Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

While acknowledging bipartisan support exists for the legislation, Rafique said party politics are likely to outweigh the industry’s push for regulatory clarity.He dismissed Democratic concerns over ethics provisions as inconsistent, arguing lawmakers should instead adopt broader restrictions on public officials participating in financial markets.Despite his skepticism, Rafique described the Clarity Act as critical to the future of the U.S. digital asset industry. He said clear federal rules would help retain entrepreneurs, investment and intellectual property that are increasingly being built overseas.”Without clarity, entrepreneurs will continue to stay offshore,” Rafique said, pointing to companies such as Hyperliquid and Backpack, which chose…

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have found that teenagers who start using cannabis may develop memory and thinking abilities more slowly than teens who do not use it. The findings were published in Neuropsychopharmacology and were based on data from more than 11,000 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, the largest long-term investigation of brain development among young people in the United States. “Adolescence is a critical time for brain development, and what we’re seeing is that teens who start using cannabis aren’t improving at the same rate as their peers,” said Natasha Wade,…

Heirloom rice varieties have been cultivated in Sri Lanka for centuries and flourished before the country’s “Green Revolution” that modernized agriculture in the mid-20th century.Around 2,500 of these heirloom rice varieties are currently preserved at Sri Lanka’s Plant Genetic Resources Centre.Traditional rice varieties possess various nutritional and medicinal properties which are useful in the management of non-communicable diseases, researchers say.Scientific recommendations have been developed to help farmers minimize climate-related risks during the upcoming cultivation season.See All Key Ideas WASGAMUWA, Sri Lanka – Prior to the 1940s and the Green Revolution, Sri Lankan paddy farmers cultivated traditional rice, locally…

The internationally recognized government of Yemen said its forces had retaliated on Saturday against Iran-backed Houthi rebels after days of attacks on the military, the latest in a surge of fighting that threatens to tip the country back into full-scale civil war.The escalation reflected how the stability of the Middle East now hangs in the balance across multiple fronts. Despite a lull in fighting between the United States and Iran, the region is waiting to learn whether a deal can be finalized to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and stave off another round of conflict.The Yemeni government’s counteroffensive follows a…

The prominent Reform UK member and Brexit campaigner Arron Banks is said to have set private investigators on a Sunday Times journalist after he broke a series of stories about Nigel Farage.Banks is alleged to have paid for the services of investigators to examine Gabriel Pogrund, editor of the paper’s Insight investigations team.The detail emerged in the New Statesman on Friday. When approached for comment, Banks did not appear to deny it. He is said to have instructed Precision Risk and Intelligence, a firm he once owned, to examine Pogrund.The Sunday Times and the Guardian have broken a series of…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldTodd Blanche was narrowly confirmed as US attorney-general early on Saturday morning after bipartisan fears over his independence threatened to scupper his nomination.The Republican-led Senate voted 50-49 to make President Donald Trump’s former defence lawyer the most powerful legal official in the country. Two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against Blanche’s nomination. Blanche, however, won the backing this week of John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, two Republican senators who had raised concerns over his…

The first images of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage impact on the moon’s surface have emerged.The Korea Aerospace Research Institute shared the first photographs captured by its lunar orbiter. South Korea is one of the few nations that currently has satellites traveling around the moon at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. The Danuri orbiter flew over the region shortly after the impact.KARI explained on its X account that it photographed the collision site both before and after the event. The images show signs of a recent impact, which astronomers projected would likely create a…

Another week has passed, and another major AI model has escaped its testing environment.Autonomous AI models are like pet tigers: born to break out of their cages and kill things, yet their owners insist on feeding them and calling them pets. Nary a week has passed since mid-July when a new story hasn’t broken about some frontier model causing havoc. First it was OpenAI’s, then Anthropic’s.Now it’s Meta’s turn. On Aug. 5, Meta admitted that its most advanced agentic model — the Muse Spark 1.1 — escaped its sandbox during cybersecurity testing and hacked into an unnamed company.Dark Reading reached…

Bitcoin developer Kevin Loaec, who flagged the risk on X this week, said large holders could be targeted first. Doing nothing will be a safer option, he stated, as coins that never move cannot be replayed because there is no signed transaction to copy.⚠️IMPORTANT⚠️In the next couple of days, a new shitcoin will fork off Bitcoin. It is a big security risk for people who just believe they will get an “airdrop” and want to sell it, to get more bitcoin.I will write more about it, but here is the TLDR: 👇— Kevin Loaec 🧙‍♂️🐟 (@KLoaec) August 6, 2026 How…

Imagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet that’s exactly what Xi Jinping, China’s communist emperor, is telling the roughly 125 million members of the 55 ethnic and religious minorities who together comprise about 9% of the country’s (majority Han Chinese) population.Xi claims his sinicisation policy, embodied in a new…