Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Sweden’s data privacy regulator, IMY, has imposed a $183,000 (SEK 1.8 million) fine on IT systems provider Miljödata for inadequate security measures leading to a breach in August 2025 affecting 2.2 million people. Miljödata is a Swedish software company that develops and provides work environment and HR management systems used by 80% of Sweden’s municipal systems. Last year, on August 25, the company suffered a cyberattack that disrupted IT services in over 200 regions and compromised residents’ sensitive data. The threat actor demanded a ransom of 1.5 Bitcoin (valued at $168,000 at the time) to prevent leaking the stolen information, but…

XRP registered an intraday high of $1.60 on Sept. 22, with roughly $7.4 billion in reported volume. The move was strong, but the latest public data on regulated futures showed different positioning shifts across venues.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Sept. 15 snapshot showed leveraged funds cutting their net short in CME futures by the equivalent of 46.3 million XRP in one week. Net short means reported short contracts exceeded reported long contracts.Across three separately reported Coinbase Derivatives products, adjusted for each contract’s unit, the same trader category reduced its combined net short by only 2.452 million XRP and remained short…

Ketamine abuse in children and young people is on the rise in the UK.The Alder Hey doctors, external saw one young patient in 2023, nine in 2024, and then “a rapid escalation” in 2025, which led them to open the bespoke clinic in May.They get about one referral every week from GPs or emergency departments in Cheshire, Merseyside and other nearby regions. Of the first 60 they saw, 43 were girls. Despite its name, “ketamine bladder” can affect the entire urinary tract, including the kidneys and ureters.Symptoms include an urgent and frequent need to urinate. This can be very painful…

In honor of World Rhino Day, on Sept. 22, here’s a snapshot of Mongabay’s reporting from the past year on the actions being taken to save rhinos from extinction: Reintroduction in Uganda In 1983, the last wild northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) living in Uganda was killed for its horn. But now rhinos are back in the country, contributor Benjamin Jumbe reported in March. In the last year, at least four southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum) were brought to northern Uganda’s Kidepo Valley National Park and another four to Ajai Wildlife Reserve. The reintroduced rhinos are a…

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, on the ground for Day 2 of UNGA. Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump’s speech, Guterres’s swan song, and Zelensky’s press conference. U.S. President Donald Trump used his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to dial up the pressure on Iran, threatening to “annihilate” the country if it does not make a deal with the United States to end the war. “I have a big decision to make: Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever…

Claim: Former U.S. President Barack Obama banned Fox News from White House press briefings. Rating: What’s True Obama often criticized Fox News. He also did fewer interviews with Fox News and took fewer questions from its correspondents compared to other news networks. His administration also said it was willing to exclude Fox News from interviews. Some accused his administration of blocking the network’s access in one instance, but a spokesperson claimed it was a communication error and the administration backtracked. What’s False However, the Obama administration never outright blocked, banned or ejected Fox News reporters from press briefings. In September…

Disillusioned young voters in Morocco were courted with viral football slogans, promises of one million jobs and anti-Israel rallying calls ahead of Wednesday’s parliamentary elections.Yet, for many young Moroccans, politics remains deeply disconnected from reality.”I have no hope for this election. I’m ashamed of our political scene. It’s a complete circus,” Siham Azeroual, 32, an environmental activist who lives in the Atlas region, tells the BBC.The outcome of the vote will decide the make-up of the next government, just weeks after 60,000 people risked their lives to cross from the North African country to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta -…

The European Union is to remove sanctions on two oligarchs imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to reports, prompting anger in Ukraine.France had campaigned for Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov to be taken off the list, citing “national security concerns”. Luxembourg called for the removal of Russian-Israeli businessman Mikhail Fridman, who is suing the country for the release of frozen assets.Latvia initially opposed the deal but agreed to a compromise, part of which involved extending sanctions on nearly 3,000 other individuals and entities for three years.Ukrainian officials said the move was “unacceptable” and sent the wrong signal…

Snorkel AI, a startup that helps AI labs and corporations build training datasets and simulated environments, has raised a $350 million Series E at a $3.5 billion valuation. The new round, which was led by Insight Partners and S32, valued the seven-year-old startup at nearly triple the $1.3 billion valuation it garnered when it raised $100 million in a Series D 17 months ago. Existing investors, including Addition, Lightspeed, Greylock, GV, and Wells Fargo, also participated in the round. While Snorkel originally provided software for data-labeling automation, it shifted last year to providing customers with completed datasets, an offering it calls…

Security researchers developed an attack that lets hackers with privileged access register a rogue external MFA provider that steals users’ passwords during legitimate login attempts. The technique, dubbed TrustSink by Varonis Threat Labs, can work with any provider that relies on this external authentication model, though the researchers demonstrated the attack using Microsoft Entra. Microsoft Entra supports external MFA providers, which allow organizations to use third-party authentication services to satisfy multifactor authentication requests. According to Microsoft, when a user signs in with a first factor, such as a password, Entra can redirect them to an external MFA provider to complete…