Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: In August 2026, Florida became the first U.S. state to bar recipients of welfare cash assistance from spending it on tattoos, vaping products, theme park tickets and other “nonessential” items. Rating: What’s True The claim is correct in that Florida became the first state to implement item-specific restrictions for recipients of its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program at the point of sale. However … What’s False … other states across the U.S. also block similar purchases through other means. So while the claim is technically correct, Florida is not the first state to block the purchase of certain…

Sikorski says Poland would welcome Britain back to EU ‘with open arms’Jakub KrupaAfter France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez yesterday, Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski is the latest EU leader to offer his take on Britain’s renewed push to reset its relationship with the European Union, a decade on from Brexit.In a post on X aimed partially at his domestic opponents ahead of Poland’s 2027 parliamentary election, he said: “If [Britain] were to apply for a return to [the EU], which Poland would welcome with open arms, it would mean that after a decade of analyses, London has concluded…

POLITICO hatte bereits am Dienstag berichtet, dass das Weiße Haus erwägt, die EU zu bitten, ihre Dieselreserven einzusetzen, um die weltweite Versorgung zu stärken und damit die Preise zu senken. Die Vereinigten Staaten hätten Berlin in dieser Angelegenheit bereits kontaktiert, hieß es am Donnerstag aus deutschen Regierungskreisen. Die Bundesrepublik ist jedoch nur einer von mehreren EU-Staaten, an den sich die USA gewandt haben, heißt es von einer Person, die mit den Plänen der Trump-Regierung vertraut ist. So berichtet ein hochrangiger europäischer, für Energie zuständiger Regierungsbeamter eines großen EU-Landes, sein Land sei vergangene Woche bilateral in den USA angesprochen worden. „Es…

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining immigrants who crossed the border illegally years ago, signaling the court plans to weigh in on major pieces of President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda as it begins its new term on Monday.The policy is a departure from past practice, when such migrants were generally allowed an opportunity for a hearing before a judge.The justices previously announced that they would fast-track a separate case testing the administration’s policy of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties, including nations that have faced allegations of human…

The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal has been released from a Delhi prison after the Indian high court warned the government it would be found in contempt of court if it continued to attempt to keep him in jail despite an 18 September court order releasing him on bail. Johal has been incarcerated for nine years without any full trial.The court order was issued after Johal’s lawyers issued a writ of habeas corpus alleging he was being detained against the express direction of the court.Johal’s nine-year detention on alleged terrorist offences, has been a cause of diplomatic tension between…

The AI startup Photon is so sure that agents will eventually come to replace mobile apps that it held a funeral for the latter — yes, a real funeral in a church, with speeches and everything. Photon, which helps developers build agents that work over iMessage and WhatsApp, now has $4.5 million in seed funding to develop its products. The raise comes after the company signed up over 40,000 developers grew its revenue 10x in just four months, it says. Image Credits:Photon Photon co-founder and CEO Daniel Tian said the “app funeral,” held in San Francisco on September 17, was…

A previously unidentified malware family is giving attackers long-term stealth access to targeted networks once they’ve already infiltrated a system, revealing a potential blind spot for defenders that tend to focus more on initial intrusion rather than post-compromise activity.The malware, dubbed “NeedyMantis,” is a modular framework that has been used in a limited number of targeted intrusions against telecommunications companies, universities, medical nonprofits, intergovernmental organizations, and government contractors, Microsoft Threat Intelligence revealed in a blog post yesterday.The company linked the malware to a threat actor tracked as Storm-3069 that is based in China, though Microsoft did not link the actor…

MetaMask is pulling thousands of Ethereum validators after a security breach redirected rewards, creating a network-wide backlog for stakers trying to exit.Onchain security researcher Kaden said about 17,000 MetaMask-operated validators holding roughly 523,000 ETH were proactively exited after an analysis found that transaction-fee rewards from 18 of 19 validators that proposed blocks had been diverted to an address funded through Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based privacy protocol that allows crypto transactions to be mixed and anonymized.The attacker appears to have captured only about 0.36 ETH, according to Kaden. The bigger concern is how the attacker gained enough access to alter fee…

Scientists have identified two previously unrecognized species of large stick insects in Australia, revealing that even in some of the country’s most closely studied environments, new species are still waiting to be found. A University of Sydney research team reexamined Australian members of the stick insect genus Anchiale and discovered two new species. One produces unusual eggs with a distinctive lidlike structure. The researchers also restored a third species that had gone unrecognized for decades. Their work shows that insects previously classified as just two species actually represent five separate species. Together, they occur from northern NSW along coastal Queensland…

Dickson Kaelo grew up herding livestock, while living alongside wildlife. He remembers what it meant when lions killed cattle, elephants destroyed crops or a hyena got into a boma and killed animals a family depended on.Nearly three decades ago, fresh from college, he began working with elders in his community to find a way for livestock, wildlife and people to share the same landscape. His first attempt of building community conservancies worked for a while — and then collapsed.Today, Kenya has roughly 240 conservancies (land set aside by communities, individual landowners, groups or companies primarily for wildlife conservation) covering…