Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Voting by mail would become much more difficult, if not impossible, for tens of millions of Americans if the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to implement a restrictive rule governing mail voting that President Trump has demanded.The effects would likely be greater for Democratic voters, who vote by mail in higher numbers than Republicans, and in states where mail voting is universal or nearly so. Mail voting may not happen at all in states that resist the Trump administration’s demands for voter data.The rule would particularly affect people in rural areas and older voters, who tend to cast ballots by…

A trip to Europe often means adjusting to a lot of walking, but don’t let it fool you: Cars are still the default for urban mobility. However, entrepreneurs are seeking to challenge this status quo — and the first step is understanding why it is so ingrained. For Belgian startup Any, the only way to boost the use of two-wheelers is to make sure they’re “designed for real life.” And for Any, that means they should be able to hold a lot of stuff, without sacrificing speed, range, or versatility. The startup’s “designed for real life” belief inspired its first…

Ravie LakshmananAug 30, 2026Social Engineering / Malware Microsoft has disclosed details of a new ClickFix variant, dubbed TerminalFix, that aims to trick users into running a malicious command in Windows Terminal or PowerShell. “While traditional ClickFix campaigns direct victims to the Windows Run dialog, TerminalFix campaigns apply the same technique but direct users to Windows Terminal or PowerShell instead, increasing the likelihood that complex, multi-line scripts execute successfully,” Microsoft security researchers Sagar Patil, Suriyaraj Natarajan, and Parasharan Raghavan said in an analysis published this week. The campaign, targeting organizations across multiple sectors, leverages compromised websites as a starting point to…

Delaware Life Insurance Company’s 2025 balance sheet took on a startling new shape when the insurer corrected its annual filing: roughly $17 billion of investments were classified as related-party holdings, about 39% of invested assets, versus roughly $1.4 billion and 3% in the earlier version.Clear Spring Life and Annuity Company made a separate correction of about $4.6 billion, taking the two revisions above $20 billion across companies connected to financier Mark Walter.Transactions with related entities are permitted under state insurance oversight, and the corrected labels say nothing conclusive about loan quality. They expose how a model built around private assets,…

Donald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to…

More than 260 foreign nationals from 23 countries are among the hundreds of people missing in Tibet after last week’s devastating flood, Chinese authorities said on Sunday, offering their most detailed accounting yet of those caught in the disaster on their side of the border.The largest groups of missing foreigners were 104 Nepalis, 49 Indians, 33 Latvians, 18 Americans and 15 British citizens, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency. In total, 546 people remained missing. The death toll in the Tibet region of China has reached 16 people, the agency said, citing a news conference by the regional government.In…

Don’t be fooled by the question mark in the title of an article published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. When the authors, including medical superstar Ezekiel Emanuel and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, asked, “Will Autonomous AI Exceed AI-Physicians as the Best Medical Care?” they were being rhetorical. Their answer is an emphatic YES. Many in the medical world are begrudgingly coming to terms with the premise that patients can get the best treatment by a hybrid approach where doctors work in consultation with well-trained bots. But this article’s thesis is that AI alone can deliver…

Coinbase US500 futures reached a $100 million milestone, giving the exchange an early test of whether a crypto-native trading mechanism can travel into regulated US equity markets.The chart attached to Armstrong’s Aug. 28 post tracked trailing 24-hour matched volume after US500 began trading on Aug. 17. It ended at an annotated $104 million near Aug. 25-26, after lower readings across most of the contract’s first week.Coinbase product-page, roughly 15 hours after Armstrong posted, showed $7.22 million in 24-hour volume and $3.01 million in open interest. Funding was negative 0.0001%, with shorts paying longs.The data covers different rolling windows, so the…

Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are expected in Central Asia’s Kyrgyzstan Monday for a two-day summit, also attended by Iran’s and India’s leaders, of a regional bloc seeking to be a counter-influence to the West. Around a dozen heads of states will head to the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek to mark 25 years of the Shanghai Cooperation Group (SCO). The group brings together Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, four Central Asian countries and Moscow-allied Belarus. Putin and Xi have previously used SCO summits to promote their vision of a multipolar world and present a united front against the West.…

He assumes his new role at a difficult time, as the royal family has faced health challenges and scandals this year.Mette-Marit came under scrutiny when it was revealed that she had had a three-year friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, for which she publicly apologised.She later received a lung transplant, after suffering from pulmonary fibrosis since 2018. Doctors will not declare her stable until next year, meaning her husband must balance his new official duties with her care.Her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, was convicted in June of rape and other offences and sentenced…