Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Written by Athanasios (Thanos) Klidaras, Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University  Sept. 21, 2026 After a long hiatus, the Perseverance rover updates page is back. A lot has happened on Mars in the meantime, and with regular updates now resuming, there is plenty to catch up on — Perseverance has been busy. The rover has spent 2026 exploring the “Lac de Charmes” area, an area of valleys and ridges west of the Jezero crater rim that represent a “wild west frontier” for the mission. The rocks in this area are among the oldest Perseverance has encountered. They formed when Mars was…

Justice Samuel Alito decided Monday to sit out one of the most consequential climate change cases to reach the Supreme Court, but legal experts expected continuing ramifications due to his ownership of individual corporate stocks, including in the fossil fuel industry. After months of resisting calls for his recusal, Alito reversed himself one week before the Supreme Court is set to open its term by hearing the oil industry’s bid to block Boulder, Colorado’s lawsuit to recover costs related to climate change. The clerk of the court sent a brief letter to the lawyers in the case saying, without explanation,…

For most of the past year, Slovenia’s official web domain registrar has recorded just around a thousand new registrations a month. That’s to be expected—after all, the small Eastern European country is home to only 2.1 million people.  But last week, after U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the portal received more than 6,000 registrations in just two days.  For most of the past year, Slovenia’s official web domain registrar has recorded just around a thousand new registrations a month. That’s to be expected—after all, the small Eastern European country is home to…

OpenAI has apologised to Australians for its agent attack on Medicare, and will front parliament next week, as the tech company revealed more details about its June hack of Australian government websites.In a blog post released on Tuesday, OpenAI said it should have handled its response better.“We also should have handled our response better. We are sorry and working to do better in the future.”The company also provided more detail on the incident revealed by the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last week.OpenAI said it became aware of agent activity on Australian government websites in mid-August after the company reviewed…

Peak XV Partners, one of the largest venture capital firms investing in markets including India and Southeast Asia with more than $10 billion in assets under management, has increased how much it invests per startup through Surge, its seed-stage investing platform, as it unveils a new cohort of 18 companies. At least three of the companies in this cohort had already raised outside funding, in some cases from Peak XV itself, before joining Surge. The new batch, called Surge 12, is the first to operate under Peak XV’s higher investment ceiling of up to $5 million per company, up from…

Keio Corporation (Keio), a major private railway operator in Japan, said its network was hit by a ransomware attack over the weekend, disrupting  some of its business systems. Following a system failure in the early hours of Saturday, the company confirmed the attack and shut down its network to prevent additional damage. The company said it is investigating the extent of the impact and whether the attackers accessed any customer or business partner information. Keio is a large Japanese railway operator with 85 km of track and 69 stations, as well as a separate hospitality business of 25 hotels. The…

NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the Bitget hack. Attackers stole $387.5 million from Bitget on Thursday. A significant portion of these funds moved across chains to Ethereum, according to Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, a protocol that lets users swap crypto assets across blockchains. Shevchenko said its SHIELD system detected and blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers, which subsequently went to other providers. It managed to freeze $503,000 in funds during execution, while around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed through.The post came as THORChain faced calls to block…

Marking a significant expansion in the number of signatories to the Artemis Accords, NASA welcomed Albania, Croatia, Côte d’Ivoire, and San Marino, bringing total participation to 76 countries.  “Our momentum reflects a growing commitment to peaceful, responsible exploration and a shared understanding that the future in space will be shaped by those willing to lead,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Nearly one-third of all signatories have joined since the start of President Trump’s second term. As the President directs NASA to return Americans to the lunar surface and lay the groundwork for Mars, we are strengthening a coalition of partners…

In Sri Lanka, the traditional snake charming culture is fast fading as changing livelihoods, modern entertainment and attitudes toward wildlife reshape the island’s nomadic community, the Ahikuntika tribe.During the act of snake charming, cobras do not respond to the music itself, but to the movement of the charmer and instrument, which they perceive as a potential threat, herpetologists say.Breaking a cobra’s venom fangs, which the snake charmers do, does not necessarily prevent it from developing replacement fangs, while deliberate fang removal can cause injury and raise animal-welfare concerns, conservationists say.Researchers recommend using the existing traditional knowledge of snakes to…

Claim: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, is getting a divorce because of an affair with Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. Rating: In 2026, a rumor spread that former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney was getting a divorce because of her supposed affair with Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.  The story spread on X and Facebook (screenshot). The claims referenced Cheney and Raskin serving together on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. (X user Larry Dean) Some users seemed to interpret the rumor about the alleged affair as true. Snopes readers contacted us to…