Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The Grand Canyon area braced for more rain and thunderstorms on Monday after a flash flood that left one person dead and about 15 others missing or unaccounted for – with scores of visitors evacuated and the only water pipeline for tourists and residents destroyed.Emergency water restrictions that began on Monday prevented tourists from staying overnight at lodges and hotels within the park. Year-round residents were asked to conserve water.A flood watch was in effect. Visiting the Grand Canyon – a crown jewel of the US national park system – can be particularly dangerous in the summer because of the…

“This crisis can only be resolved with cooperation,” he insisted. “Showing a lack of confidence in Morocco will only aggravate this situation.” Governmental turbulence Sánchez denied the suggestion that his government had ignored intelligence warnings and downplayed the growing rifts within his government regarding who knew what and when. Last week, Defense Minister Margarita Robles told lawmakers in the Spanish parliament that the National Intelligence Center — which handles foreign and domestic intelligence as well as counterintelligence — had alerted national authorities that a surge could take place. The statement contradicted those made by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who has…

Ministers are considering a shake-up of the government’s social mobility watchdog that could range from giving it more teeth to abolishing it outright.The move comes amid concerns that the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) – originally conceived under Gordon Brown’s government in 2010 – has become ineffective.Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, and others are said to feel strongly that work to improve social mobility – and thus the life chances of poorer children and families – should be a core function of government rather than being outsourced to arm’s lengths bodies such as the SMC.It is understood to be within the…

From the outside, the seven-storey building at 2 America Square looks like any other office block in the heart of London’s financial district.Located about half a mile from Tower Bridge, one might expect it to be a hive of commercial activity, teeming with employees holding important meetings. However, much of the property is home not to staff vying for their next bonus, but to stacks of nondescript black boxes arranged in neat lines.The building, leased by a Virgin Islands-based company called 48th Street Holdings Ltd, has found itself at the centre of a court case that has finally signalled the…

On the job review platform Glassdoor, one faction hates artificial intelligence more than any other.“Pushing AI to the point that you are asking humans not to use their thoughts and brains is such a turn off,” reads one representative review. “Stop forcing AI onto everyone,” reads another. And then there’s this one: “The AI apps this company uses are all trash.”The reviews in question all come not from journalists or teachers, but from insurance claims adjusters. In fact, recent research from Glassdoor found that claims adjusters who mention AI in their posts are critical a whopping 98 percent of the…

Hackers are exploiting a critical-severity Ruby on Rails vulnerability that leads to remote code execution (RCE), VulnCheck warns. Tracked as CVE-2026-66066 (CVSS score of 9.5) and referred to as KindaRails2Shell, the flaw is described as an arbitrary file read leading to secret exposure, RCE, and lateral movement. The security defect was disclosed in late July, when Ruby on Rails rolled out patches for it, urging the immediate patching of all Rails applications that rely on libvips for Active Storage image processing and allow image uploads from untrusted users. Shortly after, security researchers reverse-engineered the bug and released technical information and…

In brief Tánaiste Simon Harris said Sunday that crypto assets will be excluded from Ireland’s new savings and investment scheme. Cryptocurrencies, derivatives and interest-bearing cash are all shut out, while shares, bonds, funds and ETFs qualify. The scheme is designed to move some of the $203 billion (€175 billion) Irish households hold in bank deposits. Crypto will have no place in the tax-advantaged savings accounts Ireland is preparing to open to every adult in the country.Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris set out the shape of the scheme on Sunday in a video posted to Instagram, saying he wanted…

Excessive alcohol use can interfere with one of the liver’s most remarkable abilities: repairing and rebuilding itself after injury. New research suggests that alcohol related damage can leave liver cells trapped in an abnormal middle state, unable to function normally or complete the regeneration process, even after a person stops drinking. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Duke University, and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago found that this cellular limbo appears to be driven by inflammation that disrupts RNA splicing, an essential step cells use to turn genetic instructions into working proteins. The findings, published in Nature Communications, could…

Reading Time: 7 minutes The Wisconsin Supreme Court begins oral arguments in September under a new 5-2 liberal majority and faces a term that could feature politically charged cases, including those challenging the state’s congressional maps and seeking to restore collective bargaining rights for many public sector unions. The pending cases before the high court so far, and other legal issues that may arise over the course of the term, provide ample opportunity to observe how the justices operate under a new liberal supermajority, court watchers said. Will they accept more cases following a streak of fewer decisions in recent…

Rebels from the main splinter group of Colombia’s now-defunct FARC guerrillas claimed responsibility Sunday for kidnapping a Colombian soldier serving in the French Foreign Legion, stating that he is alive. Jose Olger Melo Charry was taken hostage on August 6 while travelling in the department of Narino in southwest Colombia, the Colombian Army said Thursday. Melo Charry was “intercepted and taken prisoner” by units of the Central General Staff (EMC), the group said in a statement in French, the authenticity of which was confirmed to AFP by a police source. “He is alive, in perfect health, and has received adequate…