Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

I don’t think I have ever written before about a British strike directly related to the climate emergency. But that’s exactly what began late last week in north London, with a zeitgeisty connection to Andy Burnham’s fixation on buses: picket lines outside depots and massed walkouts, while the temperatures in the relevant parts of the capital and its suburbs hovered at about 34C (93F).Last Friday, more than 1,500 drivers employed by the transport giant Arriva began a planned run of 26 stoppages through to October, affecting bus routes spread between London and Essex. Everything is being led by the union…

A movement of young, progressive outsiders has stormed Democratic politics this year, sparking a wave of contentious primary contests across the country and fueling a fraught debate over whether these new, left-wing candidates are remaking the party in their image.But as primary season winds to a close, the results reveal not only the strength but also the potential limitations of this insurgent movement.In Minnesota last week, Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, won a Senate primary by a double-digit margin, pressing a fiercely progressive message to defeat a more moderate opponent. Just a week earlier, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a left-leaning Democrat,…

When Soundgarden Wrote “Black Hole Sun,” they may have inadvertently been onto something.In a new paper in Nature, scientists have chronicled a “black hole star” that’s the size of our solar system and glows bright red in the depth of space. The findings are based on observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, which continues to change how astronomers think about the cosmos.Researchers focused on some of the most distant observable phenomena in the universe, which appear to be something like a star in disguise. Based on the light they emit, they appear to share some characteristics with giant stars,…

Ethereum developers are currently reviewing 66 proposals to narrow them down as part of scoping the next major Ethereum upgrade, Hegotá, with several proposals aimed at bringing more privacy capabilities into the protocol.FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) scheduled for inclusion in the upgrade. Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (EIP-8272) should also be included to “unlock native privacy, allowing privacy apps to work without having to rely on intermediaries,” wrote Ethereum Foundation contributor Toni Wahrstätter in a Sunday X post.FOCIL, short for Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists, seeks to allow a…

Physical activity and healthy blood sugar levels during midlife may be linked to a significantly slower decline in thinking abilities later in life, according to new research from UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of The University of Texas at San Antonio. The findings suggest that exercise may be especially important for Hispanic adults. Scientists already know that cardiovascular problems in midlife can raise the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. This study is among the first to investigate how specific cardiovascular health factors may relate to cognitive aging across different ethnic groups. Researchers analyzed 402 people from…

The apartment towers on Martha Eaton Way loom over an urban creek in north Toronto, a working-class part of the city where ethnic stores dominate the strip malls.Violent episodes have cast a long shadow over the neighborhood, known as “Creek” to the young people for whom the address can confer clout. Some remember that an 8-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet through his bedroom window last summer, and that a teenager was fatally shot at the pizza shop next door a year before that.Others are too young to know that an adjacent street is named after a Toronto…

When the midterm election campaign began, Michigan seemed like a state that Democrats could take for granted in their pursuit of the Senate. Yes, it’s a presidential battleground state, but that makes it the kind of state that Democrats would ordinarily win easily in what seems like a strongly Democratic midterm cycle.It’s not a state Democrats can take for granted anymore. There are clear signs that the newly minted Democratic nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, could underperform a typical Democratic candidate’s vote share by enough to endanger the party’s chances.Start with the polls. A Fox News poll released Thursday found the…

Marco Arment, the indie developer who created popular apps like Overcast and Instapaper, and who previously served as Tumblr’s chief technology officer, is out today with his latest creation — an alternative to Apple’s Reminders designed for procrastinators, called Unforgetful. The new iOS and Mac app works with your current Reminders database, but it’s designed for people who find Apple’s system doesn’t work for them. As Arment explains in his announcement on Friday, “Siri, for all of its faults, has always been very good at creating tasks in Apple’s Reminders app… The Reminders app, though, doesn’t fit me at all. I…

Planet China: Fifteenth in a series about how Beijing’s trillion-dollar development plan is reshaping the globe—and the natural world. CÓRDOBA, Argentina—Franco Bornancini’s iPhone buzzed relentlessly in his glass-walled office at a BYD dealership, racking up 90 customer questions during an hour-long meeting. A few feet away, the sales floor buzzed with the energy of a tech product launch. “We’re like the Apple of vehicles,” said Bornancini, the dealership’s sales manager. BYD, the Chinese EV manufacturer, isn’t just selling cars—it’s offering customers “a different way of living,” he said. BYD sales manager Franco Bornancini said that early Argentine buyers of the brand’s…

An MP has called on ministers to change export controls so that significant fossils can be classed as national treasures after one of the UK’s best collections, unearthed on Dorset beaches, was sold overseas.Last week, a Guardian investigation revealed that an unparalleled collection of fossils from the UK’s Jurassic Coast, comprising hundreds of specimens including ichthyosaurs, had been sold to the Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi for what one source described as an “eight-figure sum”.The fossils, which belonged to the Dorset-based private collector Chris Moore, were initially offered to the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London and Amgueddfa Cymru…