Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Your report (Labour MPs will push Burnham to back voting reform in first 100 days, 25 August) says: “The UK last rejected electoral reform in 2011 after a referendum [on] whether to change to an alternative vote system.” Many people do not realise that the referendum was not about a proportional electoral system. While the alternative vote is the best way to elect a single person, it really doesn’t work for a government.That referendum was primarily a popularity contest for Nick Clegg, and it is no surprise that he was rejected, predominantly by people who were not aware of the…

One of Ukraine’s most acclaimed film-makers has criticised the European Commission’s decision to cut off funds to the Venice Biennale over the opening of Russia’s pavilion, likening it to “a punishment in kindergarten”.The Biennale drew heavy criticism this spring when it allowed Russia to use its pavilion for the first time since 2022, despite the ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Speaking on the eve of the Biennale’s cinematic branch, the Venice film festival, the director Sergei Loznitsa said that while he would “never ever” personally visit the Russian pavilion, the row was a distraction from the EU’s own failure to enforce…

The far right’s gains in the 2024 EU election disrupted the longstanding balance between the two political groups that drove lawmaking for decades. The EPP, of which the CDU is a member, has increasingly relied on right-wing majorities due to fraying cooperation with the S&D, to which the German Social Democrats belong. With polls signaling further populist gains across the bloc, Herbst and Repasi warned that unless the center repairs the relationship, more extreme voices will increasingly call the shots in Brussels. The Herbst-Repasi idea would also help reduce European Commission President von der Leyen’s political stress. Rivalry between the…

Like other online travel booking services, Priceline helps you compare offerings and rates for everything travel-related, like airline tickets, and hotel stays. Growing up, I always referred to singer/starship captain William Shatner as the annoying guy from Priceline, much to my grandmother and father’s horror. But, you have to admit, the ads were memorable and convincing, even if it did become Shatner’s legacy to a new generation. No celeb endorsement is needed to save with our Priceline promo codes, though. We update our Priceline coupons regularly to help you be a budget-friendly traveler, with Priceline coupon codes for dollars off…

Most production voice stacks are three systems stitched together. One model transcribes, a second separates speakers, and a detector decides when the user stopped talking. Each hand-off adds latency and a new failure mode. Muse Voice Transcribe, announced by Meta Superintelligence Labs this week, collapses those three jobs into a single autoregressive model. Meta calls it its first real-time audio perception model. It performs streaming ASR, speaker diarization for 20+ speakers, and endpointing in one pass, with no required post-processing. Is it deployable? Yes, but only as a hosted API. It is live on the Meta Model API as muse-voice-transcribe-1.0…

SonicWall is urging customers of its SMA1000 series secure remote access gateway and SSL-VPN appliance to patch two new zero-day vulnerabilities that have been exploited in the wild.  According to an advisory published by SonicWall on Tuesday, the vulnerabilities and their exploitation were discovered internally.  One of the flaws, tracked as CVE-2026-83548 with a CVSS score of 10, has been described as a pre-authentication SSRF issue in the Appliance Work Place interface of SMA1000 appliances. An attacker can exploit it remotely without authentication to access sensitive functionality and conduct unauthorized operations. The second vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-83549 with a CVSS…

Binance is expanding further into traditional finance by launching options trading on more than 1,000 US stocks and exchange-traded funds for eligible users outside the United States.The options will be offered through Binance’s Abu Dhabi-regulated broker-dealer, Nest Trading, with orders routed to US-registered Alpaca Securities for execution, clearing, settlement and custody.The launch builds on Binance’s existing equities offering of more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs and adds to a growing lineup of traditional financial products available through the platform.Unlike equity-linked perpetual futures, the options are physically settled, meaning users who exercise them receive or deliver the underlying shares.According to…

Cancer cells can sometimes evade the immune system by surrounding themselves with a dense layer of sugar-derived molecules. This coating can act as a form of camouflage, making it harder for immune cells to recognize and destroy them. Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and collaborating institutions across North America have now identified environmental conditions that can help cancer cells build this protective layer. Their findings, published August 7, 2026, in Science Advances, suggest that changes within the tumor microenvironment, the surrounding mixture of immune cells, connective tissue, blood vessels, proteins and carbohydrates, can influence how effectively cancer…

Many of Southeast Asia’s native oak species are under high stress from human pressures and lack protection, according to a recent report, reports contributor Sean Mowbray for Mongabay. Of the 430 known oak species in the world, 172 are native to Southeast and East Asia. The report, produced by the Morton Arboretum, a nonprofit that studies plants globally, evaluated 54 oak species across Southeast and East Asia listed as threatened or data-deficient by the IUCN. The analysis found that 46 species experienced “very high” or “high” human pressure across more than half of their native ranges in 2024.…

A US Postal Service whistleblower has warned that millions of Americans could be prevented from receiving mail ballots ahead of November’s midterm elections because of a rushed, new system ordered by President Donald Trump and due for launch Tuesday. The anonymous federal official alleges that the agency has continued developing the system despite court orders blocking key parts of Trump’s effort to impose new federal controls on voting by mail. The disclosure, released Tuesday by Democratic US Senator Richard Blumenthal, describes the project as “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed” and warns that insufficient testing could lead to “catastrophic failure.”…