Eye scans, licence plate readers, spyware: technology used to catch criminals and terrorists is being repurposed to fulfil Trump's pledge to deport 1mn undocumented migrants this year. Critics fear it’s the thin end of the authoritarian wedge. An #FTEdit thread on America’s new surveillance state 👇

New: Trump’s immigration data dragnet. @peter.andringa.me investigates the brokers and tools behind the US administration’s deportation drive. Former officials raised concerns about the volume of data, lack of oversight and shift from criminal to immigration work. ig.ft.com/us-ice-surve...

NEW: We took a deep dive into ICE's data dragnet: the data brokers, biometrics tools, and license plate readers powering Trump's deportation effort. Some of the contracts are for tools previous administrations deemed too intrusive.

New: The power crunch threatening America’s AI ambitions. Our visual story looks at how Big Tech is trying to close a data-centre power gap that could leave the industry 40% short of the electricity needed by 2028. “It’s going to be a white-knuckle ride,” one analyst told us. ⚡🤖 👉 ft.com/ai-power

Fun FT visual story about the EU's internal barriers to trade (including ridiculous labelling requirements). It makes doing business in India - another multi-lingual, multi-state union - look like a walk in the park. as.ft.com/r/813c200e-2... @samjoiner.bsky.social @richardmilne.ft.com

New: Major UK retailers are selling tuna from fisheries where crews say they endure beatings, gruelling hours and inadequate food. Some spend years at sea without visiting port. Our latest visual investigation by @upyorkshire.ft.com, Dan Clark and @inari-ta.bsky.social 👉 ig.ft.com/supermarket-...

NEW: Our investigation finds a tuna supply chain riddled with exploitation and abuse - where fishermen spend months or even years at sea. Some describe threats, beatings and deception over pay. Yet the fish they catch is still ending up on our plates. ig.ft.com/supermarket-...

Looking for a long read to go with your coffee this morning? The Line is a project of incredible hubris - we got the story of how it unravelled.

NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives. ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

New: The inside story of how The Line — the 500-metre-tall, mirror-glass structure that was the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream — unravelled. @alisonkilling.bsky.social spoke to 20+ insiders to reveal how MBS’s utopia was undone by the laws of physics and finance. ft.com/saudi-neom-line

"everyone knows the project won’t work; it is now just a matter of letting MBS down gently" Deep dive on Neom focuses on The Line - a building planned at a scale that would run from London to the Norfolk coast but in the desert. Absolutely wild, absolutely doomed ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled on.ft.com/47FBigb

Blood on the streets of El Fasher: satellite images and videos capture new atrocities in Sudan as RSF forces take the city, marking a new chapter in the country’s ruinous civil war. W/ William Wallis, @janatausch.bsky.social, @digitalcampbell.ft.com www.ft.com/content/f39c...

How Trump companies made $1bn from crypto. Outstanding investigative reporting from a crack FT team. on.ft.com/47bNR2L

Lead is leaching into the environment and lurking in our homes. It's in soil, in water, in food, in our housing. And it's poisoning people. The first episode of Untold: Toxic Legacy launches October 22. Trailer here: open.spotify.com/episode/6M4H...

New: How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution. A boom in grid-scale storage is solving renewables’ reliability problem and extending the use of clean power. Latest visual story w/ @nassosstylianou.bsky.social @samlearner.bsky.social @inari-ta.bsky.social 🔋👉 ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

“I suspect if you were to ask most billionaires, ‘Where is your loyalty, with your country or with your money?’, most would say, ‘My loyalty is with my money.’” Thought-provoking piece on challenges of taxing the rich by Emma Agyemang. Come for the reporting, stay for the comments on.ft.com/48jmZjd

This weekend’s must read. Phenomenal reporting by the brilliant @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social

Winner of Digital Storytelling (National/International) is the Financial Times @FT for “Are the robots finally coming?” #FutureMediaAwards

This is amongst the best reported stories about the current state of ICE Air. Must read.

ICE plans to 6x its current budget for immigrant transportation and deportations. The money offers a potential windfall for a few contractors and charter airlines — some with close ties to the Trump campaign. Yet the system is already under strain, with significant concerns for detainees' safety: 🧵

This is great fun. I won the FA Cup and overspent by £100m but the memories will live forever #PinkhamTiliDie

FREE TO PLAY: ⚽ Can you run a Premier League football club? Step into the boardroom, navigate financial regulations and guide your team to glory in our new game. 👉 ft.com/football-game

If only there were some famous text warning of vainglorious desert-based ambition which could've given us a clue as to how hosting the Winter Olympics in Saudi Arabia would go on.ft.com/3UH13qt

NEW: Ski resort in the Saudi mountains? This animation shows how the huge Trojena project which is set to host the Asian winter games in 2029 is falling behind schedule Great reporting from @alisonkilling.bsky.social Andrew England Joe Leahy and Ahmed Al Omran www.ft.com/content/6dfc... #dataviz

NEW: Saudi is holding internal discussions about having China or South Korea hold the 2029 Asian Winter Games as it struggles to deliver its desert defying ski resort in Neom. on.ft.com/45qlxtK

Exc: Saudi Arabia is struggling to deliver its desert-defying ski resort for the 2029 Asian Winter Games and has held internal discussions about finding alternative countries to host the event. Great scoop by @alisonkilling.bsky.social, Andrew England, @alomran.me and Joe Leahy on.ft.com/45qmKRM

Incredibly instructive reporting on what appears well on its way to becoming the biggest, most concentrated, most energy- and resource-intensive, and most speculative wave of capital investment ever. ig.ft.com/ai-data-cent...

New: Inside the relentless race for AI capacity. The quest for superintelligence is spurring a data centre boom, with hyperscalers clustering thousands of chips to train AI models. But critics question the environmental impact, soaring costs and whether it's all needed. 👉 ig.ft.com/ai-data-cent...

New: The American guns turning Haiti’s gangs into an army. Caches of weapons — including sniper and military-style rifles — are being smuggled from Florida, enabling Haitian militias to challenge the country’s fragile government. The UN says gangs now outgun the police. ig.ft.com/haiti-gangs/

New: Inside America’s booming immigration detention industry. The largest domestic deportation operation in US history has seen detention companies’ market value surge. But FT analysis has identified facilities housing 100s more people than they are designed to hold. 👉 ft.com/us-detention-industry

New: Inside Gaza’s 'death traps'. A US-backed scheme forces hungry Palestinians to trek kilometres for food aid. First-hand testimony, satellite imagery and verified video shed light on the dangerous journey from which many never return. on.ft.com/4lKG6Go

NEW: Inside Gaza’s ‘death traps’ via @FT GHF’s plan forces hungry Palestinians to trek miles to aid sites, often through the IDF’s active military areas. Hundreds have been killed and thousands injured. This is how… www.ft.com/content/6c74...

NEW: Tony Blair's staff took part in a BCG project for the redevelopment of Gaza along the lines of the 'Trump Riviera' plan www.ft.com/content/0b1b...

Is Europe prepared for war? https://on.ft.com/4nsBo1V

Radar satellite imagery from Umbra shows several damaged and destroyed structures at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, following Israeli strikes this morning More maps and videos of the multiple attacks in our story here: on.ft.com/445zvPR

Multiple Israeli airstrikes have targeted Tehran’s top military commanders, nuclear sites and bases across the country. Verified footage, photos and official statements from Israel and Iran confirm some of the key locations that have been hit. on.ft.com/4jQdz0O

NEW: Illegal fuel in Mexico has evolved from pipeline tapping to a more sophisticated cross-border smuggling operation that is funding Mexico's powerful cartels. By @digitalcampbell.ft.com @peter.andringa.me Christine Murray @samjoiner.bsky.social and me. ig.ft.com/mexico-fuel-...

NEW - Mexico’s cartels have been setting up shop in a new business: smuggled fuel. Using satellite, customs, and maritime data, we identified misdeclared shipments of millions of barrels per year in a lucrative web that evades taxes and stretches across the country. ig.ft.com/mexico-fuel-...

A new form of smuggling is funding Mexico’s cartels, with fuel from the US illegally imported in massive volumes. One in four vehicles in the country could be running on contraband fuel. W/ @digitalcampbell.ft.com christine murray @peter.andringa.me @alisonkilling.bsky.social 👉 ft.com/mexico-fuel

How smuggled US fuel funds Mexico’s cartels 📊 https://ig.ft.com/mexico-fuel-theft/

Honoured to win two @amnesty.org awards for our visual investigations into Russia’s abductions of Ukrainian children and settler soldiers in the West Bank. 👏 @alisonkilling.bsky.social @peter.andringa.me @digitalcampbell.ft.com @samlearner.bsky.social @christopherjm.ft.com @jamesshotter.bsky.social

A UN commission has found that Russian forces committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in drone attacks on civilians in Ukraine’s Kherson region. www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel... As we reported last year: Kherson has been the target of an experiment without precedent in modern warfare...

Inside China’s ‘stolen iPhone building’ - great piece by the FT's Will Langley on how that iPhone that was nicked from you in Mayfair ended up in a chop shop outside Shenzhen www.ft.com/content/752f... via @ft

New: The government wants a technological revolution in healthcare. But from paper notes to inconsistent data sharing and dozens of IT systems, digitising the NHS will not be easy. W/ @laurahughesft.bsky.social @upyorkshire.ft.com @carolinenevitt.bsky.social @emmalewis.ft.com 👉 on.ft.com/4dqrVDG

Finding some of the 'fishing only employs less than [insert other industry]' posts a bit irksome, firstly because a) the EU-UK deal is not actualyl a bad one for UK fishing! But also because yes, it is a small industry, but it is an important one where people risk their lives:

Delighted to see our portfolio of investigations on Russia’s war in Ukraine shortlisted for @gijn.org Sigma Awards. The revelations contribute to mounting evidence of war crimes and show what can be achieved when forensic reporting is combined with visual storytelling. gijn.org/stories/sigm...

wrote about the MTA for the magazine w/ @okr.bsky.social on.ft.com/3EMS6Yt

NYC congestion pricing is working on.ft.com/3EIT7Rc (gift link)