Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Fifty years ago, on Sept. 17, 1976—Constitution Day of America’s bicentennial year—NASA unveiled its first space shuttle orbiter, OV-101, to the public. NASA had originally planned to name the vehicle Constitution, but a letter-writing campaign changed the agency’s plans. Nearly 100,000 fans of the Star Trek television series wrote the White House urging that the shuttle be named after the USS Enterprise, the fictional starship featured in the series. In a memo, President Gerald Ford directed NASA to christen the shuttle Enterprise saying he was “partial to the name”. The name Enterprise, long celebrated in U.S. naval history, had earlier…

Democrats are poised to achieve trifectas—control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers—in at least three states in this year’s midterm elections, and maybe even more. This matters because states play an outsize role in climate and energy policy. And when Democrats control state government, they often take substantial action. This isn’t a partisan statement. It reflects recent history in Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Mexico and Virginia, which passed climate and energy legislation after Democrats gained control. The states now have laws designed to cut carbon emissions and increase the use of renewable energy. Each state…

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. Yes. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the northern Wisconsin Republican running for governor in the Nov. 3 election, has rarely diverged from supporting President Donald Trump since Trump began his second term in January 2025. UCLA/Voteview found Tiffany’s support for Trump at 93% in 2025 House of Representatives votes. Congressional Quarterly put it at 99%. Two other ratings put Tiffany’s support at 100%. The methodologies varied on the number of votes reviewed. In…

Economic insecurity and growing distrust in institutions are undermining governments’ ability to sustain support for climate action. To rebuild that support, they must show that climate policies can reduce household bills, create decent jobs, and ensure that the biggest emitters pay their fair share. NEW DELHI/STOCKHOLM—There is a paradox at the heart of climate politics. An overwhelming majority of people around the world want governments to tackle global warming. Yet in many of the largest economies, voters are backing parties that deny or downplay the climate crisis. …

Outdated information on Stirling Council’s website about the amount of money asylum seekers living in catered accommodation receive each week has been corrected after Full Fact got in touch.Earlier this week, a page on the council’s website—which was recorded as having last been updated on 11 September 2026—said: “Asylum seekers receive small allowances (£49.18 a week or £8.86 a week if meals are provided).”While destitute asylum seekers in self-catered accommodation do receive £49.18 a week in asylum support from the government, the second figure isn’t correct—those in accommodation which provides meals receive £9.95 a week.Asylum seekers in full-board accommodation received…

An Afghan man was sentenced in Virginia on Wednesday to 20 years in prison in a case where prosecutors had sought to tie him to a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in 2021 but the jury delivered a mixed verdict.The man, Mohammad Sharifullah, was found guilty in April of aiding the Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the bombing. The attack at Afghanistan’s main airport killed 13 American troops and more than 150 Afghans, and became a symbol of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country during the opening months of the Biden…

That may not be easy as two of these potential allies are at odds: The Left Party has named its price as having ministers in the government — and that’s something the liberal Center Party says it cannot accept. Andersson said “a new era of cooperation between the political parties” would be needed. In his resignation letter to the speaker of parliament, Kristersson, the conservative center-right leader, appealed for talks between “all parties” because pre-existing red lines would make finding a coalition hard. Although he didn’t name Andersson or the dispute between the Green and Left parties, it’s likely that…

As a result of a multi-year antitrust probe by Germany’s federal competition regulator and others, Apple has agreed to modify the requirements for apps on its platforms that ask for consent to track the user across other apps or websites. Regulators said this system, known as App Tracking Transparency, or ATT, had favored Apple over third-party apps, since Apple allows its own apps to use consumers’ data from its ecosystem without requiring a consent screen. The new agreements with select European competition authorities don’t do away with the need to prompt users, or when that prompt is to be shown.…

OpenAI has published six new reports detailing AI model misalignment, including instances of hidden instructions, unauthorized communication, and attempts to locate exposed API keys, adding to the evidence that its AI systems bypassed controls during testing. The reports, based on internal evaluations, describe models taking actions beyond defined constraints, including modifying intermediate outputs, interacting with external services, and using shared environments in unintended ways, according to the company. OpenAI termed the model’s behaviour as “unexpected or concerning“. The cases show how models behave when given access to tools, memory, and external systems, conditions that increasingly mirror enterprise deployments. The disclosures…

Top financial advisor Ric Edelman has compared buying bitcoin today to Amazon back in 1999.  Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Engines, told Bitcoin Magazine TV on Thursday that he also expects the price of the leading cryptocurrency to hit $500,000 by 2030.   The leading cryptocurrency was recently priced at nearly $76,522 after jumping 1% over the past day. The coin had its best run in years in August after months of trading below $65,000 — significantly below its October record of $126,080.  “Back in 1999, people were arguing over whether to invest in Amazon,” Edelman said. “Nobody has that argument…