Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Scientists have long been intrigued by a question surrounding bats: how can these flying mammals carry viruses capable of causing severe disease while rarely becoming seriously ill themselves? Researchers at Tulane University, working with collaborators at Stanford University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, may now have identified part of the answer. A study published in Science Advances found that the world’s largest family of bats carries two distinct copies of the genes involved in producing antibodies. These specialized proteins help the immune system identify and fight infections. Every other known mammal has only one such set of…

An integrated project team comprising Smulders HSM, a provider of multidisciplinary offshore platform solutions, SPIE, a multi-technical services provider, and offshore installation partner Scaldis, has been tasked with handling the next phase of a gas project in the Dutch North Sea, with a new compression module set to extend the operating life of the asset’s offshore platform, which is running on offshore wind energy. Platform N05-A in the North Sea; Source: ONE-Dyas The Netherlands-headquartered ONE-Dyas, as the operator of the N05-A platform, has awarded Smulders HSM a contract to build and integrate a new compression module that will enable efficient…

The acquittal of Yorgen Fenech, who was on trial in Malta for involvement in the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, is a devastating blow for justice and press freedom. Nine years after her car was blown up, it seems increasingly unlikely that anyone will be held to account for ordering and paying for her death. Mr Fenech’s admissions that he knew about the murder before it happened, and gave money to the middle-man who paid the killers, make it hard to understand why he was found not guilty on the lesser charge of association.All killings of journalists are…

Dhan ⁠Bahadur Tamang was at ​work in a hydropower project near Nepal’s border with China when he sensed a sudden air pressure change in the underground tunnel at ​the Upper Trishuli 1 Hydropower Project. Under the industrial floodlights, dust started to rise, the 32-year-old recalled: “Something was coming.” Nobody in the tunnel was prepared for what was about to hit them: a flood wave that had by then already flattened entire settlements upstream on the Trishuli ​river and ‌was rolling down the valley with immense destructive power that killed more than 1,252 people in Nepal. Tamang, ⁠who had been hired…

There’s something about Kemi Badenoch making a keynote speech – everything she does comes billed as keynote these days – about defence that makes most normal people a little nervous. Because when Kemi talks about defence, what’s really on her mind is war. Starting one, if possible.Kemi is never happier than when picking a fight. With herself, if no one else is around. You get the feeling that, left on a desert island she would be dreaming of Apocalypse Now. Flying low over the Mekong delta in a helicopter gunship, the Ride of the Valkyries playing through her earphones while…

The 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 nationwide, was in part a reaction to the Vietnam War. “Old enough to fight,” the slogan went, “old enough to vote.”Until recently, the amendment, adopted in 1971, had not been the subject of much judicial scrutiny. Indeed, it had arguably done more work to protect young people’s gun rights than to prohibit age discrimination in voting.But a federal appeals court made muscular use of the measure a couple of weeks ago. The ruling struck down a South Carolina law, finding that it discriminated against younger voters who want to vote…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nvidia is the supremo in creating chips that power AI. Its $5.5tn market capitalisation reflects investors’ belief it will remain this way. The $13bn acquisition of Hugging Face on Thursday significantly increases its chances, at a cost that may be paid by some of its erstwhile comrades.Hugging Face, while hardly a household name outside of tech, is the go-to repository for open-source and open-weight AI models, the kind users can tweak to suit their own ends as opposed to less customisable models…

In a late-night blog post last Friday, OpenAI said it would wind down its partnership with Cursor, the startup behind one of the most popular AI coding tools on the market. The reason OpenAI gave for the decision is effectively that it can’t trust Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX recently acquired Cursor in a $60 billion deal.In doing so, OpenAI walked away from one of its most important customers. Cursor has long paid OpenAI fees to offer the ChatGPT-maker’s models to developers using its AI coding editor. At the start of 2026, Cursor was one of OpenAI’s top five customers…

Data allegedly stolen from the Manchester Airports Group (MAG) and leaked online this week includes the email addresses and phone numbers of 8.8 million people. MAG disclosed the incident last week, warning that hackers had breached its systems, stealing car park, lounge, and Fast Track booking data, along with in-airport Wi-Fi sign-ups at the Manchester, London Stansted, and East Midlands airports. The airport operator disclosed that hackers had exfiltrated email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registrations, and postcodes, noting that its operations were not affected by the incident. MAG confirmed that the stolen information was stored in a database hosted by…

Multinational bank Standard Chartered announced Thursday that it had debuted bitcoin spot trading for institutional clients in the United ‌Arab Emirates.  The bank said that eligible institutional clients would be able to use the service — the first of its kind in the country.  Standard Chartered in 2024 launched digital asset custody services in the UAE, months before it debuted spot crypto trading in other countries.  JUST IN: Standard Chartered Bank becomes first Global Systemically Important Bank to launch institutional Bitcoin trading in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/yeOMtcO7bo— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 3, 2026 “The UAE has developed a clear digital…