Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Greece’s transmission system operator (TSO) Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), as the project promoter of the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) that will connect Cyprus and Israel, has submitted an investment approval request to the regulatory authorities of both countries. Source: IPTO This is the necessary next step under the European framework toward project implementation, following the completion of the required cost-benefit analysis (CBA) studies and the proposal for the cross-border cost allocation (CBCA). During the preparation of the studies, consultation and data exchange took place with the competent entities of Cyprus and Israel, including the ministries of energy, the Transmission…

Reporting Highlights Philanthropy’s Gatekeepers: Donor-advised fund sponsors control $327 billion in giving, granting them vast power to decide which charities can receive donor dollars. Selective Defunding: Major sponsors froze grants to the Southern Poverty Law Center following an unproven indictment while continuing to fund other institutions facing severe legal scrutiny. Little Accountability: Wall Street-affiliated funds remove charities without providing clear reasons or pathways to appeal, refusing to explain themselves to donors and the public. These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. When the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center in April…

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief. The highlights this week: A deadly earthquake rattles Colombia, the United States threatens visa bans for Argentines doing business with Huawei, and the final season of One Hundred Years of Solitude drops on Netflix. Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella had been in office for less than three days when a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit the country on Monday. The epicenter of the quake was in the Chocó department, which is located between Bogotá and the Pacific coast and lies on a few fault lines. Colombian officials said on Thursday that at least…

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly denied that politics were involved in the termination of more than 280 grants last October. A court filing made public in July, however, shows that Energy Department lawyers admitted that the only reason why those awards and not others were canceled is that the grant recipients were in states that vote for Democrats. Wright and the department have maintained that political considerations did not factor into the original selection of grants for termination, which included awards in both blue and red states for clean energy or energy efficiency projects. But in terms of which…

It resembled in many ways a summer camp. Barbecues and beach volleyball games were on offer. A wellness spa was called “Relax and Have Fun.”The men and women who attended the program at a resort complex in a remote part of Serbia also took part in more sinister activities, like learning to break through police cordons and set buildings on fire. They donned flak jackets and trained with assault rifles.Their counselors, it turned out, were operatives with ties to Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU. Their purpose, according to intelligence officials from three countries who described the activities,…

A Constitutional court in France on Friday rejected a bill that would ban access to social media for minors under 15 years old in a major blow to French President Emmanuel Macron. The Council of State, the top administrative court that advises the French government, said the restrictions in the bill disproportionately infringe on minors’ right to freedom of expression and communication. The bill also fails to put in place adequate protections for privacy, the court said. Macron had made Europe’s would-be first social media ban a flagship policy of his second and final term, aiming to push the new…

What can Clacton possibly have done to deserve this? Is this some cosmic karma for a past existence in which the town executed hundreds of innocent women and children? Surely, even then, enough is enough. For the past few years Clacton seems to have been the centre of some abusive psychological experiment. The sort the Americans used to run in the 1950s and 60s, that have long since been banned. One run by Nigel Farage and designed merely to fuel his narcissistic dreams, with the voters mere cannon fodder.Clacton’s relationship with Nige is and always has been entirely one-sided. The…

The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to bless the construction of President Trump’s White House ballroom to replace the demolished East Wing.The planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom has been mired in litigation ever since the president tore down the East Wing last October as part of his plan to dramatically remake the White House campus. But the courts have let Mr. Trump continue building even while questioning the project’s legality, allowing the ballroom to steadily rise in recent months.The administration’s request for intervention from the nation’s highest court comes after an appeals court on Aug. 7 said the president…

Passion Planner Passion Highlighters for $20: If your planner could use a little color, I really like Passion Planner’s highlighter sets. They’re nice and thin-tipped to fit into slim planner lines, and I especially like the vintage colors for adding color without it feeling neon-bright. You can use the highlighters to organize your plans by type (I like to do red for work, blue for my kid, yellow for things like doctor’s appointments, and green for my social life) or color-code your class subjects like we used to do with ringed notebooks.Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen for $34: I never understood…

Samsung Research America’s Digital Health Team has presented two AI foundation models designed to learn from wearable biosignals. The work centres on data captured by smartwatches, including heart activity, sleep, and physical activity.The company discussed its Connected Care vision at the Health Forum during Galaxy Unpacked in July 2026. Samsung described a future of preventive, personalised, and connected care, supported by health technology and healthcare partnerships. Its research team positions health foundation models as one component of new consumer health experiences.Sharanya Desai, Head of Digital Health Algorithms at Samsung Research America, said: “This research is significant because it lays the…