Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

REX-Osprey’s XRP ETF held 40.25% of its assets in the CoinShares Physical XRP ETP on Aug. 24, routing $22.87 million of a $56.68 million portfolio through another listed product. That structure means XRP ETF fees and trading costs can stack up across two listed products. The same holdings snapshot reported 59.74% as XRP, with 4.7 million XRPR shares outstanding, a $12.09 net asset value and a $12.06 closing price.That split is not evidence that the CoinShares position lacks XRP backing. CoinShares says its product is 100% physically backed. Nor should XRPR’s XRP line be read as proof that the parent…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story, originally published in December, was revised Aug. 26, 2026 with an update on a new phase of testing, including video from a recent test run and new images. To help NASA and commercial partners better understand the science of lunar landings, specifically the hazards that may occur when a lander’s engine plumes blast away at lunar dust, soil, and rocks, a team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has initiated a series of plume-surface interaction tests inside a massive 60-foot spherical vacuum chamber. As NASA works to return humans to the Moon starting with…

In July, Mongabay published a feature investigation and video report about deforestation in southeastern Liberia dude to cacao cultivation.The remote region contains some of West Africa’s last intact rainforests, many of which are under threat due to the emergence of the cacao industry there.Liberian journalist James Giahyue told Mongabay that poverty and the involvement of local politicians are helping to drive deforestation there.See All Key Ideas In 2024, the price of cacao on world markets spiked dramatically, nearly quintupling from what it had been a year earlier. Prices have since dropped, but along with a land crunch in…

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s election season, and Wisconsin Watch reporters are researching story ideas to help voters better understand their choices in November. It’s a big election. Democrats are expected to do well because of a national mood that has turned against Republican President Donald Trump. In Wisconsin that means Democrats may win control of the Senate and Assembly for the first time in 16 years. If they also win the governor’s office, they would be able to enact a legislative agenda, which they weren’t able to do under eight years of Gov. Tony Evers. If Republicans hold…

A poll in the Mail on Sunday at the end of June was remarkable. It had not just Reform as low as 21%, but also Labour and the Tories. It was remarkable because it starkly demonstrated the fragmented landscape of the UK’s electoral terrain, as well as the electoral weakness of its main players.Polls since have varied, not least with the Burnham bounce, but this week’s YouGov voting intention figures put Reform, Labour and the Tories on 23%, 22% and 20% respectively (although it almost no longer matters which exact figure applies to which party). Add in the Greens and…

According to social media users, U.S. President Donald Trump once said of his daughter Ivanka, “Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?” Snopes did not locate enough evidence to independently confirm or debunk the claim that he made the remark. The rumor originated in November 2016, with BuzzFeed News reporting about an early draft of a Washington Post opinion column purportedly containing the quote. That quote did not appear in the published Post story. We did not receive responses to previous outreach to the Post’s editors, BuzzFeed News or Trump campaign officials.…

It was just after dawn on Wednesday morning at a maternity ward in the Pakistani capital when a horrific blaze erupted.It would go on to kill 14 infants as parents say they waited hours for help to arrive. Hivsa Walid was near the room at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital with her sister-in-law, who had given birth days earlier. She initially heard a shout and thought a patient had died – but then she saw smoke. The pair fled with the baby, who is so small she does not yet have a name.”We didn’t even think about…

Meta will pay the $17 billion to states over ten years, according to Bonta’s office. Most of the kids’ safety features will remain in place for the same ten-year period, according to Meta.For Meta, the settlement will abruptly end the trial prosecutors from California and a coalition of other states had waged in an Oakland courtroom. By resolving the case, the company avoids the possibility of an even more damaging result had the jury found it liable for mental health harms that young users claimed they suffered from excessive use of Meta products. It allows CEO Mark Zuckerberg to avoid…

Robert Jenrick has accused Kemi Badenoch of telling “a pack of lies” about her meeting with the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as he launched a deeply personal attack on his former boss.The Reform UK MP sought to heap pressure on the Conservative leader amid confusion about whether Meloni had used a meeting in Rome with Badenoch to urge her to “be her own woman” and resist doing a deal with his party.A Conservative spokesperson denied the party had suggested the Italian leader made such comments after the Times initially reported she had. This was later removed from the newspaper’s…

Frustrated with his fellow Democrats, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia in 2024 gave up his lifelong membership in the Democratic Party to become an independent as he ended his congressional career.Now he is trying to get more people like himself elected to Congress in a bid to break the stranglehold of the rigid two-party system that helped drive him away from Capitol Hill.Mr. Manchin and his daughter Heather, a former pharmaceutical executive, have combined forces with other political operatives to form the Independent Leadership Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that aims to cultivate and financially back declared independent…