Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

U.S. President Donald Trump has now backed away from his previous hints that he might grant Ukraine a license to build Patriot interceptors. It also seems that Washington has declined Kyiv’s request for 300 such interceptors to bolster air defense. But even if these things were to happen, they would not solve Ukraine’s immediate problem: There are simply not enough interceptors to protect its cities from Russian ballistic missiles. It would take years to build new production facilities, and the Trump administration now seems to be unwilling to share sensitive interceptor technology, including seekers, solid rocket motors, and guidance software,…

A Paris court on Monday rejected an appeal by a Russian television commentator against an order to leave France after authorities accused her of spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda. Xenia Fedorova, a former journalist for Russia’s state-run channel RT, failed to show that the order to leave France would have “serious personal consequences”, the Paris administrative court said. France last week ordered the 45-year-old to leave the country and froze her assets, with Interior Minister Laurent Nunez accusing her of relaying Russian propaganda to undermine “the fundamental interests of the nation”. Read moreFrance threatens to expel Russian journalist Fedorova over alleged Kremlin…

He relays a story about his time as chief secretary to the Treasury in 2007 when he was told: “No project in the north passed the Green Book, Minister.” He told me the same in 2020 when there were murmurings of reform to the formula. Chancellor Rachel Reeves pursued pilot projects to change the approach that could favour local investment.In the book, Burnham also advocates tearing up the Barnett formula, which allocates public spending, topping up spend for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so they do not lose out to England as a whole. The effect, Burnham argues, is that…

After months of resistance, the Democratic National Committee finally relented this May and published a draft of its autopsy of what had gone wrong in the 2024 election, saying it was releasing the unfinished document “in its entirety” in the interest of transparency.But, according to the man who wrote the autopsy, there was a missing chapter.The chapter raised pointed questions that were notably absent from the draft that the party put out, both about President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ill-fated decision to run for re-election and the sway of an operative class that had become “generationally wealthy off politics” while…

Mowers I Am Currently TestingI am testing the Sunseeker X7 Gen 2 next, and then the Eufy C15 and a Roborock mower. One of my colleagues is currently testing a Navimow.Other Robot Mowers I Tested and LikedWith a sleek design and a mixture of 360-degree lidar for 3D mapping and a camera with AI vision, this mower proved very effective. Setup was straightforward, and there’s no need for wires or an antenna, though I did have to adjust the map manually. You can set multiple areas, and its navigation is generally very good. It mowed in neat lines, successfully avoided…

The infamous ShinyHunters extortion group has leaked over 41 gigabytes of data allegedly stolen from the physical security firm Brinks Home. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Brinks Home provides home security systems backed by an alarm response center. Last week, the company announced that hackers accessed a portion of its IT systems and that they threatened to leak information allegedly stolen during the incident. “We are aware that such material may be posted publicly. Brinks Home is working diligently to determine what information was involved and who may be affected,” the company said in an incident notice. Noting that it would…

Zhibao Technology, a Nasdaq-listed Chinese insurtech company, signed a $154.7 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) agreement payable in 2,380 BTC. If it closes, investors would take control of the board and management. No closing had been disclosed as of Aug. 1.Under the July 31 securities purchase agreement, investors would buy 442 million units at $0.35 each. Every unit contains one Class A ordinary share plus a two-year warrant to buy another Class A share at $0.35. The potential issuance totals 884 million new shares: 442 million at closing and up to 442 million later through warrant exercise.The governance…

MidOcean Energy, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) player formed and managed by the U.S.-headquartered investment company EIG Global Energy Partners (EIG), has secured another investment, enabling Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK), Japan’s shipping and logistics major, to widen its LNG footprint. Illustration; Courtesy of MidOcean Energy NYK has decided to participate in an investment in MidOcean Energy through Diamond Gas MidOcean (DGMO), a company established by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation in 2023, by subscribing for all of the shares to be issued in DGMO’s third-party allotment. The firm elaborated: “By leveraging the expertise and experience in LNG shipping that the NYK…

by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch August 3, 2026 Earlier this year, the Madison suburb of DeForest abruptly rejected a $12 billion, 1,600-acre data center amid mounting public opposition. In doing so, the village of 12,000 also turned down wide-ranging public benefits that some experts say could be a model for what communities can demand from hyperscale data center projects. Wisconsin Watch reported in January that DeForest and other communities around the state had, for months, secretly worked on proposals for billion-dollar data centers before informing the public. The day after the report, DeForest officials announced the project…

A renewable energy developer has pulled its controversial permit application to build an industrial-scale solar facility on an Eastern Washington mountain sacred to Indigenous nations. Avangrid, a powerful player in the Northwest’s push for green energy development, sought for at least five years to build a solar plant on Badger Mountain. The project site straddled private as well as public lands. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation have protected rights to practice cultural traditions, such as food gathering and ceremonies, on Badger Mountain and other ancestral public lands. A…