Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

This “crisis of disbelief”, as Michta put it, is not evenly spread. The further east you go, the closer you get to the Russian border, the more alert a nation’s people are to the threat, and the more psychologically prepared.Sweden hasn’t had a war in 200 years. It has pursued a policy of neutrality for centuries. But after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it abandoned that and has made itself, in a very short space of time, one of the most psychologically prepared countries in Europe.”Russia is self-evidently dangerous”, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Christersson told The Economist magazine…

Interview with Boris Vujčić, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Francesco Canepa on 16 September 202618 September 2026We are speaking less than a week after the ECB’s latest projections were published, and energy prices have already moved well above the baseline. How does this affect your outlook for inflation and growth?Energy prices have continued to increase, and that was already evident during the Governing Council meeting compared with the cut-off date for the projections. This is also reflected in financial markets: the pricing of the interest rate path is being driven mainly by rising energy prices. In the absence of…

Data center developer Crusoe said Thursday it raised $3.9 billion in a Series F round that pushes its valuation to $30.9 billion. The massive round was co-led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. Founders Fund, GIC, Nvidia, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Radical Ventures, and TPG also participated, according to Crusoe. Crusoe also announced three new board members, including Cloudflare CFO Thomas Seifert; Bill Stein, partner and CIO at Primary Digital Infrastructure; and Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel, who also sits on Tesla’s board. Straubel already has ties to Crusoe; he personally invested in the company…

Ravie LakshmananSep 18, 2026Mobile Security / Malware Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new Android malware called RatHat that’s assessed to be operated by China-based threat actors and features an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered system to navigate and control compromised devices. “Distributed primarily via targeted smishing (SMS/text phishing) and malvertising campaigns leading to deceptive third-party download portals, RatHat uses an automated multi-stage infection pipeline,” Zimperium researchers Gianluca Braga, Vishnu Pratapagiri, and Fernando Ortega said. “Once deployed, it pairs Accessibility abuse with autonomous local ADB (Android Debug Bridge) self-pairing to break out of the standard Android application sandbox, staging independent native daemons that…

Fortitude Mining has appointed former Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton as chief executive as the Zcash-focused miner prepares to go public through a proposed merger with HeartSciences. Leverton will succeed Andrea Childs as CEO on Sept. 21, with Childs moving to chief operating officer.Fortitude mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, accounting for about 28% of the network’s total production during the period. The company reported revenue of $20.9 million for the second quarter.It operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York, and in July agreed to purchase 9,000…

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified previously unknown lymph node-like immune structures in the skull bone marrow of mice. The findings suggest these nearby immune hubs can respond rapidly to brain cancer, becoming active before more distant lymph nodes even receive signals that something is wrong. The team also found evidence of similar immune cells in human skull bone marrow, suggesting that this local defense system may not be limited to mice. Scientists once believed that the brain was largely isolated from the immune system. That view has changed dramatically in recent years. The…

Victorian police officer charged with assault after teenager allegedly kicked and punched during arrestA Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.The senior constable was charged after a investigation into allegations the officer used excessive force against an 18-year-old during an arrest in Ballarat in October 2025.It is alleged the officer punched and kicked the teenager multiple times while they were handcuffed and compliant.The officer is expected to appear before a magistrates’ court next month.ShareUpdated at 06.48 CESTKey eventsWhat we learned, Friday 18 SeptemberThat’s a wrap on a jam-packed week of live…

Another former government minister has been hired by a controversial US AI company, this time Palantir, which has appointed Andy Burnham’s former ministerial colleague Tom Watson.The Labour peer and former deputy leader will operate alongside Palantir’s UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, as the company attempts to fend off pressure on Burnham’s government to axe its £330m NHS contract. It is also fighting Sadiq Khan in court over the Labour London mayor’s block on a £50m contract to use its AI in Metropolitan police investigations. Palantir also wants to win more public sector work in the UK, where it…

Geothermal startup Mazama Energy raised $135 million in an oversubscribed Series B, the startup said Thursday. The fresh funding will help the company develop horizontal wells in super-hot rocks capable of generating 15 megawatts of electricity per well. Mazama plans to start generating electricity sometime next year and said its first site in Oregon is capable of producing 10 gigawatts of electricity. That’s a sharp upward revision from the company’s estimate last year, when investor Vinod Khosla said the site had the potential to produce 5 gigawatts. Enhanced geothermal startups are shaping up to be the dark horse in the…

Hackers are demanding a $3 million ransom from the British fintech giant Revolut after siphoning data from it through fake government requests for five months. Last week, the company notified potentially affected users that their personal information, passports, email addresses, phone numbers, and financial information were compromised in the data breach. To obtain the information, the hackers posed as an official government agency. Because Revolut is required to respond to legal requests from law enforcement, it complied. The company refrained from sharing the name of the impersonated government agency or the number of impacted individuals when contacted by SecurityWeek. On…