Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Better Mortgage and Coinbase announced on Aug. 26 that Better’s token-backed conforming mortgage had reached general availability. Better’s product page says interested borrowers can start an application.The structure does not use Bitcoin to secure the primary mortgage. Instead, a homebuyer takes two loans from Better: a standard first mortgage on the home designed to conform to Fannie Mae guidelines, and a separate loan that supplies the cash down payment. The second loan is secured by pledged Bitcoin and a second lien on the property. Related ReadingHomebuyers can now borrow against Bitcoin to get a mortgage without selling or liquidation risk…

Rock glaciers look very different from conventional glaciers. Instead of exposed ice, they resemble sprawling fields of loose rock, while potentially concealing large quantities of ice below the surface. These formations are widespread across Utah’s Wasatch and Uinta ranges and can also be found on the Colorado Plateau in the La Sal Mountains near Moab. University of Utah geologists have now taken a detailed look inside one of the state’s largest examples, the Timpanogos Rock Glacier beneath the prominent summit of Mount Timpanogos near Salt Lake City and Provo. Two new studies examine how the glacier formed and reveal how…

Clair Spry says her sister would hate the attention. She would want it focused on the Nepali people, who have been displaced or are in need of aid. She would want it to be on the impact of the climate crisis, especially on the world’s most economically vulnerable populations.“Her focus right now would not be on her; it would be on the families,” Spry said. “So many people, the Nepalese people, that have been horribly displaced and traumatised. She would want the attention on them and how we are going to help them.“And global warming. This is something the poorest…

As he struggles with questions about the millions he has received from the billionaire Christopher Harborne, Nigel Farage has made no secret of his enthusiastic support for the industry that made part of his benefactor’s fortune – cryptocurrency. The Reform UK leader even urged the governor of the Bank of England to drop a crypto policy that may be costly for Harborne.But another element of Harborne’s business interests could prove still more consequential if it shapes Farage’s positions. There appears to be no precedent for a major UK donor who is so entwined with the military.The Guardian’s ongoing investigation into…

About 1,600 federal employees who work at the General Services Administration have been forced to relocate from their office on F Street in Washington, DC, to the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, roughly two blocks away. Workers say the new building, which also houses staff from the Office of Personnel Management has mice, a caved-in bathroom ceiling, and drinking water that needs to be run for five to 10 seconds before it is clear.The federal workforce has been rocked by changes made by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since January 2025. DOGE effectively fired tens of thousands of workers and…

Anthropic has opened a research preview of the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a shared specification that lets AI agents discover and operate physical devices. The problem it targets is plumbing. A lab bench or factory cell is assembled from vendors that never planned to interoperate, so every instrument ships its own interface and specialists hand-write bespoke translators between each pair. According to Anthropic team, the setup normally takes weeks to months, and that MHS cuts it to hours or minutes. The Integration Tax Each instrument ships its own programming interface, so specialists hand-write bespoke translators between every pair. Even once…

Corporate IT and security teams have the unenviable task of keeping relentless and increasingly sophisticated adversaries at bay. They’re often faced with limited resources and expanding attack surfaces, but recruiting and retaining top-tier security professionals to run an in-house Security Operations Centre (SOC) is out of reach for many organizations. At the same time, threats continue to evolve and adversaries hone their techniques, leading to incidents that often grind business operations to a halt. To avoid being caught on the back foot, defenders need an approach that’s proactive and combines prevention, detection, remediation with accurate and timely threat intelligence. If…

In brief Bitcoin trades at $80,526, up 1.9% on the day, after getting rejected near $81,265 earlier this week. The Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium opened today under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy,” with new Chair Kevin Warsh’s keynote due Friday. The charts are signaling overbought conditions for BTC, even as the broader trend score seems bullish. Bitcoin is knocking on the door of its next major resistance wall right as the world’s most-watched central banking conference gets underway with an agenda that, for once, is actually about crypto’s own back yard.BTC is changing hands at $80,526,…

Soil supports the food we eat, stores water, carbon and nutrients, and provides habitat for an enormous share of life on Earth. Scientists estimate that more than half of global biodiversity exists below the surface. But soil biodiversity is declining around the world, threatening agriculture, food security and the ability of ecosystems to function properly. To investigate this hidden world, researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH) and Agroscope, the Swiss federal center of excellence for agricultural research, launched the citizen science project Proof by Underpants (Beweisstück Unterhose) in 2021. The project was designed both to raise awareness of soil…

The One Nation hype machine went into overdrive after Saturday’s Secret Harbour byelection but one thing is clear from the thumping victory.Despite the party’s sustained surge in public support, Labor and the Coalition still don’t have any idea how to calm an angry electorate and dint support for Pauline Hanson and her insurgent movement.Even before One Nation’s Luke Herdegen was confirmed as having easily defeated Labor’s Georgia Tree in the suburban Western Australia seat previously held by Labor, One Nation’s WA leader Rod Caddies declared there were “no safe Labor seats in this state or in this country any more”.By…