Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Available for 35 daysIn October members of the General Conference on Weights and Measurements are voting to change how we keep time on Earth accurate. Currently an additional second, known as a Leap Second, can be added to make sure modern atomic clocks stay in sync with solar time. However, all of this might be about to change as the rotation of the Earth speeds up and interferes with our measurements. Tom takes a trip to meet Principal Scientist Setnam Shemar at the National Physics Laboratory to learn how our time lords keep us all on schedule. Plus, Associate Professor…

A public hearing this week by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will assess claims that the Peruvian state violated the rights of the Indigenous Mashco Piro, Yora, and Amahuaca peoples, who live on ancestral territory in the Amazon Rainforest. The court will hold a hearing on Sept. 24 and 25 in Montevideo, Uruguay, about whether the state failed to adequately protect the groups from extractive industries encroaching on their land, including inside the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve. “This case constitutes a historic milestone in Latin America; the Court’s decision will not only have an impact on…

Egypt is putting its foot on the gas pedal in a bid to fast-track its Mediterranean energy hub ambitions by holding high-level talks with the U.S.-headquartered energy giant Chevron to secure an accelerated timeline for its infrastructure to be linked to a gas field off the coast of Cyprus. Illustration; Source: Chevron The new opportunities for Chevron to expand its gas exploration activities in the Mediterranean and acceleration of the frameworks and procedures required to finalize agreements for connecting Aphrodite to Egypt’s infrastructure were among the key topics during a videoconference meeting between Karim Badawi, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral…

Saudi Arabia is in serious trouble. Its global influence primarily comes from its leading position as an oil producer and the money resulting from that role, but now the Middle East is on fire. Today, Saudi tankers are blocked in the Persian Gulf and under threat in the Red Sea, and the country’s biggest oil pipeline had to shut down after a drone attack. Yet Saudi Arabia’s biggest long-term problem may be that its longtime security guarantor, the United States, is unable to put out the fire and doesn’t seem especially interested in trying. Since World War II and especially…

Amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s many efforts to place his name and image on various sites and items, the claim that Trump or his aides were considering attaching his name to the historic Ford’s Theatre — where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 — circulated online in September 2026. The rumor stemmed from an MS NOW article from Sept. 23 that cited “people familiar with the effort” without naming the protected sources. As of this writing, we have yet to find publicly available evidence confirming the report. This lack of conclusive information does not make the rumor true or false. Rather,…

The far-right agitator and anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas has been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life after he filmed himself appearing to slash the side of a dinghy in the middle of the Channel while a rescuer was onboard.The arrest came as the Home Office recorded 781 arrivals in 10 boats on Wednesday, the highest number for a single day so far this year. Responding to the figures, the government said it would “push further and harder” to crack down on the people organising the crossings.Hundreds of people gathered outside Basingstoke investigation centre, where Thomas…

Metsola said the bloc had taken a similarly strong and self-confident stance in the crisis around Trump’s threats to annex Greenland at the beginning of 2026, and also when von der Leyen last week invited Canada to become an associate member. But despite strong ties with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his country, crucial elements of bilateral agreements are still in limbo. Metsola called on the 10 remaining EU countries that have not ratified the decade-old CETA free-trade deal between the European Union and Canada to finally do so. The leaders of the EU and Canada are expected to…

France is leading a push to exclude the UK from the EU’s “Made in Europe” policy that could result in British companies losing out in the race to supply European countries with low-carbon technologies and electric cars.The plans were raised by Andy Burnham when he met the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly earlier this week.The policy, still under negotiation, aims to protect European companies from intense and “unfair” state-subsidised competition from China. But the government fears British companies risk being collateral damage and resolving the issue has become one of…

The Responsible Dog Ownership Taskforce was established by the government in 2022, following a series of high-profile dog attacks. The taskforce’s report noted that since 2011 the dog population in the UK had grown by 35%, while hospital admissions relating to dog bites in England had risen by 77%. It said pet ownership had spiked during the Covid pandemic at a time when it was harder to access support services.”This led to less experienced owners struggling to access services and finding it harder to get help,” the report said. Until 1987, dog owners in England, Wales and Scotland had to…

Voice assistants handling phone calls is a little more accepted today than back in the Duplex days. Call screening features abound—whether on a Pixel, Samsung, or iPhone, onboard assistants routinely intercept unknown callers to ask why they’re calling.But these kinds of features—much like hyped-up AI translation features—can often fall short. Calls are unpredictable, and the person on the other end may hang up, assuming it’s just another spam call. What happens if Gemini doesn’t understand a person’s accent all that well? Will it trap the clerk in an endless loop of asking them to repeat themselves? And if the shop…