Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

When future historians look back at U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, the Iran debacle will probably feature as a decisive turning point in his presidency. The conflict exposed the limits of American power. It isolated the United States internationally, added inflationary pressures to the world economy, and drove the president’s domestic approval ratings to unprecedented lows just ahead of midterm elections. But historians may ultimately deem a different development to be far more consequential: the failure of Trump’s China policy. Over the administration’s first year and a half, the United States let its most formidable geopolitical rival gain ground…

Thirty-seven people accused of illegal mining in north-central Nigeria have died in custody, local officials said.Police have set up an investigation into the deaths, which the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) blamed on an apparent disease outbreak.However, an intelligence report shared with AFP news agency suggested the group died because of overcrowding and poor ventilation inside the detention facility in Niger state.”We believe they suffocated because there was no ventilation,” the father of one of those detained told the BBC.Abdullahi Dalhatu said his son had survived because he was near a small window.”His friend slumped and fainted, and…

Canada is not alone among Europe’s far-flung allies, now seeking to cosy closer to the EU, as they worry the US is becoming too unpredictable a partner. Japan and South Korea show an interest in sheltering under the EU umbrella too.For its part, the EU has recently hastened to secure a list of trade deals – with India, Indonesia and Japan for example – to intentionally diversify relationships.But there is no guarantee Canada’s associate membership of the EU will ever get off the ground, never mind become a blueprint for other countries, like the UK wanting closer relations stopping short…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Financial connections between tech firms are substantial. And — if we put aside challenges this presents to antitrust regulators/the foundations of functioning capitalism — they are not particularly worrying. At least, they are not particularly worrying in a world where firms don’t fail.We live in a world where firms do sometimes fail. As such, the financial links connecting what look like nice safe firms in the AI ecosystem to potentially systemically important weaker links have the potential to matter quite a lot.…

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.JORGE GARAY: AI BioDesign seeks to explore possible molecules and biological functions that have never existed in nature. Are there any particular risks involved in venturing into this uncharted territory? How can scientists anticipate those risks and what steps can they take to minimize them before a designed molecule leaves the lab?DAVID BAKER: What’s exciting about biology is that nature has explored only a fraction of what is physically and chemically possible, which opens a world of possibilities for what we could design. When we explore those possibilities, the primary risks are…

” style=”width:100%;height:600px;border:0;display:block;background:#111;” scrolling=”no” loading=”lazy”> 1. OpenCode OpenCode documents 3 local paths in its own provider docs: Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp’s llama-server. Each uses the @ai-sdk/openai-compatible package with a local baseURL. The docs claim support for 75+ providers overall. Setup can be one command. Ollama’s OpenCode page shows ollama launch opencode. It recommends a context window of at least 64k tokens. OpenCode’s own docs add a practical tip. If tool calls fail, raise num_ctx to around 16k to 32k. It ships 2 built-in agents. build has full access. plan is read-only and asks before running bash commands. Best for: Developers…

Ravie LakshmananSep 18, 2026Malware / Cybercrime A financially motivated threat actor has been linked to the development and distribution of a JavaScript (JS)-based information stealer known as PhantomRaven via the npm package registry. “The developer likely wrote the malware using a large language model (LLM), an assessment made with high confidence based on verbose comments, placeholder code, and statistical token-analysis patterns,” CrowdStrike’s Counter Adversary Operations said in an analysis published this week. PhantomRaven was first flagged by Koi Security and DCODX in late October 2025, calling attention to a slopsquatting and typosquatted campaign in which more than 100 malicious packages…

Validators, or entities that supply computing power to maintain any blockchain network, will remain leaders for four consecutive slots. The faster clock therefore reduces each leader’s control window from 1.2 seconds to one second, handing transaction-ordering power to the next validator sooner.That matters for applications such as oracle-powered markets and automated market makers, where stale prices or a few hundred milliseconds of uncertainty can affect whether a transaction executes as intended.Users should see transaction updates sooner, while swaps have a smaller window in which the market can move before they reach the network. That can mean fewer failed trades and…

A routine check of NASA lunar data unexpectedly led to a major discovery. Robert Wagner, a scientist who works with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was examining a large map of the Moon when something unusual stood out on his computer screen. He noticed an unusually bright patch surrounded by a dark halo, a pattern suggesting that material on the lunar surface had recently been disturbed. “I just stopped, dropped everything, and started looking into what that spot was,” said Wagner, an image-processing specialist from Intuitive Machines who works with data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) system. When…

The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) has entered Africa’s offshore energy realm by acquiring a stake in an oil and gas field development off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire. Baleine FPSO; Source Altera SOCAR has wrapped up the acquisition of a 10% ownership interest in the Baleine oil and gas field development project in the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, following the receipt of all required approvals and satisfaction of the necessary conditions. The company highlighted: “Our participation in Baleine, one of the largest oil and gas discoveries made in West Africa in recent years, marks an…