Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: In August 2026, New York City’s government-run grocery stores announced they would allow anyone to buy groceries as long as they have “a special mark on hand or forehead.” Rating: A rumor that New York City’s government-run grocery stores announced they would allow anyone to buy groceries as long as they have “a special mark on hand or forehead” spread in August 2026. For example, a Facebook user claimed on Aug. 4, 2026 (archived), “Government-run stores to allow anyone to buy groceries as long as they have special mark on hand or forehead.” The caption of the post read, “We strongly urge everyone to participate.”…

Germans are sunlounger hoggers, or so the longstanding stereotype goes. But not only is that cultural trope mostly confined to British – and, even more so, German – perceptions, surprising new data reveals that in fact Italian and French holidaymakers are the ones most likely to use their towel to stake their claim to a sunlounger.A poll by YouGov of Europeans holidaymakers found that while many Germans (51%) and Britons (46%) associate Germans with the ritual of waking up at the crack of dawn to mark their spot, the perception barely exists elsewhere in Europe, with just 5-17% of those…

OpenAI said Friday it has suspended work on some aspects of its upcoming model Astra after an internal review found it had made significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity — enough to warrant concern over its capabilities. OpenAI said in a blog post Friday that this model, which is still in development, reached its “critical cybersecurity threshold,” meaning it could independently identify and carry out cyberattacks against traditionally well-protected real-world systems. Under the company’s “Preparedness Framework,” which it created in 2023, this triggered additional safeguards. “While we continue to benchmark and assess this model, our preliminary evaluations indicate strong…

Alibaba has launched Qwen3.8-Max, its largest AI model to date, as DeepSeek’s latest V4-Flash model draws attention for inference pricing that is lower than several competing systems.Qwen3.8-Max has 2.4 trillion parameters and uses a mixture-of-experts architecture, which activates only part of the model for each request. Alibaba said around 95 billion parameters are active at a time, reducing costs and response delays compared with activating the full model.DeepSeek uses a similar sparse architecture at a smaller scale. Artificial Analysis lists V4-Flash at 284 billion total parameters, with 13 billion active during inference, while Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 has 2.8 trillion…

A critical Metabase SQL injection vulnerability was exploited in zero-day attacks to breach customer instances in data theft attacks, known to impact Framework and Tally. Metabase disclosed the attacks on Thursday, warning that its Metabase Cloud SaaS platform was compromised through a previously unknown vulnerability affecting versions 1.58 and above. The company warns that self-hosted installations are also vulnerable. “We recently identified that Metabase Cloud was attacked by someone utilizing an unknown (“0-day”) security vulnerability in versions 1.58 and above,” Metabase CEO Sameer Al-Sakran warned in a blog post.  Metabase confirmed it blocked the endpoints used for the attack and immediately rolled out…

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has uncovered a major shift in the immune environment of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that plays a central role in learning and memory. The findings suggest that this immune remodeling begins in midlife and may help explain how aging contributes to the long lasting brain inflammation often seen in neurodegenerative diseases. “Aging is the single largest risk factor for dementia, but our understanding of how it drives disease is still incomplete,” said Richard Hodes, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA). “This previously hidden microglial…

If you are worried about your porn use, Ince recommends seeking out support from a qualified and experienced professional.A registered psychologist can be particularly helpful because they may consider your mental health more broadly, “and we know that co-occurring mental health problems are more or less the rule, rather than the exception”, he says.This was the case for Craig, who did not realise his porn use may be unhealthy until he started therapy for his mental health.”Porn addiction was like a contributing factor,” he came to learn.His therapist suggested he join a 12-step programme for sex addiction – a recovery…

Oh how I do so agree with Emily Watkins in her article on participatory games (The hill I will die on: Games are the opposite of fun, and I’d ban them for anyone over 12, 1 August). Do people not know and appreciate the sentiments of the poem Leisure by WH Davies, which begins with: “What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare”? Why the restless urge to pursue some activity with others rather than engage in the art of conversation or simply enjoy the pleasure of one’s own company?My local…

Claim: In August 2026, the White House’s official Instagram account shared Spider-Man-inspired graphics showing immigrants trapped in webs next to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Rating: In early August 2026, a rumor spread online that the White House posted Spider-Man-inspired graphics on Instagram that promoted immigration deportations.  “The official White House Instagram is now posting Spider-Man-style ICE propaganda showing immigrants literally trapped in webs before being deported,” said one X user, who also shared the alleged images.  The claim also spread on platforms like Facebook (screenshotted), Instagram (screenshotted) and Threads. The official White House Instagram did, in fact,…

The remains of 56 people were found improperly stored and decomposing on Thursday at a Chicago funeral home run by a couple who previously operated a crematory that was similarly shut down because of mishandled remains, authorities said.Illinois state officials, meanwhile, suspended the license of one of the funeral home’s directors, alleging bodies were being kept in an unrefrigerated area in “deplorable conditions”.The discovery came months after neighborhood residents began noticing a “stench” emanating from the funeral home, which led some to complain to the city.The Cook county medical examiner’s office said it was notified by state and local officials…