Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

A group of 21 major financial institutions plans to establish a new company to develop and issue stablecoins, offering another sign of traditional finance’s push into digital dollars as regulatory frameworks take shape.The consortium, announced Tuesday, includes Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments. It plans to launch a US dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027, subject to the company’s formation and other conditions.According to the announcement, the group ultimately plans to expand into stablecoins denominated in other G7 currencies, with a euro offering identified as its next priority.The consortium said…

The universe’s first rocky planets may have gotten their start astonishingly early — perhaps only 100 million years after the Big Bang. Explosions of some of the universe’s first massive stars could have created isolated pockets rich enough in dust and elements like iron and carbon to form the building blocks of planets, a new computer simulation suggests. The simulation produced enough rocky building material to potentially make several Earth-sized planets, and there was water available in the young stellar system that could have made it to the planet just a bit later, researchers report August 19 in Astrophysical Journal…

Eagle LNG Partners, a Florida–based developer and operator of small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, has secured a multimillion-dollar investment from Datacentrex, a diversified technology-driven enterprise operating a digital asset mining business across high-growth sectors. Eagle LNG The two companies entered into a common unit purchase agreement, and Datacentrex invested $30 million in ELNG Equity, the equity holding company of Eagle LNG Partners, acquiring $30 million of Class A common units. This investment reflects a 10.5% equity interest in an operating aerospace-spec LNG producer positioned for the U.S. space launch buildout. Parker Scott, Chief Executive Officer of Datacentrex, commented: “We…

Reading Time: 3 minutes A few weeks ago, Wisconsin State Journal reporter Chris Rickert was using his cellphone to scan records in the office of the Dane County clerk of circuit court, when an office staffer informed him that this was not allowed.  Rickert complied, but followed up with an email to the office’s clerk of courts, Jeff Okazaki, noting that he and the paper’s former courts reporter had routinely done this to avoid the mandatory $1.25 per-page charge for copies made by office staff. “We have not been secretive about scanning the documents and no one else has ever…

The leading scientist urging policymakers not to criminalize kratom, a substance that has left a trail of death and addiction around the world, has routinely failed to disclose longstanding financial ties to the industry’s most powerful lobbying group, ProPublica has found. University of Florida professor Christopher McCurdy has accepted travel reimbursements, donations to his university’s foundation and funding for an annual symposium on research into the leaf’s medicinal potential from the American Kratom Association — none of which has been disclosed in his conflict of interest statements or on the papers he publishes. The fight to keep kratom legal across…

Russia’s ill-advised invasion of Ukraine and the United States’ equally stupid war with Iran suggest that we have entered a new world of “defense dominance,” a world where larger and more powerful states find it hard to conquer territory or to get much weaker states to make big concessions. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres apparently thinks so, telling the Financial Times, “If you look at what happened in recent times, the capacity of superpowers to impose their will or their strength or their force in several situations has been severely limited.” The proximate causes aren’t hard to identify—the development of…

Police investigating the unsolved murder of a British family in France 14 years ago have an unexpected new clue with the discovery of a Luger pistol in the waters of a nearby lake.One of the few certainties in the killings of Saad al-Hilli with his wife and mother-in-law – as well as a passing cyclist – is that they were shot through the head with a Luger model P06, a type used by the Swiss army until around 1960.Now France’s cold case unit has confirmed the discovery of a Luger in Lake Annecy, not far from the scene of the…

John Swinney insisted on Tuesday he still planned to introduce a legally binding price cap on bread, milk and other essential food items in Scotland despite fierce opposition from farming and business groups.Unveiling the Scottish National party’s programme for government – the equivalent to the king’s speech – the first minister said he wanted to give “families greater peace of mind at a time of rising prices”.Swinney also announced commitments to restructure local government and NHS boards, introduce a misogyny bill to crack down on violence against women and girls, and set a £2 price limit on bus fares in…

An investment of £110m, which will come from existing budgets, will be used to convert unused office space, laundry rooms and storage space into cells, the MoJ said.The justice secretary told the BBC prisoners being released early did not mean “freedom” and victims would have a say in restrictions placed on those criminals.Asked where clothes would be washed if laundry rooms were converted into cells, Norris told BBC Breakfast: “Of course we’re going to make sure that the prisons can still function properly.”This is a creative look, as I say, around our estate and being able to use some space…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldTwo oil tankers shuttling oil out of the Gulf were hit on Monday night amid a rise in attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, even as the US claimed its military was safely guiding vessels through the waterway.The strikes follow a renewed round of violence between the US and Iran, with Tehran firing on a US military base in Jordan on Monday in retaliation for US attacks on Larak Island, which sits in the strait.The tankers were the…