Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Clues to saber-toothed cats’ demise are emerging from fossils entombed in California’s sticky La Brea Tar Pits. Fossils of the extinct predators preserved in tar reveal a diversity of spinal maladies. These included a high frequency of a normally rare tumor, researchers report July 27 in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. The diseased spines may have been caused by inbreeding during the twilight years of the species, as cat populations waned. At the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, crude petroleum in the form of asphalt oozes out of the ground, forming a collection of tar-filled ponds. For millennia, a…

A court has upheld the finding that Pauline Hanson engaged in racial discrimination against Mehreen Faruqi when she tweeted the Greens senator should “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan”.The One Nation leader launched the appeal in November, almost a month after Justice Angus Stewart found Hanson engaged in “seriously offensive” and intimidating behaviour against Faruqi in the September 2022 social media post that breached the Racial Discrimination Act.On Monday, Stewart’s decision was upheld by federal court justices Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett, and Elizabeth Bennett.Faruqi was in court for the judgment, but Hanson did not make an appearance.Sign…

Faced with a parliamentary inquiry into a financial scandal, Farage stunned Westminster by resigning as a member of parliament for his constituency in Clacton, then immediately announcing he would run in the resulting by-election. The aim was to present the race as a chance for voters — and not parliament — to judge the allegations, but Farage’s strategy quickly unraveled. Rather than take the bait, the country’s main political parties dismissed the exercise as a political stunt and declined to contest the Reform leader’s seat, leaving him to campaign in an increasingly surreal contest against Britain’s fringe candidates. Chief among…

Expanding Heathrow airport will take thousands of jobs from other regions of the UK, including almost 10,000 from the West Midlands alone, according to an analysis of the government’s own forecasts.An economic paper published by the Department for Transport last month shows that airports in England and Wales are likely to lose millions of passengers if Heathrow builds a third runway, in a significant blow to regional jobs.Birmingham airport alone is set to lose out on 7.5 million passengers a year by 2050 – a decrease that equates to about 9,500 jobs foregone at the airport and in its supply…