift back at work, however, she was sent to meet with senior leadership at the hospital. Her bosses, she has said, told her she had “put others at risk”, “ruined the ceremony” and “offended people” with her remarks. She was sent back to work but several hours later was read a termination letter and escorted out by a police officer. NYU Langone told the New York Times that Jabr was fired for bringing “her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace”.
Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin, and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities
Continue reading...The second world war is not fodder for the culture wars. We owe it to those who fought to keep it that way
Nigel Farage launched his campaign to become Clacton’s MP by citing a recent survey that revealed more than half of 18- to 34-year-olds couldn’t correctly identify what happened on D-day. Praising a local veteran travelling to Normandy for the 80th anniversary commemorations, the Reform party boss described the poll as representing “a complete failure of the education system … as if we’re telling our youngsters to be ashamed of our past”. It formed a key part of a speech full of supposedly patriotic, anti-immigrant, anti-trans rhetoric.
A narrow, nostalgic view of the second world war that connects the conflict with culture war issues and a sense of contemporary British decline is frequently exploited by reactionaries such as Farage, both as a political tool and a stick with which to beat supposedly ignorant young people. Jibes that millennials and Gen Z are “too woke” to fight might in fact be familiar to anyone who has read letters between British commanders of the second world war. General Montgomery, one of the architects of the D-day invasion, wrote in 1942 that “the trouble with our British lads is that they are not killers by nature”. A 1943 army report, meanwhile, blamed books, cinema, plays and education for making soldiers weak under fire.
Luke Turner is a writer, editor and the author of two books, Men at War and the Wainwright prize-shortlisted Out of the Woods
Continue reading...‘The industry is rapidly strangling our planet,’ says Andrew Wilkie, who joins Allegra Spender, Sophie Scamps, Zali Steggall and Monique Ryan in call for ban
At least nine independent MPs and the Greens have backed the UN secretary general’s call for the Australian government to ban fossil fuel advertising and for media companies to stop accepting money to promote coal, oil and gas companies.
Many described fossil fuel advertising as greenwashing that damaged the climate, the environment and people’s health, and compared its use to steps taken by “big tobacco” before cigarette advertising was banned in 1992.
Continue reading...Scathing report finds Department of Communities and Justice not providing the care needed to protect children’s safety and welfare
New South Wales is failing tens of thousands of vulnerable children due to an “ineffective” and “unsustainable” child protection system, a damning audit has found.
The state’s auditor general, Bola Oyetunji, released the scathing report on the child protection system on Thursday, finding that the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) was not meeting its legislative requirements to provide the care needed to protect children’s safety and welfare, nor providing the appropriate assistance for parents.
Continue reading...Adam Bandt hits back, saying he will not be lectured about peace by someone who backs invasion
Tensions in parliament over a rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia sparked by the war in Gaza have spilled over into a second day with the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, calling the Greens “evil” and accusing it of playing a “central” role in protests on university campuses.
Parliament’s question time erupted on Wednesday after Anthony Albanese accused the Greens of spreading misinformation and Dutton alleged the Greens were condoning acts of violence instead of condemning them.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Going fully electric would save households more than $600 a year for next four decades, report says
Households would save an average of $608 a year for the next 40 years if new residential buildings in New South Wales were required to be fully electric, according to a report commissioned by climate organisation 350 Australia.
It cuts energy bills for local residents and small businesses during a cost of living crisis and reduces climate pollution, at almost no cost to councils. It will be low-income people and renters who will benefit most from council-led electrification.
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Ukraine rations power as generation falls far short of needs; US to reportedly release $225m more in weapons, France to sign €650m deal. What we know on day 834
A Ukrainian drone attack set fire to the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia, forcing it to halt operations, the regional governor said early on Thursday. The plant is considered one of the most important oil refineries in southern Russia. Located around 10km (six miles) east of the border, it has been targeted by Ukrainian attacks several times. “Work was suspended due to a repeated attack, and personnel were withdrawn to a safe distance,” said Vasily Golubev, the governor.
Another drone strike in Russia overnight destroyed an oil tank at a depot in Stary Oskol, north of the Ukrainian border, said the Belgorod regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. Ukraine suffers regular attacks on its energy systems and hits back at sites in Russia, both in retaliation and to hinder the Russian war effort.
Ukraine’s power grid operator, Ukrenergo, ordered cuts in 12 regions on Wednesday evening due to critical shortages. Ukrainians have been warned to limit consumption after Russian airstrikes in recent weeks inflicted serious damage on generating capacity. “In view of repairs to units and the latest destruction, we are catastrophically short of electricity for our needs,” said Serhii Kovalenko, head of Yasno, the largest private power company in Ukraine. Russia has either destroyed or captured 50% of Ukraine’s power generation, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The United States is expected to announce a new $225m weapons package for Ukraine this week, sources have told Reuters. The US president, Joe Biden, was due to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, on Thursday in Normandy at the 80th anniversary commemoration of the D-day invasion.
France is to provide Ukraine with €650m in loans and grants to support local authorities and critical infrastructure, particularly energy facilities, targeted by Russia. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will attend the Swiss conference on Russia’s war against Ukraine on 15-16 June, his office said on Wednesday. Macron and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are due to sign the loans and grants deal in Paris on Friday.
A Moscow court has sentenced Russian blogger Anna Bazhutova to five and a half years in jail for livestreaming witness testimony about alleged Russian atrocities during the occupation of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. “It’s disgusting and vile. It’s messed up,” the 30-year-old defendant said from the dock said in reaction to the ruling. Her lawyer promised an appeal. In April 2022, Bazhutova did a live broadcast including witnesses directly accusing the Russian military of carrying out killings. Vladimir Putin’s regime has made criticism of the military illegal.
Vladimir Putin has said Russia could supply arms to other countries to attack western targets, Pjotr Sauer writes. His comments came after a US senator and a western official confirmed that Ukraine has recently used US weapons to strike inside Russia. The weapons were used under recently approved guidance from Joe Biden allowing American arms to be used to strike inside Russia for the defence of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The Republican senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a member of the Senate armed services committee, confirmed strikes with US weapons inside Russia but did not say how he was briefed. According to a 3 June report from the Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian forces struck a Russian S-300/400 air defence battery in Russia’s Belgorod region, probably with a high mobility artillery rocket system, or Himars, on 1 or 2 June.
French prosecutors launched an terrorism investigation after a Ukrainian-Russian man detonated explosive materials in a hotel room north of Paris. The suspected was reportedly from the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, part of which has been occupied by pro-Russian and Russian forces since 2014. A source at the French anti-terrorism prosecutors office (PNAT) said that on Monday night the 26-year-old man received “significant burns after an explosion” in a hotel in the Val-d’Oise, north of Paris. A search uncovered “products and materials intended for the manufacture of explosive devices”.
Continue reading...New York City police department to revoke Trump’s license after suspending permit to carry a concealed weapon in April 2023
Donald Trump’s license to carry a gun is expected to be revoked by the New York City police department now that he has been convicted of a felony, according to reports on Wednesday evening.
The former president once boasted that he was so popular with the electorate, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” He made the claim in January 2016 during the Iowa caucuses campaign.
Continue reading...As club’s powerful owners rail against ‘the elites’ in legal battle with Premier League, there is a looming danger to the game
Here we are then, at last. The chrysalis has finally hatched. The thing that was always going to be the thing has now become the thing. Welcome to a very Premier League kind of coup.
As news emerged of Manchester City’s potentially devastating legal case against English football’s top tier it was tempting to see a kind of parable. Here we have a league founded out of greed, for the future benefit of greed, which now finds itself threatened with internal detonation by – yes – greed. Invite a tiger in for tea and the tiger might be fun. But it’s also still a tiger. And in the end it’s going to eat you too.
Continue reading...Yvonne Williams on adult education that is now virtually nonexistent, and Geoff Reid on the non-financial value of a degree
Gaby Hinsliff presents a compelling case for the 50% of young people eligible for higher education courses (It’s the Tories who broke Britain, but now they want teenagers to pay for it, 31 May), but why is no one, politician or journalist, making any kind of case for the young people who will pay an even higher price for government failure?
What about young people who can only find low-paid work in hospitality, agriculture or caring professions? They work just as hard and are more likely to be on minimum-wage, zero-hours contracts. Their chances of bettering their prospects are minimal, as they are locked into a just-about-coping lifestyle. What is an even greater scandal than student debt and collapsing apprenticeships is that adult education, which used to give people a second chance to gain GCSEs and A-levels or vocational qualifications suited to their aspirations, is now virtually nonexistent.
Continue reading...Academic tortured in UAE tells families of Britons arrested in controversial circumstances abroad to go public promptly
Families of Britons arrested in controversial circumstances abroad should raise concerns promptly in public because Foreign Office “quiet diplomacy” is not effective, an expert has warned after the arrest of a former British Royal Marine in Dubai.
Matthew Hedges, a British academic who was detained and tortured in the United Arab Emirates in 2018, said the case of Matt Croucher, a military veteran held in the country for seven months, also showed how far the “international influence of the UK had disappeared” in the Gulf region.
Continue reading...Microsoft recently caught state-backed hackers using its generative AI tools to help with their attacks. In the security community, the immediate questions weren’t about how hackers were using the tools (that was utterly predictable), but about how Microsoft figured it out. The natural conclusion was that Microsoft was spying on its AI users, looking for harmful hackers at work.
Some pushed back at characterizing Microsoft’s actions as “spying.” Of course cloud service providers monitor what users are doing. And because we expect Microsoft to be doing something like this, it’s not fair to call it spying...
Deterrence policy against asylum seeker boats is under strain, with three vessels arriving in a week in May
The number of asylum seekers on Nauru appears to have topped 100, with a further two groups of 37 people sent to the Pacific Island.
The people, classified as “unauthorised maritime arrivals”, include 33 Bangladeshis who were found on Christmas Island on 9 May, one of who is a woman. Their boat was destroyed by bad weather.
Continue reading...The Guardian is reporting from the constituency of Midlothian to find out what issues people there care about most – and we want your help
The Guardian will be reporting from Midlothian ahead of the general election. This will be part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters most to the people who live there.
If you live in the constituency of Midlothian, can you tell us what will decide your vote? We’d like to understand the big issues facing you and your family and which policies matter to you. How happy are you with the state of housing, work, public transport, local facilities for young people, policing and health services? What local issues should we be looking at?
Continue reading...Government prosecutors claimed they didn’t know a former detainee recanted his testimony in interviews with the government.
The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.
Coastguard and lifeboats responded after boat got into difficulty – as analysis shows nearly 1,000 crossings since election called
About 80 people, including at least three children, are understood to have been rescued after a boat got into difficulty while crossing the Channel.
Some of the group are thought to have been pulled from the water, with coastguard and lifeboat crews called to help Border Force off the Kent coast on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Israel claimed the targeted school contained a militant compound, an allegation rejected by Hamas. Plus, UN urges global ban on fossil fuel ads
Good morning.
At least 30 people, including five children, were killed by an Israeli strike on a UN school on Thursday in the central Gaza Strip, according to health officials in the territory.
Here’s the latest with the impending famine in Gaza: Two UN organizations said more than 1 million people were “expected to face death and starvation” by mid-July.
And the latest from Jerusalem: Violent clashes broke out during the annual Jerusalem Flag Day march, which commemorates the anniversary of Israel taking control and occupying East Jerusalem in 1967.
Which case is this one again? Trump was charged alongside more than a dozen associates last year with racketeering over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state, after Georgia voted for Joe Biden to become US president. The charges stem in part from the phone call Trump made to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find 11,780 votes”.
Continue reading...Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?
An unearthed rare letter written by Franz Kafka to his publisher recently showed how much he struggled with writer’s block. He should have tried having a 15-question quiz to write to deadline every week without fail in the middle of a UK general election. Anyway, no prizes, but here are 15 questions on topical news, general knowledge and Björn Borg and Katy Perry for some reason. Let us know how you get on in the comments.
The Thursday quiz, No 163
Continue reading...The journal’s board of directors took the entire website down after the "Nakba" article published.
The post Columbia Law Review Remains Offline After Students Reject Disclaimer Undermining Palestine Article appeared first on The Intercept.
The prime minister assumed he would sweep back to power in a landslide. Voters have wisely chosen otherwise
Nemesis has followed swift on the heels of Narendra Modi’s hubris. He is set to be the first Indian prime minister to serve a third term since its first, Jawaharlal Nehru. Yet rarely has an election victory looked more like defeat.
He boasted that he would win a third full majority in the world’s largest democracy – suggesting his party would win as many as 400 seats – and said he had been sent by God. Instead of a coronation, he got a rebuke. Far from winning a landslide, his Bharatiya Janata party’s seats fell from 303 to 240, leaving him reliant on political allies. The BJP had made a major push in the south and managed to take a seat in Kerala. But Mr Modi’s vote slumped in his own constituency of Varanasi, in the north. Indian electors have humbled the strongman.
Continue reading...With high levels of people seeking asylum, and after failed attempts to pass reforms, Biden has presented his most aggressive restrictions yet
Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an aggressive new immigration order suspending asylum rights, signalling that “securing the border” was a central tenet of his re-election bid.
At the southern US border, the policy is set to cause chaos and hardship for those seeking the protection of the United States.
Continue reading...A selection of winning images from this year’s Pink Lady food photographer of the year awards. The overall winner was the Chinese photographer Zhonghua Yang for an image of a woman making new year dim sum. The judging panel was chaired by the food photographer David Loftus and included Fiona Shields, the Guardian’s head of photography
The megadonor’s plan for a $25 million research center at Cornell fell apart. So he took his money to Texas A&M.
The post Leonard Leo Built the Conservative Court. Now He’s Funneling Dark Money Into Law Schools. appeared first on The Intercept.
A senior USAID adviser said he was pressured to resign days after the agency censored his presentation.
The post He Made a PowerPoint on Mothers Starving in Gaza. Then He Lost His Government Job. appeared first on The Intercept.
As Swift’s economy-shifting Eras tour comes to the UK, Chanté speaks to journalist and fan (but not ‘Swiftie’) Elle Hunt about the singer’s journey from country star to billionaire and asks whether her world domination is good for the music industry
Archive: Vogue, Today, MTV, Firstpost, BBC, Billboard, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, ITV
Continue reading...A court in the Philippines has banned the commercial growth of golden rice, a genetically modified rice which was created to help tackle vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. It’s just the latest twist in a long and controversial journey for this rice. Ian Sample hears from the Observer science and environment editor, Robin McKie, and from Glenn Stone, a research professor of environmental science at Sweet Briar College in Virginia who is also an anthropologist who has studied golden rice, about why it has taken so long for this potentially life-saving technology to reach the fields, if it is the silver bullet so many had hoped for, and whether this ban is really the end of the story
Continue reading...We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2021: They used to look like quagmires, ice rinks or dustbowls, depending on the time of year. But as big money entered football, pristine pitches became crucial to the sport’s image – and groundskeepers became stars. By William Ralston
Continue reading...Ahead of the election in India, the Guardian’s video team travelled through the country to explore how fake news and censorship might shape the outcome.
Almost one billion people are registered to vote. The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been in power for more than 10 years, and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is seeking a third term.
But critics of Modi and the BJP say his government has become increasingly authoritarian, fracturing the country along religious lines and threatening India’s secular democracy. At the same time, the space for freedom of speech has been shrinking while disinformation and hate speech has exploded on social media.
Is this what the “pro-life” movement wanted?
The post Sterilization, Murders, Suicides: Bans Haven’t Slowed Abortions, and They’re Costing Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, revealed the tactics and traits that help him face the daily frustrations of leading a country at war for more than two years.
Within a ceremonial room inside Kyiv’s presidential compound, Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour with a Guardian team, including the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. The interview took place during perhaps the toughest time for Ukraine since the early days of the war. Russia is on the offensive in Kharkiv, an advance that follows months of delay in the US Congress over the passing of a major support package, limiting Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities
Continue reading...In Gainesville, Florida, children are on the front lines of the hazards long ignored by local and state government officials.
The post For Decades, Officials Knew a School Sat on a Former Dump — and Did Little to Clean Up the Toxins appeared first on The Intercept.
The Guardian is reporting from the constituency of Burnley to find out what issues people there care about most – and we want your help
The Guardian will be reporting from Burnley ahead of the general election. This will be part of a series of pieces from across the country focused on finding out what matters most to the people who live there.
In 2019, the Lancashire town elected its first Conservative MP in more than a century. If you live in the constituency of Burnley, can you tell us what will decide your vote? We’d like to understand the big issues facing you and your family and which policies matter to you. How happy are you with the state of housing, work, community relations, policing and health services? What local issues should we be looking at?
Continue reading...All over the country, architecture firms make the case for bigger jails — then get hired to design them.
The post The Little-Known Reason Counties Keep Building Bigger Jails: Architecture Firms appeared first on The Intercept.
Michelle Roach bought a used ice-cream van in order to bring cheap, affordable food to Liverpool's struggling communities. She wanted a vehicle with freezers built in for frozen food, and also something cheerful that was able to break down stigmas around food poverty. Using a '10 items for £5' model, Michelle sources discount food from supermarket surplus and donations.
The Guardian's Christopher Cherry follows Michelle and the van on its rounds, with the service struggling to meet overwhelming demand as the cost of living crisis deepens, and the UK's general election fast approaches.
Continue reading...We want to hear from UK voters across the political spectrum about the issues and factors that will influence their vote
After prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that a general election will be held on 4 July, we want to hear from UK voters about what will decide their vote.
Will you vote in the general election, and do you know who you will vote for?
Continue reading...Keir Starmer appeared in Dover and Deal alongside the Labour party’s newest MP, the former Tory Natalie Elphicke, to announce the scrapping of the Rwanda deportation scheme if Labour is elected. The Guardian spoke to people in Dover to get their reaction
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
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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