Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

What we learned, Sunday 9 AugustThanks for joining us today. We’re wrapping up the live news blog. Here’s a reminder of the top stories from today: Labor frontbencher Jenny McAllister says the government still thinks they’ve “broadly got the legislation right” on gambling reform but that they’re open to “sensible amendments” if some come forward; Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has delivered an ultimatum to the Albanese government over its gambling reform, saying the party will not vote for the proposed legislation as it stands; Two planes have narrowly avoided a collision on the tarmac at Sydney airport this morning as…

Kimi K3, the latest AI model made by Chinese company Moonshot, escaped an environment set up to test its cyber capabilities, researchers said in a blog post published on Friday.  The news shows once again that companies and independent organizations are struggling to contain their AI models designed for hacking. In recent weeks, frontier LLMs at U.S. artificial intelligence labs at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, as well as the U.K.’s AI Security Institute, all escaped testing environments in different ways and ended up hacking real targets that were not part of the experiment. This is starting to happen so often…

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has formally started the process to force a vote on whether the Senate will take up the CLARITY Act, giving the stalled crypto market-structure bill an immediate path to the floor when lawmakers return in September.Thune filed cloture early Saturday on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, shortly before the Senate adjourned for its summer recess. The chamber is scheduled to reconvene Sept. 14.The procedural move does not guarantee the legislation will pass, or even that the Senate will agree to debate it. But it represents the furthest…

To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on Aug. 9, Mongabay has interviewed nine Indigenous representatives from around the world about the subtleties in biodiversity conservation and climate solutions implemented by people at a local level.Solutions discussed ranged from strategies for reforestation and halting deforestation by extractives to conserving endemic plant species and strengthening Indigenous governance and traditional knowledge.But conversations also included solutions that are not currently working and why, and the nuances of implementation in particular Indigenous communities.Little input from Indigenous communities or a lack of understanding of local realities and cultural nuances are common…

Spain on Saturday started border checks on travellers arriving from Italy, responding to similar measures Rome imposed following an unprecedented migrant rush into the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta. “I don’t see a lot of the word ‘diplomacy’ used in these decisions, not by the Italian government, nor by the Spanish government,” said one 36-year-old Italian tourist, Maria Celeste Grillo, who had just flown into Madrid. She said she had not seen any added checks as she stepped off the plane, but found their implementation “sad”. Spain announced Friday it would proceed with the heightened controls, citing “persistent irregular…

Laptops keep getting more expensive. Many of my favorite laptops to recommend for budget-conscious shoppers are hundreds more today than they were six months ago.Then there’s the HP OmniBook 5 to save the day. Don’t let the retail price of $1,300 throw you off, either. This configuration has a 14-inch OLED screen, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage, but it’s frequently discounted. And right now, it’s 42 percent off, bringing the price down to just $750, $550 off its retail price.Importantly, this is also the model that comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chip inside. While…

In brief Bitcoin trades at $64,938, up 1.06% on the day, but stuck below iboth the short-term and long-term moving averages. The U.S. economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, missing the 95,000 gain economists expected; CME FedWatch cut September hike odds to 40% from 55%. The short-term outlook remains bearish, but dwindling rate-hike odds may give investors hope. The U.S. labor market cracked harder than anyone expected. Employers cut 23,000 jobs in July—the first net loss since the pandemic-era recovery, and a sharp miss against the 95,000 gain economists had penciled in.The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% only because…

Scientists have captured previously unseen plasma vortices swirling across the surface of the Sun, revealing tiny structures that could help explain how our star stores, moves, and releases magnetic energy. The discovery comes from researchers at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, and the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in the USA. The team combined observations from the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s largest solar telescope, with advanced computer simulations. Built and operated by the NSO in Hawaii, the telescope provided images detailed…

Claim: An image circulating in July 2026 authentically showed surveillance footage of a gorilla named Julius screaming for help after his human caretaker collapsed. Rating: In the summer of 2026, social media users circulated an image supposedly showing surveillance footage of a gorilla screaming for help after his “favorite caretaker” collapsed while giving the animal belly rubs.  The image — which appeared to be a collage of two surveillance footage stills, one before and one after the caretaker, supposedly named Julius, collapsed — and associated story spread on Facebook  and Instagram. Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether it was an…

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday, during a visit to Belgrade, that Ukraine was facing a winter with basically no working thermal power plants as overnight Russian strikes left four dead, including a child, in the Kyiv region. Speaking alongside his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, the Ukrainian leader said Moscow’s latest overnight attacks and shelling of frontline communities combined had killed 13 people in the last 24 hours. “Russian missiles are aimed precisely at making the lives of Ukrainians unbearable,” Zelensky told reporters during his first official visit to Belgrade, highlighting that the attacks often target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine was…