Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Your reporters came up with a good list of urgent climate policies in response to Andy Burnham’s somewhat surreal statement focusing on the sale of disposable barbecues following a Cobra meeting (From grey water to cool spaces: 10 climate crisis policies Britain needs right now, 12 August), but they missed out the No 1 issue: the UK’s water-storage capacity.It is blindingly obvious that we need to dramatically and rapidly increase water storage. The current plans to fast-track the building of nine reservoirs by 2050 might be speedy by the standards of UK infrastructure delivery projects, but they may well have…

The two French journalists detained in Togo since last month have been charged with “false declarations” despite having the correct documents to work there, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said.Gaël Mocaër and Sebastian Perez Pezzani had been filming a documentary in Kara, northern Togo, for France Télévisions when they were arrested on 27 July, the media rights group said, despite having work visas and authorisation to film there.France’s foreign ministry confirmed the pair’s detention, adding that they had been visited by French officials three times. Togolese authorities have yet to comment.Togo has faced criticism for clamping down on free speech,…

The documentary shows footage of a young Djokovic being interviewed on television. Asked how he feels about tennis, he calls it a “responsibility”.”My goal in tennis is to become a champion,” he says.Djokovic’s career, from his style of play to his attitude on court, has been shaped by his childhood experiences in a way that few other players can possibly relate.Born in Belgrade, Djokovic was a young child during the Nato bombings of the Serbian capital between March and June 1999.He recalls running from his building – which did not have a bomb shelter – to another for safety. On…

Young apprentices should have part of their wages paid by taxpayers, according to Reform UK plans, external aimed at delivering a “skills revolution”.The party’s education spokeswoman Suella Braverman said a Reform government would introduce an “apprenticeship wage credit” offering small and medium-sized businesses a 30% rebate on the wages of apprentices they take on aged 16 to 18.She also advised students receiving their GCSE exam results on Thursday “not to get ripped off by the great university scam” and to learn a trade instead.Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he wants teenagers to have technical routes into careers that could…

Federal agents searched the home of Eric Swalwell, the former Democratic congressman, and seized electronic devices from him over the weekend in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning allegations of sexual assault, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.The agents, armed with a warrant, stopped Mr. Swalwell at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and laid claim to his devices. The next day, they searched his home in Washington, the person said.Mr. Swalwell, who spent more than a decade in the House representing two districts in California, resigned from Congress in April after the news media reported on…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Why have Treasury bonds sold off lately? The obvious answer is that Kevin Warsh isn’t exactly convincing investors that he is willing to do what it takes to bring inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s target. But there is another, subtler explanation: the Treasury buyer base has changed over the past decade, with the influence of more price-agnostic central banks ebbing and the importance of price-sensitive private investors increasing sharply.Alphaville touched upon this in a big post last week, which focused on…

OpenAI has had a hell of a year. The company spent months battling former co-founder Elon Musk in a sensational jury trial, was hit with a high-profile trade secrets lawsuit from Apple, and faced widespread scrutiny after an unreleased model hacked another AI company. As it prepares for an IPO, a steady string of executives have departed, including some of the company’s biggest names.Throughout it all, one person has quietly amassed power: Greg Brockman.Brockman is currently OpenAI’s president and co-founder. He’s helped lead OpenAI since its inception, described as an “engineering workhorse that pushed to build scaled-up systems that would…

Amazon plans to expand its Prime Air drone delivery service to nearly 500 cities and towns across the US by the end of 2026. That build-out amounts to six times the number of locations Prime Air serves today, extending the option to communities with tens of millions of customers, according to Amazon.Reaching that many locations without adding pilots to each flight depends on the drones’ own decision-making systems rather than a large ground staff monitoring individual flights. Prime Air’s fleet runs on what Amazon calls “highly autonomous” flight software, engineered to keep functioning safely and predictably when something unexpected happens…

Your clients receive thousands of emails every day, but all it takes is one convincing message to turn a seemingly harmless email into a security incident you will be responsible for cleaning up. AI has fundamentally changed phishing, making it easier to launch, harder to detect and far more convincing than traditional email filters were built to stop. With a large language model and a few publicly available LinkedIn profiles, attackers can generate highly personalized phishing emails in minutes. Harvard Business Review found that AI-generated spear phishing campaigns achieved a 54% click-through rate, matching those of human experts at a…

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has said that it’s “very likely” Bitcoin will hit between $300,000 to $400,000 by 2030.  Speaking on Fox Business Thursday, the crypto entrepreneur also said that the U.S. was moving in the right direction with crypto legislation following a meeting at the White House.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday hosted crypto executives and traditional finance bigwigs at the White House and urged for lawmakers to move forward with the Clarity Act. Bitcoin surged following the news and was recently up 10% over the past day after blowing past $72,000 per coin.  JUST IN: Coinbase CEO Brian…