Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

When you go to the dentist, what do you expect? That they will check your teeth, see if you need any fillings, give you some advice on oral hygiene? You probably don’t expect that they will teach your child to read, tackle youth unemployment or solve poverty.But when it comes to education, politicians are remarkably relaxed about loading wider social responsibilities on to schools. The suggestion from Alan Milburn, a former minister and now a senior government adviser, is that primary schools – that is, schools that educate children aged four to 11 – should identify children who might not…

At least 132 people are dead and a state of emergency has been declared after Colombia was hit by one of its largest earthquakes in years.The death toll is likely to rise, with more feared trapped under collapsed buildings. The magnitude 7.4 quake struck at 07:34 (12:34 GMT) at a depth of 103km (64 miles) in Chocó province, the country’s geological service said. It was felt across an enormous area, stretching for hundreds of miles across western Colombia. Many of the deaths have been concentrated in the city of Pereira, in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, with surrounding cities and the Valle…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sweden’s prime minister has called Spain’s amnesty for irregular immigrants a “very bad idea”, warning that it could push Europe back to a 2015-style migration crisis and call into question the continent’s free-movement zone. Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish centre-right leader running for re-election next month, told the FT that Spain’s amnesty for more than 1mn people had caused a “pretty big outcry” at the last meeting of EU leaders as it ran counter to what other countries were trying to achieve. Leaders from Italy,…

If you’ve got international travel coming up, an adapter is essential for keeping your phone, earbuds, power banks, and other gadgets charged. Anker’s Nano Travel Adapter is one of our picks from our guide to the best gadgets for summer travel because it can charge up to five devices at once, yet it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It’s also available in black for just $19.99 ($6 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Anker (with code WS7DV2BNB82J) matching its best price to date.The Nano’s four built-in sets of prongs should keep you covered…

Ethereum treasury company SharpLink reported a $1.08 billion net loss for the six months ended June 30. Its Aug. 7 quarterly filing attributes most of that result to price-related accounting charges. Much of the company’s treasury is staked, making conversion time a material part of its liquidity profile.The filing attributes $827.7 million of the loss to an unrealized decline in the value of ETH and another $267.8 million to impairments of LsETH and weETH, tokens representing liquid staking and restaking positions. Those predominantly non-cash charges exceeded the net loss because other results partly offset them.The six-month loss was 934.3% above…

Editor’s Note: Today’s story is the answer to the August Puzzler. Tides are among the clearest signs of the Moon’s pull on Earth. Just 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away, the Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth’s oceans and solid crust, subtly distorting them into a more oblong shape with bulges roughly extending toward and away from the Moon. High tides happen throughout Earth’s oceans, but in some places they leave an unusually strong fingerprint on the landscape. Among those places is Roebuck Bay, a crescent-shaped feature in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Roebuck Bay’s tidal range can reach a remarkable…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has built a brand as one of Europe’s most vocal critics of the United States and Israel, recognizing Palestinian statehood over Gaza and denying the U.S. military the use of its Rota and Morón bases during the war against Iran. And while he seems perfectly comfortable playing hardball with governments worlds apart from his own ideology, when it comes to Spain’s fraught relations with Morocco, Sánchez has folded far more than his reputation suggests. Nowhere was that clearer than in his handling of the recent crisis in Ceuta. On July 30, around 70,000 migrants crossed…

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives. Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favours open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon. In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working towards an era where everyone will have…

OpenAI has bought back $7 billion worth of shares from employees at the privately held frontier AI lab as part of an effort to provide liquidity to its workforce. The deal, reported by Bloomberg, valued OpenAI at $852 billion, the same as its most recent fundraising round in March, which added $122 billion to the company’s war chest. The company also filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June to prepare for a potential IPO later this year. However, a tender offer suggests that an IPO may not be forthcoming soon. With many tech companies remaining private longer…

OpenAI has developed a new model called “GPT 5.6 Cyber,” designed for vulnerability research, penetration testing, and incident response. OpenAI says GPT 5.6 Cyber is only available to select companies, including Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, Cognizant, EY, KPMG, PwC, NCC Group, and SpecterOps. It’s also rolling out to supported security vendors, including Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Cisco, Sophos, Akamai, Fortinet, and Cloudflare. OpenAI says it won’t give regular users access to the underlying models, citing security risks, and it makes sense because models have been abused to launch security attacks. Instead, OpenAI says approved partners will use them inside existing security products,…