Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Reading Time: 3 minutes A Wisconsin appeals court on Wednesday overturned a ruling that had restored abolished collective bargaining rights, in a setback for unions and public workers in the state. Unions are expected to appeal, sending the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is controlled by liberal justices. The 2024 ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional had been on hold pending appeal, so Wednesday’s reversal does not change the status quo. The law remains in effect, as it has been the past 15 years, as the legal fight continues. Enactment of a 2011 anti-union state law, championed by Republicans, sparked weeks of…

Jonathan Freedland recounts how when he was 14 years old, Greater London council, led by Ken Livingstone, reduced child fares on the buses to 5p in a scheme called Fares Fair (Scoff at cheaper bus fares and No 10 North if you like, but Andy Burnham knows what he’s doing, 24 July). In 1950s Liverpool, the corporation had a scheme for schoolchildren in the holidays whereby they could buy a “penny return” to anywhere on the tram network. You could, for example, travel from the Pier Head by the Mersey on the number 10 tram to Prescot, almost 10 miles…

Sepp Blatter, FIFA chief for 17 years until 2015, has blasted new proposal that moves ‘people’s game’ further from fans.Published On 29 Jul 202629 Jul 2026Former FIFA ⁠President Sepp Blatter ⁠has slammed the football governing body’s plans to create a $20bn subsidiary to run the World ⁠Cup, saying the tournament was not a commercial asset that belonged to a few executives.“Football belongs to no individual and ⁠to no institution. It belongs to the people,” Blatter told the news agency Reuters on Wednesday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“If FIFA were transferred into a profit-oriented corporate structure, it would lose…

Richard Tice has been referred to parliament’s standards watchdog over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from Nigel Farage’s aide George Cottrell.The development opens up the prospect of another inquiry into a Reform UK MP by the watchdog, which was investigating Farage after the Guardian’s revelation that he received an undeclared £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.Tice, who is Reform’s deputy leader, received the loan in late 2024, months after he was elected as the MP for Boston and Skegness, in a transaction that originally caused bankers to raise concerns with authorities.However, the parliamentary standards commissioner has now…

Two days before Senate lawmakers were scheduled to vote on advancing Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve as attorney general, a million-dollar payout was announced for an anti-abortion activist he has called a victim of government weaponization by the Biden administration.The settlement given to Paul Vaughn, who was convicted by a Tennessee jury in 2024 of conspiring to prevent access to an abortion clinic, shows how the goal of a $1.8 billion fund announced in May can continue, despite a public retreat by Mr. Blanche. An already existing avenue for disbursing taxpayer money could allow him to assuage skeptical Republicans while…

A lot of us here at The Verge are fans of Remarkable’s digital note-taking tablets, and right now one of its higher-end options is much cheaper than usual. The Remarkable Paper Pro normally sells for $629 on its own, but Woot is currently offering a refurbished bundle for $449.99 through July 31st. It includes the tablet, a Marker Plus stylus, and a Book Folio, saving you $368 compared to buying new. The same refurbished bundle costs $649 from Remarkable and comes with a longer one-year warranty versus Woot’s 90-day warranty.The 11.8-inch Paper Pro offers a paper-like writing experience, along with…

In a new update, OpenAI says its AI models also used publicly exposed credentials to compromise accounts on four third-party services during the recent attack on Hugging Face, expanding the scope of the four-day security incident to other organizations. One account was used as an outbound relay and staging server during the attack, while another was used for data storage. The remaining two accounts were accessed in a read-only manner and were not used to compromise Hugging Face further. Overall, the agent assembled attack infrastructure similar to what human threat actors commonly use during intrusions to host tools and scripts,…

In brief Paul Atkins said the SEC is “ready, willing, and able” to write crypto rules if Congress does not pass the Clarity Act. He argued a statute is the only way to stop the framework shifting with each administration. The bill has cleared the House and Senate Banking, and has not reached a Senate floor vote. The SEC will write crypto market rules itself if Congress fails to pass the Clarity Act, chairman Paul Atkins said. The agency is “ready, willing, and able to come out with rules” covering the same ground, he told CNBC on Monday, and would…

First Nations in British Columbia, western Canada, are working to restore salmon to the Upper Columbia Basin and leading ceremonial salmon fry releases to reestablish connections between salmon and salmon people.The Columbia River was once one of the greatest salmon-bearing rivers in North America, but the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, built without fish passage mechanisms, blocked salmon from a significant portion of the river’s length.The loss of salmon has profoundly affected Indigenous nations and tribes, with a loss of food sovereignty and cultural connections.The Bringing the Salmon Home initiative, led by the Secwépemc, Syilx-Okanagan and Ktunaxa nations,…

Focusing only on emergency planning, disaster response, and recovery after each climate catastrophe is no longer enough in Europe. Policymakers urgently need to start mapping Europe’s long-term future, which will require a fundamental overhaul of its infrastructure, energy system, and major economic sectors. LONDON—Between June 20 and 28, a powerful heat wave hit Europe, creating the conditions that have fueled the wildfires now raging across large swathes of France and Spain. Soon after the June heat wave, city officials in Rome announced a new, scientifically informed operational strategy to prepare for a hotter world. As with other such efforts in…