Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

KERMAN, Calif.—One hundred degrees on a steamy Thursday afternoon and not much can be seen along the dust-blown avenue in Kerman. A school bus cruises by. Cows lap up water or feed behind a fence. A tractor crosses the road.  What’s most evident in this span of the San Joaquin Valley is a seemingly misplaced white building. Emblazoned atop it: “H2B2 Electrolysis Technologies.” The roughly 13,000-cow dairy next to the building is quietly breaking new ground in the world of California dairy waste, according to regulators. There’s nothing else quite like it in the state.  A company called H2B2 is…

Outside the army camp in the Nuwakot district of Nepal, people run their fingers down the sheets of paper pinned to the wall, scanning the growing list of those reported missing for news of loved ones. Nepali authorities said nearly 3,000 people are missing, while China reported more than 550 people unaccounted for.People check the list of missing persons in Nuwakot, Nepal. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesA man checks the list of missing persons. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShareUpdated at 12.21 CESTKey eventsThis extraordinary composite satellite image captured by Planet Labs shows the glacier on Mount Langtang Lirung in Nepal before and after its collapse…

Twenty-seven people have been killed in an overnight drone strike on the Kyiv region, its governor has confirmed.Tymur Tkachenko said a further 42 people, including four children, were injured in the Russian attack on the Bucha district. A further 381 people have been evacuated.Search and rescue operations were ongoing early on Saturday as emergency services inspected buildings for damage.Tkachenko later added that a 14-year-old was killed in a separate attack in the Boryspil district. “This is yet another victim of Russian terror,” he said.President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying that more than 300…

Message discipline is being emphasised inside the Treasury too.The biggest moment for the Burnham government this autumn will come on 28 October, when Chancellor John Healey unveils the Budget.Sir Keir and his chancellor Rachel Reeves were widely seen to have been damaged politically when many of the policies in their Budgets made their way into the media.In response, Burnham’s administration has put measures in place to try to stop those leaks and it’s understood the Treasury is telling officials that Budget security is like national security.Nevertheless, speculation about the Budget is likely to dominate the coming weeks in Westminster, in…

A federal judge in California ruled on Thursday evening that the Trump administration’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk was illegal.  U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said in her ruling that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s labeling of Anthropic as a risk to national security signified “unlawful retaliation” in violation of the First Amendment, and said the decision was “arbitrary and capricious.” Lin also said Anthropic was denied due process, as required under the Fifth Amendment.  Earlier this year, Hegseth and President Donald Trump labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk and ordered all federal agencies, even those outside of defense, to stop…

Microsoft released the KB5120998 preview cumulative update for Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2, which comes with 35 changes, including improvements to the Start menu, taskbar, and Windows search. KB5120998 is a preview update that lets IT administrators test Windows bug fixes, improvements, and new features before they roll out to all users during next month’s Patch Tuesday release. However, unlike cumulative updates, monthly optional updates do not include security fixes and provide only quality improvements. After installing the August 2026 preview update, users can move the taskbar to the bottom, top, left, or right side of their screen in…

Polygon Labs said any Polygon PoS node that stayed on pre-hardfork Bor or Heimdall binaries past two August activation heights has already fallen out of canonical consensus. In practice, the stale node must upgrade and catch up before it can follow the network’s accepted history again.The company’s Aug. 27 security review described a client-compatibility consequence. Polygon said it had not observed mainnet disruption from Austin and framed the disclosed changes as proactive fixes.Bor is Polygon PoS’s execution client, while Heimdall handles consensus and checkpointing. Bor versions earlier than v2.10.0 are incompatible after Austin activated at mainnet block 91,949,700, a cutoff…

Researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU) have identified a potentially important source of low-emission energy beneath Western Australia, where vast iron-rich formations may be capable of generating naturally occurring hydrogen. The findings suggest that the region’s geology could eventually support a new domestic energy source and, if developed at scale, a major hydrogen export industry. Magnetite Could Generate Hydrogen Underground The research focuses on magnetite, a mineral that is abundant in Western Australia’s huge iron ore deposits across the Pilbara region. Scientists from ECU’s School of Engineering found that magnetite can release hydrogen gas when it reacts with hot water…

Both President Donald Trump and a clean energy super PAC that backed Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, are celebrating her victory over Rep. Ralph Norman in Tuesday’s South Carolina Republican Senate primary. The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition (ITC), financed by solar entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, spent $1 million on the race. This marks the second time the PAC has turned its fire against Norman, after helping quash his bid for governor earlier this summer. The group has targeted specific Republican candidates that have supported efforts to roll back clean energy initiatives. It has spent…

A dramatic start to Matchday 2 in Ligue 1. Just like last week at Rennes, Paris Saint-Germain found themselves 2-0 down, only to produce another miraculous comeback. Vitinha sparked the revival before Marquinhos rescued a point for the Parisians in Lille. Elsewhere in sports news, Manchester City ran riot in the Premier League. Powered by braces from Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland, the Citizens swept aside Crystal Palace 4-1 on Friday. In Germany, Bayern Munich’s French contingent was on fire. Dayot Upamecano scored the first goal of the Bundesliga season, while Michael Olise, also on the scoresheet and named Man…