Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: Images authentically showed U.S. President Donald Trump viewing a large printout about the demolition of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Rating: Context It’s unclear whether the Trump administration would follow through on any plans to demolish the Kennedy Center. Snopes reached out to the White House for comment and awaits a reply. In September 2026, after the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced it would close its doors due to financial difficulties and the need for renovations, an image circulated online that social media users claimed (archived) showed U.S. President Donald Trump…

A Sikh truck driver survived harrowing attack in which he was beaten then stabbed 17 times in a rest stop off a Wyoming highway on Sunday, according to news reports.The suspected assailant, Andrew Kris Bzdak, reportedly fled the scene, before Wyoming highway patrol troopers arrested him, the Sacramento Bee reported.Bzdak has been charged with attempted first-degree murder. As of Friday, he was being held at the Sweetwater county detention center on a $1m bail, according to an inmate roster.“I don’t know why this happened,” the truck driver, who was identified only by his last name Singh for security reasons, told…

Dario Amodei’s plans to put third-party safety evaluators inside AI labs are taking shape: Anthropic said that staff from technology consulting giant Accenture will begin working inside the company to scrutinize its models and staff. In a blog post, Anthropic said that Faculty, a company Accenture acquired in January to act as its AI division, will begin “evaluating and red-teaming models, conducting alignment assessments, and testing model safeguards.” Both companies expect to invest at least $1 billion in the project over the next five years. The choice of Accenture surprised many AI watchers — and the markets, where the consultant…

Swati KhandelwalSep 18, 2026Vulnerability / Web Security WordPress today released patches to fix a new set of vulnerabilities in its core software, one of which could allow a crafted web link, opened by a logged-in administrator, to install a theme from the official WordPress.org directory without anyone clicking Install. The security firm pwn.ai, whose researchers reported the flaw, calls the attack chain Click2Shell. On its own the flaw only installs a real theme that the attacker picks, but the security research team showed it could be combined with a separate weakness in a theme to run the attacker’s own code…

In brief Kevin O’Leary thinks Bitcoin could hit $1 million if the industry resolves the quantum computing threat known as “Q-Day.” O’Leary said his old thesis that Bitcoin and Ethereum alone capture crypto’s upside was wrong, and now bets industries will standardize on whichever blockchain their exchanges pick first. Instead of betting on individual AI models, O’Leary is investing in the power grid behind them, including a first-ever position in uranium to back next-generation nuclear reactors. We’re back in ultra bullish mode again, and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary just put a number on Bitcoin’s endgame: $1 million. Then he…

Environmental and public health groups are suing the Trump administration over its most recent move to eliminate protections against climate-warming pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan on Monday, finalized in the Federal Register on Thursday, to revoke most of a Biden-era rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power plants. The agency also proposed getting rid of all remaining greenhouse gas emission requirements for the plants, doubling down on climate denial.  Opposing the final rule, the American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and others submitted a petition Thursday asking the U.S. Court…

French provider of tubular solutions Vallourec has won a contract with Subsea7 to supply carbon steel seamless line pipe and thermal insulation coating for Petrobras’ Sepia 2 project in the pre-salt Santos Basin offshore Brazil.Source: Vallourec The award, described as major, will see Vallourec supply approximately 130 kilometers of rigid risers and flowlines, representing more than 15,000 tons of sour service carbon steel line pipe. The pipes will be produced at the company’s Jeceaba mill in Minas Gerais, Brazil, with the related thermal insulation coating applied at the Vallourec Coating Solutions plant in Serra, Espírito Santo. Philippe Guillemot, Chairman of the…

1. The Indian Foreign Ministry stated on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had pledged to strengthen ties in what areas? Water management cooperation Defense production Immigration enforcement Commercial and cultural cooperation Xi’s trip to the BRICS summit in New Delhi was brief but signaled the culmination of a thaw in China-India relations, FP’s Michael Kugelman writes in South Asia Brief. 5. Thailand and Cambodia’s foreign ministers delivered their opening statements on Tuesday as part of the countries’ meeting to settle a border dispute concerning what in particular? The concrete wall in Chanthaburi province The…

Claim: In September 2026, footwear company Converse published an ad that social media users said evoked Ku Klux Klan and lynching imagery. Rating: In September 2026, a rumor circulated online that the footwear company Converse had allegedly released an advertisement that some social media users believed evoked Ku Klux Klan and lynching imagery. The advertisement that Converse purportedly published showed the bottom half of a person in white holding Converse shoes. The shadows and lighting in the ad create an optical illusion that looked, to some, like a Ku Klux Klan hood and the feet of a hanging person. Much…

Investment banking giant JP Morgan has said it is struggling to predict how oil prices will be impacted by the US-Iran war, telling investors in a rare note that “we simply don’t know how to model the endgame”.The bank said it assumed at the start of the conflict that there would be “economic red lines” that the Trump administration would be unwilling to cross, and therefore it believed a deal would have been struck to open up the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane back in June.It said such red lines included oil prices rising above $100 a barrel, inflation reaching…