Australian inflation is being driven by climate change, geopolitical shocks and government policies — factors typically beyond the

A cold snap will spread across Europe from the weekend, testing the region’s energy systems for the first

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear proposed awarding the largest pay raise in decades to Kentucky's public school personnel, upping the ante Wednesday in his competition with Republican challenger Daniel Cameron, who offered his own plan to boost salaries and overcome pandemic learning setbacks. The rivals in the November election outlined ideas for boosting K-12 education on back-to-back days, staking out positions on an overarching issue. Their gubernatorial showdown is one of the nation's most closely watched this year as the Democratic incumbent tries to win reelection in the red state. Beshear garnered strong support from teachers in winning the governorship in 2019, naming an educator as his running mate and vowing to make education his top priority. Cameron is trying to make inroads, having apologized for an ex-GOP governor's feud with educators and unveiling a plan to boost starting teacher pay and develop tutoring programs for students who fell behind during the pandemic. Beshear countered Wednesday with his own plan highlighted by an 11% pay raise for teachers and all school personnel, including bus drivers, janitors and cafeteria staff. It would amount to the single largest raise for Kentucky public school educators in at least 40 years, the governor said. “You can’t catch a kid up on math without a math teacher, and we cannot remain competitive with other states if we don’t pay teachers closer to what they’re worth,” the governor said at a news conference. The governor said his plan would fully fund student transportation. He said that funding, along with the pay raise, would help avoid problems like what occurred in Louisville's district, where schools closed for more than a week after a redesign of bus routes resulted in long delays on the first day of classes. Beshear's plan was in the works long before Cameron unveiled his proposals Tuesday, the governor's office said. Kentucky ranks 44th nationally in average teacher starting pay and 40th in average teacher pay, Beshear said, citing statistics from the National Education Association. An 11% raise — a $1.1 billion expense over two years — would vault Kentucky to the middle of the pack. With a record budget surplus and strong economy, the governor's proposals are affordable with “plenty of space” to meet other demands, State Budget Director John Hicks said. On Tuesday, Cameron proposed setting the statewide base starting pay for new teachers at $41,500. That would have a ripple effect by lifting pay for other teachers, he said. “What our plan entails is making sure that we get every county in our commonwealth up to that number, so we can ensure that our teachers are in a position to take care of themselves and be confident in the classroom as they work with our students,” Cameron said. Beshear said the average teacher starting salary in Kentucky is $38,010, based on NEA statistics. He said his proposal would raise that to $42,191. The governor pledged to continue pushing for state-funded pre-K for all 4-year-olds if he wins a second term. The proposal made no headway previously in the Republican-dominated legislature. Beshear said his plan includes fully funding teachers’ pensions and medical benefits to ensure there's no increase in health insurance premiums for school employees. A key part of Cameron's plan would develop an optional, 16-week tutoring program for math and reading instruction. Students falling behind grade level would get first priority, he said. The proposal mirrors initiatives already started by some school districts. It's a response to statewide test scores last fall that showed fewer than half of students were reading at grade level. Lower across-the-board scores were posted in math, science and social studies. National test scores showed it’s a problem across the U.S. as schools try to recover from the pandemic. Cameron blames Beshear for learning setbacks during the pandemic, when schools shifted to virtual learning, saying it put many students at risk of losing “their God-given potential.” The governor supported school closures during the height of the pandemic to protect people from the virus. He prioritized vaccinating teachers to get schools reopened and says his policies reflected recommendations from then-President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force. Kentucky lawmakers have generally followed their own course in setting education policies. The two-year budget passed last year funded full-day kindergarten and poured money into teacher pensions and infrastructure. They increased the state’s main funding formula for K-12 schools, but the amount was considerably less than what Beshear proposed. The governor chided lawmakers Wednesday for “shorting” districts in allocations for school transportation. “If you want to solve transportation issues, then we need to pay bus drivers enough,” Beshear said. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Kentucky governor's efforts to help storm-ravaged towns may dilute GOP advantage in rural areas Kentucky candidates trade barbs at Fancy Farm picnic, the state's premier political event McConnell is warmly embraced by Kentucky Republicans amid questions about his health

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday slammed Meta after executives said it would block news for Canadian Facebook and Instagram users in response to a proposed law that would require digital...

Scientists say they have built the first ever “breathing, sweating, shivering” robot, designed to cope and adapt to different temperatures. The heat-sensitive “thermal mannequin”, dubbed ANDI, features 35 individually controlled surfaces with pores that bead sweat like humans. Designed by US firm Thermetrics for use by researchers at Arizona State University, the robot was created to help better understand the health impacts of extreme temperatures on the human body. “ANDI sweats, he generates heat, shivers, walks and breathes,” said Konrad Rykaczewski, principal investigator for the ASU research project, whose work aims to identify and measure the effects of extreme heat on humans. “There’s a lot of great work out there for extreme heat, but there’s also a lot missing. We’re trying to develop a very good understanding of how heat impacts the human body so we can quantitatively design things to address it.” Some of the 10 sweating robots built by the researchers are already being used by clothing companies for garment testing, however ASU’s android is the only one that can be used outdoors. This allows experiments in previously impossible extreme heat environments, as well as studies into the impact of solar radiation. ASU researchers plan to test ANDI in heat-vulnerable areas around Phoenix this summer in an effort to understand how different ages and body types are impacted by high temperatures. “We can move different BMI models, different age characteristics and different medical conditions [into ANDI],” said Ankit Joshi, an ASU research scientist leading the modelling work and the lead operator of ANDI. “A diabetes patient has different thermal regulation from a healthy person. So we can account for all this modification with our customised models.” The results will be used to design interventions, such as cooling clothes and technologies to protect against heat stroke and heat-related deaths. Read More Electric cars could save more than 100,000 lives, study claims Electric cars could save more than 100,000 lives, study claims ‘I saw the future. It left me in tears’ This could be the end of ‘ducking’

FIFA 23 Liga Portugal TOTS Upgrade SBC is now live during Team of the Season. Here's how to complete the SBC and the best items to pack.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hit out at Facebook as detrimental to democracy after the news service began blocking access to news stories on its platforms in Canada in the midst of a wildfire crisis. “It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up-to-date information to Canadians and reach them,” Mr Trudeau said prior to a cabinet meeting on Prince Edward Island on Monday in comments reported by the New York Post. Mr Trudeau’s anger at Facebook comes as the company has started enforcing a new policy blocking Canada-based users from accessing news stories in response to a recent Canadian law that requires the company to pay publishers for content shared on the platform. Facebook, in response, has sharply reduced its role as a news service in the country — an issue in an emergency like the one Canada is facing now as its summer wildfires have forced the evacuation of some 35,000 families in the western province of British Columbia. “Democracy depends on people being able to trust high-quality journalism and of all sorts of different perspectives and points of view,” Mr Trudeau said on Monday. “But right now, in an emergency situation, up-to-date local information is more important than ever.” The prime minister’s contention is that Facebook’s policy is threatening people’s safety — a charge that a Facebook spokesperson denied in a statement provided to the Associated Press in which they said that Canadian Facebook users can still use the platform “to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from officials.” The dispute between Canadian lawmakers and companies like Facebook and Google set to be affected by the payment law has been brewing for months. In comments made last year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said the Canadian law “is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true.” In fact, experts say, the popularity of Facebook as a news-sharing platform has helped to drive a number of news agencies out of business while reportedly profiting in some cases from the dispersal of misinformation. Meanwhile, Canadian wildfires continue to burn and push families out of their homes. Per the Post, there have been more than 5,700 fires in Canada this summer that have burned more than 50,000 square miles — with the resulting smoke felt at various points in states across the US. Read More Canadian officials ease wildfire evacuation orders in scenic British Columbia region

Zscaler stock is suffering despite Wall Street hailing the last quarter as evidence of its strong business. The security-software company’s caution about its guidance looks to have disappointed the market but analysts aren’t too concerned.

The stock market’s cool response to the launch of Apple Inc.’s mixed-reality headset left investors pondering what will

The Moon is a constant in the night sky, but all is not actually as it seems. It turns out that scientists have discovered the Moon is drifting away from Earth, and it’s changing everything we thought we knew about our planet’s relationship with its only natural satellite. It’s also having a very real impact on the length of days on our planet – albeit at an incredibly slow rate. By moving away from Earth over the course of millions of years, the Moon is simultaneously making the length of the average day longer. A study by a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on rock from a formation aged at 90 million years. By doing so, they were able to analyse the Earth’s interactions with the Moon 1.4 billion years ago. It turns out that the Moon is moving away from Earth at us at 3.82 centimetres a year. That means that, eventually, it’ll result in Earth days lasting 25 hours in 200 million years time. Stephen Meyers, who is a professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out.” He added: “One of our ambitions was to use astrochronology to tell time in the most distant past, to develop very ancient geological time scales. “We want to be able to study rocks that are billions of years old in a way that is comparable to how we study modern geologic processes.” It’s not the only story that changes our understanding of the Moon recently. Scientists have also just uncovered billions of years’ worth of secrets buried beneath the surface of the moon – all thanks to China’s space programme, which has uncovered hidden structures which can help us start to piece together the Moon’s past. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Google says its “Lens” image search can now help people understand what is going on with their skin. The tool is intended as a smart image search: users can take pictures and use them to search for whatever is in them. It has previously suggested it is useful for finding the details of the clothes that make up an outfit, for instance, or looking up certain items of food. But ens can also be used for looking up skin conditions or other unusual things on the body, the company suggested. It warns that the tool is “informational only and not a diagnosis” and urges users to consult authorities for advice. But it suggested that it could be a useful way of starting to look up certain things on the body that might be otherwise hard to put into words. “Describing an odd mole or rash on your skin can be hard to do with words alone,” Google said. “This feature also works if you’re not sure how to describe something else on your body, like a bump on your lip, a line on your nails or hair loss on your head.” The feature was described in a more wide-ranging Google blog that focused on other more obvious uses, such as pointing the camera at a “cool building or landmark” or to translate street signs or menus. Google said the feature was new within lens, but did not specify when it had been released. The company has tried to use artificial intelligence to help with skin conditions before. In 2021, it released a new tool called “DermAssist”. Google says it sees “billions of skin-related searches each year”. DermAssist was built to assist with those, though it too includes a disclaimer indicating it is only intended “for informational purposes” and not for a medical diagnosis. Since that DermAssist feature is more specifically focused on helping with medical conditions, it is subject to more stringent regulation. As such, Google has still only made it available in a “limited release” and asks people to sign up to be part of that testing on its website. DermAssist required users to answer a few questions and upload three photos. Lens on the other hand simply appears to use Google’s algorithms to match one picture with similar images of skin conditions, and give some indication of what that condition might be. Read More Google ad revenue from anti-abortion campaigns and ‘fake’ clinics topped $10m: report EU makes major statement on the future of Google Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril

Modern Warfare 3 developers hinted at the return of slide canceling by sending content creators like FaZe Swagg and OpTic TeeP a mysterious package.