Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Microsoft is in a unique position as AI overtakes the tech industry. It’s one of the world’s largest cloud providers and software-as-a-service companies, while also holding valuable stakes in the two biggest AI labs, OpenAI and Anthropic. Those incentives are starting to clash as Microsoft posts blockbuster financial results. The company just reported an extremely profitable quarter with $90 billion in revenue and net income of $35.8 billion. For the fiscal year, which ended June 30, Microsoft reported $331.8 billion in revenue with a net income of $133.7 billion for the year. And CEO Satya Nadella is not about to…

AI-powered Security Operations Center (SOC) startup Mate Security has announced raising $35 million in a Series A funding round that brings the total raised by the company to over $50 million. Led by Canaan Partners, with additional support from Insight Partners, Microsoft’s Venture Fund M12, and Team8, the investment round comes eight months after the company emerged from stealth mode. Founded in 2025 by former Wiz and Microsoft veterans, Tel Aviv-based Mate has built an open, agentic platform that relies on AI to transform security operations into continuously learning defense systems. Mate’s agentic SOC creates a unique security context graph…

In brief Rep. Thomas Massie plans legislation that would withhold federal funding from agencies deploying Flock cameras. Local governments from California to Indiana have suspended, canceled, or reconsidered Flock deployments following public opposition. Flock CEO Garrett Langley recently apologized for referring to anti-surveillance activists as “terrorists.” Public opposition to Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader cameras is spreading from city council meetings to Capitol Hill as lawmakers prepare legislation targeting federal funding for agencies that deploy the technology while communities across the country reconsider its use.The protests come amid mounting evidence that Flock’s technology has been used in ways critics…

Europa has captivated scientists for decades because a vast ocean of liquid water may be concealed beneath its frozen surface. That buried sea has made Jupiter’s icy moon one of the most promising places in the solar system to investigate whether conditions suitable for life might exist beyond Earth. However, new research led by Rutgers scientist Lujendra Ojha indicates that reaching material from Europa’s deep ocean may be much more difficult than previously believed. Testing a Possible Route Through Europa’s Ice In a study published in Nature Astronomy, Ojha and his colleagues used computer simulations to examine whether water from…

Record gold prices and rising global demand are increasing the incentives for illegal mining across the Amazon, including in protected areas and Indigenous territories.Illicit gold can be laundered into legal markets through false documentation, shell companies, traders, and refiners, while mining damages rivers, forests, and communities through deforestation, sediment, mercury contamination, and diesel emissions.Central banks and other major buyers should impose stronger sourcing, traceability, audit, and due-diligence requirements to make illegal gold harder to sell, argues Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director of the Igarapé Institute.This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not…

by Jim Malewitz / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch July 29, 2026 One of my favorite parts of managing the Wisconsin Watch newsroom is hearing from readers. Whether you’re sharing a story tip, sending feedback or offering a fresh perspective, those exchanges make our journalism better. That’s why I was excited to launch our guest commentary initiative. Since January, we’ve published guest opinions from Wisconsinites with a range of perspectives. Some have written about issues they’ve worked on professionally. Others have drawn from personal experience or original research. Together, they’ve expanded the WisConversation around the most pressing issues affecting us all. …

by Brittany Carloni / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch July 29, 2026 As early voting gets under way ahead of the Aug. 11 primary, Wisconsin is hurtling toward a gubernatorial matchup between Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, and Northwoods U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a MAGA Republican. Hong, a 37-year-old former restaurant owner, has emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic primary, growing a lead over her opponents in four consecutive Marquette University Law School polls. Just in the past week, her support increased — from 26% to 38% — among likely Democratic primary voters even after the chaotic…

As Washington and Tehran trade messages in search of yet another cease-fire, the Trump administration must revisit the faulty assumptions that got it stuck in a costly war in the first place. The administration has repeatedly fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy. In the face of this strategic failure, President Donald Trump has mostly acted as if the problem were one of scale or duration. In reality, U.S. negotiating leverage has diminished as the war has progressed and will likely continue to erode as the United States exhausts its munitions and domestic political consequences mount. New Houthi attacks on…

The US military says it launched “heavy” strikes against Iran on Wednesday in retaliation for attempted Iranian ballistic missile attacks on American forces. Centcom said it hit “dozens” of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in response to Tuesday’s firing by Iran on US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.The latest hostilities came a day after the conflict expanded, with the first publicly announced joint US-Saudi strikes targeting Iranian proxies in Iraq.When the US and Israel launched military strikes on Iran in February, President Donald Trump said the war would last only a few weeks,…

Over the past decade, gas-rich Gulf monarchy Qatar has turned itself into the world’s diplomatic switchboard, inserting itself into some of the most intractable international crises — from Afghanistan and Gaza to Ukraine and Sudan — while maintaining relations with both the U.S. and Iran. It also hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup as the culmination of a journey toward becoming a sports powerhouse sustained by deep investment.As European soccer’s most influential business executive, al-Khelaifi is an intriguing candidate for the top job at FIFA. Backed by Qatar’s vast wealth, he has overseen a period of unprecedented success for Paris…