This is always worth repeating. Before the BBC decided for reasons unknown to endlessly platform Farage and allow his comments to go unchallenged he was a nobody, a fringe of a fringe, a far right nutcase loathed by most decent people and yet the BBC made him a star.

deal with #dementia differently

Some nursing homes struggle to attract visitors. One in the Netherlands chose to invite roommates instead. In the Dutch city of Deventer, a retirement home called Humanitas introduced an idea that would eventually gain attention around the world. Rather than accepting loneliness as a normal part of aging, they approached it as something that could actually be solved. For over ten years, Humanitas has allowed university students to live inside the nursing home rent free. In return, the students spend about thirty hours each month connecting with residents. Sometimes that means sharing meals, having conversations, helping with technology, joining activities, or simply keeping someone company during a quiet afternoon. They are not nurses or employees. They are simply part of the community. At first, the idea sounded like a smart response to expensive student housing. But the real impact appeared in the lives of the residents. Reports from outlets such as PBS NewsHour and AARP described seniors becoming more social, more active, and less isolated once younger people became part of everyday life. What makes the story even more meaningful is that many students chose to spend far more time there than the agreement required. Some even stayed connected after graduating. Over time, casual interactions turned into genuine friendships. Humanitas didn’t really create something new. It brought back something many societies once had naturally: different generations living side by side instead of separately. Maybe the issue was never aging itself. Maybe it was the distance we created between generations. Sometimes the most powerful ideas are simply old human connections rediscovered.

Farmers have figured out that the cheapest pesticide is a strip of flowers. When you plant wildflowers through a crop field, not just around the edge but in strips running through the middle, you get ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps living in the field instead of visiting it. They eat the aphids, the caterpillars, and the mites for free, all summer long. In controlled trials, fields with tailored flower strips had leaf-beetle numbers 40 to 50% lower and crop damage cut by around 60%, enough to drop below the threshold where spraying was even considered worth it. The flowers attract a standing army to our fields. We spent decades engineering chemicals to kill the insects eating the crop, when the insects that eat those insects would have worked for the price of seed.

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” — Bertrand Russell

She was 60 years old when the knock came. A quiet Quaker teacher. Retired. Broke. Living with her bedridden mother and disabled sister in a cramped Berlin apartment. It was late 1942. The deportations had begun. Her Jewish friends were vanishing. Every day another name gone. Every day another family erased. Elisabeth made a choice that would cost her everything—or nothing, depending on what you believe a life is worth. She opened her door. At first, it was just friends. Then friends of friends. Then desperate strangers who had heard whispers: There's a teacher in Tempelhof. She helps. She hid them in closets. Behind walls. In her sister's room. Sometimes one person. Sometimes five. The risk was absolute. Nazi neighbors watched her building. The Gestapo had her file marked: Politically unreliable. One search, one discovered face, and she'd be executed. Her mother too. Her sister. But the door stayed open. She sold her family's jewelry to smuggle a young man named Jizchak to safety in Switzerland. She skipped her own meals so hidden children could eat. She taught them history and languages in whispers, so they wouldn't forget who they were while the world tried to erase them. Every Friday, she gathered them around her table for Sabbath dinner. One survivor wrote: "For two hours we could forget we no longer lived like human beings." She didn't give them hope. She gave them dignity. For three years—1942 to 1945—she did this. Every day. Every streetcar ride. Every forged paper. Every shared meal. Every moment risking her life. When the war ended, approximately 80 people walked into the sunlight because one retired teacher refused to accept that she was powerless. She didn't write a book about it. Didn't give speeches. Didn't seek recognition. When asked why she did it, she said it was nothing. The natural thing. Anyone would have done the same. Almost no one had. In 1967, Yad Vashem named Elisabeth Abegg Righteous Among the Nations. A tree was planted in her honor in Jerusalem. She continued teaching. Continued living. Continued being visited by the people she had saved—now grandparents themselves, their children and grandchildren alive because she opened a door. Elisabeth Abegg died in 1974, surrounded by family. Some of them people she had hidden. Some of them children born after the war, existing only because she believed that one person, in one small apartment, with courage as her only real resource, could matter. Here's what her life means for you and me: We tell ourselves we're powerless. The problems are too big. The systems too entrenched. The obstacles too many. Elisabeth Abegg had three rooms. She had no money. No connections. No protection. No authority. No platform. No followers. She had three rooms and she changed the world with them. Not for millions. Not for nations. But for 80 people whose great-grandchildren are alive today because she said yes when fear said no. The question isn't whether you're big enough to change the world. The question is: What's in your three rooms? What do you have? Really have? And what are you willing to do with it?

I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter dire threat of a Reform UK government theguardian.com/politics/202…

You will need photo ID to vote in the local elections on 7 May. If you don't have an accepted form of photo ID you can apply for a free voter ID document, known as a Voter Authority Certificate. Apply by 28 April here: gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-vo…

When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.

This is brilliant and important work by @BylineTimes exposing the networks of Orban money sluicing through the British right-wing media. Hopefully there will soon be plenty more detail to come

🔴 EXPOSED: How Viktor Orbán Bankrolled the Network Around Reform UK As Hungary’s Prime Minister suffers a historic electoral defeat, Byline Times maps out how his government’s funding arm channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds into organisations at the heart of Britain’s hard right. bylinetimes.com/2026/04/14/e…

Arbeiter krank: Baustopp beim neuen Stahlwerk in Luleå polarkreisportal.de/arbeiter…

"People with #dementia lose their facts long before they lose their feelings." Don't correct, connect!

Whilst I don't see eye to eye with Rory Stewart on every issue, I admire his sympathetic view of the world, backed by his travels, open mind, meeting of people, cultural curiosity. There are a few angles in this interview we rarely hear as the facts of war dominate the headlines.

I worked with Trump. Here’s what I know about his mental state liveapp.inews.co.uk/category…

I worked with Trump. Here’s what I know about his mental state liveapp.inews.co.uk/category…

WUNDERVOLLE ORTE In Dänemark entstehen in einigen Häfen schwimmende Inseln mit Wildblumen und Pflanzen, die als Rückzugsorte für Vögel, Bienen und andere Insekten dienen. Diese Plattformen sind Teil des Projekts „Parkipelago“ in Kopenhagen. Die künstlichen Inseln bestehen aus bepflanzten schwimmenden Elementen und sollen die Biodiversität in urbanen Hafenbereichen fördern. Auch unter Wasser bilden sich neue Lebensräume, da sich Algen, Muscheln und andere Organismen ansiedeln und Fische anziehen.

Der Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien in Spanien hat die Strompreise strukturell von den Gasmärkten abgekoppelt. Gas bestimmt heute nur noch in 15 % der Stunden den Preis, verglichen mit 90 % in Italien. Länder, die frühzeitig in saubere Energie investiert haben, sind weitaus weniger anfällig für Preisschocks bei fossilen Brennstoffen.

China powers smart street lights with vertical wind turbines, harnessing wind for greener cities