Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

In a few days, students in the United States will return to university, and thousands of them will enroll in international relations (IR) courses. They will be instructed on the major theories of IR, like realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Unfortunately, for them and for the discipline, one of those theories is increasingly unhelpful for understanding how global affairs really work. Perhaps ironically, realism has become unrealistic. Prominent realists have emerged as outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy, arguing that Washington should pursue a less ambitious, more restrained approach to the world. Yet this theoretical approach has become unsustainable. If, for…

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would meet Kim Jong Un later this year, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have struck with the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea in his first term. Trump told reporters at the White House it was important to “get along” with Kim, adding in an unusually precise assessment that Pyongyang now had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons. But Trump’s sudden focus on Kim and his scaling back of joint US-South Korean military drills have alarmed Asian allies — while sparking speculation that he is seeking a foreign policy win as his Iran war stalls. “Yeah,…

“Canada was so reluctant to put a deal on the table because they felt that they would be put on the clock to make more concessions above and beyond what they already did.”That’s why Trump’s threat was needed to push Ottawa to the table, said Kelly Ann Shaw, who served as deputy assistant for international economic affairs during Trump’s first term.“The two sides appear to have accomplished more in three weeks than in a year of discussion,” she said.The fact that the threat spurred Canada to the table may encourage the Trump administration to use it again, particularly because these…

Jason Hiner/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysThe Apple Upgrade Program lets you lease devices through Klarna for 24 or 36 months.The device isn’t yours to keep at the end of the term, unless you pay an additional fee.The program benefits serial upgraders rather than people trying to save money. Whether you’ve gotten a new phone through your mobile service carrier or directly from the manufacturer, you’ve probably heard about or even used a payment plan for it. The Apple Upgrade Program is an example of one company’s attempt to make it easier for you to get a new…

Google and Mozilla on Tuesday announced fresh Chrome and Firefox security updates that address multiple critical- and high-severity vulnerabilities. Firefox 154 was released to the stable channel with patches for 58 CVEs, including 20 high-severity flaws, roughly half of which are memory safety bugs that could be exploited for code execution. Resolved high-severity issues include six use-after-free defects, six privilege escalation vulnerabilities, two information disclosure bugs, one sandbox escape flaw, one site isolation issue, and one mitigation bypass weakness. Per Mozilla’s advisory, the update also resolves multiple internally discovered bugs leading to memory corruption and other security-related defects that could…

In August 2026, Hyperscale Data sold approximately 686 Bitcoin for about $43.4 million, then used part of the proceeds to repay all of its Bitcoin-backed loans on Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol, according to its quarterly filing.The repayment released the pledged collateral and left the company with no outstanding Morpho borrowings, removing the immediate loan-related collateral exposure.The result resolves one source of financing pressure, but leaves a larger problem flagged by the company. Hyperscale said its available liquidity is not expected to cover operating requirements, obligations, and planned capital expenditures for the next 12 months, raising doubts about its ability…

Researchers at the University of Essex have developed microscopic medicines that could pave the way for new approaches to treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and motor neurone disease (MND). Working with an international team, the scientists used artificial intelligence to create extremely small antibody fragments that can be produced directly inside human cells. Once there, the fragments can attach to proteins associated with disease. Ordinary antibodies generally function outside cells. The newly redesigned fragments, called intrabodies, have instead been engineered to remain stable within cells, allowing them to target proteins involved in neurodegenerative conditions. Electrical Charge Helps Antibodies…

Agents of Brazil’s Indigenous agency, FUNAI, spent 60 days in June and July 2026 physically marking the borders of the Rio Pardo Kawahiva Indigenous Territory. The 411,000-hectare (1 million-acre) area in the Amazon biome of Mato Grosso state is home to the Kawahiva, an isolated Indigenous group. The government agency confirmed the presence of the Indigenous group in 1999 and began demarcating its territory in 2001. “The uncontacted Kawahiva have been under threat in their own forest home for decades, while simply trying to exercise their right to live as they choose without contact,” Caroline Pearce, director of…

Reading Time: 2 minutes We Energies signed a new 20-year agreement to purchase electricity from the Point Beach nuclear plant in Manitowoc County, resolving uncertainty about the relationship between the utility and the state’s largest power plant. The agreement, disclosed in a Tuesday U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, still requires sign-off from Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC). The roughly 60-year-old facility is Wisconsin’s only active nuclear power plant. We Energies owned the plant until 2007, when it sold Point Beach to a Florida-based utility. It currently purchases most of the plant’s output from independent energy infrastructure giant NextEra Energy.…

Your article buries the real story beneath the headline (‘Our children are less cognitively capable,’ says neuroscientist who wants to cut screen use in schools, 16 August). Even Jared Cooney Horvath’s own data, cited mid-article, shows that moderate school device use is associated with better outcomes than no device use at all – it is only the heaviest use daily that drags results down. That is a case for sensible integration, not blanket alarm.The article’s most significant omission is what technology means for students with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), and for those learning English as an additional language.With…