Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

For about a century, scholars studying the Assyrian Empire have treated the Assyrian King List (AKL) as the standard record of the kingdom’s rulers and the order in which they reigned, particularly during the later phases of Assyrian history. A recent study in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, titled “Three New Kings of Assyria,” argues that the AKL may not be as complete or politically neutral as researchers once assumed. Alexander Johannes Edmonds and Eckart Frahm identify three rulers who do not appear on the list but whose reigns can be reconstructed from other surviving evidence. Their findings suggest that…

A 10-year agreement provides York Timber Holdings with access to renewable electricity “at scale,” an official with the timber company said.The agreement will reduce the sawmill’s greenhouse gas emissions, while reducing its exposure to electricity tariff hikes and potential future carbon-based costs, according to the company.“Renewable energy is just one element of sustainability. Responsible management of plantations, conservation of biodiversity and water stewardship are just as important,” a forestry specialist said.See All Key Ideas JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — York Timber Holdings signed a 10-year renewable electricity agreement with electricity trader Discovery Green for power for its Jessievale sawmill…

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. Yes. Milwaukee County has the highest county sales tax in Wisconsin at 0.9%. Every other county with a sales tax charges 0.5% on top of the statewide 5% rate. Two counties – Waukesha and Winnebago – do not have a sales tax, according to a chart from the state Department of Revenue. The city of Milwaukee is currently the only city with its own sales tax of 2%. Both the 0.9% county…

Reading Katriona O’Sullivan’s article (Can anyone be too poor to buy a toothbrush? Yes – I know, because that was me, 19 August) reminded me of when I was a community worker at the Park Hill estate in Sheffield in the 1970s.When I (young and naive) asked the mums why they bought chips for their toddlers for lunch rather than spending the money on fresh fruit (I cringe now in embarrassment), they pointed out that a bag of chips was the price of a couple of apples and one of them filled the kids up. I began to understand, and…

After The New York Times published a story in August 2026 alleging that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was allowing the sale of protected wild horses to slaughterhouses, a rumor spread online claiming that Project 2025 endorsed such actions to cut costs.  Project 2025, a policy paper by the Heritage Foundation that in many ways has acted as a blueprint for the second Trump administration, has argued that the bureau needs to be able cut costs by killing horses and said that Congress “must enact laws permitting the [Bureau of Land Management] to dispose humanely of these animals.”  It is…

The Trump administration arrested and deported a record number of immigrants in July, according to newly released government data – apprehending an average of 1,500 people and removing 1,100 people daily.This latest data confirms what attorneys and immigrant advocates have been seeing across the US – although the administration has moved away from the high-profile, militarized raids that came to define its immigration enforcement approach last year, it is quietly ramping up its operations.“The way that people are being detained is far less flashy, but we are still continuing to see arrests,” said Melissa Shepard, director of legal services at…

President Trump had seemed to be in danger of taking a major defeat on Tuesday night.His choice for Senate in South Carolina, Darline Graham, had admitted at a debate that she wasn’t “that informed on national security.” Mr. Trump’s so-far-stingy super PAC was forced to spend more than $800,000 to help her. Many South Carolina Republicans expected her to lose, in what would have been the president’s first defeat in a Senate primary all year.Instead, as Mr. Trump has done often since his rise to power a decade ago, he defied electoral expectations.Ms. Graham’s narrow primary runoff victory on Tuesday…

When Randy Madden saw the way diesel prices were rising, he decided to delay purchasing the fuel that powers his 3,000-acre farm in Iowa.Except prices are at around the same level as when he made that decision in May.Now, going into harvest season, he expects to spend more than $40,000 on fuel — roughly double what he typically pays from late summer through the end of the year.“The volatility and the price is coming at a very bad time,” he said.The average price of diesel in the United States was $5.62 a gallon on Wednesday, 53 percent higher than a…

More than 76% of consumers in India prefer talking to businesses over a phone call, according to a recent study from Truecaller. Since voice is still consumers’ preferred way to communicate, that leaves a big opportunity to automate support and outreach calls using voice AI in the country. Voice AI startup Ringg, which already processes 20 million call attempts a month, is betting that volume keeps climbing over the coming months, and it just raised more money on that belief. The company said today it has landed $10 million from Peak XV Partners as an extension of its Series A.…

NVIDIA has unveiled the Jetson Orin Nano 2, an edge robotics computer aimed at bringing physical AI to drones, robots, and vision systems. The company is positioning the new board as an entry-level option for developers who want generative AI models running directly on a machine instead of inside a data centre.NVIDIA’s argument for the launch rests on a change in how well small and medium AI models now perform. The company says models of this size have reached the accuracy that only the largest frontier models achieved a year earlier.Deepu Talla, VP of Robotics and Edge AI at NVIDIA,…