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The election in Great Britain
Analysis: The scandals hurt Farage, but the party continues to win Tory voters

Do the last week's scandals surrounding Nigel Farage and his right-wing populist Reform UK put an end to the party's surge in public opinion? Well, both Jon Craig in Sky News and Paula Surrige in The Guardian answer in their analyses.

"The ugly racist row may have come too late to put the brakes on Farage's monster that threatens to crush the Tories," writes Craig.

Several Reform UK poll workers have been exposed with statements such as illegal migrants should be shot, that feminism is cancer and calling Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a racist slur quoted with asterisks in UK media.

But many have already voted by mail and others don't care, according to Craig. After all, Reform UK has slowed somewhat in public opinion after an increase from 11 to 16 percent, and seems no longer able to overtake the conservative Tory Party into second place after Labour, writes Surrige. Now the Tories have to fight tooth and nail for every vote.

"But those who vote for Reform UK are as frustrated with the Conservative Party as those who vote for other parties, and it is unclear what strategy could win them back."

The Israel-Hamas War|The Victims
Freed hostage: Don't forget those who remain with Hamas

Thousands of people have demonstrated in a dozen cities around Israel on Saturday against the government and for a ceasefire, according to Israeli media. In Tel Aviv, a video was played in which former hostage Noa Argamani speaks for the first time since her release:

- Don't forget those who remain in captivity with Hamas. We have to do everything we can to get them home, she says, thanking the army and everyone else who helped get her free.

Argamani's family is among a group of relatives of the hostages who do not support calls for a ceasefire agreement, unlike the Missing Families Forum, which circulated the video of her and organized the demonstration in Tel Aviv. There, Ayala Metzger tells Haaretz:

- What stands between us and our loved ones is Netanyahu's insistence on not ending the war as part of a settlement.
 

Climate threat The threat to the Amazon
Concerns ahead of dry season after record fires in wetlands

Before the dry season has even begun, the fire record has been broken in the Pantanal wetland area in Brazil, reports Reuters. More than 2,500 fires have raged in the area in June alone, more than six times as many as the same month in 2020 which was then seen as extreme, according to the country's space research institute.

- We are facing one of the worst situations ever in the Pantanal, says Environment Minister Marina Silva.

According to her, the fires are due to climate change, the El Niño and La Niña weather phenomena - and people lighting fires to cut down trees. 85 percent of the fires have started on private property.

According to the head of the state environmental protection institute Ibama, the resources required to match the climate crisis are lacking.

- We master firefighting techniques and have personnel, but we have never had a fleet of firefighting aircraft, says Rodrigo Agostinho to Folha de São Paulo.

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The development of AI
Lund University lied about the reference list with AI

Lund University has applied for money from the EU and in its application used a reference list filled with research that does not exist. It appears to have been created by Chat GPT, writes SvD.

The application concerned a joint research project together with a number of other European universities. When the matter was discovered by the EU Commission, Lund University reported itself to the Board for Examination of Research Misconduct and withdrew from the project.

- This is of course serious, it goes against normal research practice, says Stefan Höst, head of the Department of Electrical and Information Technology at Lund University, to SvD.