Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Just a week ago, I was caught in a frenzy. As the doors opened to the iPhone demo room after Apple’s Surprise and Shine keynote, I couldn’t help but pause as dozens of journalists and media members rushed to get the very first hands-on photos of the iPhone Duo. A device of such aura, as my little cousin would say, demands attention. Also: iPhone 18 Pro hands-on: I came for the Burgundy and stayed for the dual-aperture cameras So, I went the other way and got my hands on the also-new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max instead.…

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman warned that Anthropic risks AI alignment failures by training Claude to view itself as a conscious entity deserving of legal rights.Suleyman targeted Anthropic’s January 2026 constitution, a primary training document designed to govern the model’s values and behaviour. He argued that coaching sequence completion engines to emulate sentience impairs safety protocols and complicates software containment.Microsoft AI launched a dedicated superintelligence team in October 2025 and published a draft ‘Humanist AI Code of Conduct‘ this week for industry consultation. The proposed framework mandates subordinate systems built exclusively to serve human welfare, explicitly rejecting machine personhood or…

For multinationals, the exposure also runs inward. China’s Data Security Law bars providing data stored in China to foreign law enforcement without approval and compels cooperation with Chinese security authorities. Chinese law can bar a vendor’s China-based staff from supporting the American program their employer joined, and expose those employees personally for perceived cooperation. Employee travel protocol now belongs in the risk register. What the unpublished rules have to solve The memorandum never mentions artificial intelligence, and one silence carries operational weight. The text directs the NCC to use automation to streamline the program. Crowell & Moring names the failure…

HM Treasury has laid the final draft of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026, which would narrow parts of the UK’s forthcoming crypto regulatory perimeter for UK qualifying stablecoin payments.The draft instrument, laid before Parliament on Sept. 15, would remove qualifying transfers from the rules for dealing as principal, dealing as agent and arranging deals. It has not been made and is not in force.The relief is narrower than a blanket exemption for sterling stablecoins. A UK qualifying stablecoin must be issued through the regulated article 9M activity by a firm holding the relevant…

Around the world, billions of people still lack reliable access to safe drinking water. The United Nations estimates that 2.2 billion people do not have safely managed drinking water, while regions from California to the Middle East increasingly rely on desalination plants to turn ocean water into fresh water. Desalination can provide a critical water supply, but today’s most common methods come with significant drawbacks. Reverse osmosis forces water through specialized membranes to remove salt, while thermal distillation uses heat to separate fresh water from seawater. Both approaches can consume large amounts of energy, often require water treatment before and…

Southeast Asia’s hydrocarbon sector has gained fresh momentum as Canadian oil and gas company Valeura Energy struck an oil discovery near its existing offshore field in the Gulf of Thailand, potentially supporting a new satellite development while extending the productive life of existing infrastructure. Mist rig; Source: Borr Drilling Valeura Energy has revealed an oil discovery at Suraphi near its Manora oil field and confirmed the completion of a development and appraisal drilling campaign on its Jasmine field in the Gulf of Thailand. The Suraphi find was made by drilling the Manora-9 open water exploration well and associated sidetracks, approximately…

Reading Time: < 1 minute We’ve partnered with Open Campus, a nationwide nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education, to organize an event on how credentials impact Wisconsin’s workforce. And we’d love for you to join us on Oct. 6. I enjoy editing the “pathways to success” beat because it’s where K-12, higher ed and workforce training stories intersect. I spent years covering K-12 and higher ed, and the stories I most loved reporting focused on how students took the skills they learned in the classroom into their careers. Credentials have expanded in recent years, and it feels like the stakes…

Samantha Ramos stood at the front of her second grade classroom, a small mic clipped to her lanyard amplifying her instructions as she began a phonics lesson. “Can we get our arms ready?” asked Ramos, who’s taught at the John B. Wright Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona, for 15 years. She brought her right palm to her left shoulder as the students imitated her movements. Ramos, who specializes in teaching English as a second language, was leading a lesson that day on the short “i” sound. She told the students to pronounce each letter with a different gesture — touching…

Long before ChatGPT and Claude entered the global lexicon, there had been a steady stream of warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence. That stream has now become a flood. Late last month, OpenAI revealed a worrisome new development: Not only had one of its models broken out of its “sandbox” and hacked the company Hugging Face, it had in fact done so in secret coordination with hundreds of other OpenAI models (or “agents”). Subsequent reports revealed that OpenAI’s agents had previously infiltrated two other websites months before the Hugging Face incident. The hacks exacerbated long-standing concerns around the growing cyber-capabilities…

Balk, Tim. “Can Democrats Win Back the Senate? Why Their Chances Are Improving.” The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/us/politics/democrats-republicans-midterms-senate-majority.html.Bobic, Igor. “Democrats Are Getting More Bullish About Taking the Senate.” NOTUS, 21 Aug. 2026, https://www.notus.org/2026-election/democrats-path-senate-majority-map.Deng, Rae. “Did FCC Threaten Jimmy Kimmel over Talarico Interview? What We Know.” Snopes, 11 Sept. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//news/2026/09/11/fcc-jimmy-kimmel-talarico/.Esposito, Joey. “Did Trump Call James Talarico’s Support of Trans People an ‘Insult to Jesus’?” Snopes, 24 Mar. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-talarico-insult-jesus/.———. “‘God Is Nonbinary’: What James Talarico Said While Opposing Texas Anti-Trans Youth Sports Bill in 2021.” Snopes, 16 Mar. 2026, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/james-talarico-god-nonbinary/.———. “Posts Sharing James Talarico Quote about Hating…