Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Claim: In July 2026, 198 Democratic representatives voted against banning congressional stock trading. Rating: What’s True On July 22, 2026, 198 Democrats voted against H.R. 7008, a bill named the “Stop Insider Trading Act.” However … What’s False … several Democrats who voted against the bill said they weren’t opposed to such a ban. Rather, they said this particular legislation did not go far enough to prevent insider trading in Congress and excluded the president. They also said a section of the bill requiring voter ID would place an undue burden on U.S. voters. In July 2026, a rumor spread…

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – For years, Nuha Abu Lebda dreamed of becoming a mother. But Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has turned that dream into loss, time and time again.As she was forcibly displaced several times across the Gaza Strip since the war began in October 2023, Abu Lebda lost three pregnancies. She says the losses came after months of air strikes, hunger, fear and living without proper medical care.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“I miscarried because of the air strikes, the displacement, the difficult conditions, the lack of clean water and malnutrition,” she tells Al Jazeera.After each…

Beneath the Capitol dome, Senator Darline Graham stood behind her older brother’s casket stoically on Tuesday as his colleagues in Washington paid tribute to the South Carolina Republican.For the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who died this month at 71 having never married, his sister was the closest thing to a political spouse that he had. So as world leaders and politicians gathered in Washington to honor him, all eyes were on a somber Ms. Graham, grieving publicly as she juggled her new roles as her brother’s interim replacement and a candidate in a crowded Republican primary to succeed him.Ms. Graham…

President Trump may have loved Lindsey Graham, but he loathes the Senate, an institution that Mr. Graham revered for the way it empowered individuals like himself in a way that is currently bedeviling the president and his hard-right allies.The president’s second-term power grab has gotten scant pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill, but what little there has been has emanated mainly from the Senate.Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, has so far refused to acquiesce to presidential demands to gut the filibuster and pass a voting restrictions bill. A handful of other Senate Republicans have…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.One of Wachtell Lipton’s co-chairs is poised to exit the firm alongside a team of litigators, in the latest set of high-profile departures to hit the corporate law powerhouse.Bill Savitt, one of the country’s most pre-eminent corporate trial lawyers who co-chairs Wachtell’s executive committee, is planning to leave the firm for rival Gibson Dunn alongside five other partners from Wachtell’s litigation department in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter.The potential departures would mark a blow for the highly…

Kerry Wan/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysApple officially launched its new Apple Upgrade leasing program.Customers can lease iPhones, Watches, iPads, and Macs.Apple Upgrade is best for those who like to upgrade their iPhone annually.Apple Upgrade, the company’s new device leasing program, allows customers to lease devices through the buy-now, pay-later giant Klarna for 12-, 24-, or 36-month periods before upgrading.Apple Upgrade replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program, a 24-month financing plan, and lets customers forgo bundled AppleCare and complete only a soft credit check to determine lease eligibility. Instead of paying off a device you own, the new…

Researchers released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a now-patched flaw in Microsoft’s Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) that can allow a low-privileged domain user to impersonate a domain controller and fully compromise an AD environment. The flaw was present due to a defective trust boundary within the certificate-based client authentication aspect of Microsoft AD Services.In its July raft of a record 622 Patch Tuesday updates, Microsoft patched a flaw tracked as CVE-2026-54121, which the researchers who discovered and exploited it — Aniq Fakhrul (@aniqfakhrul) and Muhammad Ali (@h0j3n) — called “Certighost,” according to a post by the researchers on…

In brief XRP is trading at $1.06, off nearly 8% over the past week. The movement happens as the U.S. Senate shelved the Clarity Act before its August recess and global markets braced for the Fed’s July 29 rate decision. XRP’s technicals are almost uniformly bearish: a confirmed death cross, RSI at 40.9, negative Squeeze momentum, and a composite score of -63%—the only technical lifeline is that it is deeply oversold. The global macro backdrop is as unfavorable as it’s been all year for crypto markets.New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, in only his second FOMC meeting, is widely expected…

Eating a nutritious diet, losing weight, and becoming more physically active can significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, lifestyle changes do not appear to offer the same level of protection to everyone. Researchers report that people assigned to Tübingen’s type 2 diabetes risk cluster 5 continued to experience rising blood sugar, a sharp decline in insulin production, and a consistently elevated risk of developing diabetes. These unfavorable changes occurred even among people who lost a substantial amount of weight and maintained that loss for years. The findings come from scientists at the German Center for Diabetes Research…

Millions of hectares of Amazon rainforest are newly at risk of being legally deforested, a new study estimates. The potential increase in deforestation comes as soy companies have terminated their voluntary participation in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a private-sector agreement that barred signatories from buying soy grown on land deforested after 2008. Researchers found 9.1 million hectares (22.5 million acres) of private forest, a total area around three times the size of Belgium. Additionally, more than 28 million hectares (69 million acres) of public forests without any clear purpose or protection could now face additional pressure from rural…