Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at back-to-back Oval Office visits, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Japan, and Oman’s plan for the Strait of Hormuz. One Day, Two Wars U.S. President Donald Trump had a packed diplomatic schedule on Tuesday, separately hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The Oval Office doubleheader showcased Trump’s efforts to juggle two massive conflicts, one of which he vowed to resolve within 24 hours of taking office and the other of which he started. Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at back-to-back…

Hundreds of migrants have entered the Spanish north African exclave of Ceuta by sea in recent days, officials said Thursday, with local television images showing them swimming around the frontier and running into the town. Migration from Morocco into Spain’s two north African territories, Ceuta and Melilla, has long been a politically sensitive issue between the two countries. The two Spanish territories represent the European Union’s only ​land border ‌with Africa. “We are in a situation of total humanitarian and social emergency,” said the president of the territory, Juan Jesus Vivas, in comments broadcast on Thursday by Spanish television. Read…

“Inflation has fallen faster than we’ve expected, but the conflict in the Middle East continues to mean high and volatility energy prices,” said BoE Governor Andrew Bailey. In the U.K. and EU, the U.S.-Iran temporary ceasefire brought hopes to policymakers that the impact of the conflict could be short-lived, with signs of resilience in the economy, amid lower services and food inflation, slowing wage growth and a soft labor market. The European Central Bank was the first major central bank to raise rates in June in a bid to ensure price stability, but held in its July meeting after eurozone…

Two Polish citizens who have lived in the UK for nearly 80 years after their parents fled the second world war have spoken of their terrifying experience after being told they did not have post-Brexit rights to return to the UK.In May, while visiting Poland, they learned that although they had been welcomed as refugees after the war, they now needed special post-Brexit paperwork to return to their home in Bury.Maria Krupa, 85, and her husband, Czeslaw, 92, who met in the UK and went on to marry and settle in Bury in Greater Manchester, were issued with “aliens’ registration…

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has urged PM Andy Burnham to rule out future tax rises to fund his plans to fix adult social care in England.Burnham has said he wants to look at existing budgets before considering tax rises but he has not ruled them out, adding that “difficult decisions” lay ahead with funding options to be set out in a review being published next year.Jenrick said any reforms should be paid for by cutting foreign aid and benefit payments for migrants, urging the prime minister to rule out what he called a universal “death tax”.Burnham was health secretary in…

Polymarket’s every move is under close scrutiny these days, as the prediction market giant fights dozens of legal battles about how it can operate. But one hiring decision has remained under the radar: Late last year, Polymarket brought on former Department of Government Efficiency affiliate Jonathan Mendelson as a senior strategic executive.Prior to his stint at Elon Musk’s so-called DOGE, Mendelson worked as an investor for the venture capital firm Accel in San Francisco, which invests in technology companies. At DOGE, Mendelson was technically employed by the General Services Administration, but worked as an advisor to the Securities and Exchange…

Swati KhandelwalJul 30, 2026Vulnerability / AI Security Hidden instructions in a Word document can make Microsoft 365 Copilot rewrite figures in a report, then copy the same instructions into the finished file. Håkon Måløy disclosed the technique on July 28, 144 days after reporting it to Microsoft. In his proof of concept, the internally generated file triggered the same behavior when it was used in a second Copilot drafting session. Måløy’s timeline says Microsoft confirmed the reported behavior on March 31 and deployed two mitigations. The first blocked the original prompt wording; the second upgraded the underlying model to GPT-5.5.…

Samsung SDS, the IT services arm of Samsung Group, is exploring stablecoin infrastructure, digital asset systems and AI-based payment models with Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, one of the biggest local cryptocurrency exchanges.Samsung SDS said it is discussing potential cooperation with Dunamu on stablecoin infrastructure, digital asset systems and AI-based payment business models, CEO Lee Jun-hee said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday.“We have already secured differentiated business capabilities in digital asset infrastructure through the Korea Securities Depository’s tokenized securities platform project and through end-to-end validation […] of the full stablecoin process from issuance to settlement,” Lee said.…

Does the brain create consciousness, or is consciousness a more basic feature of reality? Christof Koch, one of the world’s most prominent neuroscientists, explored this question during the 15th “Behind and Beyond the Brain” Symposium. The mystery reaches far beyond understanding how neurons process information. Scientists can observe which parts of the brain become active when a person sees an object, feels pain, recalls a memory, or makes a decision. Yet they still cannot explain why those physical processes are accompanied by an inner experience. In other words, researchers can study what the brain is doing, but they do not…

PRAGUE (AP) — Keepers at Prague Zoo used tons of ice on Thursday to give its animals some much-needed relief as yet another heat wave hit Europe. Polar bears Aleut and Gregor wasted no time and were rolling in the beds of ice cubes after entering their outside enclosure. The twins looked to have fun with the ice treat that was meant to keep them cool amid the extreme temperatures forecast to soar to 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) later in the day. “The bears cool off with it and at the same time it’s an enrichment of their…