We support the government’s ambition to back local and community energy and give people a real stake in the clean energy transition. Investment that helps communities co-own generation, cut bills and reinvest returns locally is a positive step.
Today’s publication of the local power plan will ensure communities across the country can benefit from the clean energy transition. Backed by a new £1bn fund, the plan sets out a strong and ambitious vision – that by 2030, every community in the UK will have the opportunity to own or participate in local energy projects.
The focus on building capacity, capability and skills is essential. We know from our work delivering the Scottish government’s community and renewable energy scheme and the Welsh government energy service just how effective expert, tailored support can be in empowering communities to get projects off the ground.
Putting power in the hands of ordinary communities can bring down bills and build durable support for the energy transition. But expanding local renewable production always required ambitious public action to overcome barriers of cost and coordination. That is why the local power plan is an exciting moment: a coherent strategy to decentralise and democratise energy production. It is a downpayment on the potential of GB Energy and a statement of what more ambitious public ownership and investment can deliver.
The Jan. 31 edition of the Economist tells a depressing story of the academy in peril. An instructor of an introductory philosophy course at Texas A&M University — one of America’s largest post-secondaries — faced reassignment unless he excluded Plato from his reading list; another professor at the same school was dismissed for discussing gender fluidity; and 200 courses are under administrative review for prohibited content. At the University of Texas at Austin, 40 per cent of faculty reported being pressured to make changes to their curricula, and the university’s faculty council, elected to advise the administration on academic matters, was dissolved last year. Read More
It was interesting to read Corey Balsam's op-ed complaining that he and NDP leader Avi Lewis are being accused of gaslighting Jews by criticizing Israel and Zionism. The gist of his argument seems to be that neither criticism constitutes antisemitism. In fact, his essay goes a long way to proving the accusation. Read More
The big appeal for me of the Winter Olympics is the biathlon. That combination of cross-country skiing and riflery is a civilian adaptation of Scandinavian military training that needs only the addition of beer to fully evoke my old memories of cold-weather shenanigans in the high country of northern Arizona. But indulging my nostalgia is an expensive endeavour that dwindling ranks of taxpayers around the world are willing to shoulder. While the Olympic Games make for occasionally interesting spectacles, they’re primarily exercises in expensive nationalistic chest-beating that interest fewer potential hosts and spectators than in the past. Read More
Seventy-one per cent of Canadians agree with B.C. Premier David Eby’s recent statement that “to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there's an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” according to a new poll from Canada Pulse Insights. Read More
In August 2022, with a lukewarm Guinness in hand, I brokered a quiet deal that would upend provincial politics in British Columbia. In a kitchy Irish pub in downtown Vancouver, I introduced newly independent MLA John Rustad to Conservative Party of B.C. executive director Angelo Isidorou, one of the principal architects behind the party’s rebranding and insurgent revival.Read More
Anti-Trump Canadianism is pouring out of our Facebook feeds, TikTok reels and even the old-fashioned medium of long-form books. But is there anything substantive in this? If Trump goes away, will the same people who now profess their undying maple-syrup love for our homeland stick around? Read More
The Canadian government’s response to the 20-year sentence imposed on Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is the first test of the government’s new “pragmatic engagement” with China. Read More
When the Dodgers report to Camelback Ranch for the start of spring training this week, the team’s clubhouse will be stocked in a way that even Friedman is still surprised by.
Toy makers are banking on a slew of blockbuster movies in 2026 to spark fresh demand after President Trump's tariffs last year left manufacturers reeling.
Over 20 million Americans are believed to have long COVID, suffering symptoms such as severe fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, palpitations, dizziness and muscle pain.
The 2022 HHS report claimed almost half of $445 million in taxpayer money paid out in 2018 and 2019 in New York City was mismanaged, including included rides that were not properly documented, drivers who were not properly licensed, rides that weren’t pre-authorized and more.
Who will speak out for values and rights and my fellow democracy activist now that opposition has been silenced in Hong Kong? I say Britain should
Nathan Law is a politician and activist from Hong Kong
Waking up on Monday morning to the news of the pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai’s 20-year prison sentence for national security offences felt surreal. I could have easily been in his position if I hadn’t fled Hong Kong right before the implementation of the notorious national security law (NSL), under which Lai has faced the harshest penalty ever given. In fact, Lai chose to stay and stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong in the face of an uncertain and repressive future. Now his family fears that he will die in prison.
A mix of emotions filled my mind. I was immensely disgusted by the audacity and malevolence of such punishment. This sentence has a transparently political end, but the Hong Kong and Chinese governments make no bones about it. Their sole purpose is to silence critics, and they have succeeded: civil society and domestic media, which should be the watchdogs of individual rights and government overreach, are dead silent on criticising the trial.
Nathan Law is a politician and activist from Hong Kong, and was leader of Demosistō from 2016 to 2018
Latin singer Bad Bunny wiped his entire Instagram account just hours after receiving a torrent of backlash following his halftime show performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl LX.
Teacher who ran school outside Paris was a formative influence on generations of comedians and actors including Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson
Master clown Philippe Gaulier, the influential founder of France’s École Philippe Gaulier, has died aged 82. Gaulier taught the art of clowning for decades and his students included Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Rachel Weisz and Geoffrey Rush.
Gaulier died on Monday due to complications from a lung infection. He had a stroke in 2023 and, since then, had “received warm words of encouragement from all over the world”, according to a statement made by his family. “He seemed especially happy to receive letters and messages from his former students. Teaching was his passion and purpose in life.”
At a time when Black military history is being rewritten under Trump officials, new book The War Within a War provides a vital reminder
Wil Haygood’s new book, his 10th, is The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home. Meeting in Washington DC to discuss it, he produces from between the pages a small Ziploc bag. Carefully, he takes out a flier, yellowed and brittle with age. The text at the top is Vietnamese. Underneath there is English.
It reads: “Colored Gl’s! The South Vietnamese people, who are struggling for their independence and freedom, are friends with the American colored people being victim of barbarous racial discrimination at home. Your battlefield is right in the USA! Your enemy is the war lords in the White House and the Pentagon!”
The Seahawks’ Legion of Boom terrorized opponents in the 2010s. Now a new unit has taken up the mantle – and delivered another title
Super Bowl LX was a two-score game with less than five minutes remaining. New England had the ball on the Seahawks’ 44-yard line and – after reaching the end zone in the fourth quarter, finally – that familiar sense of possibility. But that quickly vaporized when Devon Witherspoon knifed in on a corner blitz and jarred the ball loose from the Patriots quarterback, Drake Maye, mid-throw. Uchenna Nwosu snatched it in stride and rumbled 45 yards to the end zone, sealing Seattle’s 29‑13 victory.
That the league’s top defense was able to punctuate this moment, more than a decade in the making, with an interception as the Super Bowl XLIX hero Malcolm Butler looked on made the Seahawks’ revenge all the sweeter. “They lived up to the Dark Side today,” the Seattle head coach, Mike Macdonald, said of his defense. “It’s going to go down in the history books.”
With medication largely unaffordable in the country, experts hope community support and a change in diet could reduce soaring type 2 diabetes rates
A return to the traditional lentil and rice dishes that have nourished generations of Nepalis could save them from a diabetes epidemic prompted by the influx of western junk foods, doctors have said.
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