Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The state of the social care system in England is a topic that’s made Andy Burnham angry for decades.As Gordon Brown’s health secretary he proposed a compulsory levy collected from people’s estates – an idea the Conservatives dubbed the “death tax”.He repeatedly returned to the issue when making interventions as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and in his first major interview as prime minister back in July, Burnham pledged to put “whatever political capital I have into fixing broken social care”.We now have the first outline about how he hopes to do that.But there are a host of unanswered questions…

Wish you looked at your phone less? Then you’ve probably heard of Brick, a $59 device that claims to help you block distractions. You tap your phone against the Brick when you want to avoid distractions—the bundled software stops you from opening whichever apps you’ve decided you need to stop doomscrolling.The idea is to add a physical barrier between you and apps like Instagram—if you want to scroll, you need to physically get up, find the Brick, and tap it. It’s a good idea, and implemented in a way that makes it easy to get started. But what if you…

Cloudflare has fixed a vulnerability in Containers and Sandboxes that allowed customers with a Workers Paid account to recover residual data from other customers’ containers on the same physical host. Cloudflare Containers is a service available on the Workers Paid plan that lets developers run containerized applications on Cloudflare’s infrastructure, alongside Cloudflare Workers. Developers and companies building applications on Cloudflare typically use it, including those running backend services, processing jobs, and code execution environments. The flaw was reported through HackerOne on September 4 by Oren Yomtov, a security researcher at technology company Accomplish. Exploiting it would let an attacker read…

In brief A quantum computer could someday derive private keys from exposed public keys and drain Bitcoin wallets—the hypothetical “Q-Day”—though no such machine exists and timelines vary widely. Fixes fall into three buckets, all in the news this week: quantum-safe transactions under current rules, protocol upgrades like a soft fork, and custody-layer defenses. Nothing shipped this week makes Bitcoin quantum-safe on its own; the field is driving down defense costs while measuring how fast the threat is closing. Every few months, a fresh headline warns that quantum computers could one day crack Bitcoin. This week brought three at once—a cost…

A widely used supplement for joint pain has been linked to a potentially concerning outcome in people with early cognitive problems. Researchers at the University of Florida found that glucosamine use was associated with a greater likelihood that mild cognitive impairment would progress to dementia. Mild cognitive impairment, often shortened to MCI, describes measurable problems with memory or thinking that are greater than expected with normal aging but do not necessarily interfere substantially with everyday life. The findings come from a large retrospective analysis of patient health records, supported by experiments involving human brain tissue and mouse models of Alzheimer’s…

The Dosa King built an empire. After a woman rejects him, her husband is found dead – and the pursuit of justice begins.The Dosa King built a restaurant empire worth millions. But when a young woman rejects him, he threatens her marriage. Soon after, her husband is found dead. For nearly two decades, he fights to escape justice. Can his wealth and power protect him? Find out in Season 2 of True Crime Reports, an Al Jazeera Originals Production.The illustrations in this video were created by artists aided by AI-powered software.In this episode: Episode credits:True Crime Reports is an Al…

A friendly chat with your GP about your life, health and happiness was once a key part of the UK’s family doctor service.But most GPs no longer have time to have pastoral conversations, because they are too busy dealing with the country’s rising tide of illness, research reveals.Three out of four family doctors are now too time-pressed to talk to patients in depth about how they might stop smoking, lose weight or get more sleep, the Royal College of GPs has found.Intense demands and ten-minute appointment slots mean they also miss opportunities to discuss taking more exercise with patients or…

Don’t take the health or DNA test results as absolute truth, however. “This can lead to a false sense of security or false alarms,” says veterinarian Amanda Chambers. Forward your results to your veterinarian and always follow up by scheduling a visit to the vet if your pet is marked as a carrier for any genetic disease.What the Results Can—and Can’t—Tell YouAfter chatting with Richardson, I’ve found that these are the major areas of limitation with at-home DNA test kits:Results depend on the size/diversity of the genetic databaseMost kits test known markers only—not full genomesFeline data is less developedMisinterpretation of…

Visa’s September 18 data refresh lowered its adjusted stablecoin volume measure, while its adjusted transaction count fell by less than 2%. The divergence reflects a change in how recorded activity is classified, leaving payment trends unanswered.The Visa Onchain Analytics changelog attributes the reset to a fuller set of address labels and revised filters. Its underlying Allium identity set grew from about 15 million labeled addresses to roughly 600 million. Visa says the definition of adjusted volume stayed the same: it aims to exclude labeled exchanges, contracts, bots, bridges, other infrastructure, and minting and burning. With more addresses identified, more transfers…

As I wrote last week, whatever its current troubles, Reform UK has hardly disappeared. Meanwhile, those black-clad quasi-paramilitaries may well be another augury of a frightening immediate future. One more English settlement – the town of Barnham, in Norfolk – is seemingly poised to stage a pretend independence referendum in protest at plans to locally accommodate asylum seekers. Oh, and our new Labour prime minister has just held cordial talks with a US president who has not only brought a modern de facto fascism to his homeland, but wants to export it to Europe.But hold all those cheerful thoughts for…