Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Ultra-runner Sophie Woods ran 2,000km across eight countries in only 29 days to break the record for completing the Via Alpina – one of the world’s toughest endurance challenges.The course follows the entire length of the Alps with elevation equivalent to climbing Mount Everest 12 times.The 42-year-old began the marathon on 4 July in Italy, following a trail network through Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and France before ending on the Mediterranean coast in Monaco on Saturday night.New Zealander Woods and her team battled two heatwaves, storms, a swarm of horseflies, and wildfires that resulted in a detour that added…

Reform UK is operating under a “stench of sleaze”, Labour has said, after reports that Nigel Farage struck a secret deal to return as leader of Reform months before the general election.Farage was in discussions about a return to the political frontline from as early as March 2024, despite later claiming he had no intention of returning to politics until June 2024, the Sunday Times reported.In April this year, the Guardian revealed Farage did not disclose a £5m personal gift from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne that he received in April 2024. He told senior figures in Reform UK…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A picture is worth a thousand words. Or facts. The images of tens of thousands of migrants overwhelming border controls to enter the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco are shocking. So is the death toll of more than 70. The massive influx offered the perfect illustration for anti-immigration politicians of a Europe under threat of invasion. “Remember that picture,” said Donald Trump.Spain’s socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has made a point of defying and irking Trump, whether on defence…

pros and cons Pros Framework’s sleekest, most premium laptop to date.The haptic touchpad and keyboard are excellent.Very good battery life. Cons The RAM shortage raised prices for the pre-built as much as $800.It already wasn’t cheap, especially for higher-end components.Speakers are just alright.Wobbly display panel works against the touchscreen. Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.When Framework announced the Laptop 13 Pro in April 2026, CEO and founder Nirav Patel called it the “MacBook Pro for Linux users”, highlighting its thin and light form factor as much as its performance.But now that I’ve gone hands-on with it, I wouldn’t…

The HP HyperX Omen 15, which I first saw at CES, replaces the HP Victus 15, a longtime bestselling budget gaming laptop. The Victus cost just $800, or less when on sale, and was a good entry point to decent laptop gaming.The Omen 15 has nice little upgrades over the Victus. Its RTX 5050 Laptop GPU can play 2026’s latest games, albeit on low-ish settings. But it’s also got a brighter 16:10 aspect ratio display with higher refresh rate, and a 1080p webcam to make it a little better for non-gaming stuff.I’d call it a working-class gaming laptop, but thanks…

Google is preparing a new Chrome security feature that would block policy-installed extensions from hijacking the New Tab page or changing the default search engine. BleepingComputer spotted the protection in a chain of work-in-progress Chromium Gerrit changes. It has not shipped yet, but Google plans to enable it by default once the changes are approved. “In low-trust environments (unmanaged consumer devices), enterprise policy force-installs and recommendations are abused to lock in search engine or new tab page hijackers,” Anunoy Ghosh, who works at Google, wrote in a post. “This CL enables the kBlockDseNtpOverrideExtensionsOnUnmanagedDevices feature flag by default, activating the end-to-end blocking defense…

While Strategy’s preferred STRC shares ended July well below their $100 par value, investors were told that their August dividend will not increase, holding at 12%.Executive chairman Michael Saylor delivered the news in a tweet on Saturday, continuing to pitch STRC as a way to “stretch your income.” August will be the second month that the dividend will be paid semi-monthly after shareholders approved that change in June.STRC shares closed at $89.46 on Friday, clocking a 5.42% price increase for the month which began with a dividend hike — 50 basis points to 12% — after a poor stock performance…

Compared with rising heat-related deaths, and devastating wildfires in the Cairngorms and Suffolk, the announcement that the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is considering moving its hydrangea collection from Surrey to Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire might seem unimportant. But it points to geographical differences in exposure to global heating that have arguably never been more evident than this summer, with last month the driest on record. Seven areas of south and east England are officially in drought, along with the whole of Wales.A drought is less easily measured than a heatwave, which is declared by the Met Office when the maximum temperature exceeds a set…

Donald Trump has said he cancelled planned military strikes against Iran on the basis of “rapidly” reaching a deal on its nuclear programme and the full reopening of the strait of Hormuz.The US president paused the strikes in expectation of a breakthrough and in response to requests from Iran and other countries in the region, he claimed on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL.”The…

Andy Burnham is focused on preventing the release of child sexual abuse perpetrators as part of the government’s early release scheme, as urgent talks on which serious criminals could be exempted go down to the wire.Government ministers are understood to have 24 hours to assess which criminals can be released early to free up prison space, with every exemption weighed up against the threat of the criminal justice system’s collapse.The prime minister halted controversial plans to release thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September, intended to ease critical prison overcrowding, during his second week in the…