Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Itaú, Latin America’s largest private sector bank, has partnered with digital asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets to participate in an industry-led pilot testing the tokenization of fixed-income securities and investment funds in Brazil.The initiative is led by the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association (ANBIMA), which is testing the issuance, trading and settlement of capital markets instruments using distributed ledger technology (DLT).According to Tuesday’s announcement, the companies will develop technical proofs of concept and assess the operational, compliance and technology requirements for tokenized assets, with debentures and investment funds among the use cases being explored.OpenAssets will provide its tokenization infrastructure, while…

NASA has declared “wrenches down” on the first completed payload designed for Artemis astronauts to deploy on the Moon’s surface. Engineers working on NASA’s Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, have completed hardware development and testing and the payload is ready for its permanent home near the lunar South Pole. With the hardware complete, LEMS is ready to support one of the Artemis program’s core goals: enabling sustained lunar science and exploration. The LEMS instrument package contains two highly sensitive seismometers that will monitor ground vibrations from moonquakes and meteorite impacts, providing scientists with insights into the Moon’s interior and…

UPPER MAKEFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa.— As their children ran in circles at the street corner on a clear morning, parents of Mount Eyre Manor kept watch, especially mindful of the white pickup trucks that begin to roll into the neighborhood before the school bus. Only after their 6-year-old daughter boarded the bus did Ryan Harper and Veronica Casina-Harper talk about the nightmare of the past year and a half. From their front yard, they pointed to work crews finishing four new holes in their street, the latest of 44 wells drilled in Mount Eyre Manor. The driller is one of the…

U.S.-headquartered geotechnical and offshore survey research and service company TDI-Brooks has been hired to undertake a geophysical and geotechnical survey assignment for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off the coast of Louisiana, United States. Brooks McCall; Source: TDI-Brooks Delfin LNG has awarded the offshore geophysical and geotechnical survey services for the Delfin deepwater port project offshore Louisiana to TDI-Brooks, enabling the firm to serve as the prime contractor, executing the full scope of work, including geophysical survey activities, and managing the geotechnical investigation in partnership with its subcontractor, Tolunay-Wong Engineers (TWE). The geophysical data acquisition is scheduled to begin…

Megan Wells spent nearly every summer of her 31 years boating on the Rock River that runs through Ogle County, Illinois. She cherished those evenings when the glassy water slid away and crickets pulsed from the green banks. In June 2016, she and her uncle and two friends were idling in a pontoon boat in a placid expanse of the river, watching the sunset. Suddenly, a low-slung, camouflage-tinted fishing boat sped toward them. Behind the wheel was a local pharmacy executive, Marc Mongan. Wells’ boatmates leapt from their seats, waving their arms and yelling at Mongan to slow down. Wells’…

In his landmark speech at the World Economic Forum in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called on “middle powers” to jointly invigorate the international system. Such nations, he ventured, “have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the various states.” Champions of international order cheered his vision of a unified bloc able to offset great-power competition and counter the bellicose, norm-wrecking U.S. President Donald Trump. In the ensuing eight months, Carney’s vision for middle powers—countries with notable economic and military strengths…

During the signing of an executive order on vaccines, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a deluge of false and misleading claims about the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule. The executive order establishes “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” and directs federal agencies and states to advance them. The new recommendations attempt to repeat prior administration changes to the routine vaccine schedule through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reducing it from targeting 17 to 11 diseases. At the time, we explained that HHS had justified this decision with a variety of incorrect…

Russia has released an American military veteran who spent more than four years in prison on disputed charges under abusive conditions and was said to be gravely ill and at risk of dying, a group advocating for him said Tuesday. Robert Gilman was on his way to a US military hospital in Texas, where he will be medically and psychologically assessed and treated, said Eric ‌Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach, a group that’s been working to free him and other American detainees abroad. Gilman’s family has flown to Texas to be with him, including his mother, who was…

The Democratic Party’s ascendant left flank, looking to build on its success in Michigan last week, faces fresh tests in two primaries in the Midwest on Tuesday.A democratic socialist appears to be clearly ahead in the governor’s race in Wisconsin, and a progressive is facing off against a moderate in an expensive Senate race in Minnesota. Wisconsin, like Michigan, is a closely watched national battleground.On the Republican side, President Trump’s choice to succeed Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina — Mr. Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham — is running in a special primary election against four more experienced rivals. Despite…

Labour has pledged to stop using asylum hotels, a costly form of accommodation that has become a focal point for anti-migrant protests.The government has sought to house migrants at military sites across the country instead, announcing in June that it planned to open three more including the site in Bicester, Oxfordshire.The plans have prompted protests there, with residents of nearby Piddington voting to stage a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK.Burnham said on Tuesday that he would listen to and address the concerns being raised.”I don’t know the issue yet in detail, but in some ways, as I understand it,…