Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

It feels like a well-rehearsed script. First come the flowers, then the pious statements. One after another, mainstream German politicians have lined up to claim that the attack on Berlin Pride last weekend was an attack on “all of us”, “our values” and “our society”.Except it was not. This atrocity in which a van was rammed into the crowd was, first and foremost, an attack on queer people. A vulnerable community that has been fighting for its rights for many decades; that, in recent years and all over the world, has increasingly been targeted by conservative forces.But, of course, the…

Millions of people were following online as an Airbus jet operated by Qantas touched down in Toulouse, France, on Tuesday. It had just completed a marathon: flying 12,460 nautical miles in 24 hours and 24 minutes nonstop from Melbourne, Australia.Only the specially manufactured plane wasn’t carrying any passengers. It was a test for the airline’s long awaited Project Sunrise, which aims to offer the first nonstop flights between Sydney and London starting next year.The route would become the world’s longest commercial passenger service and usher in a new era of ultralong-haul travel. It has also raised a host of questions.…

It is just coincidence that a very public mishap by Zack Polanski arrived at the same time as new polls showed Labour in the lead. But it did neatly illustrate the point that while Andy Burnham is enjoying a political honeymoon, the Green leader’s now seems over.This is not to say the Green party in England and Wales is too worried about the arrival of a new prime minister, or that there is necessarily much evidence yet that they should be.One of two national polls this week showing Labour overtaking Reform for the first time in more than a year…

His last major endeavor with Democrats and Republicans was legislation to further punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, legislation he sponsored along with Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. A bipartisan group of senators announced before the service that they had reached a deal on that bill and planned to bring it to the floor for a vote later in the day in Mr. Graham’s honor.Many Democrats attended the services on Capitol Hill and at the cathedral, a testament to their lasting personal affection for Mr. Graham and a nod to the rituals of the capital. Not on hand,…

29 July 2026ECB wage tracker updated with wage agreements signed up to first week of July 2026; forward-looking horizon extended to end of March 2027Forward-looking information continues to indicate stable negotiated wage pressures in 2026 and first quarter of 2027The European Central Bank (ECB) wage tracker, which covers active collective bargaining agreements, indicates negotiated wage pressures with smoothed one-off payments of 2.3% in 2026 (based on a coverage of 44.3% of employees in participating countries) and of 2.7% in the first quarter of 2027 (based on a coverage of 28.4%). The forward-looking horizon of the wage tracker has been extended…

Cyber security officer Ritesh Patel was on the Hugging Face call with around 450 others and says the industry is working hard to address the new threat of rogue AI agents.”This is the reality of autonomous agents powered by frontier models: they are relentlessly persistent, sometimes highly noisy, and will try every possible path to achieve their goal, which can easily overwhelm traditional defences,” he said.This is not the first time AI agents have been shown to go “rogue”.In the CSA’s report it references previous examples like in September 2024 when an earlier model of ChatGPT escaped its container to…

Swati KhandelwalJul 29, 2026Mobile Security / Threat Intelligence Source code for the Flying Eagle Android remote access trojan (RAT) framework is circulating through criminal Telegram channels. Hunt.io and independent researcher NetAskari traced matching control panels and certificates to 170 internet servers. They linked the framework to a fake “公安一网通办” Public Security service application targeting Android users in China. The kit supports payment-password and keystroke capture, screen recording, camera access, and phishing prompts for financial, adult-content, and government-service applications. Hunt.io’s search of the preceding 30 days of telemetry found infrastructure fingerprints on 170 servers, a count that does not establish 170…

Circle has acquired nearly 1,000 IBM blockchain patents as the USD Coin (USDC) issuer pushes deeper into the infrastructure connecting stablecoins with banks and payment networks.In a July 27 statement, the firm said the portfolio includes more than 680 patent families spanning blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification, and secure cloud operations.Circle said the deal makes it the leading holder of blockchain patents in the United States.The patents will support USDC, Circle Payments Network, its Arc blockchain and a growing suite of onchain and agentic financial tools, while Circle and IBM plan to explore additional commercial…

July 29 is International Tiger Day. Few species have benefitted from global conservation attention and funding like the tiger. Its numbers have seen a hopeful increase in recent years, yet the big cat continues to face localized pressures. Recent Mongabay coverage highlights three starkly different realities for tigers (Panthera tigris) across Asia. India’s corridors under pressure India remains the global stronghold for wild tigers, currently home to roughly 75% of the world’s remaining population. While India’s 2022 census shows numbers have rebounded to an estimated 3,682 cats, this success brings new challenges, reports contributor Nirmal Ghosh for Mongabay.…

Am I allowed to start a column about weddings by saying I don’t know exactly what I think about weddings and marriage in general? Well let’s see.One thing I do know: I really like attending weddings. I love to go as a valued guest, to see close friends in love and watch dads I have known for many years gruffly and fearfully breach the dancefloor. But I also love to go as a totally minor guest (the better for people-watching) and collect anecdotes about who, from the various overlapping families, hates who. People will just tell you these things, especially…