Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

New Delhi, India – On the night of August 4, in a counting hall in the eastern Indian city of Patna, some 1,000km (620 miles) from the national capital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered one of its most stunning political setbacks in 12 years.Bankipur, a constituency in the legislature of the state of Bihar, had been held by the BJP for three decades. But the fledgling Jan Suraaj Party, led by political strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor, ended that reign, winning a seat that the BJP’s national president, Nitin Nabin, had held until just a few months earlier.The…

Housebuilding near train stations will be given ‘default yes’ under new planning changesGood morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. Thousands more homes could be built within 10 minutes of transport hubs, including on green belt sites, as part of changes to government planning rules in England.Under the government’s new National Planning Policy Framework, which you can read in full here, there will be default approval for homes being built around railway stations in a bid to increase housebuilding numbers. There will also be new minimum expectations for how much housing should be built in these areas.Ministers…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China AnalysisAt the recent World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, President Xi Jinping positioned China as a champion of low-cost, open-source AI. He framed this as a global public good in contrast with the US alternative. China is beginning to construct its own self-sustaining, internally reinforcing AI ecosystem — and is increasingly offering it abroad. Beijing’s geopolitical foothold in critical infrastructure is increasing and countries adopting Chinese AI will,…

Threat actors are exploiting a recently patched macOS vulnerability to gain root access and deploy cryptominers. The exploited bug, tracked as CVE-2026-65400, is a high-severity authentication issue in Screen Sharing that allows remote attackers to log in without valid credentials. Apple disclosed the flaw on August 6, when it rolled out fixes in macOS Tahoe 26.6.1, macOS Sequoia 15.7.9, and macOS Sonoma 14.8.9. Roughly a week later, the Dutch National Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC) warned that in-the-wild exploitation has started, fueled by the existence of a public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. “The NCSC has received a notification showing that active abuse…

The Federal Reserve’s struggle to manage a soft landing, where inflation falls without triggering a recession or a sharp rise in unemployment, will influence markets this week, with Wednesday’s FOMC minutes offering a closer look at whether the central bank is considering additional interest-rate increases.Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said he sees just a 25% chance of a Fed hike in September. Rather, he expects the first move in December, even as he forecasts inflation rising again in early 2027.Geopolitical developments will also need to be monitored, given their strong influence on volatility expectations and…

Microorganisms developed biodegradable plastics long before humans began making them. Many bacteria and archaea naturally produce compounds known as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), which they store inside their cells as reserves of carbon and energy. Scientists had long assumed that only microorganisms could break down these natural plastics. New research from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, now challenges that idea. In a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, researchers found that a wide range of animals, including marine worms, starfish, earthworms, and other terrestrial species, possess enzymes that can degrade microbial PHAs. The discovery points to…

The United States had a vision: Offshore wind would produce enough energy to power over 10 million homes by 2030.  But five years after the Biden administration’s ambitious proposal, President Donald Trump’s attacks have battered the industry so thoroughly that it will struggle to regain its footing in the United States long after he leaves office, dashing hopes of a renewable-energy boom with thousands of well-paying jobs, according to former wind executives and experts. Projections for offshore wind’s growth in the United States dropped by 85 percent since Trump’s re-election, and the only projects he hasn’t managed to kill were…

Tekmar Group has been awarded a contract valued at around €1 million to deliver concrete protection solutions for an offshore wind project. The company did not disclose the name of the project or its client, but it said that its contract was with an existing customer, which is “a leading submarine cable contractor,” and that the project was “a major” European offshore wind farm. Under the contract, Tekmar will design and manufacture concrete protection and stabilization solutions to protect the wind farm’s cables, with delivery scheduled this year. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE Tekmar is delivering the cable protection package under…

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka escapes with a nail-biting win while in the ATP draw, Felix Auger-Aliassime downs ex-champ Stefanos Tsitsipas.Published On 17 Aug 202617 Aug 2026World number one Aryna Sabalenka needed six match points to subdue Talia Gibson and join reigning Grand Slam champions Elena Rybakina and Mirra Andreeva in the third round of the Cincinnati Masters.Australia’s Gibson saved five match points in the 12th game of Sunday’s second set before Sabalenka came through in the tiebreaker, managing a final winner to get the job done 6-2, 7-6 (7/2) in just under two hours on a windswept Grandstand Court in the…

Moritz Oppelt, the CDU justice minister of Germany’s southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg echoed the sentiment, arguing the law should serve only its original intent of protecting local politicians, who are often subject to particular vitriol. “Top politicians can and must be able to withstand tough criticism,” he said. “It is fundamental to our democracy, and part of our understanding of democracy in Germany, that people are free to discuss political decisions at the federal and state levels and criticize them very harshly. That does not mean that insults in the political sphere should become normalized. There are, of course, limits.”…