Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday that they, along with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will lead a new pilot program to study whether thermal energy networks could help cool subway stations. During the summer, underground stations can reach temperatures far higher than those above ground because of heat generated by the trains, equipment and surrounding infrastructure.  “Anyone who has stood in a subway platform in August knows that our stations do not just get hot. They turn into underground saunas,” Mamdani said at a Monday press conference.  The $800,000 pilot study will…

Independent MP accuses Labor of ‘listening to the money and the power’ on gambling ad policyKate Chaney, who was on the inquiry with the late Labor MP Peta Murphy that handed down the landmark ‘you win some, you lose more’ report on gambling harm, says so far it seems the talks between the Coalition and Labor on a gambling reform package are “disappointing”.Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast a little earlier, the independent MP says the government has listened to the gambling lobby instead of the evidence.Part of the government’s proposed reforms limit online gambling ads on television to three…

New vape shops will require planning permission and councils will get more powers to stop betting shops, under government plans aimed at improving high streets.Prime Minister Andy Burnham said town centres had been “hollowed out” by decades of decline and “for many people, the high streets they grew up with have become unrecognisable”.BBC News has exposed organised crime on high streets across the country, revealing shops selling illegal cigarettes and vapes, selling cannabis and cocaine, enabling illegal working and suspected money-laundering.The Conservatives and Reform said the proposals would lead to “more empty” shops, without tax relief for other small businesses.Burnham…

A democratic socialist. An insurgent campaign. America’s swingiest swing state.A roller coaster of a primary race is crashing to a close this week in Wisconsin, where a chef-turned-state lawmaker has become the front-runner in the state’s Democratic contest for governor — much to the chagrin of a party establishment that has struggled to stop her.The progressive favorite, Francesca Hong, 37, is a democratic socialist who is betting that her populist pitch — she opposes the construction of data centers and unabashedly backs “Medicare for all” — will meet a moment of rising economic frustration.Mainstream Democrats are deeply worried that Hong’s…

Recently, a man I was rock climbing with told me about how he’d used AI to make a motivational poster for himself, which he’d hung on his bedroom wall: a bear, walking a slackline over a canyon, holding a sign that said, “Do cool shit.” I made what I hoped was a polite noise. What reaction was this man looking for? He probably hoped someone, maybe me, would say it was cool or inspiring. It seemed I was not the first person he’d told about this poster. “You know, it’s funny,” he said to me. “No one ever says anything…

Ravie LakshmananAug 10, 2026Ransomware / Cybercrime Microsoft has disclosed that Storm-1175, a financially motivated threat actor linked to China, has deployed a previously undocumented ransomware strain called StormEncryptor. The use of StormEncryptor marks a shift from the adversary’s previous use of Medusa ransomware, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Team said. “StormEncryptor is written in C++ and appends the file name extension .encrypted to files it encrypts,” Microsoft noted in a series of posts on Bluesky. “It then drops a ransom note named !!!README_FIRST!!!.txt to every scanned directory.” Although the exact vulnerability exploited by the threat actor as part of this campaign…

In brief Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has elevated quantum security and privacy since its 2023 roadmap. Ethereum researchers are increasingly relying on STARKs and AI-assisted formal verification. The roadmap also includes native rollups and explores a future beyond the EVM. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says quantum resistance, privacy, and AI-assisted security have become greater priorities for Ethereum since he published his 2023 roadmap.In a post on X on Monday, Buterin said he updated his 2023 roadmap to compare its original goals with Ethereum’s current “Strawmap”—a working outline of the network’s long-term technical priorities.“What’s most striking, however, is that some completely…

Norwegian energy data and intelligence company TGS has picked up a new 4D streamer acquisition assignment off the coast of Australia. Ramform Sovereign; Source: TGS TGS has secured the award of a 4D streamer acquisition contract offshore Australia for which the Ramform Sovereign seismic acquisition vessel is scheduled to mobilize in December 2026. The survey is expected to take close to 50 days. No further information about this assignment has been disclosed. The 2008-built vessel, part of the Ramform S-Class, is equipped for multi-sensor, broadband acquisition using TGS GeoStreamer technology and can tow up to 22 streamers. Kristian Johansen, CEO…

Hundreds of firefighters and helicopters battle a growing wildfire at Indonesia’s Mount Bromo.Close to 50,000 firefighters and disaster personnel, backed by dozens of helicopters, are battling wildfires in several parts of Indonesia after an unusually dry season in the sprawling archipelago.Increased El Nino conditions have raised the risk of more forest and land fires during the peak dry season, said Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Djamari Chaniago, on Monday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listAuthorities in East Java say the largest blaze is in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, where about 743 hectares (1,836 acres) of…

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated another $20 million to Build a Better California, an organization advocating against California’s proposed billionaire tax, according to a new filing. That means that the world’s fourth-richest man, whose net worth hovers around $267 billion, has now spent more than $100 million to avoid an estimated $13.3 billion tax payment. California’s Prop 40, known as the billionaire tax, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of around 200 billionaires that live in the state. The windfall from this proposed tax would mostly go toward funding California’s healthcare programs. The state’s Medicaid…