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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...
Houria – a riotously flavoured mashed carrot salad with eggs and coriander salsa – and spicy Tunisian savoury pastries
Its location on the very northern tip of Africa, right on the Mediterranean and close to Italy, means Tunisian cuisine is a wonderfully unique fusion of flavours. Take harissa, for example, which is traditionally made with wood-smoked sun-dried chillies that are pounded with caraway and plenty of other spices, then steeped in oil to make a quite brilliant hot condiment. I love it stirred into Tunisian fricassee, which is a sandwich made with deep-fried bread stuffed with tuna, olives, boiled eggs and potato. Though harissa is perhaps the Tunisian ingredient I turn to the most, the country’s food encompasses so much more, and is a world of flavour I can’t get enough of exploring.
Continue reading...With a £470m redevelopment of the city centre, a feted documentary festival and a vibrant foodie scene, the former steel-making hub is showing its true mettle
“There’s a lot of confidence in Sheffield these days,” says James O’Hara, one of the city’s leading cultural promoters. “It feels like we’re on the cusp of a new era.”
It’s a refrain you hear a lot in Sheffield today. Sprawled across five valleys in the foothills of the Peak District, this former steelmaking world capital, and birthplace of Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Human League and Warp Records, has long been a cultural heavy hitter. Yet as key city centre developments such as the vast new Cambridge Street Collective food hall open their doors, a rejuvenated urban landscape is emerging. Green corridors and innovative parks wind their way round reclaimed brutalist buildings; fluid sculptures echo the city’s wiggly contoured topography and the flow of its rivers. There are areas of the city yet to be reached, but Sheffield’s vision for its post-industrial afterlife proudly leans into what makes the city distinctive.
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...UN report highlights risks to growth, brain development and survival prospects, with millions eating only two food groups a day
One young child in four globally has a diet so restricted it is likely to harm their growth, brain development and chances of survival, according to a new report.
Many of the children live in areas that have been designated by the UN as “hunger hotspots” – including Palestine, Haiti and Mali – where access to food is expected to deteriorate over the coming months.
Continue reading...Extreme hunger taking huge toll, say food security reports, regardless of delays to possible declaration of famine
Months of extreme hunger have already killed many Palestinians in Gaza and caused permanent damage to children through malnutrition, two new food security reports have found, even before famine is officially declared.
The US-based famine early warning system network (Fews Net) said it was “possible, if not likely” that famine began in northern Gaza in April. Two UN organisations said more than 1 million people were “expected to face death and starvation” by mid-July.
Continue reading...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.
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
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...
You might be able to stand the heat, but does your spice knowledge live up to your tolerance level? Answer these questions to find out …
Find out more about Encona’s hot sauces at enconasauces.co.uk
Continue reading...A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...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...South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases
What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?
‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid
Video:
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On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
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Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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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.
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 in 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...It comes after the Institute for Fiscal Studies raised concerns about at the honesty of the debate about taxation during the campaign
Good morning. The government raises more than £1 trillion in tax every year, and more than half of that money comes from just three sources: income tax, national insurance and VAT. The Conservatives and Labour have both promised not to raise the rates of any of those taxes (although, with VAT, Labour was initially reluctant to give a cast-iron pledge, implying Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, wanted, at least a bit, to keep her options open.)
But there are plenty of other taxes available to a chancellor, and it seems the Conservative party now plans to spend the remaining four weeks until polling day challenging Labour to rule out raising any of them. Today Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has written an article for the Daily Telegraph in which he promises that his party won’t increase stamp duty, that it will continue to ensure main homes are exempt from capital gains tax, and that it won’t hold a council tax revaluation, or increase the number of council tax bands. The final promise is particular significant because the current council tax arrangements for England are egregiously unfair, and mainstream economists argue (eg here and here) the case for reform is overwhelming.
That is why today we are announcing the family home tax guarantee.
This guarantee is a commitment not to increase the number of council tax bands, undertake an expensive council tax revaluation, or cut council tax discounts. It is a commitment to maintain private residence relief, so that people’s main homes are protected from capital gains tax. And it is a commitment not to increase the rate or level of stamp duty.
We will not be raising taxes on working people … These are more desperate claims from Rishi Sunak who lied to the British people before and is lying to them again.
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...Sunak’s Labour tax-rise accusations are a sign he’ll stop at nothing to court the rightwing press
It reeked of desperation. There again, Rishi Sunak has a lot to be desperate about. Two weeks into the election campaign and there’s no shift in the opinion polls. If anything, they are getting worse for the Tories.
So the prime minister has reached the point where any old lie will do. Not bothered if it all falls apart the next day. Anything to grab a headline in the rightwing press. Fooling some of the people some of the time is now as good as it gets for Rish!.
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...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...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.
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...
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...It’s no wonder Nigel achieves such cut-through when the media panders to him and mainstream politicians say little of note
Oh, it’s only Nigel, the politician who’s always standing because he never gets a seat. It’s only Clacton: practically Ukip-on-Sea. It’ll only harm Rishi Sunak, and he’s already terminal.
Oh, the excuses! Even as Westminster journalists this week trotted along an Essex pier after Nigel Farage, they made two arguments that pull in opposite directions. First, can you blame them for giving Mr Brexit the star treatment? A third of the way into a turgid election contest, they finally get a bit of box office – a “master of the theatrics of politics”, as the BBC put it, which is an awfully kind way to refer to a serial loser. Yet even as they splash the man across every front page, they trivialise his importance. To read the broadsheets this week, they are lavishing so much attention on an inveterate attention-seeker because he spells certain defeat for Rishi Sunak, who in any case is a total loser. Got it?
Except that’s not the way Britain works. Over the course of his career, Farage has shown time and again that you need not win Westminster elections to change Westminster politics. As a politician, Farage is no Boris Johnson; yet, as a mode of politics, the power of Faragism is vast.
Aditya Chakrabortty 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...Russia expert warned Putin would see verdict as chance to undermine US’s global influence and boost his own standing
Vladimir Putin has described the recent criminal conviction of Donald Trump as politically motivated and claimed that it had “burned” the idea that the US was a leading democracy.
Trump last week became the first former US head of state ever convicted of a felony crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges over efforts to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
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...Party hopes to usher in a different generation of politicians – with some likely to be quickly promoted to ministers. Here are 10 to watch
After Tony Blair swept to victory in 1997, his aides set out to establish who some of their new and unexpected Labour MPs actually were.
Unlike them, Keir Starmer will have a clear idea. A group of his advisers led by his campaign chief, Morgan McSweeney, has maintained a vice-like grip on the selection of Labour candidates over the past two years.
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...As expected, Right to Contraception act falls short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the bill
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill that would have recognized a legal right to contraception, weeks after Donald Trump made – and quickly walked back – comments indicating he was willing to restrict access to birth control.
As expected, the Right to Contraception act fell short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the bill. Before the vote, Democrats in effect acknowledged that they were daring Republicans to go on the record opposing the right to something that almost all American women use at some point in their lifetime.
Continue reading...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...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.
Data also shows party accepted £150,000 from Hester days after comments about Diane Abbott condemned as racist 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...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...
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
We asked Anna Stürgkh, a candidate for Austria’s liberal NEOS party, what issues voters are bringing up the most.
“Migration is definitely the one that is talked about the most,” she said.
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.
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.
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...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.
Continue reading...Nacc says it decided not to launch corruption probe ‘as it would not add value in the public interest’
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nacc) won’t pursue an investigation into six individuals referred by the robodebt royal commission, due to separate public service investigations being carried out into five of them.
The Nacc said on Thursday that it was “unlikely it would obtain significant new evidence” and had concluded it was “undesirable for a number of reasons to conduct multiple investigations into the same matter”.
Continue reading...BoM issues severe weather warning for the Illawarra and far southern suburbs of Sydney
Sydney is expected to be drenched with more than 100mm of rain in the coming days and the New South Wales east coast is under a flood watch as parts of the state recorded more than a month’s worth of rainfall in 12 hours.
The heavy rain kicked off on Wednesday night. The southern half of the Illawarra has been copping the worst of the downpour, where more than 180mm of rain was recorded in the 12 hours to midday on Thursday.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/EmptySpaceForAHeart [link] [comments] |
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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...Liam McCarthy, 33, jailed for seven months after ‘continually’ sending emails and leaving voicemails for then MP
A 33-year-old man has been jailed for seven months after sending threatening emails to a female politician.
Liam McCarthy, of Copperfield Road, Southampton, “continually” sent emails and left voicemails for the Conservative politician Caroline Nokes between 15 May 2022 and 4 March 2023.
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...Labour’s Gething vows to carry on in job he has held for less than 12 weeks, but pressure to step down will grow
The Welsh first minister, Vaughan Gething, has lost a confidence vote less than 12 weeks after taking office, following a series of scandals that have called into question his judgment and transparency.
Gething’s defeat is a significant blow to his authority and a problem for the UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who so far has repeatedly backed the Labour first minister.
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...Exclusive: Siyabonga Twala looking forward to reunion with his son after government withdraws exclusion order
A man who has been exiled in Turkey and separated from his British son for more than a year can return home after the UK government conceded it should never have excluded him.
Siyabonga Twala has spent the last 18 months living in limbo in Ankara after he was prevented from boarding a flight back to Manchester with his family in December 2022.
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.
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
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.
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.
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...Alice Perkins was in post when warnings of tech problems first emerged, but says she ‘missed’ their importance
The former chair of the Post Office has accused unnamed senior executives at the state-owned body of “misleading” its board over problems with the Horizon computer system that led to the largest miscarriage of justice in British history.
Alice Perkins on Wednesday told an inquiry into the scandal that she did not try to bury evidence of problems with Horizon.
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...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.
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...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’d like to hear from people under 30 in the UK about the things that will matter to them most when they go to the polls this July
We’re interested to hear from young people in the UK what matters to them the most when they think about voting in the 2024 general election.
If you are under 30 and live in the UK, tell us which issues are most important to you regarding the election, and whether you’re planning to vote on 4 July.
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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Continue reading...Clash between Iran and west over nuclear programme looms as US drops objections and joins European states condemning Tehran
A fresh confrontation between Tehran and the west is looming over Iran’s nuclear programme after the board of the UN nuclear watchdog voted heavily to censure the country for its repeated failure to cooperate with UN nuclear inspectors.
The vote by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) members was passed with 20 represented countries in favour, two against, and 12 abstentions. The two countries to vote against were Russia and China.
Continue reading...  | submitted by /u/machinade89 [link] [comments] |
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...
Sanmu Chen appeared to write the date of massacre in the air as anniversary becomes increasingly sensitive in Hong Kong
Hong Kong police detained an artist on Monday night after he appeared to write “8964” in the air with his hand, a reference to the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, hours before Tuesday’s 35th anniversary.
Public acknowledgment of the events of 4 June 1989, when Chinese soldiers shut down a weeks-long peaceful protest with violence, killing anything from several hundred to several thousand people – is banned in mainland China and increasingly sensitive in Hong Kong.
Continue reading...Uncrewed Chang’e-6 lander is carrying rock and soil samples in ‘very important achievement’ after lunar liftoff
China’s uncrewed Chang’e-6 probe is on its way back to Earth carrying the first samples from the far side of the moon, in a major achievement for Beijing’s space programme.
The probe landed on the lunar surface on Sunday, within one of the oldest craters on the moon – the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin – then spent two days gathering rock and soil samples using its drill and robotic arm.
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.
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...A testing surface meant Ireland struggled against India’s pace in what was hardly the desired advert for the game in the US
Whatever game the teams are playing out here in New York City, it surely isn’t the same one they have in the Indian Premier League. India beat Ireland by eight wickets on Wednesday, in a match that included all of 193 runs. Which is just a little more in two innings than teams were averaging in one during the IPL season just gone. So, after two matches and four innings in New York, the fans here are still waiting to see a team make as many as a hundred, never mind one of the individual players. So far the top score is Rohit Sharma’s 52, off 37 balls.
“When you look at T20 cricket you want to see runs, and boundaries, don’t you?” complained Ireland’s coach Heinrich Malan afterwards. “When you play a game you want the best surface you can get and unfortunately what we’ve seen over the last couple of games hasn’t lived up to that.” India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour agreed that “it was a challenging wicket”.
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...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...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...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...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...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...Events marking 35 years since troops ended peaceful protest with deadly violence are banned in China and Hong Kong
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have arrested or put under surveillance several dissidents before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre this week, according to human rights groups.
On 4 June it will be 35 years since Chinese soldiers shut down a weeks-long peaceful protest with violence, killing anything from several hundred to several thousand people.
Continue reading...Spacecraft to collect samples from rarely explored area after landing heralded as ‘enormous technical achievement’
China has landed its uncrewed Chang’e-6 lunar probe on the far side of the moon, marking an important step in the country’s 53-day mission to retrieve rock and soil samples from the “dark” lunar hemisphere, in what would be a world first.
The landing elevates China’s space power status in a global rush to the moon, where countries including the US are hoping to exploit lunar minerals to sustain long-term astronaut missions and moon bases within the next decade.
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...
Balloons filled with US dollars, K-pop and leaflets critical of Kim Jong-un have been sent over the border by a group of a North Korean defectors
The “balloon wars” between the two Koreas have intensified after activists in the South said they had sent balloons carrying anti-North Korean propaganda over the countries’ heavily armed border.
A group of North Korean defectors called the Free North Korea Movement on Thursday said it had sent 10 large balloons filled with 200,000 leaflets critical of the regime of North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, as well as US dollar bills and flash drives loaded with K-pop, according to South Korean media.
Continue reading...“It’s hard to see this wildly disproportionate response as anything other than an attempt to chill speech on this issue.”
The post Columbia Coincidentally Rewrites Disciplinary Rules Just in Time to Screw Over Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
Bring some Caribbean heat to this veggie dish that works great as a standout main or flavour-packed side
Aubergines roasted over fire, glazed with umami-rich miso and the fruity heat of Encona West Indian Original Hot Pepper Sauce – yum! Encona has done a lot of the work already – the sauce has heat and fruitiness from scotch bonnets and tang from vinegar – so you’re building flavour from a really delicious, complex base. Cook a load of these to pile high as a side for guests to feast on, or have them as a quick and tasty midweek dinner.
This recipe is veggie (and can easily be made plant based by replacing the honey with maple syrup or agave nectar), and has loads of flavour, which makes for a deeply satisfying meal.
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.
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.
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...Residents living near the volcano have been ordered to evacuate as authorities warn of further eruptions
Authorities in the Philippines have ordered residents living near Kanlaon volcano in the country’s west to evacuate, after an eruption sent a 5km (three mile) plume of ash into the sky.
The six-minute explosive eruption on Monday caused a “strong earthquake” and prompted the suspension of work and schools in nearby Canlaon City, while three airlines cancelled 32 flights on Tuesday.
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.
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.
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...Kuo Chiu, known as KC to his friends, teaches urban design at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He’s also one of many of the country's citizens who practises rifle skills in his spare time, in case of a Chinese invasion.
The population of Taiwan has long grown familiar with Beijing’s pledge to one day ‘unify’ what it claims is a breakaway province. But recently, there has been a significant increase in aggressive and intimidatory acts.
Taiwan’s 160,000 active military personnel are vastly outnumbered by China’s 2 million-member armed forces, leading many civilians to turn to voluntary medical and combat training to protect themselves.
The Guardian's video team spent time with KC to see how he is preparing
Continue reading...We know turbulence is a common part of flying – but are some routes more prone? And where is it the worst? Turbulence is the leading cause of in-flight injuries to crew and passengers and after the fatal Singapore Airlines incident and injuries to passengers above Turkey on a Qatar Airways flight, you might be wondering if flights are about to get bumpier. Incidents of severe turbulence are on the rise – increasing by 55% between 1979 and 2020 – and the climate crisis is thought to be a responsible factor
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Continue reading...Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, has been slowly swallowed by the sea over the past few decades. This has led to the relocation of the school and many homes, resulting in a dwindling population. Currently, there are only four students attending the school, often leaving just one in each classroom. The village has experienced severe coastal erosion, causing 1.1-2km (0.5-1.2 miles) of shoreline to disappear since the mid-1950s
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