Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

NASA opened its newest wind tunnel, the Flight Dynamics Research Facility, Friday, providing a critical resource for the agency and its partners to test the safety and performance of future generations of aircraft, rockets, and space exploration vehicles. Located at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the Flight Dynamics Research Facility will support advances in aircraft safety, X‑plane development, drone research, and spacecraft technology. The facility will enable both free‑flight and mounted testing of a wide range of scale-model vehicles designed to travel through an atmosphere, from airplanes to space capsules returning to Earth. “The Flight Dynamics Research Facility…

by Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch July 31, 2026 The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago houses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. (Ken Lund / flickr | license: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic) A federal appeals court in Chicago on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants in removal proceedings, ending its split over a year-old policy that has prevented thousands of immigrants in federal custody from requesting bond.  The 2-1 decision may allow hundreds of detainees in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin — the three states within the court’s jurisdiction —…

It is no secret why African countries with large fossil-fuel reserves nonetheless have failed to reduce extreme poverty or provide reliable electricity to all households. Those in power have made a conscious choice to privilege hard-currency export revenues, some of which then finance elite consumption rather than public investment. LIBREVILLE/LOS ANGELES—Africa is facing one of the world’s great energy windfalls. The continent holds roughly 125 billion barrels of confirmed oil reserves and more than 620 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, implying vast additional deposits still waiting to be discovered. At the same time, some 600 million Africans have…

Images of a council decision notice have been widely shared on social media with claims that they show a lease for the Manchester offices used by Number 10 North was agreed before Andy Burnham was elected to Parliament last month.But this is not correct, according to both Manchester City Council and the Cabinet Office who say the decision notice has nothing to do with Number 10 North.Manchester City Council told Full Fact the decision notice actually relates to a different part of the Heron House building where Number 10 North is, and is for office space which is being let…

George Clooney and his family have been forced to evacuate their home in southeastern France because of a wildfire burning nearby, his agent said Thursday. The Hollywood star behind the “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise and other films made the statement in a letter to Didier Bremond, the mayor of the town of Brignoles, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Marseille, publicist Guido Gotz told The Associated Press in an email. Addressed “Dear Didier,” the letter said Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, had “no idea whether our beautiful home makes it through this terrible moment”. But as…

“This unacceptable incident is the direct result of the Spanish Government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe. We are considering actions to defend Americans at home and abroad from this threat and stand ready to assist other European allies considering similar options,” wrote the department. Sánchez will hardly be surprised by the scathing American reaction, having emerged as the fiercest Trump critic among EU leaders, slamming U.S. military action in the Middle East and barring U.S. military planes from using Spanish air bases. “Thank God POTUS was elected and our country’s border no longer looks…

Chancellor John Healey has announced the date of his first Budget will be Wednesday, 28 October.In a video message,  he said: “This will be a Budget that moves money and power out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain.”It will be built on fiscal discipline. It will meet our fiscal rules. It’ll give businesses and families some of the stability they need to plan for the future. Now, let’s get on with the job.”Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said his government will stick to Labour’s fiscal rules on spending and borrowing as well as the party’s 2024 manifesto pledges not…

Tracy Brabin, the Labour mayor of West Yorkshire, said that giving regions like hers a proportion of income tax would mean “people will be able to see and feel the real benefit of their hard work and where that money is going”.Richard Parker, the Labour mayor for the West Midlands, described the plans as “phenomenal”, adding: “It really is a sea change, it’s monumental.”But some within the Labour Party have voiced concerns.Labour backbencher Sean Woodcock, MP for Banbury in Oxfordshire, said he supported the plans but said there was still the need for redistribution from central government in order to…

In the immediate aftermath of Anthony Fauci’s tense congressional hearing on Wednesday, where he refused to answer any questions and invoked the Fifth Amendment, MAGA figures and Republican officials appeared to be seeking one thing: jail time for the former White House chief medical adviser.“Why, when Fauci walks off of there today, is he not cuffed?” Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, asked on his War Room podcast on Wednesday. “People are furious today to cut on this and see Fauci hiding behind the Fifth Amendment … He should die in prison.”“Why isn’t he under arrest?” far-right…

OpenAI has outlined how it aligns safety, security, and transparency work with the EU AI Act’s GPAI Code as enforcement approaches.The company has contributed to and endorsed the EU’s General-Purpose AI (GPAI) Code of Practice and the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content. Both emerged from multi-stakeholder processes.The GPAI Code sets a shared bar for transparency, safety, and security across general-purpose models sold or deployed in the EU. OpenAI points to a stack of existing practices as evidence it already operates near that bar: pre-release testing of models, published system cards accompanying major launches, and outside red-teaming through…