Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The Trump administration has submitted to Congress a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that could allow the kingdom to enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors, according to two officials with firsthand knowledge of the transmission of the agreement.The accord, announced by the White House last month, would deepen ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia at a moment when the war with Iran has strained the relationship between the two countries. The 30-year agreement would give U.S. companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear infrastructure while largely shutting out foreign competitors.The submission formally begins…

In the obscure yet consequential world of the cost of television ads for political candidates and parties, Democrats scored a legal victory on Tuesday ahead of the midterm elections.A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that low-cost ad rates that candidates qualify for do not have to be made available to political parties.The ruling is a win for Democrats, whose candidates tend to raise more money than its committees. The opposite is true for Republicans, whose party committees are more flush with cash than many of its individual candidates.The ruling comes less than…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldDonald Trump clinched a crucial political victory on Tuesday as Darline Graham, the sister of late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, won her Senate primary contest following the president’s full-throated endorsement.Graham, a political novice who was appointed to replace her brother in South Carolina after his sudden death last month, beat Ralph Norman, a conservative Republican member of Congress who has at times criticised the president and the party’s leadership.Graham won 52.4 per cent of the vote while Norman recorded 47.6…

Generalist, a robotics startup, is now valued at $3 billion after raising additional capital led by 8VC, according to two people with knowledge of the funding. The fresh capital totals nearly $200 million according to a regulatory filing. That additional capital is an extension of a $400 million Series B led by Radical Ventures that the company announced in June at a $2 billion valuation, the people said. The new capital brings the round’s total funding to $600 million. Generalist and 8VC didn’t respond to a request for comment. Generalist was founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete…

Researchers at Kaspersky have come across what appears to be the first malware specifically designed for car head units, and have found links to the notorious BadBox botnet. The malware was discovered on an Android-powered aftermarket infotainment system made by Chinese company DoFun, which is widely used in China and other APAC countries. Threat actors exploited a vulnerability in a system designed to handle software updates, enabling them to deliver malware to vehicle head units, Kaspersky explained. The vendor said it addressed the weakness after being notified.  The attackers compromised the update distribution channel to deliver stealthy malicious Android applications…

In brief XRP closed at $1.4554 on the latest daily candle, down from a $1.5505 high. The 50-day moving average sits below the 200-day, with a death cross still active. The medium-term structure says bearish, but XRP isn’t alone. The crypto market flipped from fear to “extreme greed” this week for the first time since 2024, and the Ripple-linked XRP rode that wave hard.XRP, the cryptocurrency created by the co-founders of Ripple, erased its most bearish signal last week and took off, registering a 46% gain over seven days and topping a $91 billion market cap.Myriad: Where does XRP price…

How do you fit a human life’s experiences into 1.3 kilograms of brain? Neuroscientists have searched for the cells that generate and store our memories for decades. Now, some surprising hints have turned up in the brains of hibernating mice. Over two days, hibernating mice temporarily lost nearly half of the connections between their brain cells in a key brain region for memory. But after this ordeal, the mice retained their memories. Imaging shows that key connections between brain cells had regrown, often in exactly the same place that they had disappeared from. The researchers also identified hub-like clusters of…

The new estimate represents a decline of 41-45% over the 2,400-2,800 estimate published by Indonesia in 2007.The launch of the new 2026-2036 strategy and action plan for elephant conservation comes after a long wait since the current plan expired in 2017.The new plan sorts Indonesia’s wild elephants into 21 population pockets in Sumatra and one in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo.See All Key Ideas A new 10-year plan for elephant conservation released by the Indonesian government places the country’s wild elephant population at an estimated 1,325-1,648 individuals. The previous figure, published in 2007, was 2,400-2,800 individuals, meaning…

Reading Time: 3 minutes Microsoft and Wisconsin ratepayer advocates are asking federal regulators to hit the brakes on a proposal to allocate the costs of transmission infrastructure built to serve data centers. Both argue that We Energies and the American Transmission Company’s (ATC) recent proposal to federal regulators fails to adequately protect Wisconsinites from picking up the construction bill, among other concerns. The utilities’ plan — setting a minimum transmission charge for Microsoft based on its Mount Pleasant data center’s anticipated electricity needs — mirrors elements of a strategy approved by Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) earlier this year. We…

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at tit-for-tat tariffs between Canada and the United States, Iran and China’s response to Operation Economic Outcast, and the spread of Ebola across Central Africa. ‘Everyone’s in for an Economic War’ Canada announced retaliatory tariffs against the United States on Tuesday, the latest salvo in the ongoing North American trade war. Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at tit-for-tat tariffs between Canada and the United States, Iran and China’s response to Operation Economic Outcast, and the spread of Ebola across Central Africa. ‘Everyone’s in for an Economic War’ Canada announced…