Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis killed dozens of Saudi-supported government troops in missile and drone attacks Thursday, medical sources said, as the country’s conflict becomes the latest front in the US-Iran war. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels attacked government positions with ballistic missiles and drones in response to an alleged military buildup backed by neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Read moreYemen says ready to escalate against Houthi rebels as they target Saudi Arabia The attacks killed at least 38 government troops and injured 29, two medical sources told AFP. A military official described them as the deadliest between the two sides…

The White House’s push to delay a ban on intoxicating hemp products that President Trump signed into law last year has snarled an otherwise straightforward effort to pass legislation that would lock in government funding through the fall before senators leave Washington on a summer recess.In an unusual display of defiance, a group of Republicans led by Senator Ted Budd of North Carolina was vowing to kill the hemp proposal that Senate leaders had tucked into the spending bill at the request of Mr. Trump.The measure would postpone the date the ban will go into effect, from November to Dec.…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldAn Argentine grid operator has accused US officials of inappropriately pressuring it to cancel an infrastructure project with Huawei, as Donald Trump widens efforts to limit Beijing’s influence in Latin America.CALF, a regional electric grid co-operative, said on Wednesday that a US embassy official in July asked one of its executives “if there was a possibility of cancelling the project” with the Chinese technology group, citing a “US government policy restricting or revoking visas” for directors of Huawei-linked projects.A spokesperson…

It is unlikely Meta will be the last to emerge with findings of models showing they have, as Prof Woodward puts it, “gone to school” – and learnt our own ways of finding and exploiting gaps in systems.For some, these episodes point to clear security failures on the part of AI companies leading the charge on this game-changing, era-defining tech.For others, they are merely another vehicle for tech firms to hype up their powerful models and compete with rivals. For me, both theories hold some grain of truth.But in rearing their head one after another, these events have nonetheless spurred…

Cloudflare has released Kitesurf, a stateless web browser built specifically for AI agents. It runs entirely in V8 isolates on Cloudflare Workers, with no Chromium underneath. Browser engines like Chromium were built for humans, and their memory and compute overhead makes one-browser-per-agent prohibitively expensive. Agents do not need tabs, extensions, or pixel-perfect 60-fps rendering. They need machine-readable content, low token overhead, scalability, and isolation against threats like prompt injection. Kitesurf drops the human-facing parts and keeps what models use. It already passes 215,000+ Web Platform Tests and is available now, free while in beta, through Browser Run. Is It Deployable…

Most security teams don’t suffer from a lack of data. They suffer from a lack of certainty. Vulnerability scanners, annual penetration tests, and compliance assessments can generate thousands of findings. Yet they often fail to answer a simple question: Which risks actually matter? For a global investment firm operating across 18 locations, that question became increasingly important. A small security engineering team was responsible for securing a growing environment while balancing infrastructure projects, identity management, user support, and the countless responsibilities that come with protecting a modern enterprise. The team wasn’t struggling to generate findings. They were struggling to understand…

Hyperscale Data expects revenue to reach as much as $350 million in 2027, although the AI expansion consuming its Bitcoin holdings may contribute less than one-sixth of the total.In a statement this week, the company said that this projected revenue would triple the roughly $102 million generated in 2025. Its Adjusted EBITDA is projected at $60 million to $80 million for the year.Instead, the firm added that most of its revenue for the impending year would come from lending, digital assets and portfolio companies.Executive Chairman Milton “Todd” Ault III said the forecast reflects the combined contribution of Hyperscale’s three operating…

A craving for sweets may have helped set the stage for the evolution of the human brain. Over 4 million years, our lineage’s brains grew from about 300 grams to 1,500 grams. Much of the brain growth occurred before early humans had mastered both fire and cooking, which would have unlocked access to the energy of starches. A new analysis of existing data from human ancestors, as well as chimps, suggests that a large proportion of that energy probably came from sugary foods like fruits and honey. These simple carbohydrates may have played an important, overlooked role in humankind’s evolutionary…

HAMLET, N.C.—Steel skeletons of two-story buildings jut from the landscape strewn with building supplies, the site of a $10 billion Amazon data center touted as the largest economic development project in state history. Yet many residents vehemently oppose it. Richmond County officials secretly crafted the deal, which includes significant tax breaks for Amazon, then sprung it on an area already encumbered by pollution.  Sources in the county include two rock quarries, an asphalt plant, a company that processes wood pellets, a facility that turns railroad and landscaping ties into biochar, a poultry slaughterhouse and a natural gas power plant.  On…

Italian cabling company Prysmian has acquired a training facility for high-voltage cable jointers in Scotland, bringing on board over 20 apprentice jointers and experienced training staff. Located in North Ayrshire, the academy will support installation and inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) operations in the UK and across Europe, helping to ensure the availability of highly trained personnel involved in the delivery of the underground and subsea high-voltage transmission cable projects, Prysmian said. Raul Gil, EVP Transmission, Prysmian: “There is nobody more British in the cable sector than Prysmian – and today we also a little bit more Scottish. The jointers…