Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Since 1989, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell has tracked every human-made object in space. McDowell’s meticulously maintained catalog, updated every few weeks, is more comprehensive and detailed than that of most governments. From his front-row seat, he has watched with growing alarm as private companies launched dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of satellites over the last decade. So when McDowell heard that a space company called Reflect Orbital plans to launch a satellite to reflect the sun’s light onto the night side of Earth, he heaved a deep sigh. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week’s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.…

Irrawaddy dolphins, the Mekong River’s sole cetaceans, are viewed as sacred animals by Mekong communities, and are also an important source of tourism revenue.The species’ population has dropped steeply since the 1990s, due to hunting, entanglement in fishing gear and habitat degradation.The Anlong Chheu Teal pool, along the Laos-Cambodia border stands as a cautionary tale: The pool’s last dolphin died in 2022, and tourism subsequently cratered.Six calves were confirmed to be born this year in Cambodia, increasing the population to 118 and bringing hope that the species can rebound if dolphins and their habitats are protectedSee All Key Ideas…

French-based engineering player Technip Energies has been hired to work on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Guaymas, Sonora, on Mexico’s West Coast. Artist’s rendering of the proposed LNG terminal; Source: LNG Alliance Technip Energies has been selected by Amigo LNG, a Mexican joint venture between Texas-based Epcilon LNG and Singapore’s LNG Alliance, for an enhanced project management consultant (ePMC) role on the Amigo LNG project in Mexico. “We will provide overall project management, engineering interface management, construction management, and independent project oversight across the development, and act as the key technical and integration partner across the project’s stakeholders,…

Iran’s delegation to UNGA will be smaller this year, with travel restrictions and limits on luxury goods purchases.Published On 17 Sep 202617 Sep 2026The United States is allowing an Iranian delegation to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City next week, a Department of State spokesman said, in spite of the protracted war that is raging into its seventh month.A source familiar with the matter confirmed the delegation would cover Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and their essential staff to attend the High-Level Week in person.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“Consistent…

Shortly after the announcement, Mureșan wrote on social media that he accepted the president’s proposal, adding that “Romania needs a credible government as soon as possible.” Romania has been in political crisis since April, when the Social Democratic Party teamed up with the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians to topple then-Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan over his austerity policies. Dan’s first two nominees for Bolojan’s replacement failed to secure enough party support to lead a new administration. Mureșan now has ten days to form a cabinet and win a vote of confidence in parliament. He is supported by the…

The UK Youth Parliament is at risk of being axed within months, BBC News has learned, as the government is not committing to funding it any longer.The parliament was launched in 2000 to boost interest in politics among young people and has more than 300 elected members aged between 11 and 18.Once a year, the young politicians are allowed to hold debates in the House of Commons chamber, on a day when MPs are not sitting.Some MPs and young people say axing it would be a blow for youth democracy, while others say it is not providing value for money.The…

As companies hand off longer and more complex tasks to AI agents, they are running into an oversight problem: Agents can act faster, longer, and at greater volume than humans can realistically review. That issue reached a peak with the Hugging Face incident, which saw nearly 12,000 agents coordinating faster than human beings could track. How do you track an agent swarm that large? The emerging answer from AI labs and startups is both simple and maddening: Put another AI in the loop. Relying on AI was necessary for the independent investigation of the OpenAI Hugging Face incident. Redwood Research’s…

Anthropic redesigned Projects in Claude Code. The old project was a folder: some files plus one chat. The new one is a single ongoing conversation where Claude acts as coordinator. You describe work, and Claude decides what becomes a thread. Each thread is a full Claude Code cloud session running on its own branch and its own copy of the repository. Threads run in parallel, report back to the conversation, and keep going after you close your laptop. Anthropic’s launch post calls it one conversation that splits itself into parallel cloud sessions. Coordinator and threads The architecture has two layers.…

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced on Wednesday that it’s retiring its weekly vulnerability bulletin. The vulnerability bulletin will be discontinued on September 28 as part of a shift to a risk-based approach in vulnerability management.  The bulletin provides a summary of new vulnerabilities recorded each week. It includes information such as product name, description of the flaw, the date of publication, severity, CVSS score, CVE identifier, and patch information (when available). Each bulletin contains entries for thousands of vulnerabilities, sorted alphabetically by affected product name and severity, but it does not provide guidance on prioritizing the…

The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time since 2023 on Wednesday and it sent the bitcoin price — briefly — all over the place.  But then it settled and currently sits a modest 1% higher over a 24-hour period.  And according to asset manager Grayscale’s crypto research team, bitcoin is unlikely to be bothered by the Fed’s decision.  “We believe yesterday’s move was a mid-cycle adjustment, not a cyclical change,” wrote the firm’s head of research, Zach Pandl, in a Thursday note.  “And we doubt the one or two rate hikes expected for 2026 will lead to…