BREAKING NEWS: There's been a major development this month in the war between darkness and light. 1/
Nick Donovan
@nickpdonovan.bsky.social
Corruption, conflict finance, investigative journalist. Winner of Fetisov journalism prize.
I know this sounds crazy. But here's the actual breaking news: on July 9, Reflect Orbital got FCC approval to launch a prototype mirror into space. This thing is happening. (Before you ask: yes, their prototype is named after a Lord of the Rings character...) 11/
Our latest on the Kinahans: A Bellingcat and The Sunday Times review of public immigration records from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has revealed that Christopher Kinahan Jr, the son of cartel founder Christy Kinahan, was issued with a new visa less than two weeks ago.
Beau Donelly@beaudonelly.bsky.social · 4d ago
The Continent magazine has published an investigation I carried out alongside Kenyan journo James Okong'o exposing how Rwanda's government manipulates social media - secretly paying influencers - in support of the M23 occupation of DRC. Thank you @pulitzercenter.org for your support.
Endometriosis takes nine years to diagnose. That’s about to change. NICE has approved two tests: a saliva test reading microRNA markers, and a gut-sensor test returning results in 45 minutes, sparing women the keyhole surgery currently needed. buff.ly/QX3jHk8 #ShareGoodNewsToo
Rapid endometriosis tests to be made available on NHS in England and Wales
Saliva and gut sensor-based tests hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for millions of women who can wait years for diagnosis
buff.ly
Holiday reading: Circe, Madeline Miller. Fun, moving, great writing. Esp good to read just after seeing Nolan’s Odyssey. Last English King, Julian Rathbone. Great premise (1066), weirdly written. Avoid. Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway. Smart gumshoe sci-fi. Like Yiddish Policeman’s Union on steroids.
Over the last few weeks, I attended anti-immigrant marches and saw people pulled from their homes & workplaces while police stood by. I met Malawians who had been violently robbed by a gang who told them to go home and who were camped outside their consulate in the cold, waiting to be repatriated
Beaten, robbed and driven out: violent demonstrations target immigrants in South Africa
Thousands have fled amid months of anti-immigration protests as campaigners demand undocumented people leave the country
theguardian.com
Not about the movie but Emily Wilson’s art of translation, which I find interesting in thinking about all the different “versions” / ways of reading / ways of interpreting Odysseus: www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/m...
The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English (Gift Article)
The classicist Emily Wilson has given Homer’s epic a radically contemporary voice.
nytimes.com
I know it's only a PCC election with low turnout but 11% for a party that happily accepts neo-Nazis as members is really bad.
Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 3w agoNorfolk Police & Crime Commissioner By-Election Result: ➡️ RFM: 26.7% (New) 🌳 CON: 15.0% (-18.9) 🌍 GRN: 13.8% (-2.0) 🙋 Ind: 13.4% (New) 🌹 LAB: 11.6% (-23.6) ◼️ RES: 10.9% (New) 🔶 LDM: 8.6% (-6.5) Reform UK GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2024.
Sudan: The UK have just sanctioned the following entities and individuals for their links to the Rapid Support Forces. This follows my reporting for @thesentryorg.bsky.social Further reading: thesentry.org/reports/heme... thesentry.org/reports/suda... thesentry.org/reports/24m-...
This is an important story confirming what many of us already suspected connecting Boeing and a US army vet/company to the RSF in Sudan. reut.rs/4vuf5eQ @specialreports
The US army veteran and the mystery Boeings flying Sudan’s war routes
Reuters found that companies controlled by a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran operated a fleet of aging Boeing aircraft that flew to key logistics hubs used by the Rapid Support Forces.
reut.rs
🚨Exclusive🚨 Two ministers filmed a video for a child-protection software firm that lost £17m in three years, made just *£112* in the UK in 2024 and gets 90%+ of its income from overseas subsidiaries that haven't cooperated with auditors for three years. 1/ theuglygame.wordpress.com/2026/07/15/p...
Prophets without profits
The government’s favourite provider of child protection software, SafeToNet – a perpetually loss-making firm run by recently born-again Christians – has finally filed its long-delayed accounts. The…
theuglygame.wordpress.com
Isn't it weird that this week a currently sitting president had to pay a woman MILLIONS of dollars for *raping* (and defaming) her—and the media has forgotten all about it? There was a time that this would have been the ONLY story—until the rapist was driving from office.
Very interesting plus one very good joke smuggled in the middle.
National Security Archive@nsarchive.bsky.social · 3w ago25 years ago, for the first time ever, the National Security Archive published all 3 versions of the Pentagon Papers, a leaked document tracking the historical context of the Vietnam War.
My son just told me is favourite sentence is: “I didn’t say we should kill him” because if you emphasise each different word it changes the entire meaning
Elon Musk’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. led to some 700,000 deaths, Atul Gawande says. www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...
The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the “public man-made death” that they’ve caused.
newyorker.com
Public service. www.ft.com/content/8bc8... I have smoked about 250,000 cigarettes. This is how I quit
I have smoked about 250,000 cigarettes. This is how I quit
Alex Bilmes on breaking a 35-year habit
ft.com
There's blood in the water and then there's this, chunks of flesh bobbing about- Police investigate £500,000 Reform donations from mother of fraudster who backed Farage www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Police investigate £500,000 Reform donations from mother of fraudster who backed Farage
George Cottrell’s mother Fiona at the centre of criminal inquiry over potential evasion of restrictions on donations
theguardian.com
Breaking: The Metropolitan Police has launched a criminal investigation into at least £500,000 of donations made to Reform UK by the mother of the convicted fraudster who secretly bankrolled Nigel Farage. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Police investigate Reform donations by mother of fraudster who bankrolled Farage
Fiona Cottrell, mother of George Cottrell, who has been funding the Reform UK leader’s operations, gave £500,000 to the party before the last general election
thetimes.com
Guys I can’t keep doing this independently. I need a job. If you know of a place—advocacy, OSINT org, think tank, left media, etc—where I could take this work in-house, pls let me know. I admire the folks making independent work for them, but I am collapsing under the weight and the lack of impact.
Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · 4w agoA few minutes ago, two ICE flights operated by Journey Aviation landed in Eswatini, likely another third-country removal of immigrants to a maximum security prison there. Nineteen people have already been sent there on previous ICE flights in the last nine months. Only two have been released.
I don’t like this policy and I don’t like it being framed as ‘repaying’. These refugees won’t have borrowed £10,000. They will be charged for being granted asylum, as those are the depths we’ve fallen to as a country
Channel 4 News@channel4news.bsky.social · last mo.Asylum seekers to repay £10,000 under new bill
The OPCW has released its latest monthly progress report on the elimination of the former Syrian CW program. This report adds some details to the big reveal in May regarding the discovery of a cache of Assad-era chemical weapons. Here are the highlights: www.opcw.org/sites/defaul...
opcw.org
Two nations divided by a common love of a good lie-down
Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · last mo.This looks like one of those paintings you see in an old Italian church, showing what their village looked like after the bubonic plague swept through Via @joe-lamb.bsky.social / Washpost, at Trump’s Great American state fair
The Kryptonite Woman Wins AGAIN! Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/u...
Supreme Court Lets $5 Million Sex Abuse Verdict Against Trump Stand
nytimes.com
I once overheard a posh lady on the phone in Waitrose saying with a sense of horrified emergency "well we've run right out of quinoa in *both* houses".
Damien Owens@damienowens.bsky.social · last mo.Back on the other site, years ago, there was a thread about the most pretentious thing people had ever overheard. Someone said they witnessed a guy at an ice cream van asking for 'two Magna'.
Three years ago, during Prigozhin’s kind of coup, in Rostov this guy cycled past Russian soldiers with his speaker playing Afroman’s Because I Got High. It remains the best explanation for several civil wars.