Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Tim O’Reilly’s yardstick for measuring the worth of a company, person, or society has long been create more value than you capture. It’s no surprise that O’Reilly—publisher, internet pioneer, VC, conference organizer, and dispenser of tech wisdom—is applying that metric to the way people design and use AI. Specifically, he’s pushing for a future where open-source AI is an elixir for the masses. He worries that, like Microsoft in the 1990s, today’s hyperscalers are trying to lock users into their products. So he is promoting efforts to open-source AI technology—not only making critical technical details such as neural-net weights accessible,…

Bitcoin (BTC) declined into Friday’s Wall Street open as traders increasingly saw a BTC price breakdown next.Key points:Bitcoin stays below $63,000, heading steadily closer to new August lows while US stocks build on record highs.Analysis says that $63,220 must be reclaimed by the weekly close to avoid a deeper rout.Markets look to PCE inflation data as the next key test for risk assets.Bitcoin price sags with stocks at all-time highsData from TradingView showed BTC/USD down 1.3% on the day at $62,570, near its lowest levels month-to-date.BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingViewDespite encouraging US inflation data lifting risk assets and reducing the…

The UK’s electric vehicle (EV) sales target could be cut after the government launched a review following pressure from car makers.Currently 80% of all new cars sold must be EVs by 2030 – but motor industry figures had urged ministers to reduce that goal, warning it would cost too much and put jobs at risk.The government has now said it is considering cutting that figure to as far as 50% of all sales by the end of the decade, which it will consult on until late October.Environmental groups have argued that watering down the target undermines the UK’s long-term climate…

The tiny, seldom-studied sand cat is the only feline adapted to survive in harsh deserts: It lives across Southwest and Central Asia, northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.Because of its large geographic range, this cat isn’t classified as threatened by the IUCN, but data is difficult to come by. Some scientists want to uplist the species to near-threatened status.The sand cat is difficult to see, day or night. After scattered anecdotal reports, scientists used camera traps to document the first systematic record of the sand cat in Qatar. Their findings offer valuable glimpses into this elusive species’ distribution and…

Greece’s transmission system operator (TSO) Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), as the project promoter of the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) that will connect Cyprus and Israel, has submitted an investment approval request to the regulatory authorities of both countries. Source: IPTO This is the necessary next step under the European framework toward project implementation, following the completion of the required cost-benefit analysis (CBA) studies and the proposal for the cross-border cost allocation (CBCA). During the preparation of the studies, consultation and data exchange took place with the competent entities of Cyprus and Israel, including the ministries of energy, the Transmission…

Reporting Highlights Philanthropy’s Gatekeepers: Donor-advised fund sponsors control $327 billion in giving, granting them vast power to decide which charities can receive donor dollars. Selective Defunding: Major sponsors froze grants to the Southern Poverty Law Center following an unproven indictment while continuing to fund other institutions facing severe legal scrutiny. Little Accountability: Wall Street-affiliated funds remove charities without providing clear reasons or pathways to appeal, refusing to explain themselves to donors and the public. These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. When the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center in April…

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief. The highlights this week: A deadly earthquake rattles Colombia, the United States threatens visa bans for Argentines doing business with Huawei, and the final season of One Hundred Years of Solitude drops on Netflix. Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella had been in office for less than three days when a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit the country on Monday. The epicenter of the quake was in the Chocó department, which is located between Bogotá and the Pacific coast and lies on a few fault lines. Colombian officials said on Thursday that at least…

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly denied that politics were involved in the termination of more than 280 grants last October. A court filing made public in July, however, shows that Energy Department lawyers admitted that the only reason why those awards and not others were canceled is that the grant recipients were in states that vote for Democrats. Wright and the department have maintained that political considerations did not factor into the original selection of grants for termination, which included awards in both blue and red states for clean energy or energy efficiency projects. But in terms of which…

It resembled in many ways a summer camp. Barbecues and beach volleyball games were on offer. A wellness spa was called “Relax and Have Fun.”The men and women who attended the program at a resort complex in a remote part of Serbia also took part in more sinister activities, like learning to break through police cordons and set buildings on fire. They donned flak jackets and trained with assault rifles.Their counselors, it turned out, were operatives with ties to Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU. Their purpose, according to intelligence officials from three countries who described the activities,…

A Constitutional court in France on Friday rejected a bill that would ban access to social media for minors under 15 years old in a major blow to French President Emmanuel Macron. The Council of State, the top administrative court that advises the French government, said the restrictions in the bill disproportionately infringe on minors’ right to freedom of expression and communication. The bill also fails to put in place adequate protections for privacy, the court said. Macron had made Europe’s would-be first social media ban a flagship policy of his second and final term, aiming to push the new…