Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Asylum seekers who arrive on small boats across the Channel are “wealthy men” who do not deserve the help of the British state, according to the Reform UK MP Danny Kruger.The former Conservative, who defected last year, said the fact that some migrants were paying criminal people smugglers thousands of pounds – often their life savings or money which is borrowed – made them well off. The claim was immediately dismissed by charities who support refugees.Speaking at the Big Brue festival in Bruton, Somerset, Kruger said: “By the way, most of them comparatively wealthy and fit young men who’ve crossed…

This past summer, Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch9 alongside the Galaxy Watch Ultra2, its more rugged, shock-resistant smartwatch for outdoor adventures.The Watch9 is the everyday option, and it’s a solid smartwatch and fitness tracker with a plethora of health features. It’s available in a 40-mm size in cream and graphite, and a 44-mm size in graphite and silver, starting at $80. Compared with last year’s Galaxy Watch8, it’s a modest update, though. There’s a faster processor, a slightly larger battery capacity, and an expanded suite of wellness metrics.After two weeks of testing the 40-mm model, I wouldn’t necessarily upgrade to…

Cybersecurity firm TigerByte Cyber has emerged from stealth mode with $3 million raised in a seed funding round led by Hale Capital Partners, with additional support from Tenon VC. Hanover, NH-based TigerByte Cyber provides cyber hardening for AI and edge devices to protect systems where they operate. The company has built a solution that provides modern cybersecurity protections to legacy systems, including mission-critical edge devices. Named Cyber Protection Suite (CPS), it is an ultra-compact plug-and-play solution that delivers hardware-enforced cybersecurity capabilities, including data validation, deep packet inspection, network segmentation, and post-quantum encryption. The company’s solutions appear to be using the…

In brief Solana’s target slot time—the window a validator gets to produce a block—dropped from 300 milliseconds to 250 on Friday, the network’s third speed cut since August. The change makes blocks arrive nearly 17% faster but doesn’t raise how many transactions the network can process, since each shorter slot now carries proportionally less computation. A further cut to 200 milliseconds has no mainnet date and will only proceed if block-skip rates—how often a validator misses its turn—stay in check. Solana’s internal clock just ticked faster. Earlier Friday, the network’s target slot time dropped from 300 milliseconds to 250, a…

Arctic sea ice does not always move the way wind alone would predict. New research led by UC Riverside suggests that a simple but overlooked process may help explain the difference: individual pieces of ice repeatedly collide with one another. The findings could eventually help scientists improve forecasts of how sea ice moves across the Arctic as the region continues to warm. The study, published in Physical Review Letters, was led by Bryan Shaddy, formerly a UC Riverside undergraduate and now at the University of Southern California, along with UCR materials scientist Alex Greaney and Bhargav Rallabandi, associate professor of…

The countries most vulnerable to climate change are spending nearly 25 times more on repaying debt than on climate action, according to a new ActionAid report released Wednesday.  The report, “Debt Fuels the Climate Crisis: How the Finance Flows,” is “really unpacking the narrative about how the climate and debt crises are supercharging each other,” said Teresa Anderson, one of the authors and global lead on climate justice for ActionAid International, a nonprofit global federation focused on poverty eradication and social justice. Across 65 highly climate-vulnerable countries analyzed, debt servicing is expected to consume 65 percent of government revenue in…

Who: Atletico Madrid vs Real MadridWhat: La LigaWhere: Metropolitano Stadium, Madrid, SpainWhen: Sunday, September 20, at 4:15pm (14:15 GMT)How to follow: Al Jazeera Sport will bring you all the build-up from 11:15 GMT before our live text commentary streamAtletico host bitter city rivals Real for the Madrid derby as both sides look to keep up with early La Liga pacesetters Barcelona.Madrid trail unbeaten champions Barcelona at the top of the table by three points, with Atletico third.Atletico have bounced back from back-to-back defeats to Bilbao and Liverpool earlier in September, beating Real Sociedad 3-0 and Osasuna 4-0 in their last two games.Real come into…

I’ve spent decades testing, reviewing, and (most importantly) using different to-do list applications. It’s a career, yes, but it’s also a bit of an obsession.And I think we can all admit that most of these apps are way too complicated. A to-do list is just a list. Humans have been making lists for thousands of years, long before computers existed. Paper works well, but so does a stone slate if that’s what you’ve got handy.It’s possible that you, a modern human, absolutely need a to-do list application with bells and whistles—due dates, recurring tasks, sharing features, and maybe even an…

The ShinyHunters extortion gang breached the Clop (aka Cl0p) ransomware operation’s data leak site, defacing the Tor site and allegedly stealing server data and the private keys for its onion service. The attack began Friday night when ShinyHunters exploited what they claim is an unauthenticated file upload vulnerability in Grav CMS, which they used to upload a small text file to Clop’s site. File downloaded from Clop’s data leak siteSource: BleepingComputer The small text file contained a message from the threat actors to the Clop ransomware gang, warning not to threaten them and including a link to ShinyHunter’s own data leak site. “THIS…

 Stablecoin infrastructure provider Bastion said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had granted it preliminary conditional approval for a US trust bank charter.The charter adds federal supervision from the OCC to the state licenses Bastion already holds, according to a news release on Friday. Still, the proposed bank could not accept deposits or make loans, separating it from a conventional commercial bank.Licensed as Bastion Platforms National Trust Company, it will offer stablecoin custody and wallets, payment infrastructure and white-label issuance from a single federally regulated entity.“Stablecoins have moved from emerging technology into core financial infrastructure, and that…