Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Tracks are buckling in Sweden. Highways are cracking in Germany. Commuters are sweltering in airless train carriages across the world’s fastest-warming continent.This is the new reality in Europe, where much of the transportation infrastructure was not built to withstand the scorching summer heat that’s becoming routine.“Europe’s transport systems were engineered for a climate that no longer exists,” Patrice Geoffron, who leads the energy and climate economics team at Université Paris Dauphine-PSL in France, wrote in an email.Many of Europe’s tracks and roads desperately need upgrades to meet new extreme temperature thresholds, or delays and disruptions will become the norm, experts…

At the urging of President Trump, Representative Russell Fry of South Carolina has endorsed Senator Darline Graham after losing his bid in the special primary election on Tuesday to succeed her late brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, according to a person familiar with his thinking.Mr. Fry iannounced the endorsement on Friday, throwing his weight behind Ms. Graham as she competes in a two-week runoff contest against Representative Ralph Norman, a longtime lawmaker and vice chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, in the solidly Republican state.”President Trump needs fighters and allies in the Senate who will show up every day and…

It’s a shame Nigel Farage ducked the announcement of his victory in the Clacton byelection, which confirmed his return as MP for the seat he had needlessly resigned from just a few weeks earlier. You’d have thought he would have loved it. It was the culmination of a stunt, an exercise in politics as performance. It was a display animated by – and seeking to inflame – grievance, a million miles away from the hard, grinding work of tackling the problems that underlie those grievances. It was an attempt to deflect scrutiny, distract attention and evade responsibility. It was, in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Luigi Mangione has pleaded guilty to causing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson’s death, a major shift in a US federal case that has ignited global debate about America’s health system.Mangione, a 28-year-old Ivy League graduate, appeared in Manhattan district court on Friday where he entered a plea on federal stalking charges. He had previously pleaded not guilty to both state and federal charges related to Thompson’s death. His sentencing is set to take place on December 18. The plea calls off a…

Charlie Osborne/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysSnowflake Volunteer is a new Android app that lets you help fight global censorshipThe standalone app allows more people to connect to Tor, even under oppressive regimes. The app turns your phone into a proxy and requires no technical knowledge.Snowflake Volunteer, a new Android app recently revealed by the minds behind the Tor Project, has now landed on the Google Play Store as a way for the general public to help fight global censorship.Not everyone can lend high bandwidth, set up Tor volunteer nodes, or campaign politically in what has become…

Most of the 2,500 organizations believed to have been affected by the LiteLLM supply chain attack were actually exposed before, SOCRadar reports. The compromise was blamed on and claimed by TeamPCP, the threat actor behind multiple open source software (OSS) supply chain attacks involving the Shai-Hulud worm. It started with Aqua Security’s Trivy scanner and propagated downstream to multiple packages and repositories in a ripple effect fueled by the malware’s worm-like behavior and by the automated inclusion of the malicious libraries in more builds. More than 2,500 organizations were likely affected by the LiteLLM attack, CloudSEK and HudsonRock said earlier…

Gemini’s second-quarter revenue rose as its credit-card business expanded. But the core exchange shrank, while operating costs and losses remained above last year’s levels after a restructuring that cut about 200 jobs.The company generated $45.5 million in total revenue, up from $33.3 million a year earlier, according to its Aug. 13 quarterly filing. Exchange revenue, however, fell 38% to $12.5 million from $20.2 million.The decline was steeper in activity. Spot matched trading volume on Gemini’s platform fell to $3.8 billion from $11.3 billion, a drop of about 66%. Newer products carried more of the top line while the exchange generated…

Necrotizing enterocolitis, a life-threatening inflammation of the intestine that mostly affects premature babies, can strike with almost no warning. But a quick scan using only infrared and visible light could someday detect the condition, a new study suggests. Within the next year, researchers are planning to launch a large test of the technology in the wake of a pilot study in premature infants that showed it was safe and feasible. Of 96 infants, the scans correctly identified the 10 babies with necrotizing enterocolitis — although they also returned a significant number of false positives, pediatric surgeon Seth Goldstein and colleagues…

UK-headquartered energy giant Shell has hit a dead end in its plans for oil and gas exploration off South Africa’s Wild Coast, after the Constitutional Court overturned a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) order that had kept the project alive, delivering a major victory for environmental groups and local communities. Illustration; Source: Shell South Africa’s Constitutional Court has upheld an appeal by environmental justice organizations, including Sustaining the Wild Coast, Natural Justice, Greenpeace Africa, and All Rise Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice, together with affected Wild Coast communities and fishing interests. The Court found that the Supreme Court of…

Your editorial on Meta’s smart glasses acknowledges their value to blind and visually impaired people, then asks that this “not be allowed to distract” from the harms (The Guardian view on Meta’s smart glasses: regulators must get on the front foot, 10 August). As an optometrist who owns a small independent practice, I’d suggest that it is visually impaired people who are being treated as the distraction.I was reluctant to stock Ray‑Ban Meta, having no fondness for Meta or Luxottica, but colleagues persuaded me of the benefits for people with sight impairment. The reality has surpassed that. The majority of our buyers have a visual…