Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

“Why don’t you just have a single phone number we can use when we want to call Europe?” Recently, in a small gathering of Americans and Europeans on the sidelines of a conference on trans-Atlantic relations, one of the American participants again brought up this question. The man—a conservative policymaker from Washington who shall remain anonymous—explained that it was awkward for Americans when they want something from Europe but don’t know what number to call on the other side of the Atlantic. Should they call the European Commission? The European Council? The European Parliament? Or do they start by phoning…

One Nation has admitted using party funds to build a $56,000 shed on James Ashby’s private property.Guardian Australia revealed on Monday that a company linked to One Nation – Small Batch Brewing Pty Ltd – was the purchaser of the shed on Ashby’s property despite having no revenue stream and not being licensed to make or sell alcohol.Ashby is living in the shed on his Yeppoon property while he undertakes renovations.In an email sent to members on Thursday night, the party’s general manager, Kelvin Morton, said party funds had been used to build the shed.He said the party’s national executive…

However, the best-ever political doodler is surely South Korean lawmaker Yoo Young-ha, who was caught sketching a gorilla on his laptop during a parliamentary audit session in 2025. To be clear, there wasn’t a gorilla in the parliament for a life-drawing session (and, at the time of writing, my suggestion to release large primates into European Parliament plenary sessions is still being considered by the Conference of Presidents). The excitement at this year’s big U.N. bash didn’t stop at, er, man loses interest and starts looking at social media. Oh, no. There was also the choice of music before Trump…

One of the first things I did when I left my full-time job at WIRED was give Claude Cowork access to my email and calendar. After reporting on artificial intelligence for years, I was curious about what the technology could do for me. I had imagined Cowork as a hyper-capable digital assistant, but was let down to discover that it was more like interacting with a regular chatbot, albeit one with extra tools. What did I want it to do? I had no idea.Then Instinct, an invite-only AI agent that communicates with users through iMessage and WhatsApp, started popping off…

AI coding agents are changing how quickly developers can build and ship software as well as how quickly credentials can become exposed. According to GitGuardian’s 2026 State of Secrets Sprawl Report, commits identified as AI-assisted are leaking secrets at approximately twice the rate of human-written ones. Most of the fastest-growing categories of leaked credentials are now connected to AI services, meaning the tools meant to advance development are also accelerating the exposure of the keys development relies on. This isn’t a new vulnerability; what is new is AI changing the scale and pace at which those mistakes can happen. A…

In brief On-chain data shows roughly $183 million in ETH, USDT, USDC, AVAX, BNB, and other tokens moved from wallets labeled as Bitget’s to a single address over about an hour on Thursday. A freshly created wallet spent $19.67 million in USDT0 to buy 7,111 ETH in six minutes on Arbitrum, paying up to 5% above market price through decentralized exchanges UniswapX and 1inch Fusion. Users report blocked withdrawals and Bitget has since confirmed the hack following publication. More than $350 million in crypto assets has been drained from wallets belonging to cryptocurrency exchange Bitget in a confirmed hack, according…

Two newly identified snail species have expanded the known diversity of European land snails. The species, Cochlostoma komarnica and Cochlostoma dobrido, are described in a new study published in the open-access Biodiversity Data Journal. Neither species has an English common name yet. Both are small, with cone-shaped shells measuring about 6 mm in length, and they live on limestone rocks where they feed on algae and lichens. They also have several unusual features. Unlike most land snails, their eyes are positioned along the sides of the head rather than at the tips of eye stalks. They also carry a circular…

BWINDI, Uganda (AP) — In the tangled greenery of a Ugandan national park, mountain gorillas sit among the leaves, calmly carrying on as tourists trek into their forest home. Many gorilla families are used to people, but while their population grows, the forest available to them does not. Communities have planted trees for medicine, firewood and crafts along the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in a bid to reduce pressure on gorilla habitats. The idea is simple: If residents can find the trees they need outside the park, they will have less reason to cut them inside…

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at long-anticipated U.S.-China talks, Israel’s and the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. speeches, and the risk of all-out war in Ethiopia. Lots of Pomp, Little Progress It’s been more than a decade since Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the United States, and in that time, geopolitical tensions between the superpowers have only heightened. Artificial intelligence, critical minerals, human rights, tariffs, and Taiwan were just a few of the items on U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda as he welcomed Xi to the White House on Thursday. Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at…

New Jersey’s governor on Thursday called on the state’s lieutenant governor, Dale Caldwell, to resign by Friday after a law firm hired by her office concluded he violated the state’s ethics and discrimination rules.The report published Wednesday found that Caldwell violated the state’s policy prohibiting discrimination in the workplace. It said he made an advance toward a staffer’s friend and when he was rebuffed, he told the staffer: “You young women are looking for young sperm.”“The investigation found that the Lieutenant Governor engaged in serious, repeated violations of state policy and failed to uphold the responsibilities of his office,” Mikie…