Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a July 2026 interview that white New Yorkers must pay cash reparations to the descendants of Black slaves. Rating: Context To date, New York City’s Commission on Racial Equity has not released its recommendations on addressing historical discrimination and repairing ongoing inequalities. It’s unknown to what extent Mamdani will follow those recommendations once they are made public. In late July 2026, many people online claimed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani had called for cash reparations for the descendants of Black slaves in the city. The rumor spread after an interview in…

President Donald Trump said on ​Friday ‌the ⁠United ‌States had ⁠not agreed to ​Ukraine building ‌Patriot missiles, adding ‌the ​US had “to be very careful about ​letting ​somebody build ​them”. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Trump for just over an hour at the White House earlier this week for talks that came as Kyiv and Moscow intensify long-range strikes after US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war stalled. Zelensky said following the meeting that Trump had agreed to license Patriot production to Ukraine, but the US president only said that “many things were discussed” and “the meeting went very…

President Trump backtracked on Friday from a promise earlier this month to let Ukraine make Patriot missiles, weapons that were sorely needed as a defense interceptor against Russia’s deadly ballistic missile attacks.On July 8, Mr. Trump had unexpectedly assented to sharing technology behind the missiles to allow Ukraine to build them, saying that “we’ll give them the right to make Patriots” during a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey. He added: “We’ll show them how to do it.”When asked about the agreement during a meeting with his cabinet…

Former Representative George Santos has been fined $35,000 over allegations that he engaged in insider trading by placing bets on a prediction market about whether he would attend President Trump’s State of the Union address, federal regulators announced on Friday.Mr. Santos, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, deceived bettors on Kalshi, the prediction market, into believing that he would be attending the February speech by making a series of social media posts.Then Mr. Santos himself bet against his attendance. In total, Mr. Santos made around $18,000 through manipulated trades over a period of two weeks in February, according to…

As Chris Best, the co-founder and chief executive of Substack put it last week: “It’s getting harder to tell what’s real on the internet.”Announcing a new tool, external designed to let readers on the newsletter platform detect AI-generated writing, Best cited other research that has found up to 40% of writing on social media is now fake or AI-generated.”Platforms that reward fakeness will create a race to the bottom,” Best said.LinkedIn, a social media platform focused on work, introduced a button on its platform this week that allows any user to report if a post or a comment appears to…

Pharmaceutical company Amgen says it suffered a data breach after threat actors stole corporate data and patient information stored in multiple cloud systems operated by third-party service providers. Amgen is a California-based biotechnology company that develops and manufactures medicines for serious illnesses, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and rare diseases. The company said it detected the unauthorized activity in July 2026 and responded by activating its cybersecurity response plan, implementing containment measures, and hiring independent forensic experts to investigate the incident. The investigation found that the attackers stole sensitive data from the cloud environments. “The Company has since learned that…

Unlike AI, which has driven a surge in demand for graphics processors to train and run large language models, quantum computing targets a different class of challenges. Researchers say the technology could accelerate molecular simulations, optimize complex logistics networks, advance materials science and improve cryptography.Krishna said IBM has already demonstrated some of that potential, using quantum computers to uncover properties of materials that conventional computers had been unable to model. Those insights could eventually contribute to longer-lasting batteries, new materials, fusion energy research and drug discovery.Growing confidence around commercialization has been matched by rising investment. In May, IBM announced plans…

The fight for truth and justice can too often be a hard and long struggle. Navigating the law is complex, and justice depends on lawyers who we can trust – lawyers who listen to our voices, stand up for us, and pursue the truth on our behalf.Rajiv Menon KC is an experienced and highly respected barrister who has spent his career representing people like us. At some of the most traumatic times in our lives he has represented us with professionalism, integrity and compassion, ensuring that our voices were heard in inquests, inquiries and criminal trials.We are all deeply shocked…

Three western states in the United States would take less water from the Colorado River under a federal proposal to stave off a crisis in the beleaguered waterway.On Friday, the US Bureau of Reclamation issued a proposal that would spare four other states from facing mandatory cuts for now.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listIt is meant to be flexible, allowing deeper cuts in drier times while giving the states more time to collectively agree on how to manage the dwindling resource that flows through dams to produce hydropower.The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada could together…

Andy Burnham is indicating he will scrap plans to curtail jury trials in England and Wales, abandoning one of the most significant overhauls from Keir Starmer’s government.In perhaps his biggest repudiation yet of the policies he inherited from his predecessor, the prime minister said he had concerns about the proposals and his instinct was to keep juries at the heart of the justice system.Speaking at a community centre in Sheffield on Friday, Burnham said his reluctance related to the Hillsborough disaster.“I have my concerns about the plan to restrict a jury trial, partly from my personal experience, particularly in Hillsborough,”…