Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The rules governing your retirement plan may be changing. As we reported in July, President Donald Trump wants to encourage 401(k) plans to invest more in private equity, real estate and cryptocurrency, which can be complex and risky. To pave the way, the Department of Labor has proposed rules that would make it harder for employees to hold companies liable for how they oversee retirement plans. Employers are required to serve the best interests of their employees when choosing investment options. Under the proposed changes, a company that follows a certain process would get the benefit of the doubt in…

King Harald V of Norway is in an “extremely serious” condition in hospital, the country’s royal household has said.His wife, Queen Sonja, and his son, Crown Prince Haakon, have cancelled all royal engagements and they have gathered at his bedside at Oslo University Hospital with other members of the royal family.The 89-year-old has been in hospital for over a week receiving treatment for a rare blood condition, haemolytic anaemia. Having been on the throne since 1991, King Harald is Europe’s oldest head of state.Crown Prince Haakon, 53, the successor to the Norwegian throne, has been serving as regent while his…

“Ukraine needs more financial support in both the short and long term,” said the letter, which copied in the Commission’s economy and enlargement bosses, Valdis Dombrovskis and Marta Kos. “We believe now is the time to revert to the issue of how we can make further use of Russia’s immobilised assets for the benefit of Ukraine.” EU leaders in December failed to agree on a plan that would leverage €210 billion of frozen Russian state assets, most of which reside in the Brussels-based depository Euroclear, to underpin a massive loan to Kyiv. Belgium resisted the plan and demanded unlimited guarantees…

Left-wing politicians from across the Western Hemisphere gathered in Uruguay this past weekend to lick their wounds from a string of election losses and strategize on how to counter growing aggression from the Trump administration.There were ex-presidents and expected presidential contenders, national lawmakers and campaign strategists, best-selling authors and protest leaders. But perhaps the toast of the weekend — viewed by the group as the inspiration for a path forward — were the democratic socialists from the United States, fresh off their primary victories.Those candidates — Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez of New York, Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania and…

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, on Thursday plans to introduce a resolution that would order the Trump administration to provide Congress with a detailed accounting of Israel’s human rights practices in the West Bank, laying the groundwork to force a vote on the matter in coming weeks.The measure, the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to challenge the policies and actions of Israel’s government, invokes a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act that allows lawmakers to request information from the State Department about the human rights record of any country receiving U.S. security assistance.Co-signed by 10 Senate Democrats,…

Chip giant Nvidia reported another huge jump in sales as the global race to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems continues. The company said on Wednesday that it brought in $96bn (£71bn) of revenue during the second quarter, more than double the amount for the same period a year earlier. And it expects revenue of $108bn in the next quarter.”AI has reached its inflection point,” CEO Jensen Huang said in prepared remarks, describing the infrastructure buildout as going “at full steam.”The revenue figures beat Wall Street’s expectations, leading Nvidia shares to rise by 4.7% in after-hours trading.The company’s data centre division…

ATF, the regulatory agency that enforces federal laws governing firearms and explosives in the United States, has confirmed that one of its systems was compromised after breach claims made by the Qilin ransomware gang. This follows Qilin adding the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to its dark web data leak portal on Wednesday, without saying whether it had stolen files from ATF’s systems or demanded a ransom. The same day, the ATF published a press release saying that a standalone system was breached in what it described as a “major incident,” which is now being investigated in…

Crypto price oracle Pyth Network missed its documented 16:00 UTC cutover deadline on Aug. 26, adding a new requirement for developers who call its Hermes price-delivery service directly: their requests now need an API key.Under Pyth’s migration guide, people who use a protocol that already integrates the oracle don’t need to take direct action.Pyth documented that the existing hermes.pyth.network address would redirect to its upgraded backend, with authentication required after the deadline. Developers could also move directly tohttps://pyth.dourolabs.app/hermes, passing the key as a bearer token or SDK access token.Pyth said the routes and response shapes did not change.Pyth’s Aug. 26…

Rapid loss of mangroves in Mozambique’s Zambezia Province is linked to the activities of Mozambique Heavy Sand Company VIII, which is part-owned by an influential Chinese mining group, Mongabay has found.The mangrove loss occurred inside a site considered “one of the most diverse and productive river delta systems in the world.”Satellite imagery suggests it was caused by what appears to be a blocked waterway where sand mining activities took place between 2022 and 2026.Increasingly, environmentalists are raising the alarm about the environmental impacts of heavy minerals prospecting and mining in vast sections along Mozambique’s coast.See All Key Ideas …

The claim that Iran’s state television aired a $10 million bounty on U.S. President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, is still under investigation.  The rumor stems in part from a CNN report, citing a three-minute video that opened with a graphic that read “Where to kill Barron Trump?!” The article also said the Secret Service was aware of this video. Snopes found a video in Farsi that matched CNN’s description, and a Secret Service spokesperson told us that was the video the agency was aware of.  Snopes obtained transcripts of the video using ElevenLabs and Fireflies. We then used…