The Times of London has quietly removed the central allegation from a report on Conservative Party leader Olukemi Badenoch’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome. The story, which led The Times website on Tuesday, and featured prominently in the physical newspaper, claimed the Italian PM urged Badenoch not to make a deal with Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

After an investigation by The National Pulse, however, The Times – owned by Rupert Murdoch – was forced to materially change its story, leaving only around 30 percent of the original content intact. The paper included no correction, no editor’s note, and no further explanation to readers. The drastically altered article still bears a poll relevant to their original headline: “Meloni warns friend Badenoch against deal with Farage,” and most of the comments relate to that story, even though all reference to the “deal,” as well as Reform or Farage have now been removed from the story.

The National Pulse spoke with sources close to Meloni on Tuesday morning, who confirmed that no such conversation had taken place. The sources explained that the lie had been exposed to the Italian press immediately, and then to The Times, whose Political Editor, Steve Swinford, appears to have filed verbatim from the Conservative Party leader’s press team, without fact-checking with Meloni’s office, or even double-sourcing the story.

The report initially presented this as a significant intervention from one conservative leader to another. Badenoch, it said, was resisting pressure to cooperate with Farage’s Reform, with Meloni supposedly advising her to hold the line. It was precisely the sort of foreign endorsement the Tory leader’s camp would like to have: Meloni, Europe’s most electorally successful right-wing prime minister, apparently backing Badenoch against the insurgent party threatening to consume the Conservatives.

But Meloni’s Brothers of Italy has now flatly denied the conversation took place.

In a clarification now reported by both Italian and European outlets, sources close to Meloni said she had never advised Badenoch against an alliance with Farage or Reform UK. They stressed that Meloni had “no reason for hostility” towards Farage’s movement, and said she neither had entered nor wished to enter the domestic political dynamics between British parties.

The original article, originally 756 words, became a 477-word piece with a new, innocuous headline: “I want to revive economy like Giorgia Meloni did, says Kemi Badenoch.”

What remained was a substantially less dramatic account of two friendly politicians discussing the economy, wealthy people leaving their countries, Ukraine, and Meloni’s political path.

The Times has erased the central claims of their own story without so much as a note at the top or bottom – a fundamentally dishonest response never seen before in UK media.

The episode leaves serious questions for Steve Swinford, Badenoch, and Conservative Party headquarters.

1. Who briefed the purported conversation?
2. Did Badenoch’s team supply the anti-Reform framing?
3. Was the story double-sourced with anyone close to Meloni before publication?
4. Why did The Times apparently accept a claim so politically convenient to the Tory leader without obtaining meaningful confirmation from the Italian side?

Until those questions are answered, the reasonable inference is that the Conservatives appear to have fabricated a private exchange with Meloni in order to weaponise her prestige against Reform, while The Times bought it hook, line, and sinker.

The paper of record and the establishment party have once again demonstrated that they are two cheeks of the same arse: one supplying the spin, the other laundering it into fact, and nothing but excrement coming out.

The National Academy of Sciences has been forced to remove a long-disputed climate-science chapter from an influential judicial reference manual, but critics say its own internal process review is not enough to repair the damage done by the 183-year-old institution which was founded by President Abraham Lincoln.

The disputed climate-science chapter appeared in the 2025 fourth edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) with the Federal Judicial Center (FJC). The manual was intended to “help” federal judges evaluate complex scientific and technical evidence presented in court.

But the FJC had to remove the chapter after Republican attorneys general, lawmakers, and legal experts found contributions penned by contributors locked in litigation against energy companies. The conflict of interest was never declared, and NASEM even initially kept the material online before reversing course on August 7.

“The NAS has determined that questions about the processes used to develop the chapter warrant an independent review, and the chapter will not appear on our website while that review is underway,” the organization recently announced.

But to date, NASEM has not publicly identified who will conduct the review, disclosed its full scope, or even established a timetable for completion. The organization also admitted that the inquiry concerns its procedures rather than the underlying validity of climate science.

Critics are now arguing that this distinction protects the chapter’s conclusions before the investigation has even begun, rendering this internal review pointless. They contend that a review controlled or commissioned by the institution responsible for publishing the material cannot credibly determine whether the process was compromised.

The controversy centers on Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and an of-counsel attorney at Sher Edling. The law firm represents state and local governments seeking damages from energy companies over alleged climate-related harms.

Sher Edling’s own biography of Burger states that he helps public agencies pursue fossil-fuel companies and has submitted briefs in climate cases. The firm has also undertaken climate litigation through contingency-fee arrangements, giving it a direct financial interest in successful claims against energy producers.

An April Oversight Project investigation used the iThenticate research-integrity service to compare the judicial chapter with previously published work. It reported a 33% overall similarity score, including a 23% match with a 2020 climate-attribution paper coauthored by Burger and the chapter’s two listed authors, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton.

The chapter also acknowledged Burger only for providing “insights and helpful feedback.” The Oversight Project has argued that the scale of the textual overlap indicates a substantially greater contribution than that description suggests.

The dispute, therefore, extends far beyond competing interpretations of climate science. Material designed to guide federal judges on questions of attribution, causation, and damages drew heavily upon work involving an attorney connected to plaintiffs litigating those same questions.

Critics are now calling for the chapter’s permanent removal, the release of records concerning its drafting and review, and an outside examination of every participant’s legal, financial, and institutional interests. They also argue that the controversy is not confined to one chapter.

NASEM’s recently published report on extreme-weather attribution has also faced congressional scrutiny over possible conflicts involving committee members and organizations supporting climate-accountability litigation. House Science Committee leaders requested information about the committee’s composition, disclosure rules, closed meetings, and safeguards against outside influence.

There now looks to be a broader institutional problem, requiring scrutiny of NASEM’s climate-related committees, publications, reviewers, and conflict-of-interest procedures, rather than a narrow review of the one judicial chapter.

Federal funding has also now entered the dispute, with The Oversight Project reporting that federal sources account for a substantial share of NASEM’s budget. They’re urging Congress to reconsider taxpayer support for institutions producing material that could impede President Donald J. Trump’s energy-dominance agenda.

Until the reviewers, evidence, and standards are fully disclosed, the process will remain vulnerable to the charge that it is intended to preserve NASEM’s credibility and federal funding rather than establish how litigation interests gained influence over supposedly impartial judicial guidance.