Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Meta shares plunged on Wednesday as investors balked at its promise to keep spending on artificial intelligence (AI) projects while profits dwindle.Shares in the firm behind Instagram and Facebook fell by as much as 11% after its results for the quarter from April to June showed revenue grew 28% from a year ago to $61bn (£45.6bn), while profits fell 14% to $6bn.Meta said it would spend $130bn to $145bn this year, mostly on AI projects, up from the $125bn it said it planned to spend just three months ago.Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s AI spending was “accelerating every…

The Russian state-sponsored hacking group Laundry Bear, also known as Void Blizzard, is exploiting an Exchange Outlook Web Access vulnerability in email campaigns to deliver a sophisticated backdoor called OWAReaper. Email security company Proofpoint spotted the activity a week ago targeting various organizations, including government entities in the U.S. and Europe, and companies in the telecommunications, financial, hospitality, and aerospace sectors. Laundry Bear exploited CVE-2026-42897, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that allows executing arbitrary JavaScript in the browser context when users open a specially crafted email in the Outlook Web Access (OWA) app. Previously, the same hackers leveraged another XSS…

In brief Researchers at AmericanFortress proposed ZKPoSP, a post-quantum signature scheme for hierarchical deterministic crypto wallets. The system replaces elliptic curve signatures with zero-knowledge proofs while preserving existing wallet addresses. The approach builds on earlier post-quantum ownership research without requiring users to migrate funds. Researchers at AmericanFortress, a Wyoming-based blockchain security and cryptography company focused on post-quantum security and digital asset infrastructure, have proposed a cryptographic system they say could allow Bitcoin and other blockchain wallets to withstand future quantum attacks without changing existing wallet addresses.In a paper titled “ZKPoSP: Post-Quantum Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets,” AmericanFortress researchers describe…

Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has been a puzzling scientific endeavor. One popular theory is that little red dots are supermassive black holes known as active galactic nuclei, although they display characteristics unlike nearby active galactic nuclei. While they appear abundant at high redshift early in the universe, they rapidly decrease in number at lower redshifts. (The higher the redshift, the greater the distance the light has traveled across the universe.)…

(function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); Democrats are expected to easily retain New York’s 12th district, currently held by retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler. And yet, outside groups have already spent $41.2 million on the race thanks to a competitive primary that featured familiar names and a debate over AI policy. Micha Lasher won 39.7% of the vote, defeating fellow state Assemblyman Alex Bores, Jack Schlossberg (grandson of John F. Kennedy) and Republican-turned-Trump-antagonist George Conway, among others. Think Big, a super PAC supported by elements of the AI industry such as OpenAI and backing Democratic candidates, spent $8…

Earlier this month, two of OpenAI’s models broke out of their containment sandbox and attacked another AI company. The story is kind of wild. OpenAI was running security tests on two of its models: GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model that is almost certainly GPT-6. In particular, it was running the ExploitGym benchmark, which measures how good a model is at turning security vulnerabilities into working exploits: basically, offensive cyberattacks. Since these were internal tests, OpenAI locked those models in a secure sandbox that denied them access to the internet. But it was running the models without any safety filters…

Australia is taking Telegram to court over its alleged failure to remove “pro-terror” material, including video of the Christchurch shootings, the country’s eSafety commissioner has said.Julie Inman-Grant, who last year led Australia’s world-first ban on social media for under-16s, said the platform faced a fine of up to to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to comply with its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act.The platform had left content “linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history” online long after it had been put on notice, she alleged.”This should concern all of us,”…

Asked if Netanyahu advocated for a specific course, the official said Netanyahu didn’t advocate for anything in particular but drilled down in specific detail about each of the roads ahead.“The value of what we did … is I think we added some new ideas,” the senior Israeli official said.Earlier in the conflict, Netanyahu and his aides were more prescriptive in their counsel to Trump, outlining a military plan that would see Iran’s regime fall quickly that failed to bear out. Now Netanyahu is more circumspect.The Israelis know that Trump is in charge, so they’re being cautious about not being perceived…

Carmakers are delaying final decisions to invest in UK factories until electric car sales rules are relaxed, according to the head of the British car industry’s lobby group.The chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Mike Hawes, said those with existing UK operations were considering building new models, but had held back so far.The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has indicated that the mandate is likely to be watered down. Photograph: Yui Mok/PAThe British car industry has put heavy pressure on the Labour government to weaken the rules, known as the zero emission vehicle mandate, which forces…

Andy Burnham has always liked to be liked. Studying at secondary school near Liverpool in the 1980s, he writes in his autobiography and manifesto, Head North, “involved me walking something of a tightrope. Because of my mum and dad’s insistence that I should aim for university, I would largely try to keep up to date with my work. But … I realised I could often make the class laugh and that won me credit with the in-crowd. It was hard to be both a good student and one of the lads.”As the new leader of a divided country, he is…