Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

“What happens when you get exposure to radioactivity?” Andy Mele remembers the man asking earnestly as he pulled up his shirt. The man, who looked like he couldn’t be older than 35, exposed his swollen belly to the Florida sun, covered in bulges protruding from under his skin, Mele said. He then parted his hair with his fingers to show Mele the lumps growing on his scalp.  “Well, you know, you get brain cancer, you get blood cancer, you get bone cancer,” Mele told him. The pair stood in the yard of the wood-framed bungalow where the man lived, bordering…

Greek Hellenic Cables, the cables segment of Belgium-headquartered Cenergy Holdings, has secured a turnkey contract from the Greek transmission system operator (TSO), Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), valued at approximately €1.5 billion, to deliver the Corinth-Kos HVDC electrical interconnection.Source: Hellenic Cables The contract was awarded to Hellenic Cables’ wholly-owned subsidiary Fulgor for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the 320 kV HVDC electrical interconnection between Corinth and the island of Kos. The company is responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the project and will manufacture the power cables at its facilities in Corinth and Thiva, Greece.   With a…

When India’s chief justice referred to unemployed youth in India as cockroaches earlier this year, that became the rallying cry for a new political movement called the Cockroach Janta Party. Before long, young Indians discontent with the country’s education system and its labor market were marching on parliament—and being met with harsh police crackdowns and internet shutdowns. Ultimately, the government backed down, resulting in the Indian education minister’s resignation. But the difficulties faced by India’s young people remain—as does the new movement claiming to represent their interests. What exactly is going on with the Indian economy? Why is its education…

Nigel Farage, Britain’s leading right-wing politician, faced a dilemma last month.What do you do when the inquiries and accusations are piling up? The police are looking into one of your donors. You are being investigated for potentially breaking Parliament’s rules because you didn’t report a £5 million gift. The news media are publishing new allegations almost daily.For Mr. Farage, the leader of the Reform U.K. party, the answer appears to have been clear: Attack your critics, undermine the regulatory or judicial processes by labeling them illegitimate before they conclude, and seek pre-emptive absolution from “the people” — your most loyal…

France’s top court has struck down a ban on social media for under-15s, saying it infringed upon freedom of expression.The legislation was backed by French lawmakers in July, making it the first European country to block young people from the platforms, after concerns over the harmful effects on children’s mental health.Friday’s ruling by the Constitutional Council overrides the ban, which Emmanuel Macron had pledged would be introduced in stages from September.Responding to the news, the French president immediately asked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to prepare a new draft that would take into account all the council’s points.After lawmakers voted through…

Nigel Farage’s attempt to draw the sting from inquiries into his financial affairs appeared to have backfired on Friday as the standards watchdog reopened its investigation and MPs from all sides condemned the needless byelection.The Reform UK leader declared victory in the Clacton vote as he was returned with an increased majority and gained more votes than in 2024, saying he had “stuck two fingers up at the entire political establishment”.However, parliament’s standards commissioner immediately reopened an investigation into whether he should have declared a series of gifts provided to him shortly before the last general election.These include a £5m…

For nearly 40 years, the Blue Angels, the Navy pilots renowned for performing acrobatic moves at air shows and other events across the country, have turned to Jellie Whitehurst, who is known as Candy, to make their blue-and-yellow flight suits.But last month, Ms. Whitehurst said, she was blindsided. She reached out to an officer from the flying team about paying a visit to take measurements for new suits. It was only then, she said, that the officer told her she would not be making them anymore.The Navy, she learned, had awarded the contract to a much larger company, a defense…

The version of The X-Files: I Want to Believe that premiered in 2008 was not exactly the movie co-writer / director Chris Carter intended to make. Carter wanted to bring agents Mulder and Scully back to the big screen with a grisly story about faith and the supernatural. But executives at 20th Century Fox felt that Carter’s ideas were too dark, and he was pushed to turn the project into a PG-13 feature. Now, almost two decades after I Want to Believe’s theatrical debut, Carter is back with a new director’s cut of the film for Hulu that’s much closer…

UK Reform leader Nigel Farage will face an investigation that had been briefly paused following his resignation from Parliament after winning a by-election on Thursday with no major party candidates participating.As of Friday, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards website showed that Farage was currently under investigation for “failure to register an interest” related to the Reform leader receiving millions of dollars’ worth of donations and gifts from two figures tied to the crypto industry. The investigation was halted in July after Farage resigned as a member of Parliament, but resumed following his reelection as Clacton’s MP. The commission will probe…

Rain may bring disease-carrying mosquitoes. But the lack of it could have been a factor that led to the first urban yellow fever outbreak in Brazil in decades. In 2015, an El Niño powered an abnormally strong drought in central South America, and monkeys and mosquitoes on the hunt for water may have brought the virus into Brazilian cities, researchers report August 14 in Science Advances. Computer simulations hint that infected nonhuman primates moving into urban areas from dry forests and bite-happy mosquitoes perhaps trying to avoid dehydration may have helped drive yellow fever’s spread. During the outbreak, which began in late 2016, more…