Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Child predators are arguably the most reviled demographic in society.So when someone like Chris Hansen, the former NBC Dateline journalist and host of the To Catch a Predator series, decides to take up the mantle of exposing them to the public, he is naturally praised as a hero.But, as is revealed in Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime—a dramatized snapshot of Hansen’s life at the show’s peak—it’s not as simple as that. Exposing allegedly bad people for public entertainment brings up a lot of ethical concerns and unintended consequences. And while many of the vigilantes carrying out these sting operations claim they are…

Aave’s Base market has accepted seven Coinbase stock tokens as collateral for USDC loans since Sept. 25, giving the stablecoin suppliers who opt in exposure to a weekend pricing gap. Aave Labs said on Sept. 25 that its V4 Equities Hub was operational after a temporary halt was lifted. Its Mag-7 lending spoke has a $21 million USDC draw cap, a ceiling on borrowing rather than a report of loans already made.Aave’s lending system stays open while its stock-linked collateral feeds hold Friday’s price until Sunday evening. A borrower can still trade a token during that gap, but a price-driven…

Researchers at Semmelweis University say persistent rheumatic symptoms may be driven by more than inflammation alone. Sleep disorders, depression, obesity, smoking, and other health problems may also help keep symptoms going. In publications in Nature Reviews Rheumatology and The Lancet Rheumatology, the team also introduced a model designed to help doctors identify the underlying causes of symptoms earlier and tailor treatment more effectively. The researchers examined how depression, smoking, obesity, sleep problems, and other health conditions are connected with difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the joints, leading to…

Your report (British corporation continued trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition, 23 August) tells one important part of Guyana’s post-slavery history. There is another that deserves to be better known.In 1839, little more than a year after full emancipation in British Guiana, 83 formerly enslaved men and women pooled their savings to buy the 200-hectare (500-acre) Northbrook plantation. They renamed it Victoria. Other purchases by other groups followed, developing into what became known as the communal African village movement.These were not simply individual acts of property ownership. Many had kept their hard-earned savings buried for safekeeping;…

Israel’s foreign minister said on Sunday that the diplomatic accreditation of Dutch officials based in the occupied West Bank would be revoked, after the Netherlands began enforcing sanctions on goods from Israeli settlements. The diplomats have seven days to hand over Israeli-issued diplomatic papers, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar posted on X. “After this period, the diplomatic privileges and immunities granted to them by the State of Israel will expire,” he added. Saar said the move came after the Dutch government started enforcing a ban on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel conquered the territories during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has occupied them ever since. Settlements built there are illegal under international law. Read moreResidents in West Bank’s Masafer…

Hundreds of protesters spent the day blocking the route of a hugely contentious parade in Northern Ireland after a court gave late-night clearance for the Orange Order to march on a historically significant road for the first time in nearly 30 years.The loyalist Drumcree parade along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown was given the go-ahead by the Parades Commission for the first time since 1998, a decision denounced by Sinn Féin as “madness”.It led to a weekend of intense legal wrangling which concluded at 2.15am on Sunday when the court of appeal said it could not interfere with…

Serbia’s president has resigned after more than a year of student-led protests and growing public discontent over allegations of government corruption.Aleksandar Vučić said his administration had preserved peace and stability during his nine-year tenure as he addressed supporters outside the presidential building in the capital, Belgrade.He had already announced his intention to resign in June and is currently standing to be his party’s candidate for prime minister in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Vučić cannot run for a third presidential term under Serbia’s constitution.The pro-Russian populist’s administration has been dogged by anger over alleged corner-cutting.It was the collapse of the Novi…

Plans for a third runway at Heathrow are once again up in the air after the prime minister refused to say whether he backs the “contested” project which is delayed by up to four years.Over the weekend it emerged that ​Heathrow no longer expects to meet the original 2035 deadline. Instead, the airport hopes to secure planning permission by 2029 and then open the runway “within a decade”, meaning it would not be operational until 2039.The delay comes amid signs of lukewarm support for the project from Andy Burnham who dodged questions about the issue on Sunday.Asked at the Labour…

Meta’s new AI agent Muse took the spotlight at the company’s annual Connect event, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook’s parent company plans to push AI features everywhere. On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed Meta’s AI announcements seemed to steal the spotlight during a week of new model launches from OpenAI and Anthropic. With other big AI companies focused on coding and enterprise tools, it was a little surprising to see Meta move in the opposite direction, with a consumer focus and a cute, Tamagotchi-style AI device that…

AI is changing how we work, but can it replace the human entrepreneur? Austrian economist Per Bylund, Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, joins Spencer Nichols to explain why AI is a statistical engine that improves efficiency but can’t imagine the future. He argues we’re moving from an employment economy to an entrepreneurship economy, and explains what that means for jobs, innovation, and value creation. Chapters:00:00 Austrian Economics on AI, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship02:34 Can AI Replace the Entrepreneur?05:48 Invention vs Innovation: What Bitcoin Teaches About AI06:29 From an Employment Economy to an Entrepreneurship Economy09:52 Can Regulators Keep Up With the…