Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Three-quarters of the world has abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, according to Amnesty International.Published On 12 Aug 202612 Aug 2026Lebanon has become the first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty.On Tuesday, a majority of the 128-member parliament voted in favour of scrapping capital punishment. Death sentences will be replaced with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour.Lebanon has observed an unofficial moratorium on executions since January 2004, but its courts have continued to issue dozens of death sentences.At the end of 2025, 85 people were facing death sentences, according to the Lebanese Ministry…

Kieran Ramsey, chief investigative officer for Global Reach, the advocacy group representing the former Marine, told Reuters that Gilman was released because the Russian government realised “they’re not losing any geopolitical power position by releasing him. This is a humanitarian release”.Gilman served in the US Marines for a year until August 2020.He was arrested for allegedly kicking a police officer while drunk aboard a train to Moscow in January 2022 and was initially given a sentence of three and a half years.He was later found guilty of assaulting prison guards, after he allegedly attacked a prison inspector during a cell…

Andy Burnham has said the government is considering a ban on disposable barbecues amid increased wildfire risk driven by this summer’s droughts.The prime minister told reporters single-use grills had been behind a number of recent blazes and people should not be using them “at this moment in time”.Some retailers have already decided to voluntarily stop selling the devices, which have previously attracted warnings from fire chiefs. It comes as Burnham chairs an emergency Cobra meeting on the government’s response to record temperatures in recent months.Nearly three-quarters of England and all of Wales have been officially declared in drought, creating conditions…

The Democratic establishment finally struck back at the surging populist left.Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, entered Tuesday evening’s Wisconsin primary for governor as the Democratic favorite, with a lead in the polls built on months of grass-roots organizing and a left-wing message that seemed to fit the moment of establishment unease.But David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, scored a shocking if razor-thin victory over Ms. Hong, showing the limits of the progressive movement and allowing mainstream Democrats to breathe a sigh of relief as they nominated a candidate perceived as more electable in a battleground state.Democratic socialists this year have…

Last year’s Made by Google event for the Pixel 10 resembled a late night talk show, complete with Jimmy Fallon as host, and it aired an hour after the phones were revealed. Spec dives and executive appearances were replaced with celebrity cameos and awkward skits, to the confusion of many diehard Pixel fans. But it served its purpose in reaching a broader audience: Last year’s stream racked up 8.4 million viewers on YouTube; the launch the year before only managed 1.4 million.This year, Google has only escalated matters. For tomorrow evening’s livestream, Fallon has been replaced by Trevor Noah, who…

A security researcher known as Nightmare Eclipse has released a new Microsoft Defender zero-day exploit named “ShieldBreak” after Microsoft released the August 2026 Patch Tuesday security updates. The new vulnerability is described as a bypass for RoguePlanet, another Defender privilege escalation flaw disclosed in June and patched by Microsoft one month later. As Nightmare Eclipse explained, ShieldBreak can be used to gain SYSTEM privileges on fully patched Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems. “Microsoft has failed to properly patch the RoguePlanet vulnerability CVE-2026-50656, this PoC demonstrates a full patch bypass,” they said. “The PoC was tested in the…

Binance and RedotPay are disputing whether a Singapore case related to their nearly $473 million Hong Kong legal battle is coming to an end.The stablecoin payments card issuer told Cointelegraph on Tuesday that it expects Binance to discontinue the Singapore proceedings following a hearing on Aug. 7. “RedotPay will be seeking legal costs arising from the discontinuance of the matter from the claimant,” a spokesperson for RedotPay said, adding that the parties would try to agree on costs.However, Binance said it has no plans to abandon its claims. “Reports that Binance will be withdrawing its Singapore claims are false,” a…

Inside an insulated FedEx package, sloshing around in a sealed sack of seawater at 30,000 feet, four shark eggs traveled from the U.S. to Indonesia last month. Each leathery capsule—affectionately nicknamed “mermaid’s purses”—held the embryo of a species so decimated by overfishing that conservationists have built a first-of-its-kind international rewilding pipeline to overcome functional extinction in Southeast Asian waters.  From Chicago to Seattle, Taiwan, Jakarta, Sorong and Raja Ampat, with the help of 10 partner organizations, four planes and one boat, the eggs arrived in a marine sanctuary in the heart of the Coral Triangle in July.  Battling temperature variation,…

Borr Drilling, an offshore drilling player with its corporate base in Bermuda, has lined up multiple new assignments and extensions of existing deals for its rig fleet off the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), and the Netherlands. Borr Drilling’s Prospector 1 rig; Source: Neptune Energy, part of Eni Within its latest fleet status report, Borr Drilling reported eight jack-up rig contract commitments, representing over 2,100 days of additional firm work. As a result, the company emphasizes that its 2026 contract coverage is now at 73%, with an average day rate of approximately $134,000 per day and coverage in…

Reporting Highlights Ready, Fire, Aim: In a rushed process exempted from normal rules, the Army hired General Dynamics, which brought on a Turkish subcontractor with little vetting, to make artillery shells. Money for Nothing: Despite being paid $533 million, General Dynamics did not produce a single usable shell at its new factory — and has not been held publicly accountable. Wages of Failure: Since the Army halted two production lines at the factory, the General Dynamics unit responsible for the debacle has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion. These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on…