Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

President Trump said on Sunday that he had instructed the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and a linchpin of America’s national security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.In a convoluted social media post, Mr. Trump complained that Seoul did not “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In the same post, he said that North Korea under Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” while he has been president.He did not mention a rift in relations in 2017, when the North Korean leader called him a “mentally deranged…

Google announced on Friday that it will now allow users to remove a visible watermark from its AI generations, including images, videos, and songs. The company specified that this won’t affect the invisible SynthID watermark and C2PA standard-related metadata. Josh Woodward, the company’s VP for Gemini, said in a post on X that this toggle will be available for Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. He specified that the setting to turn the visible watermark off will be available in Gemini and Google’s video editor, Flow, with support for Search coming soon. The change reflects an evolving approach to labeling…

I wish to respond to Lexi Ellingsworth’s letter (Regulation cannot eliminate surrogacy risks, 23 July). I gave birth to a baby for my friends in January. While the baby is living with its parents, my husband and I are the legal parents. We are waiting for our family court date in September to recognise the baby’s biological parents as legal parents.My surrogacy story started when my sister suffered complications following the birth of her first child. After a second difficult birth, the doctors told her that it wouldn’t be safe for her to carry any more children. I became an auntie…

Nearly 300 migrants and 61 alleged facilitators detained during mass migration attempt.By Reuters and The Associated PressPublished On 16 Aug 202616 Aug 2026Moroccan security forces have arrested hundreds of migrants trying to reach the Spanish exclave of Ceuta by land and sea as authorities tightened security along the border following calls for a new mass crossing.Moroccan state broadcaster Medi 1 TV said 294 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were arrested on Saturday while attempting to enter Ceuta. Authorities also arrested 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the migration attempts, the broadcaster reported.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe latest attempt comes…

Two people died and and hundreds were evacuated after two fires broke out “almost simultaneously” on a Greek island near Athens on Sunday afternoon, officials said.About 200 firefighters were deployed to keep the twin fires from converging on the island of Salamina, which was under a high wildfire risk on Sunday. The first blaze was reported at 14:40 local time (11:40 GMT) near the island’s south coast and spread rapidly due to high winds, followed by a separate fire some 20 minutes later in the east. Their cause is not yet known.One of the fires had been brought under control…

Standing in a San Antonio barbecue joint, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, laid out a stark contrast between two congressional candidates in a sprawling West Texas border district. Voters could choose the “common sense” of the G.O.P. nominee, Brandon Herrera, he said, or the “crazy” positions of his Democratic opponent.Until recently, however, establishment Republicans were trying to paint Mr. Herrera as the crazy one.A self-described gun-rights absolutist and YouTuber known for his inflammatory humor, Mr. Herrera, 30, was initially opposed this year by both Mr. Johnson and President Trump as he challenged the district’s Republican incumbent, Tony Gonzales,…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word essay this week declaring that “The Future is for Everyone” and painting an optimistic picture of a future powered by AI, where “everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about.” On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed why not everyone is buying Zuckerberg’s vision — including our colleague Russell Brandom, who wrote that the manifesto is “exactly why people don’t like AI.” Comparing Zuckerberg to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (who spent the weekend pushing…

Perpetual-futures volumes still run at a multiple of spot across most major tokens, while funding, positioning and liquidations set the tone intraday, he saidOver the past 12 to 18 months, however, attention has moved from infrastructure toward applications and appchains that fit more familiar fintech and venture-capital frameworks, De Maere said.Fundamentals are starting to carry more weight in areas including decentralized finance, perpetual-futures exchanges and decentralized physical infrastructure networks.“Fundamentals set the floor and the shortlist, while flows set the price,” De Maere said. Revenue and usage can determine which tokens survive drawdowns or make it onto allocator shortlists, but they…

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, met with Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday, two Hamas officials and another official briefed on the meetings said. The talks were part of a diplomatic push to advance Mr. Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza.A U.S. official confirmed that Mr. Kushner was in Egypt for talks on Gaza, without providing further details. All four officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail Mr. Kushner’s meetings.Mr. Kushner’s visit to the Middle East comes as the U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hamas has appeared to hit a dead end. Last month, Mr.…

A wildfire described as the largest in Belgium’s recent history has more than doubled in size in 24 hours, local officials said on Sunday.Hundreds of firefighters are spending a third day beating back flames tearing through Hautes Fagnes – the country’s largest nature reserve – prompting the evacuation of two nearby villages.Local farmers hauled water tankers towards the park near Belgium’s eastern border with Germany, backed by water-bombing aircraft and helicopters sent from Sweden and the Netherlands.The blaze is one of several wildfires reported across Europe this weekend, with at least two killed in forest fires on a Greek island…