Nigel Farage, the broadcaster and populist politician who championed Brexit, said on Thursday that he would not run for a seat in the British Parliament in a general election on July 4, preferring to focus on helping former President Donald J. Trump recapture the White House in November. Mr. Farage’s announcement is likely to be a modest relief for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party, since Mr. Farage’s current party, Reform UK, is viewed as a significant threat to the Conservatives from the right. But Mr. Farage said he would “do my bit” to help Reform, which plans to field a slate of candidates in the election, running on an anti-immigration message. “Important though the general election is,” Mr. Farage posted on social media, “the contest in the United States of America on Nov. 5 has huge global significance. Mr. Trump once suggested that the British government appoint Mr. Farage as ambassador to Washington.

The Trust was set up by Louis Baylis in 1962 and its primary objective is: To work for the good of the community, principally in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. The Trust distributed grants of over £100,000 to more than 100 recipients during the last financial year and has a policy of distributing the majority of the grants to local organisations and charities, the balance going to regional and national organisations. The majority of applications for grants from the Trust are received by post from local and national charities and organisations that are aware of the Trust. The Trust supports all sections of the community in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead and actively encourages applications for grants from the Trust.The bulk of donations are made to benefit the elderly and the young, although many other groups including the Arts are also supported.

Labour and the Conservatives will go head-to-head on a range of divisive issues over the next six weeks as the general election campaign gets underway. The economyTaxes, economic growth and the cost-of-living crisis are expected to be at the front and centre of the general election battle between the two main parties. Rumours of an impending general election announcement gathered pace after Mr Sunak hailed a 'major milestone' with inflation tumbling to the lowest level in nearly three years. ImmigrationMr Sunak will be hoping he can get the first Rwanda migrant deportation flight off the ground before the general election. But the PM still faces the thorny issue of legal migration, which Mr Sunak himself has acknowledged is 'too high'.

With the election build-up already well underway, Conservative MP Trudy Harrison has penned a post on The House website titled, "Let's take cycling out of the culture wars". "We proudly boast the UK's most popular challenge cycle route, Sustrans' Sea to Sea (or C2C) – from the Irish Sea at Whitehaven to the North Sea at Sunderland, some 138 miles. But the recently published, independently researched Sustrans walking and cycling index shows that people want to live in healthier places. "Let's be brave and take cycling out of the culture wars. I encourage every candidate standing at the next election to include walking or cycling on their leaflets; it might just attract people who don't currently feel spoken to.

Arizona congressional candidate Abe Hamadeh (R) privately called those who believe stolen election claims “crazies” in text messages obtained by the Arizona Republic. “At the same time, Hamadeh was publicly spreading unfounded claims about U.S. election security.”“Hamadeh has publicly cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election that he lost and has filed multiple lawsuits challenging its outcome.”

The Patriot Post ® · Stealing Faces and VoicesArtificial Intelligence (AI) has been the subject of concern for creatives. OpenAI released five new voices — Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper, and Sky — as part of a demonstration for the next generation of ChatGPT. Besides approaching the actress for the use of her voice, Altman also posted “her” on social media before the launch, drawing a similarity between the new voice and the movie voice. Influencers have had their likeness stolen and used for deepfake commercials. Ordinary middle and high school girls have had their likeness stolen and manipulated to make deepfake porn.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and News Corp CEO Robert Thomson. Pictures: Shutterstock and jamesonwu1972/News CorpNews Corp has signed a multi-year global deal that will allow OpenAI to use its current and archived content in products like ChatGPT. News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson described the deal as “the beginning of a beautiful friendship” months after he said he preferred to “woo” the tech company rather than sue it like The New York Times has done. The Wall Street Journal has put a value on the deal of more than $250m over five years “including compensation in the form of cash and credits for use of OpenAI technology”. Future Of Media USA Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers.

Hannah Al-Othman is moving from The Sunday Times to become Northern Correspondent of The Guardian. She’s spent almost 2 years as news reporter for the Sunday Times, in Manchester, having previously been BuzzFeed’s Political Reporter and also stints at MailOnline, Daily Mirror and the Evening Standard. She wrote on X:“I should add, it’s been an amazing (almost!) “I’ll miss it working with them all very much, but especially my brilliant friend David Collins.”Collins is the Northern Editor of The Times. Since joining the paper Al-Othman has won a Paul Foot Award and Orwell Special Prize.

DENTAL graduates in England could be forced to work in the NHS to help tackle the crisis in access that has left millions struggling to get their teeth repaired reports The Guardian. Under the government’s plan they would have to undertake NHS work for “several years” after leaving university or face paying back some of the £200,000 cost of training them. Click below for more details. https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/23/new-dentists-could-be-forced-to-work-in-nhs-to-tackle-englands-dental-deserts

Rishi Sunak has warned Labour against taking victory for granted even though the party leads polls in the run-up to the 4 July election announced by the prime minister on Wednesday. Speaking at a Tory campaign launch event, Sunak said: 'The British people are going to show Labour that they don’t take too kindly to being taken for granted.' Sunak added that Labour would increase taxes for working families, a claim dismissed by Labour

He’s only bloody gone and done — oh hang on, Boris isn’t in charge anymore. It is a truth universally observed that the election will result in a rout of the Tories and the installation of a majority Labour government. Better lose your head in the election guillotine than be the lettuce they use to test the blade, I guess. And it was announced that dissident Tories are going to try and roll Sunak before the Commons sits next Thursday, then call the election off. As the man said, “An arrow shower sent out of sight/somewhere becoming rain.”Is it finally over for the UK Tories?

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The US house speaker, Mike Johnson, has said the US should 'punish the ICC and put Karim Khan back in his place' after the ICC chief prosecutor put out a request for arrest warrants for Israel's leaders over the way its army has conducted its war in Gaza. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Johnson said: 'If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israel's leaders, we know that America will be next,' adding: 'We have some very aggressive legislation that we're going to push as quickly as possible. It will impose sanctions'

With unabashed acknowledgement of nepotism, I present to you the finest quilter I know, with her answers to 5Q4: Fran Kahane. At what moment did you discover you wanted to be a quilter or fabric artist? That’s where I learned more complex garment-making and other fabric techniques. During COVID lockdown I started sewing quilts for donations through a wonderful organization called the Deanna Davis Community Quilt Project (DDCQP). Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda.

The timing of the move was a surprise, but discussions have been underway for weeks in some European Union countries about possibly recognizing a Palestinian state. Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the European ambassadors would watch grisly video footage of the attack. “We will not even allow a statement about a Palestinian state,” he said. The international community has long viewed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict. Israel says any Palestinian state would be at risk of being taken over by Hamas, posing a threat to its security.