Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: Katie Miller, a former White House adviser who has called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be imprisoned, received medical advice from him during her pregnancy in 2020. Rating: Context While Fauci’s diary and Miller’s X posts both supported accounts that she received medical advice from Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was unclear to why she sought and took this advice as Miller, by her own account, found Fauci to be narcissistic and manipulative. In July and August, a claim (archived) circulated online that Katie Miller, the former White House adviser and wife of senior White House adviser Stephen…

Key eventsA reminder of our warning that this live blog may contain graphic content when discussing evidence in the trial.Complainant J has alleged that after he and Alan Jones finished dinner at Jones’s Fitzroy Falls property, Jones told him “to go and have a shower and come out wearing a robe and nothing else”.Prosecutor Georgina Wright asked: double quotation markDid you do it? J, who was a teenager at the time of the alleged incident, responded: double quotation markNo, I put my underpants on and then I put the robe on and went out. The defendant was in a room…

A drone hit a busy beach in southern Russia, killing seven people including three children, local authorities have said.In social media footage verified by the BBC, a drone can be seen hurtling towards a cliffside before crashing into a fireball on the beach below as tourists look on from the shore and in the water.The total number of injured reached 40, with 17 people hospitalised, said the governor of the Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratyev.He accused Ukraine of “a deliberate strike on civilians”. Ukraine has not commented. Both sides deny targeting civilians deliberately.It is unclear what the drone was targeting. Some…

The Senate on Monday cleared a key hurdle to passage of a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of September, but it was unclear whether the agreement could pass the House and head off a confrontation before the midterm elections.The legislation, the product of bipartisan negotiations among senators, would keep federal funding flowing at current levels through Dec. 11 and bar the Trump administration from transferring funds to the Border Patrol, a provision that Democrats had insisted on.The 89-4 vote reflected enthusiasm in the Senate for avoiding any shutdown skirmishes in the weeks leading up…

Nigel Farage has made his clearest admission that he was in talks to return to lead Reform UK months before the 2024 general election, casting fresh doubt on previous claims that he was not involved in politics when he received a £5m gift.The admission will reopen questions about the nature of the gift – Farage has repeatedly insisted it was not linked to his political career since the Guardian first revealed it in April.On Monday, Farage admitted he had struck a deal with the party’s then leader, Richard Tice, and the convicted fraudster George Cottrell to return to frontline politics.…

There is no such thing as a universal “song of the summer” anymore, but if you’re into rap music, Fenix Flexin’s “Rubberz” is a pretty strong contender.Officially released in June, it currently sits at No. 58 in the Billboard Hot 100 and has a music video with 7 million views. Lyrically, it’s got everything you’d want: boasts about cash and jewelry, and bars that work as a double entendre for braggadocio and depression.But there are two interesting twists to “Rubberz.” First, it isn’t a rap song at all; it’s a synth-pop tune that would be at home in a moody…

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy’s CEO Phong Le brushed aside concerns investors may have about the Nasdaq-listed company selling its stash.  Speaking on CNBC Monday, Le said that Strategy would continue doing what it’s always done, and outperform Bitcoin during the next bull run.  Strategy (MSTR) on Monday revealed that it had sold 1,638 Bitcoins for roughly $104.7 million, and bought back 912,143 shares of its preferred stock, STRC, for $81.2 million. The firm’s stock is down nearly 40% year-to-date. It has shed nearly 80% of its value since it closed a record of nearly $474 in November 2024.  “I think…

Sourcing some additional fans might feel like a relatively minor cost overall, but for those hosting, catering and supplying weddings, the financial impact of coping with this summer’s heatwaves have spiralled.”It has affected the industry massively. You are talking into the thousands [of pounds] for businesses,” says Michelle Miles, board adviser to the UK Wedding Association and founder of the Sustainable Wedding Alliance.One of the biggest costs wedding venues are facing is the equipment and energy costs of trying to keep a space and food cool, she says.”[Some] venues are having to bring in air conditioning units; they are at…

In a small area of Namibia’s Erongo Mountains, a tiny, pebble-like plant grows on a very thin layer of gravel. This succulent, Lithops werneri, is found in just one tiny 4 square-kilometer (1.5 square-mile) area, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. With more than an 80% decline in its population since 1981 and fewer than 200 plants remaining in the wild, the species was listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List in February 2026. Sonja Loots, manager of the Threatened Plants Programme at Namibia’s National Botanical Research Institute, told Mongabay by email that…

On July 16, roughly 200 delegates, including Nobel laureates and former heads of state and government, signed a declaration in Rome calling for broad global governance of artificial intelligence. Ten days earlier, in Chicago, Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law requiring large frontier AI developers to submit to independent annual audits. Pritzker’s act received less fanfare—but it may ultimately matter more for the way AI risks are regulated around the world. The Illinois law joins earlier legislation passed in California and New York that, together, will impact every major AI developer in the United States. Collectively, these laws require…