Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

A new report from the U.K.’s Imperial College and France’s Emlyon Business School has mapped out the ways Silicon Valley’s VC-backed founders commit fraud — and the role investors play. For the report, published online in June, researchers built a database of tech founders and companies who faced civil and criminal securities fraud prosecutions from the SEC and DOJ between 2000 and 2023.  Some famous cases of tech founders being convicted of fraud over the past few years include Frank’s Charlie Javice, Kalder’s Gökçe Güven, Terraform Labs’ Do Kwon, and GameOn’s Alexander and Valerie Lau Beckman. All over X, the…

Authorities were working Thursday to find the source of cyberattacks that targeted over 30 water systems in Minnesota and came amid warnings that Iranian hackers have been focused on such systems. Minnesota IT Services said state officials had yet to identify who was behind the attacks that took place Sunday and Monday. There were no reports that residents had been impacted by the attacks, though one city asked residents to conserve water for a couple hours while they tried to determine what was wrong. The FBI, which is investigating, has not publicly identified a culprit and a spokesperson declined to…

Some prominent bitcoin advocates say the incident is among the most damaging failures of self-custody the industry has experienced.”This is the worst hit in bitcoin history to the most knowledgeable and ‘properly secured’ bitcoiners,” said Bitcoin commentator Guy Swann. “This isn’t an exchange getting hacked because of hot keys. This is thousands of individuals having their personal private keys recreated out from underneath them.”Trading one risk for anotherFor years, bitcoin advocates have argued that holding private keys removes the counterparty risk of centralized exchanges, a lesson reinforced by failures such as FTX. Analysts now argue that users have simply exchanged…

The trainer I follow on YouTube ends every session by telling her viewers to prioritize water, rest and protein. Today’s barrage of “more protein” messaging can make eating more of the macronutrient feel like gospel. Yet the average couch potato may be better off eating less protein, not more, according to a review of more than 350 papers appearing July 31 in Cell Press Blue. People generally assume that getting too much fat or carbohydrates is bad for health. But with protein, the general thinking is too much doesn’t matter. That may not be true, says aging biologist Dudley Lamming…

Mennonites have become some of the most prolific land buyers in Belize, acquiring large properties and making bids faster than competitors. But who owns what land isn’t always clear.To better understand the land management process, a Mongabay investigation gained access to records in deforested and degraded areas in and around Mennonite communities throughout Belize.The documents show that the communities use trusts and churches to acquire and collectively manage land, allowing them to transfer property internally and tap collective resources to purchase more.At the same time, Belizeans living in and around Mennonite communities often occupy much smaller plots of land,…

Reading Time: 3 minutes For years, the story surrounding American manufacturing was in decline. We heard about factories closing, jobs moving overseas, and communities struggling to replace the industries that once defined them. That narrative is beginning to change. As executive chairman of QPS Employment Group, an employee-owned staffing and recruiting firm headquartered in Brookfield, I speak every day with manufacturers across Wisconsin and the Midwest. Unlike economists analyzing data after the fact, our recruiters hear what’s happening in real time. We know when production lines are speeding up, when companies are adding shifts, and when employers begin asking for…

In April, a handful of humans boldly went where no one has gone before. The four-person crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission broke the record set by Apollo 13, back in 1970, traveling more than 406,000 kilometers from Earth. Billionaire-funded space missions have sent Katy Perry and William Shatner into space (courtesy of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin) and launched a flying car (Elon Musk’s SpaceX). NASA offered a more sober and heartfelt vision of what space could be: an earnest and representative crew; the commemoration of the commander’s late wife; the stark beauty of a total solar eclipse; the reminders…

The claim that U.S. President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to self-incriminate over 400 times in a deposition for his civil fraud case in 2022 was supported by partial and secondhand evidence, but Snopes was unable to access enough primary evidence to definitively rate it.  The rumor stems from posts defending Dr. Anthony Fauci’s repeated use of the Fifth Amendment in a Senate hearing after Republican attacks suggesting the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director wouldn’t have repeatedly invoked it if he were innocent. A judge in the case stated in a motion…

Trump says he is unsure about granting Patriot missiles to UkraineTrump told reporters he wasn’t sure whether he should grant Patriot missiles to Ukraine, calling it a “big step”.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Trump for Patriot air defense interceptors to defend itself from Russian attacks when the two presidents met earlier this week.“These weapons are incredible,” Trump said. “We have to be very careful about letting somebody build them. … You have to be very judicious, but you have to be very careful. … it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology, and I don’t think this…

Spain’s prime minister has blamed trafficking gangs after about 60,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. At least 57 people died during the surge, according to local media.Pedro Sánchez called the incident a “violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”. Italy has responded by suspending the EU’s border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain.The influx comes after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish enclave, cannot be summarily returned to Morocco.As of Friday evening, more than 48,000 of the migrants had voluntarily returned to Morocco, Spanish officials…