Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Bitcoin traders have spent the past month reducing protection against a price decline while the Fed has made its next decision harder to predict.The Bitcoin options put-to-call open-interest ratio has fallen to approximately 0.52 from 0.76 in late June, meaning about 52 put contracts remain open for every 100 calls. Meanwhile, Fed Funds futures assigned around a 35% probability to a quarter-point rate increase after the implied probability briefly reached 40% on Monday.Chart showing the target rate probabilities for the Fed’s July 29 meeting as of July 28, 2026 (Source: CME FedWatch)So the two markets are now sending opposing signals.…

Claim: More than 250,000 non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote across California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennyslvania. Rating: Context The Department of Homeland Security did not provide any evidence supporting its claim, as with many other allegations of widespread voter fraud by President Donald Trump and his administration. In July 2026, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that more than 250,000 non-U.S. citizens were registered to vote across four states: California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Snopes readers emailed asking us to review the claim. U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have repeatedly made baseless claims about the integrity…

US Senate votes to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligenceThe US Senate voted 51-to-47 to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence.Clayton will replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month and had confirmed in sworn testimony last year, before Trump attacked Iran on the premise that it was about to obtain a nuclear weapon, that US intelligence agencies assessed “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in…

Andy Burnham has promised “problem-solving, not point-scoring” before a speech on social care in which he will set out his strategy for resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.The prime minister has invited Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, to discuss how to enact urgent reform on social care, as he attempts to find common ground across party lines. Davey confirmed he would attend via video call while the Conservatives said they would send the shadow health secretary, Stuart Andrew, in Badenoch’s place as she was having pre-planned minor surgery.However, the…

Zack Polanski has refused three times to apologise to Nigel Farage for re-posting a photo of a man wearing a t-shirt with an image of a guillotine and the slogan “we’re only making plans for Nigel”.Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, said the image showed a “photo of man calling for the beheading of Nigel Farage”, which he said could be an “incitement to murder”.The Green Party of England and Wales leader was reported to the Met over the photo, which he quickly deleted, but told the BBC he had not been contacted by police.Speaking to BBC Newsnight, he…

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced a ban on new foreign-made humanoid robot imports to the US over “unacceptable risks” to the country’s national security.The move applies to advanced robots – including humanoid and four-legged machines. Many of them are made in China, which is locked in a race with the US to develop robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also banned the import of power inverters – a device used in data centres and solar panels – which it said could also pose a risk to the US economy.FCC chairman Brendan Carr said the agency was…

Cybersecurity researchers have sounded an alert after finding more than 36,000 Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) management interfaces exposing Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) protocol to the public internet. Of the 36,872 internet-exposed server-management interfaces running IPMI, 24,650 have been found to disclose password-derived authentication hashes before login due to a vulnerability with the IPMI v2.0 specification itself, according to a new report Lava shared with The Hacker News. IPMI v2.0 was introduced in February 2024. The issue in question is CVE-2013-4786 (CVSS score: 7.5), a high-severity information disclosure flaw that enables remote attackers to obtain password hashes for valid accounts…

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins has thrown support behind the long-awaited crypto market structure bill.  Writing on X Tuesday, the chief of Wall Street’s biggest regulator said that he was “committed to supporting Congress in advancing” the bill.  A number of lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version.  JUST IN: 🇺🇸 SEC Chair Paul Atkins says he will support Congress in passing the Clarity Act:“I am committed to supporting Congress in advancing the CLARITY Act, including…

In the 1970s, the German novelist Christa Wolf wrote a letter to her friend and fellow author Lew Kopelew, which included these lines: “One stands quite comfortably between all fronts, and must come to understand that this is, in fact, the only possible place to be.” The fronts Wolf was referring to were the Soviet Union and the west, the GDR and West Germany, the politics of the cold war – but I believe the idea resonated with her personally, as she was then too, in the middle of her life.There is a certain irony and wit in those lines.…

Rumors circulated online in July 2026 that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration purchased 250 Cadillac Escalades — a luxury SUV that retails for at least $91,000 — for the presidential motorcade. The claim spread online following the president’s speech at General Motors’ proving grounds facility in Milford, Michigan, on July 27. People on social media shared the rumor, claiming the president said his team “looks sharp” riding in Escalades and are “very spoiled.”  The popularity of the rumor led Snopes readers to reach out asking us to verify the claim.  While Trump truly said his administration purchased 250 Escalades, we have…