Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Over the past few months, AI agents undergoing cybersecurity evaluations have escaped their boundaries, accessed the internet, and, in some cases, hacked into real-world systems. The incidents have involved models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and most recently, Chinese AI lab Moonshot AI, with testing conducted by several different organizations including a cyber evaluation startup called Irregular.  The episodes expose a growing problem for the AI industry: As autonomous agents become more capable, the environments designed to safely test their limits are failing to contain them.  “The number of these incidents that have taken place make clear that sandboxing and testing…

The Treasury auctions will total $125 billion from Aug. 11 through Aug. 13, while two inflation reports land hours before the corresponding 10-year and 30-year sales. The sequence will show whether softer bond demand and any resulting rise in yields coincide with pressure on Bitcoin.The Treasury refunding plan starts with $58 billion of 3-year notes at 1 p.m. EDT on Aug. 11. It continues with $42 billion of 10-year notes at the same time on Aug. 12 and $25 billion of 30-year bonds on Aug. 13. All three settle Aug. 17.The gross total is not a $125 billion liquidity drain.…

Numbering fewer than 25,000, lions remain vulnerable to extinction. These big cats have suffered catastrophic declines and today occupy roughly 6% of their historical range. Living with lions (Panthera leo) is not easy. Outside of protected areas, lions kill livestock and, infrequently, people. In response, the cats are poisoned, shot and speared. But across Africa, where the majority of lions live, communities are trialing traditional and new ways to ensure people and lions can coexist. To mark World Lion Day on Aug. 10, 2026, here is a look at some of Mongabay’s recent coverage of those projects. Protecting…

Home Middle East Live Issued on: 10/08/2026 – 07:31Modified: 10/08/2026 – 07:51 Smoke rises during Houthi missile and drone strikes on the Red Sea port city of Mocha, Yemen on August 9, 2026. © Reuters Yemen’s military said seven people were killed and 30 injured in a Houthi attack on the Red Sea port city of Mocha. Meanwhile, Iran said the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US met certain demands made by Tehran. Follow our live blog for the latest developments. 10/08/2026 – 07:29Tehran issues new list of demands for US to reopen Strait of Hormuz Iran’s national…

Subscriptions will be easier to cancel and companies will be compelled to make it clear when contracts auto-renew at a higher price, Andy Burnham has announced.The prime minister is also planning to outlaw shops from falsely claiming products previously retailed at much lower prices to advertise supposed deals, which he said tricks shoppers into thinking they are getting better value on purchases.Burnham will bring forward a package of changes announced under his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer to end so-called subscription traps and a crackdown on “pretend prices”.Shadow chancellor Mel Stride branded the measures “reheated” and said the prime minister “has…

In her upcoming book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,” Jill Lepore warns that tech companies are increasingly replacing the functions of democratic government. This shift, she said, marks “a return to tyranny and mystification in the form of rule by algorithms, corporations, machines.” On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, I spoke to Lepore — a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her history of the U.S. Constitution — about the evolution of what she described as “the idea that we should live under an artificial state or…

A Bitcoin security researcher says he has been forced to go back to using open-source Chinese AI models after finding himself restricted from analyzing further codebases by OpenAI, highlighting a growing concern that the most capable AI tools aren’t being made available to defenders. In an X post on Tuesday, AnchorWatch CEO Rob Hamilton said he had begun integrating OpenAI’s Trust & Cyber capabilities into his Bitcoin Red Team work on Saturday, only to find his access restricted the following morning. “It absolutely guts me as a patriotic American to have to do this, but I will be going back to using…

A week of intensive meditation and other mind and body practices may be capable of producing measurable changes far beyond simple relaxation. In a recent study, researchers at the University of California San Diego found that a seven-day retreat was associated with changes in brain activity, blood chemistry, immune signaling, metabolism, and the body’s natural pain control systems. The researchers also found signs of increased neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to adapt, reorganize, and form new connections. The findings, published in Communications Biology, offer new clues about how mental practices and conscious experiences may influence physical biology. Measuring the…

Human-induced climate change has more than doubled the likelihood of the extreme weather conditions that fueled Canada’s destructive 2026 wildfire season, finds a rapid analysis. As of early August, thousands of wildfires torched more than 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) across the country — an area already significantly in excess of Canada’s 30-year annual average of 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres). The 2026 wildfire season has escalated with astonishing speed, with approximately 94% of the total burned area accumulating in a brief five-week window between late June and late July. In its analysis of Canada’s wildfires,…

A British national was shot dead in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during clashes between security forces and protesters, the Guardian can reveal.Another Briton has been held in a regional prison for more than two months despite his family’s efforts to secure his release through the Foreign Office.The details, which have not been previously reported, shed light on how Britons with familial ties to the region have been affected by the clashes, which have killed dozens in the Himalayan territory and posed the biggest challenge for Pakistani authorities in recent years.Mohammad Akhtar, 50, a resident of Peterborough, was killed on 9 June after…