Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Nepal’s tiger population has risen by roughly 20 percent in the past four years to an estimated 429, officials said on Wednesday, a conservation milestone despite challenges from human-wildlife conflict. The latest nationwide survey found tiger numbers had increased from 355 in 2022, reinforcing the Himalayan nation’s reputation as a success story in big-cat conservation. “The data analysis shows that the tiger population has increased by five percent each year, and we are happy to see this increasing trend,” Bed Kumar Dhakal, spokesman for Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, told AFP. Read moreCambodia wants to bring tigers…

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said that before assisted dying is considered in England and Wales, the funding of palliative and social care should be “fixed”.It is the first time Burnham has set out his position on the issue since becoming prime minister, as MPs prepare to debate it again when Parliament returns in September.The government is likely to remain officially neutral, but Burnham’s remarks suggest he personally will not back a bill being proposed by Labour MP Lauren Edwards.The position is a shift from that of former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who voted in favour of the previous…

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it intended to end a Biden-era program that for the past two years has helped tamp down the cost of monthly premiums for drug coverage for people on Medicare.The decision means that millions of Americans 65 and older could face higher Medicare drug premiums next year, when the cost of living is already a major concern. That could be politically damaging for Republicans in the midterm elections. In the weeks leading up to November, Medicare beneficiaries could experience sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan.For 2025 and 2026, the federal government…

Ofgem has proposed new measures which could see developers of data centres made to pay hundreds of millions of pounds up front.The British energy regulator said a refundable fee should be charged for projects that want to connect to the network, amid mounting demand for connections to the electricity grid.It is proposing developers pay a deposit between £237,500 to £712,500 per megawatt – meaning data centres seeking 1 gigawatt (GW) of power would have to pay hundreds of millions up front, paid back if the project was completed.The proposal follows growing opposition in parts of the country to plans for…

Google’s AI-generated summaries appeared in 43% of US searches measured by Similarweb, up from 15% a year earlier, according to the market intelligence firm’s 2026 Generative AI Landscape report.AI Overviews display generated summaries within conventional Google results, while AI Mode provides a conversational interface for longer questions and follow-up prompts. Users can move from an AI Overview into AI Mode while retaining the context of their original search.Google said AI Mode uses a technique called query fan-out, which divides a question into related subtopics and runs multiple searches. The system uses information from those searches to produce a response with…

OpenAI on Tuesday revealed the rogue artificial intelligence (AI) agent that escaped its sealed evaluation environment and broke into Hugging Face’s production environment also hacked multiple third-party accounts and services as part of the attack. The latest disclosure shows that the security incident, which stemmed from an internal security test, was more extensive in scope than previously thought. The AI company said its ongoing review of the incident revealed a “small number of cases” where the models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and an “even more capable pre-release model,” identified and used exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services. “This…

In brief Three Bitcoin holders have sued Apple in California federal court, saying a counterfeit Sparrow Wallet app took a combined $1.8 million. One plaintiff reported the app to Apple; another downloaded it nine days later and lost $840,000, the complaint says. Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw has publicly flagged copycat iOS apps since January 2024. Three Bitcoin holders have sued Apple over a counterfeit Sparrow Wallet app they say drained a combined $1.8 million. The complaint, filed on July 24 in the Northern District of California, brings eight counts including fraud, negligent misrepresentation and strict products liability.Each plaintiff entered…

Helen Wakeham, director of water at the Environment Agency and chair of the National Drought Group, said: “The hot and dry weather means we are currently using water faster than nature can replenish it.”North Wales and the Upper Severn river basin entered drought conditions last week, Natural Resources Wales said.Scotland does not declare drought but monitors “water scarcity”. Some parts of eastern Scotland are in the most extreme category of “significant scarcity”, according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.The full list of English regions in drought conditions are: East AngliaHertfordshire and the whole of LondonThames ValleyHampshire and the Isle of…

One of the most cooked fish in the Brazilian Amazon, the tambaqui was included in the official national list of threatened species, triggering fear of losses from Amazon small-scale fishers who depend on the species for their livelihood.The tambaqui was classified as vulnerable due to projections of a 43.4% overall population decline over three generations as it’s targeted by intense fishing.Starting at the end of October, its fishing could be prohibited in Brazil if a recovery plan isn’t implemented, according to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.The gray triggerfish was also included in the list of 490 fish…

by Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch July 29, 2026 Click here to read highlights from the story Labor and employment attorney Victor Forberger offered several tips for people who are filing for unemployment during a recent webinar. He advised people to know the difference between an initial claim and a weekly certification; to know that mistakes can be used against you; to make sure you’re searching for work; to document and retain records of your work search actions; to report all job offers; and to know if the reason you left your job is valid. In Wisconsin, filing…