Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Published On 24 Aug 202624 Aug 2026Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom was ejected after a ‌verbal altercation with WNBA player Natasha Cloud of the Chicago Sky during the third quarter of Chicago’s loss to the visiting Indiana Fever.Kanter Freedom, sitting ⁠courtside, stood up and took ⁠a few steps towards the court with his arms outstretched after Cloud began pointing and yelling at him at the start of an Indiana timeout on Sunday.A game official and security personnel got between them, and her teammates pulled Cloud away. The official ⁠gestured for Kanter Freedom to be ejected, and he was escorted…

Mary and Zachariah Ben, farmers in New Mexico, believed they were on the verge of buying the property of their dreams last fall: 47 acres, with enough cropland to grow heirloom corn and a processing facility to expand their organic baby food business.But the low-interest loan they secured from the Agriculture Department to make the purchase in Aztec, N.M., was on hold for months, first during the government shutdown that lasted until mid-November and then as federal workers left the agency in droves. Only half a dozen loan specialists who could help process their claims remained in the entire state,…

The Kremlin has warned of an escalation in tensions between the UK and Russia as Andy Burnham arrived in Kyiv to present Ukraine with newly declassified blueprints to allow Ukraine to improve its production of long-range missiles.In his first trip abroad as the prime minister, Burnham will give Ukraine previously classified information on the British manufactured components for long-range cruise missiles.Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the exchange would add “fuel to the fire” and scupper any moves towards a peace deal. Burnham will join a conference call while in Kyiv with 34 leaders in the coalition of the willing,…

GrapheneOS, an open source version of Android that prioritizes security and privacy, has detailed its plans for supporting Motorola smartphones. Official support is set to arrive next year, starting with traditional flagships, before rolling out to Motorola’s foldable phones and perhaps cheaper models, eventually.In a Mastodon thread, the GrapheneOS Foundation announced that it will initially support a Motorola slab flagship phone, but will later support both Razr Fold and Razr Ultra foldables — the latter of which would be the first flip phone to officially run GrapheneOS.Graphene has always had stringent security standards when it comes to hardware. The organization…

In brief Bitcoin has risen from a weekly low of $63,387 to around $77,800 up 22% over the past seven days. Analysts pointed to $80,000 as a key resistance level ahead, arguing that Bitcoin is in a “late stage of the bear market.” Coinshares argued that Bitcoin’s price moves are “a macro story, not a crypto one.” Bitcoin traded around $77,800 on Monday, up 22% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko data, with analysts looking to this week’s Jackson Hole meeting as its next test.This year’s symposium runs from Thursday to Saturday under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications…

Zach Lentsch was leading a climbing trip on Devils Tower in Wyoming’s northeast corner on Aug. 18 when he got a text from a friend saying voter turnout in the state primary, held that day, was strong. The chairman of Protect Wyoming, the first and only political action committee in the Cowboy State focused on public lands and wildlife, Lentsch thought that might bode well for the candidates his group had supported. He couldn’t have imagined what was waiting for him once he got off the rockface. By 11 p.m., a few close races broke for candidates Protect Wyoming had…

Denmark-headquartered power cable manufacturer and installation player NKT is raising the bar for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) power cable technology with a newly qualified 525 kV extruded XLPE subsea cable system for operation at 90°C, boosting transmission capability and the firm’s HVDC portfolio for offshore wind, hybrid interconnectors, and future cross-continent transmission lines. NKT’s 525 kV HVDC 90 C technology; Source: NKT NKT has launched a fully qualified 525 kV HVDC power cable system capable of continuous operation at conductor temperatures up to 90°C, which enables increased transmission capability. This achievement is seen as a significant advancement in the company’s…

Reporting Highlights An Unprecedented Crisis: Dr. Craig Towers said he was “inundated” with pregnant patients addicted to opioids. He published a study with promising results from an unconventional treatment. Too Good to Be True? Eight addiction and pregnancy specialists raised concerns about Towers’ research in a letter to his employer, the University of Tennessee. Lingering Impact: A university audit of the study found numerous problems. Towers retired, citing health and family reasons, but some clinics still use approaches described in his research. These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. When Dr. Craig Towers…

In summer 2026, posts on social media shared an alleged story about a 91-year-old woman named Helen who was supposedly arrested after stealing medication that would treat her 88-year-old husband’s heart condition. According to the story (archived), the woman became desperate after her husband George’s prescriptions jumped in price from $50 to $940.  (X user @Evelyn001d) Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether the rumor was true. It was not. Searches of Google, DuckDuckGo and Bing found no news reports — only social media posts — featuring the fabricated story. Posts making the same claim first appeared online in November…

New Delhi, India – An investigation by human rights group Amnesty International has confirmed that Indian government forces used lethal weapons, including pellet-firing shotguns, grenades, batons and electric shock devices against demonstrators in Gen Z protests that rocked the national capital last month.On July 20, thousands of protesters had all but shut down New Delhi, blocking off Parliament Street, demanding the resignation of then-Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following a string of examination scandals involving the leaking of national exam papers and other irregularities.More than 100 students were injured in the crackdown by police and paramilitary forces that day. Indian newspapers…