Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

A study this month at the Harvard Medical School in the US, external found that flight attendants and pilots had the highest level of radiation-related cancer deaths among more than 500 different professions.In all, about 6.9% of deaths among flight attendants and 6.7% of deaths among pilots were from radiation-related cancers, according to the analysis.These proportions were higher than for other professions including nuclear technologists, who are routinely exposed to radiation from non-cosmic sources yet placed 12th on the list, the authors said.It has long been known that air travel at high altitudes exposes people to cosmic radiation, but the…

The Postal Service can for now move ahead with plans to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections in November, after a federal judge on Wednesday lifted an order that had blocked it from carrying out Trump administration efforts.The judge, Indira Talwani of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, wrote that she felt compelled to act in response to a ruling from the Supreme Court on Monday that action by the courts was premature.However, Judge Talwani left open the possibility that the Postal Service rule could be blocked again soon. She indicated that she may reconsider the issue after…

Pubs, bars and hotels have reported a “Burnham bounce” in optimism as a result of the prime minister’s overtures to the sector, polling suggests, but they warn that the goodwill could evaporate without further tax relief.Andy Burnham has positioned himself as a staunch ally of the UK’s hospitality industry both before and since his arrival at No 10, announcing last month a discount on business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues.The result, according to a survey by multiple trade bodies, is that 37% of businesses in the sector now feel that his government will benefit hospitality and brewing,…

It’s 8:52 AM and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius) where I live in Southern California. My husband just came back from a morning outing with our four-month-old. “How was the botanic garden?” I ask him. “It was okay. It was just too hot,” he tells me. I didn’t expect us to spend so much of our son’s first summer cooped up inside, hiding from the heat.As I write this, an extreme heat warning for my area is glaring at me from my phone, effective for at least the next three days. “Dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures up to 110…

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday announced the disruption of two hacking platforms named QScan and QTRouter operated by Chinese threat actors to target critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks in the country. The activity has been attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored group known as QTFY, employed by Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company (南京鑫玖维网络科技有限公司). “Among the victims of QTFY computer intrusion activity are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Senate,” DoJ said. Damon Rouse, a security researcher…

In brief Galaxy Research tracked six Bitcoin wallets dormant since 2011, 2012, and 2014 moving coins over a 10-day stretch this month, worth a combined $40.15 million. Two of the six carry “Salomon Client Dusted” tags tied to Noah Doe, the pseudonymous plaintiff suing to claim 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses in New York court. The oldest coins in the batch were bought for pocket change in mid-2011 and are up more than 800,000% on the initial purchase. Somewhere out there, six people may have just remembered they own Bitcoin, or cracked open an old hard drive, or got their prayers…

During the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse over Europe, scientists aimed to study a long-standing mystery: why the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, is far hotter than its visible surface. Capturing the data they needed meant being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.  Pilots from NASA’s Johnson Space Center flew the WB-57F high altitude research aircraft from Ellington Field in Houston to Iceland, their base for flying through the path of totality to give scientists a clearer view of the Sun’s corona.  A total solar eclipse provides a unique opportunity to examine the corona because the Moon temporarily blocks the Sun’s bright surface, revealing its fainter outer atmosphere. Observations collected during this…

Three men have been convicted after videos of them using off-road vehicles to cause “irreversible” harm to a protected area were posted to TikTok.John Robinson, Michael Williams and Joseph Hodgson were part of a convoy that drove the vehicles from Liverpool to the Berwyn Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Denbighshire.Robinson and Williams were fined more than £2,000 each and disqualified from driving for two months, while Hodgson did not attend court but was found guilty of criminal damage in his absence.Kirsty Roberts, from Natural Resources Wales (NRW), said SSSIs were protected because they “support the UK’s most important” and…

Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has launched a tender for preliminary geophysical investigation of offshore wind sites in Zones 3 and 4 of the German North Sea exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The contract, covering work in 2027 and 2028, will enable collecting seabed and subsurface data for offshore wind development under Germany’s Site Development Plan (FEP). The survey programme includes full-area multibeam echosounder measurements with backscatter data, side-scan sonar surveys with grab sampling and underwater video for ground-truthing, as well as line-based magnetometer and sediment-echosounder surveys. Localized inspections using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) will also be carried out…

Reading Time: 3 minutes Local jail reform advocates say they have serious concerns about the death of a 45-year-old man in custody at the Milwaukee County Jail on Aug. 18. Many of their concerns are not new. “It’s a very painful sort of flashback of the different cases we’ve encountered where people are in for a bit, or for a duration of time … and assistance isn’t provided,” said Alan Chavoya, treasurer and organizer with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. The alliance is a Black and brown-led grassroots organization that says it aims “to end police crimes,…