Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Wolf howls have mystified listeners for ages, prompting a range of questions. For more than three decades, wildlife biologists, using traditional research methods, have sought answers from the wolf packs of Yellowstone National Park, among the most studied on Earth.Jeff Reed, a native Montanan, linguist and computer engineer, has joined the Yellowstone researchers in a quest to decode what he calls “wolfish” by deploying the latest technology. Reed’s bioacoustic listening devices collect massive amounts of ambient sound annually from the vast Yellowstone soundscape.Using large-language models and artificial intelligence, Reed has isolated more than 8,000 hours of continuous wolf vocalizations,…

This week, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s plans to impose new rules for mail-in voting for the midterm elections in November.  In a March executive order, President Donald Trump had instructed the U.S. Postal Service to create rules for election officials sending mail-in ballots to voters. If a state didn’t comply with the new rules, the Postal Service wouldn’t deliver the ballots to voters. State officials said it would have been impossible to comply in time, and two federal judges blocked the rule for the November elections. Lawyers for the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.…

Sign up here to receive Bellingcat’s biggest investigations by email as soon as they are published. WARNING: This report contains links to graphic images and footage. A joint Bellingcat and Jeune Afrique investigation into drone strikes carried out by the Malian military adds new details about the attacks which frequently are carried out in civilian areas and have reportedly resulted in the deaths of civilians. The incidents, concentrated in northern Mali, often involved strikes on vehicles or commercial activity. Video footage of the strikes is often broadcast on national television, portrayed as precise attacks against terrorists and their logistics.  Mali’s military government acquired…

European progressives searching for reasons to be cheerful have been finding them hard to come by this autumn. In Germany, the dramatic rise of the Alternative für Deutschland party is threatening the liberal values that underpin the identity of the federal republic. In France, polls continue to point to a likely Marine Le Pen victory in a presidential election, which is months away. Across mainland Europe, centre-left parties are failing to muster an adequate response to nativist movements that have colonised swathes of the working-class support that they once relied on.In such an ominous political landscape, the outcome of a cliffhanger…

Brighton come from two goals down to win 3-2 at Old Trafford, to shock Manchester United as slow start continues.Published On 16 Sep 202616 Sep 2026Manchester United’s problems mounted as they crashed out of the League Cup after blowing a two-goal lead in a stunning 3-2 defeat against Brighton.Michael Carrick’s side slumped to their second successive home defeat following a wretched collapse in the third round at Old Trafford.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listUnited led through goals from Shea Lacey and Mason Mount inside just 10 minutes on Wednesday.But Charalampos Kostoulas sparked Brighton’s revival and Pascal Gross equalised…

There is a rising tide of abuse in our politics and I feel it every day. This week, the Electoral Commission warned that harassment and intimidation are changing how candidates campaign, what they feel able to do and whether they stand again. This is a threat to our democracy – and we cannot ignore it.The figures are stark. Commission research into the May 2026 local and mayoral elections in England found that 55% of candidates said harassment or intimidation was a problem, up from 47% in 2025. Women, ethnic minority candidates and those with disabilities were most likely to encounter…

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways The September 2026 Pixel Drop is officially rolling out. It brings a faster way to call and message contacts. The update is available to Pixel 6 and newer devices. The September 2026 Pixel Drop is officially rolling out, and while it’s not a huge update, it does bring a potentially very useful tool to your home screen. This is separate from the September Android Drop, which introduced a new way to keep track of important items and a new motion sickness feature. Also: The best Google…

Knowledgator Engineering has released GLiFormer, a schema-conditioned encoder framework for information extraction. One model handles named-entity recognition (NER), text classification, relation extraction, nested JSON structuring, and text embeddings. You pass labels and extraction schemas at inference time. Two checkpoints are on Hugging Face. GLiFormer Base v1 has 264.2M parameters, and GLiFormer Large v1 has 575.6M. Deployable today? Yes. Both checkpoints are Apache 2.0, install with pip install gliformer, and run on CPU or GPU. The Problem It Targets Extraction stacks often chain separate models. One tags entities, another classifies documents, and a third rebuilds records. The research team argues these…

Government agencies are warning that Iranian state-linked hackers are using a Windows malware strain named CHOSEN BRICK to target dissidents, activists, and journalists worldwide. The malware features data theft and espionage capabilities that collect email, Telegram, and WhatsApp communications, take screenshots, and record audio. The threat actor primarily targeted individuals in the U.S., U.K., and the Netherlands, whose cybersecurity agencies published a joint advisory with the FBI. A typical attack begins with social engineering messages impersonating trusted contacts or technical support agents, sent to targets via WhatsApp or Telegram. The threat actor tricks victims into opening malicious files disguised as…

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has issued final guidance outlining when crypto activities may require authorization under the country’s incoming regulatory regime.The guidance covers activities such as issuing qualifying stablecoins, operating crypto trading platforms, dealing and arranging transactions, safeguarding cryptoassets and arranging crypto staking. It is intended to help firms determine whether their activities fall within the regulatory perimeter and which permissions they will need to operate under the new framework.Existing registrations and permissions will not automatically convert under the new regime, meaning firms will need to determine whether they require FCA authorization or a variation of permission.Firms covered by the FCA’s new crypto…