Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on environmental cleanup, more than half the yards in a section of Omaha, Nebraska, that used to surround a lead smelter still have enough contamination to cause high blood-lead levels in kids, according to tests by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica. The findings were consistent across the city’s older urban core — in the historically Black neighborhoods north of downtown, the predominantly Hispanic areas to the south and the more white and affluent areas in midtown. However, homes closest to where a lead smelter and other downtown factories operated tended to have…

It’s been far from an idyllic summer for Europe, where powerful wildfires have incinerated France and Spain, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and driving what has likely been both countries’ largest peacetime evacuations ever. If regions haven’t been torched, they may be parched. Water levels in the Danube River, a vital artery for Europe, have plunged to such depths that remnants of sunken World War II German warships are now visible to onlookers. It’s been far from an idyllic summer for Europe, where powerful wildfires have incinerated France and Spain, forcing hundreds of thousands of people…

Claim: The U.S. Army swore in four senior executives with ties to technology companies Meta, Palantir, OpenAI and Thinking Machines Lab as lieutenant colonels. Rating: Context The Army swore in tech executives with ties to those companies in June 2025 — not in summer 2026, like some social media posts implied. Rather, in July 2026, the Army announced it had commissioned three other tech executives, including another person from Meta, one from Cloudflare and another from Sutter Hill Ventures. In 2026, social media users spread a rumor that the U.S. Army swore in four senior tech executives as lieutenant colonels. …

At least one person died in an explosive wildfire in British Columbia that prompted evacuation orders for roughly 20,000 people over the weekend, the authorities said on Sunday, as more than 100 blazes burned across the Canadian province.The Bald Range fire had consumed more than 33,000 acres as of Sunday night, according to the British Columbia Wildfire Service. The fire was out of control, and dozens of firefighters and other personnel were at the scene, the agency said.The fire was first reported Friday near Summerland, a district about 260 miles by road east of Vancouver, according to the wildfire service.…

Strapped up in his navy suit, blue tie and charmingly nerdy glasses, Andy Burnham entered No 10 newly appointed as our fifth prime minister in four years. I didn’t watch this historic scene live on BBC News. Instead, I saw a 10-second clip on TikTok, with a viral Love Island soundbite: “A hot new bombshell has entered the villa.” Not exactly the introduction you might expect from a world leader – or is it?The video sent millions of eyes rolling backwards and many flocking to the comments, cringing at the idea of British politics succumbing to ridiculous social media trends.…

I use Wireless earbuds constantly. I use them for work, running, working out, relaxing, traveling—whatever I am doing, chances are I have a pair of wireless earbuds on me, just in case. While some of the earliest models were huge and inconvenient, earbuds nowadays are slim, comfortable, and often affordable.The WIRED Reviews team doesn’t just use earbuds—we test them. Hundreds of them, actually. And after weeks of music, calls, commutes, and rogue earbuds flying out of our ears, we’ve chosen these favorites that are the best for most people.For more top picks, check out our other audio guides, like the…

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned that hackers are exploiting a critical-severity Progress Kemp LoadMaster command injection vulnerability. Kemp LoadMaster is a very popular Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and server load balancer used by tech companies and government entities worldwide (e.g., Amazon, U.S. Air Force) to distribute incoming web traffic across multiple servers, optimize app performance, and ensure high service availability. Progress Software says that 80% of Fortune 500 companies use its products and services, with Kemp LoadMaster having over 100,000 deployments worldwide. Tracked as CVE-2026-8037, this critical command injection security flaw enables unauthenticated attackers to execute…

In brief Bybit has sued North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau and the Lazarus Group in U.S. federal court over the $1.5 billion theft from the exchange in February 2025. A judge granted a preliminary injunction freezing identified stolen assets and found Bybit likely to succeed on the merits, according to the exchange. Some $48 million has been recovered and $31 million frozen across more than 28 exchanges and custodians. Crypto exchange Bybit has filed a civil lawsuit against North Korea over the theft of $1.5 billion from the exchange in February 2025, and secured a court order freezing stolen…

Karen Schaeffer is used to spending a lot of time thinking about how to keep kids happy and healthy. But only recently has she confronted a new problem at the childcare center she runs in Lititz, Pennsylvania: hazardous air wafting south from wildfires blazing far away in Canada.  “Until the past few years, we’ve never had to worry about this,” she said. This marks her 39th year at St. Paul Christian Early Learning Center, where she and her staff take care of 130 children ranging from infants to elementary school-aged students.  On July 17, she made the decision to keep…

Abdul El-Sayed’s win in the Michigan Senate primary was a historic breakthrough. Not only because he is a Muslim son of immigrants who broke with almost every single tenet of establishment Democratic party politics. But because he has wiped that complacent sneer at progressive wins off the faces of centrist gatekeepers. Zohran Mamdani? Relax, he’s just a mayor. And it’s New York City. Outside urban and liberal corridors, there is nothing to worry about. Now El-Sayed has won the Democratic party’s nomination in a swing state that is also on the list of presidential nomination states.There is a lot to…