Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

When asked “how’s it going,” average Russians usually respond with one word—normalno. Life is normal when you’re doing neither exceptionally well nor exceptionally poorly. The English-language equivalent might be somewhere between “hanging in there” and “I’m OK.” Normalnost—or the condition of normalcy—is obviously a relative notion. What is normalno for a Russian pensioner eking out an existence is not normalno for President Vladimir Putin and his minions. Even so, most Russians would probably agree that life is normalno when you’re getting by financially, your kids don’t hate you excessively, your spouse drinks too much only occasionally, and the authorities mostly…

Claim: In mid-September 2026, music streaming company Spotify removed the music of Ed Sheeran from its platform. Rating: A rumor spread in mid-September 2026 that Spotify removed the music of Ed Sheeran from its platform after musician Macklemore was dropped as an opening act on his tour. Macklemore had expressed support for the Palestinian cause during a concert. For example, an Instagram post claimed on Sept. 16: “Spotify has removed Ed Sheerans songs from the platform. Macklemore was removed from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour after making pro-Palestinian statements onstage. Several venues reportedly objected to keeping him on the lineup” (archived):  (Instagram user ragebaitnews)…

In his latest attack on the US constitution’s first amendment and the press, Donald Trump has announced that he is banning outlets CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House over their coverage.In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday afternoon, the US president said he was expelling the news outlets over what he called their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” and threatened that bans for others outlets could follow.He went on: “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or…

PARIS — Anti-immigration politician Eric Zemmour let slip Thursday that he plans to run in next year’s presidential election, seemingly ending speculation that he might step aside to make way for his partner, MEP Sarah Knafo. The leader of the far-right party Reconquest — who advocated in the past for the mass deportation of immigrants, state spending cuts and banning Muslim headscarves in public spaces — told BFMTV: “I am a candidate for the presidency of the Republic,” before adding, “you know what I mean, I will be a candidate.” Zemmour’s popularity in France peaked in the early days of…

The government has no credible plan for the future of British Steel, MPs have claimed.A report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) had not set out how British Steel, which runs its main plant in Scunthorpe and has operations in Teeside, would become profitable.MPs warned steel tariffs could drive firms out of business or to move abroad.A spokesperson for DBIST said it welcomed the report and would review the recommendations, adding securing the long-term future of the UK steel sector “was in the national interest”.A 26-page report, external, published on…

Not much has changed about the Apple Watch Ultra since its debut in 2022. The company’s heavy-duty smartwatch is still massive, titanium-clad, and equipped with enough emergency features to make one feel slightly more prepared for an apocalypse than the average Joe. Each generation has brought incremental improvements, but the Ultra has largely stuck to the formula, and this year’s release isn’t any different.After testing both the Ultra 4 and the new Series 12, I noticed how little separates the two Apple Watches. The gap between them seems to shrink a little further every year, leaving fewer reasons to pay…

Researchers at security firm Hacktron used Claude to build a working exploit for a vulnerability in an image-processing library, then chained it with a flaw in OpenAI’s sign-in system to take over employee ChatGPT and Codex accounts, and ultimately gained access to internal code repositories. The entry point was OpenAI’s community forum, community.openai.com, which runs on Discourse. Discourse’s built-in image checks didn’t support the HEIC/HEIF photo format, so uploads in that format were passed to ImageMagick, exposing an unpatched flaw in the libheif library it relies on for decoding.  Hacktron says the underlying bug had been fixed upstream a year…

Bitcoin’s price on Friday shot above $81,000 — despite a week of setbacks for the crypto industry.  The biggest coin was recently trading for $80,982, after jumping as high as $81,055 at one point Friday morning in New York. Over the past 24 hours, it has risen by nearly 6%.  Its surge comes after lawmakers on Tuesday blocked long-awaited crypto legislation, the Clarity Act, and the Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked interest rates.  Digital asset industry bigwigs had long called for clear rules to regulate the crypto space and the Clarity Act — which wants to divide oversight between regulators…

Slash, also known as Saul Hudson, is famous worldwide as the guitarist for Guns N’ Roses. But music is only part of his story. He has also been fascinated by reptiles for most of his life and has long supported zoos, museums, and natural history. Now that passion has earned him an unusual scientific honor. Researchers have named a newly identified snake species from New Guinea Lielaphis slashi, or Slash’s groundsnake. “As a long time herpephile, I am extremely honored and humbled to have Lielaphis slashi from New Guinea named after me. It is really exciting, I never would have…

Researchers have designed a model to simulate how widely distributed rooftop rainwater collection tanks combined with smart rooftop sprinkler systems could help moderate urban heat island effects.The model used Tokyo as a case study and found temperature reduction benefits inside homes and outdoors during heat waves. The more rooftop sprinkler systems installed, the more significant the cooling benefits would be.The researchers say the model could be adapted to predict how the system would help reduce heat in cities around the globe, and serve as an economical natural defense against intensifying global warming. Field tests would be the next step.See…