Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the 8th Annual EC-EIB-ESM Capital Markets SeminarLuxembourg, 30 September 2026Inflation is back and weighing once again on people’s everyday lives. Just as the euro area was putting the post-pandemic inflation surge behind it, new shocks have hit. For monetary policy, this sequence of shocks poses challenges. It can affect the behaviour of households and firms, the formation of inflation expectations and, ultimately, the persistence of inflation.[1]The ECB has adapted to this shock-prone environment in two ways.First, as of 2023 we have made our monetary policy framework more…

When the Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced in 2018 that he had created the first gene-edited babies, the experiment was widely condemned as reckless and premature. It ended with He in prison.But that hasn’t stopped the push for gene-edited human embryos, with biotech entrepreneur Cathy Tie arguing that doing so isn’t just urgent—it’s a “moral imperative.”Tie is the 30-year-old founder of Origin Genomics, a company that launched in March with plans to bring gene-edited embryos to IVF clinics. In a new commentary published in the journal Trends in Genetics, she argues for public funding and new regulatory pathways to advance…

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning of a new critical vulnerability in MikroTik RouterOS that could lead to remote code execution or cause a denial-of-service condition. Tracked as CVE-2026-84411, the security issue is a pre-authentication integer underflow in RouterOS’s web-management HTTP request handling. CISA says that a single crafted request can produce code execution with root privileges or denial of service. “The web management service in affected RouterOS versions contains an integer underflow in its HTTP request body handling that is reachable before authentication,” reads the alert. “This can be leveraged by an unauthenticated network attacker…

Stablecoin card spending is accelerating to record levels, but the payment rail remains a fraction of the traditional card market.Paymentscan tracked about $1.17 billion in spending through Sept. 30, already above August’s completed total and the highest monthly figure in its displayed series.Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa’s crypto unit, described stablecoin-linked cards as being in “hyper growth mode,” as issuers increasingly connect dollar-denominated tokens to existing card networks rather than wait for merchants to accept crypto directly.Notably, the growth has continued even without a corresponding increase in payment frequency. Paymentscan recorded 11.0 million transactions in September, down from 11.07 million…

Astronomers have long relied on brief bursts of gamma rays to identify collisions between neutron stars. These flashes can vanish in less than two seconds. Now, new research suggests that some neutron star mergers may also produce X-ray flashes that remain visible for several minutes. A study published in Science Bulletin presents strong evidence for that connection. The findings raise the possibility that some mysterious cosmic flashes, whose sources have been difficult to explain, may actually come from merging neutron stars. Since the Einstein Probe satellite launched in January 2024, astronomers have detected hundreds of bright X-ray flashes from distant…

Apex Clean Energy and Meta have entered into a power purchase agreement that allows the technology company to financially benefit from energy generated from a solar project in Gonzales County, Texas.  The 144-megawatt project wouldn’t have been built without Meta’s backing, the energy developer said. But the partnership comes after the parent company of Facebook quietly exited a corporate renewable energy initiative following a decade of membership earlier this year, raising questions about the company’s commitment to renewable energy as Meta builds an expansive portfolio of energy-hungry data centers, totaling 28 sites in the United States as of April.  Meta…

At a Workers’ Party convention in August, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made an unusual appeal to his own political camp: “I want to ask the left-wing people,” he said. “Stop this nonsense of thinking that we don’t have to worry about defense.” Lula then explained what Brazil had to protect, including nearly 10,500 miles of land borders, the Amazon rainforest, 12 percent of global freshwater, and mineral wealth. Though Lula said the country should promote peace rather than war, his message was clear: Brazil needs armed forces capable of deterring threats. Lula has run seven presidential campaigns,…

U.S. forces formally withdrew from Iraq on Wednesday, ending a two-decade military presence that stoked years of devastating bloodshed, and leaves behind a battered nation struggling to unshackle itself from its two most powerful, and now warring, allies.After toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, the brutal dictator who ruled Iraq for nearly 24 years, American forces are making their second withdrawal from the country.The U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation, which ended in 2011, left a country reeling from sectarian bloodletting and militant insurgencies that cost nearly 4,500 U.S. lives and killed more than 115,000 Iraqis, according to the most modest counts.American…

Rutte’s unusually strong remarks underscore the growing tensions between Moscow and NATO countries as hybrid attacks and Russian-linked sabotage proliferate across Europe. In recent days, Russia’s embassy in Belgium sent NATO a note alleging the alliance was displaying “reckless and irresponsible” behavior near its Kaliningrad exclave, following alliance exercises involving several reconnaissance planes, ground forces and fighter jets near the region, which is between Poland and Lithuania, last month. “We have emphasised that Russia possesses the necessary means to repel any potential aggression and is prepared to deploy its entire arsenal to defend its territory should NATO countries attempt to…

Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester until June, added: “I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it but also into the city”.He said he was “of course” confident that his own interactions with City’s owners when he was mayor would stand up to scrutiny.Burnham made his comments amid widespread shock in football about the scale of the independent commission’s findings – and the strength of Premier League comments about City’s actions.Burnham was speaking to the BBC from Hill Dickinson…