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This article was published in partnership with Czech investigative media outlet Deník Referendum A Czech MEP earning €120,000 a year in his second job as an automotive consultant is facing fresh concerns over the “unacceptable” conflicts of interest involved in his latest appointment. Filip Turek was elected to the European Parliament in 2024 as the […] The post Czech MEP Appointed to Climate Role While Paid £10k a Month as Car Consultant appeared first on DeSmog.

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif gave an assurance that his country will never allow its territory to be used for harming Iran, which he hailed as a friendly neighbor.

The Reserve Bank of Australia left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4.1% today, stressing the uncertainty in the economic outlook. As the Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock told a media conference, “since February there has been a lot more uncertainty introduced in the international context”. The on-hold decision was widely expected and Bullock described it as a “consensus decision” by the board. The decision to hold was not because the election campaign is underway. It was because there has not been enough new economic data to change materially its view on inflation. The governor said the board had never mentioned the election in its discussions. In a statement, the central bank said: Recent announcements from the United States on tariffs are having an impact on confidence globally and this would likely be amplified if the scope of tariffs widens. As the Reserve Bank Governor put it, “we’re paid to worry” and they are discussing with peer central banks the response to global uncertainties. Decline in inflation is welcome The volatile monthly inflation series fell marginally, from 2.5% to 2.4%, in February. The more trustworthy quarterly consumer price index (CPI) will come out on April 30 and will be an important factor in the Reserve Bank’s decision at its next meeting, on May 20. The CPI report is likely to show the “trimmed mean” underlying inflation returning to the 2–3% target band for the first time since 2021. Headline inflation could be in the lower half of the band. The unemployment rate has been steady at 4.1%. This is below what the Reserve Bank had regarded as the level consistent with steady inflation. But it has not been associated with an acceleration in wages. Indeed, wages have slowed to 3.2% growth, less than the Reserve Bank was forecasting for 2025. This could all give the Reserve Bank the confidence to make another cut to the cash rate. Financial markets are predicting a cut in May. The board itself said the current level of rates “remains restrictive”. So they will cut rates further once inflation is sustainably around the middle of the target band. The (lack of) impact of the budget The main impact of last week’s federal budget will be to delay the bounceback in electricity prices, after the end of the current rebates, for another six months. If there is a change in government, there will be a temporary fall in petrol prices for a year. We calculated how much Dutton's excise cut would save you on fuel – and few will save as much as promised But both of these have only temporary effects on the “headline” inflation rate. The Reserve Bank is more concerned about sustained movements in underlying inflation. Labor’s proposed income tax cuts, which will be cancelled if the Coalition wins power, are only “modest” (in the treasurer’s own words) and do not come into effect until July 2026. They are also unlikely to have a material impact on the Reserve Bank’s inflation forecasts. The governor suggested as much, commenting that the forecasts following the budget would be similar to those made in February. She described increasing government spending as “filling a gap” in relatively weak private demand. The fallout from tariffs We will not know the extent of the new tariffs being announced by United States President Donald Trump until later in the week. And even then he may change them within days – or even on the same day. The US tariffs will push up prices there. But if they trigger a trade war, the global economy will weaken and this may lead to lower prices globally. The governor pointed out that trade diversion prompted by tariffs could lower the price of some imports. Bullock said the central bank was assessing the potential impact of tariffs on Australia’s trading partners including China. If Chinese authorities boosted support for their economy, then the economic impact on Australia might be “muted”. The Reserve Bank’s 0.25% interest rate cut in February to 4.1% was the first change in the cash rate since November 2023 and marked the first small reversal of 13 rate increases that began in the closing days of the Morrison government. The Reserve Bank has cut rates for the first time in four years. But it is cautious about future cuts The Reserve Bank and the election The heightened attention placed on the Reserve Bank in an election campaign is not that unusual. With Australian parliamentary terms limited to three years, but with no fixed duration, we are often approaching a possible election. While cutting interest rates will suit one side of politics, not cutting benefits the other. The impartial approach taken by the Reserve Bank is to make the same decision as they would if no election were looming. The new board This is the first meeting of the new monetary policy board, which is now separate from the central bank’s governance board. This specialisation was a recommendation of the 2023 Reserve Bank review commissioned by the treasurer. But seven of the nine member remain from the previous board. The two new members, including one of the authors of the review, are not expected to hold markedly different views to the continuing members. John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist with the Reserve Bank.

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations warned of the Islamic Republic’s swift and decisive response to any American or Israeli act of aggression, saying the US will be fully responsible for the grave consequences of any hostile action against Iran.

The Planning Commission approved several proposed amendments to an amendment of the city’s Technical Building Code during a meeting March 25, all of which address a peculiar kind of development called a “single-stair,” or “point-access” building. Point-access buildings are so… The post A once-banned type of building is back in favor – and the Planning Commission approves appeared first on Austin Monitor.

A new report from the Office of the City Auditor concludes that, while the city has made notable progress in preparing for extreme heat, challenges in coordination, funding and measurable planning continue to undermine long-term resilience. The audit, released this… The post Audit throws shade at city’s efforts to mitigate extreme heat appeared first on Austin Monitor.

Massive concrete beams now extend over the water at the east end of Lady Bird Lake as a new three-pronged pedestrian bridge – the first of its kind in Austin – comes together next to the Longhorn Dam. Only one… The post East Austin’s ‘wishbone’ bridge takes shape as concrete beams almost span Lady Bird Lake appeared first on Austin Monitor.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Bright morning sun is streaming through her home’s windows as Sandra Dill reads a picture book about penguins to a room full of busy toddlers. While listening, the kids blow kisses, plop in a visitor’s lap, then get up to slide down a small slide. Dill has been running a family […] The post Head Start is turning 60. The federal child care program may not make it to 61  appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

The damage climate change will inflict on the world’s economy is likely to have been massively underestimated, according to new research by my colleagues and I which accounts for the full global reach of extreme weather and its aftermath. To date, projections of how climate change will affect global gross domestic product (GDP) have broadly suggested mild to moderate harm. This in part has led to a lack of urgency in national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, these models often contain a fundamental flaw – they assume a national economy is affected only by weather in that country. Any impacts from weather events elsewhere, such as how flooding in one country affects the food supply to another, are not incorporated into the models. Our new research sought to fix this. After including the global repercussions of extreme weather into our models, the predicted harm to global GDP became far worse than previously thought – affecting the lives of people in every country on Earth. Weather shocks everywhere, all at once Global warming affects economies in many ways. The most obvious is damage from extreme weather. Droughts can cause poor harvests, while storms and floods can cause widespread destruction and disrupt the supply of goods. Recent research has also shown heatwaves, aggravated by climate change, have contributed to food inflation. Heat also makes workers less productive. It affects human health, and disease transmission, and can cause mass migration and conflict. Most prior research predicts that even extreme warming of 4°C will have only mild negative impacts on the global economy by the end of the century – between 7% and 23%. Such modelling is usually based on the effects of weather shocks in the past. However, these shocks have typically been confined to a local or regional scale, and balanced out by conditions elsewhere. For example, in the past, South America might have been in drought, but other parts of the world were getting good rainfall. So, South America could rely on imports of agricultural products from other countries to fill domestic shortfalls and prevent spikes in food prices. But future climate change will increase the risk of weather shocks occurring simultaneously across countries and more persistently over time. This will disrupt the networks producing and delivering goods, compromise trade and limit the extent to which countries can help each other. International trade is fundamental to the global economic production. So, our research examined how a country’s future economic growth would be influenced by weather conditions everywhere else in the world. What did we find? One thing was immediately clear: a warm year across the planet causes lower global growth. We corrected three leading models to account for the effects of global weather on national economies, then averaged out their results. Our analysis focused on global GDP per capita – in other words, the world’s economic output divided by its population. We found if the Earth warms by more than 3°C by the end of the century, the estimated harm to the global economy jumped from an average of 11% (under previous modelling assumptions) to 40% (under our modelling assumptions). This level of damage could devastate livelihoods in large parts of the world. Previous models have asserted economies in cold parts of the world, such as Russia and Northern Europe, will benefit from warmer global temperatures. However, we found the impact on the global economy was so large, all countries will be badly affected. A warm year across the planet causes lower global growth. Pictured: wilted corn crops during drought. wahyusyaban/Shutterstock Costs vs benefits Reducing emissions leads to short-term economic costs. These must be balanced against the long-term benefits of avoiding dangerous climate change. Recent economic modelling has suggested this balance would be struck by reducing emissions at a rate that allows Earth to heat by 2.7°C. This is close to Earth’s current warming trajectory. But it is far higher than the goals of the Paris Agreement, and global warming limits recommended by climate scientists. It is also based on the flawed assumptions discussed above. Under our new research, the optimal amount of global warming, balancing short-term costs with long-term benefits, is 1.7°C – a figure broadly consistent with the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious target. Avoiding climate change has short-term costs and long-term benefits. Dany Bejar/Shutterstock Changing course Our new research shows previous forecasts of how such warming will affect the global economy have been far too optimistic. It adds to other recent evidence suggesting the economic impacts of climate change has been badly underestimated. Clearly, Earth’s current emissions trajectory risks our future and that of our children. The sooner humanity grasps the calamities in store under severe climate change, the sooner we can change course to avoid it. Timothy Neal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Jacob Lund/Shutterstock Getting a headache during or after exercise can be seriously frustrating – especially if you have kept hydrated to try and stop them from happening. But why do these headaches occur? And does keeping hydrated make any difference? What are exercise headaches? Exercise headaches (also known as “exertional headaches”) are exactly what they sound like: headaches that occur either during, or after, exercise. French doctor Jules Tinel first reported these headaches in the medical literature in 1932 and they’ve been a regular point of discussion since. Exercise headaches commonly present as a throbbing pain on both sides of the head. They most often occur after strenuous exercise – although what is considered “strenuous” can differ between people, depending on their fitness levels. They can last anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days. Exercise headaches are thought to impact about 12% of adults, although this number varies from 1% all the way up to 26% across individual studies. In most circumstances, these headaches are harmless and will resolve on their own, over time. Some research suggests you will stop getting them after a few months of starting a new type of workout. But while they are usually harmless, they can sometimes signal an underlying condition that requires medical attention. What causes exercise headaches? Despite a good amount of research looking at exertional headaches, we don’t know their exact cause, but we do think we know why they occur. The leading theory suggests they are caused by changes in blood flow to the brain. During intense exercise, blood vessels in the brain dilate, increasing blood flow and pressure, leading to pain. Because long-term exercise improves our cardiovascular health, including our ability to dilate and constrict our blood vessels, this theory makes sense when we consider that exercise headaches tend to resolve themselves over time. This might explain why research suggests fitter people are less likely to get exercise headaches. People with migraines appear more likely to experience exercise headaches, which are thought to be caused by this same mechanism. Does heat and dehydration cause exercise headaches? There is evidence suggesting that exercise headaches are more likely to occur in the heat. Your brain cannot dissipate heat by sweating like the rest of your body can. So when it’s hot, your body has to increase blood flow to the brain to help bring down its temperature, which can increase pressure. Exercise headaches might not be as bad when you’re hydrated. ME Image/Shutterstock Similarly, exercise headaches also seem to get worse, and occur more often, when people are dehydrated. However, we are not sure why this happens. Some research has shown that dehydration results in increased strain during exercise. As such, dehydration might not necessarily cause the headache, but make it more likely to occur. Red flags: when to see a doctor Most exercise headaches resolve themselves after a few hours and result in no lasting negative effects. In some rare instances, they could be sign of something more serious occurring in the brain, such as a subarachnoid haemorrhage (a bleed between the brain and the tissues that cover it), reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (a spasming of blood vessels), cervical artery dissection (or tear), intracranial hypertension (pressure in the brain), or an infection. See a doctor to rule out anything serious if: it’s your first exercise headache the headache is severe and sudden (also known as a thunderclap headache) it’s accompanied by other symptoms such as vision changes, confusion, or sensations of weakness you experience a stiff neck, nausea, or vomiting with your headache it lasts for more than 24 hours and doesn’t seem to be getting better. Can you prevent exercise headaches? There is no surefire way to prevent exercise headaches. But a recent review suggests that ensuring you’re adequately hydrated and gradually warm-up to your desired exercise intensity can make them less likely to occur. Give your body time to adapt. Gorgev/Shutterstock Beyond this, you may wish to keep your exercise intensity in a light-to moderate range for a couple of months. This will give your cardiovascular system some time to adapt before trying more strenuous exercise, hopefully reducing the likelihood of getting exercise headaches at all. Exercise headaches are annoying, but are generally harmless and should subside on their own over time. Hunter Bennett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Earthquakes and the damage they cause are apolitical. Collectively, we either prepare for future earthquakes or the population eventually pays the price. The earthquakes that struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025, collapsing buildings and causing over 2,000 deaths, were a sobering reminder of the risks and the need for preparation. In the U.S., this preparation […]

Social media has recently been flooded with images that looked like they belonged in a Studio Ghibli film. Selfies, family photos and even memes have been re-imagined with the soft pastel palette characteristic of the Japanese animation company founded by Hayao Miyazaki. This followed OpenAI’s latest update to ChatGPT. The update significantly improved ChatGPT’s image generation capabilities, allowing users to create convincing Ghibli-style images in mere seconds. It has been enormously popular – so much so, in fact, that the system crashed due to user demand. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT are best understood as “style engines”. And what we are seeing now is these systems offering users more precision and control than ever before. But this is also raising entirely new questions about copyright and creative ownership. How the new ChatGPT makes images Generative AI programs work by producing outputs in response to user prompts, including prompts to create an image. Previous generations of AI image generators used diffusion models. These models gradually refine random, noisy data into a coherent image. But the latest update to ChatGPT uses what’s known as an “autoregressive algorithm”. This algorithm treats images more like language, breaking them down into “tokens”. Just as ChatGPT predicts the most likely words in a sentence, it can now predict different visual elements in an image separately. This tokenisation enables the algorithm to better separate certain features of an image – and their relationship with words in a prompt. As a result, ChatGPT can more accurately create images from precise user prompts than previous generations of image generators. It can replace or change specific features while preserving the rest of the image, and it improves on the longstanding issue of generating correct text in images. A particularly powerful advantage of generating images inside a large language model is the ability to draw on all the knowledge already encoded in the system. This means users don’t need to describe every aspect of an image in painstaking detail. They can simply refer to concepts such as Studio Ghibli and the AI understands the reference. The recent Studio Ghibli trend began with OpenAI itself, before spreading among Silcon Valley software engineers and then even governments and politicians – including seemingly unlikely uses such as the White House creating a Ghiblified image of a crying woman being deported and the Indian government promoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s narrative of a “New India”. Understanding AI as ‘style engines’ Generative AI systems don’t store information in any traditional sense. Instead they encode text, facts, or image fragments as patterns – or “styles” – within their neural networks. Trained on vast amounts of data, AI models learn to recognise patterns at multiple levels. Lower network layers might capture basic features such as word relationships or visual textures. Higher layers encode more complex concepts or visual elements. This means everything – objects, properties, writing genres, professional voices – gets transformed into styles. When AI learns about Miyazaki’s work, it’s not storing actual Studio Ghibli frames (though image generators may sometimes produce close imitations of input images). Instead, it’s encoding “Ghibli-ness” as a mathematical pattern – a style that can be applied to new images. The same happens with bananas, cats or corporate emails. The AI learns “banana-ness”, “cat-ness” or “corporate email-ness” – patterns that define what makes something recognisably a banana, cat or a professional communication. The encoding and transfer of styles has for a long time been an express goal in visual AI. Now we have an image generator that achieves this with unprecedented scale and control. This approach unlocks remarkable creative possibilities across both text and images. If everything is a style, then these styles can be freely combined and transferred. That’s why we refer to these systems as “style engines”. Try creating an armchair in the style of a cat, or in elvish style. The copyright controversy: when styles become identity While the ability to work with styles is what makes generative AI so powerful, it’s also at the heart of growing controversy. For many artists, there’s something deeply unsettling about seeing their distinctive artistic approaches reduced to just another “style” that anyone can apply with a simple text prompt. Hayao Miyazaki has not publicly commented on the recent trend of people using ChatGPT to generate images in his world-famous animation style. But he has been critical of AI previously. All of this also raises entirely new questions about copyright and creative ownership. Traditionally, copyright law doesn’t protect styles – only specific expressions. You can’t copyright a music genre such as “ska” or an art movement such as “impressionism”. This limitation exists for good reason. If someone could monopolise an entire style, it would stifle creative expression for everyone else. But there’s a difference between general styles and highly distinctive ones that become almost synonymous with someone’s identity. When an AI can generate work “in the style of Greg Rutkowski” – a Polish artist whose name was reportedly used in over more than 93,000 prompts in AI image generator Stable Diffusion – it potentially threatens both his livelihood and artistic legacy. Some creators have already taken legal action. In a case filed in late 2022, three artists formed a class to sue multiple AI companies, arguing that their image generators were trained on their original works without permission, and now allow users to generate derivative works mimicking their distinctive styles. As technology evolves faster than the law, work is under way on new legislation to try and balance technological innovation with protecting artists’ creative identities. Whatever the outcome, these debates highlight the transformative nature of AI style engines – and the need to consider both their untapped creative potential and more nuanced protections of distinctive artistic styles. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The small Queensland town of Eromanga bills itself as Australia’s town furthest from the sea. But this week, an ocean of freshwater arrived. Monsoon-like weather has hit the normally arid Channel Country of inland Queensland. Some towns have had two years’ worth of rain in a couple of days. These flat grazing lands now resemble an inland sea. One New South Wales man is still missing and dozens of people have been evacuated. Others are preparing to be cut off, potentially for weeks. And graziers are reporting major livestock losses – more than 100,000 and climbing. In some areas, the flooding is worse than 1974, the wettest year on record in Australia. Why so much rain? Tropical, water-laden air has been brought far inland from the oceans to the north and east. This can happen under normal climate variability. But our ocean temperatures are the highest on record, which supercharges the water cycle. In coming weeks, this huge volume of water will wend its way through the channels perhaps 600 km to fill Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, the ephemeral lake which appears in the northern reaches of South Australia. It’s likely this will be a Lake Eyre for the ages. In the first three months of the year, deadly record-breaking floods hit northern Queensland before Cyclone Alfred tracked unusually far south and made landfall in southeast Queensland, bringing widespread winds and rains and leaving expensive repair bills. Now the rain has come inland. Why so much rain in arid areas? Some meteorologists have dubbed this event a pseudo-monsoon. That’s because the normal Australian monsoon doesn’t reach this far south – the torrential rains of the monsoonal wet season tend to fall closer to the northern coasts. Because the Arafura and Timor Seas to the north are unusually warm, evaporation rates have shot up. Once in the air, this water vapour makes for very humid conditions. These air masses are even more humid than normal tropical air, because they have flowed down from the equator. Many Queenslanders can vouch for the intense humidity. But there’s a second factor at work. At present, Australia’s climate is influenced by a positive Southern Annular Mode. This means the belt of intense westerly winds blowing across the Southern Ocean has been pushed further south, causing a ripple effect which can lead to more summer rain in Australia’s southeast, up to inland Queensland. This natural climate driver has meant easterly winds have blown uninterrupted from as far away as Fiji, carrying yet more humid air inland. Many inland rivers in Queensland are in major flood (red triangles) as of April 1. Bureau of Meteorology, CC BY These two streams of converging humid tropical air were driven up into the cooler heights of the atmosphere by upper and surface low pressure troughs, triggering torrential rain over wide areas of the outback While these humid air masses have now dumped most of their water, more rain is coming in the aftermath of the short-lived Cyclone Dianne off northwest Australia. These rains won’t be as intense but may drive more flood peaks over already saturated catchments. This is why it has been so wet in what is normally an exceptionally dry part of Australia. What is this doing to the Channel Country? Many Australians have never been to the remote Channel Country. It’s a striking landscape, marked by ancient, braided river channels. Even for an area known for drought-flood cycles, the rainfall totals are extreme. This is a very rare event. People who live there have to be resilient and self-sufficient. But farmers and graziers are bracing for awful losses of livestock. Livestock can drown in floodwaters, but a common fate is succumbing to pneumonia after spending too long in water. After the water moves down the channels, it will leave behind notoriously boggy and sticky mud. This can be lethal to livestock and native animals, which can find themselves unable to move. Where will the water go next? Little of these temporary inland seas will ever reach the ocean. Some of the rain has fallen in the catchment of the Darling River, where it will flow down and meet the Murray. The Darling is often filled by summer rains, while the Murray gets more water from autumn and winter rains. This water will eventually reach the Southern Ocean. But most of the rain fell further inland. The waters snaking through the channels will head south, flowing slowly along the flat ground for weeks until it crosses the South Australian border and begins to fill up Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. Here, the waters will stop, more than 300 km from the nearest ocean at Port Augusta, and fill what is normally a huge, salty depression and Australia’s lowest point, 15 metres below sea level. When Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre fills, it creates an extraordinary spectacle. Millions of brine shrimp will hatch from eggs in the dry soil. This sudden abundance will draw waterbirds in their millions, while fish carried in the floodwaters will spawn and eat the shrimp. Then there are the remarkable shield shrimps, hibernating inland crabs and salt-adapted hardyhead fish. It’s rare that Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre fills up – but when it does, life comes to the desert. Mandy Creighton/Shutterstock The rain event will send enough water to keep Lake Eyre full for many months and it usually takes up to two years for it to dry out again. We can expect to see a huge lake form – the size of a small European country. Birdwatchers and biologists will flock to the area to see the sight of a temporary sea in the desert. Eventually, the intense sun of the outback will evaporate every last drop of the floodwaters, leaving behind salted ground and shrimp eggs for the next big rains. As the climate keeps warming, we can expect to see more sudden torrential rain dumps like this one, followed by periods of rapid drying. Steve Turton has previously received funding from the federal government.

The fiscal guardrails are Connecticut’s strongest defense against future financial turmoil.

Neither Medicaid nor commercial health plans will pay a pharmacist to provide the same clinical assessment and prescribe the same hormonal contraceptives as a doctor.

At a time when federal environmental regulations are being dismantled at an alarming rate, it is more important than ever to empower the people of Connecticut to take action in protecting their environment.

As more religious scholars and practitioners engage with AI-powered tools, the conversation will likely continue — blending the old with the new in a way that mirrors the very essence of religious progress. Whether as a study aid, a scholarly resource or a spiritual guide, creations like JainGPT represents both the promise and the challenge of faith in the digital age.

(REVIEW) Janis Ian’s songs are known for their sharp social commentary, but what director Varda Bar-Kar uncovers in her new documentary “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” is how central Ian’s Judaism was to her activism. Ian, who was born in New Jersey, legally changed her name from Janis Fink to Janis Ian in 1964, adopting her brother Eric’s middle name as her last name.

Senate Republicans scored a victory in Monday's budget debate, notching a rare minority win with their amendment that dedicates a new per tire fee to state highways and bridges. It came as the Senate gave preliminary OK to a $67 billion budget.