Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Key eventsGovernment looking at ‘fundamental reforms’ to lower energy billsJulia KolleweMiatta Fahnbulleh, the energy sectary, said the government will explore “what more we can do” to help those struggling with high bills, via “fundamental reforms” including investment in renewable energy. double quotation markFamilies will be understandably concerned about the cost of energy bills this winter, which is being driven up by the Iran war. Energy is an everyday essential and it needs to be affordable for everyone, which is why we have cut VAT on electricity bills from October, to give families some breathing space. This has limited the rise…

Dave Donaldson, special assistant at the White House Faith Office, visited Ukraine over the weekend as well, according to the chair of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Lankford spoke the same day that John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, reportedly paid an unexpected visit to Moscow. Lankford, who sits on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, said while he was not optimistic about reaching a deal between Russia and Ukraine, he saw Ratcliffe’s trip as potentially productive.“You have to have ongoing conversation. Things don’t get better by not talking.…

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said the removal of VAT on energy bills for six months from October was a “down payment” on helping households with energy costs.She said bills would be £45 less than they would have been and the warm homes discount would take £150 off bills for six million households this winter.”We know people are under huge amounts of pressure due to the cost of living, and I know that people are really worried about their energy bills, and we are absolutely alongside them and trying to do everything we can,” she told BBC’s Today programme.But analysts at…

Ventures Platform has raised an oversubscribed $83 million second fund as the Pan-African venture firm expands beyond its home market of Nigeria with a strategy shaped by a tougher, more selective venture market. The firm plans to back early-stage founders across a range of sectors, including fintech, healthcare, SaaS and other areas “where technology can address essential needs and build large, enduring businesses,” Kola Aina, the firm’s founding partner, told TechCrunch.  Of course, AI is part of that thesis. “We’re particularly interested in where AI changes the economics of serving African markets,” he said, pointing to its potential to reduce…

Ravie LakshmananAug 26, 2026Vulnerability / Cryptojacking The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday warned of active exploitation efforts targeting a recently patched critical security flaw impacting Gitea. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-60004 (CVSS score: 9.8), a case of remote code execution that allows an attacker with ordinary write access to a repository to execute arbitrary shell commands as the Gitea OS user. “Gitea’s diffpatch endpoint can be abused to install and execute a Git hook from repository-controlled content,” according to an advisory released by Gitea last month. “With default open registration, an unauthenticated visitor can obtain…

Bitcoin is out of its bear market. But expect a possible pullback.  That’s according to analysts at crypto research firm CryptoQuant, who say the coin is behaving like it has done in the past. CryptoQuant founder, Ki Young Ju, wrote on X Tuesday that the asset had “entered into the early bull phase.” Ju Pointed to movements bitcoin made in its last cycle before entering a bull market, and said the coin was currently doing the same thing.  CryptoQuant research shows that bitcoin flows to derivative exchanges have started again, confirming that traders have entered “risk-on” mode, which “has marked…

Low-carb diets have become increasingly popular, but their effects on cholesterol are far from uniform. Some people see little change, while others experience a substantial increase. New research suggests that genetics may help explain why. The findings indicate that saturated fat, which can make up a larger share of some low-carb diets, may interact with a person’s genetic makeup to raise low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, a major contributor to heart disease risk. This genetic influence could help explain why two people following similar diets can have very different cholesterol responses. “Our findings suggest that some individuals may be more sensitive…

At least 14 newborn babies died on Wednesday in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, after a fire broke out in a nursery in the city’s largest hospital, according to officials.The fire spread shortly before 7 a.m. through the third floor of the maternity ward at the Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences, the Islamabad district administration said in a statement. Rescue teams dispatched six fire engines and four ambulances, it said.As of late morning on Wednesday, the entrance of maternity ward was cordoned off with yellow tape and about two dozen police officers stood guard in front of it.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of…

“Fill up quickly and move on,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov warns drivers in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv.Two petrol stations in the city in Ukraine’s north-east were hit by Russian drones on Monday, which local officials say wounded two people. In another attack on a petrol station outside the city of Kryvyi Rih last week, three people were killed.Russia’s campaign of targeting civilian filling stations with drones and missiles began in earnest in April, primarily in regions on the front line, and the attacks are steadily growing more frequent.At the same time, Russia has endured two waves of severe fuel shortages…

Another Ofgem energy price cap day, another increase in bills. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new energy secretary, can blame the usual culprit on Wednesday – the fossil fuel price “rollercoaster”, given a shove this time by Donald Trump’s Middle East misadventure. Higher gas prices will indeed be the main quarter-on-quarter reason why bills stand at a three-year high on a unit basis.But there is more to the tale on a longer view. Even when the gas rollercoaster dips downwards, the energy industry’s medium-term projections suggest bills will not fall meaningfully.Look at the forecast on Tuesday from EDF, one of the big…