Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

The first group of large data centers in line to get connected to Texas’ grid won’t move forward until mid-December, grid officials say.  Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) staff needs to vet the first 300 projects, 90 percent of which are data centers, in “Batch Zero,” and put together a community impact review as directed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month.  Any data centers that don’t respond or don’t pass the verification process will be disqualified from Batch Zero, which was created earlier this year to refine how ERCOT studies the 1,800 projects now waiting for grid connection.  The…

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, whose account of growing up in a remote part of Spain, with the companionship of only wolves and other animals, was analyzed in a case study and adapted into literature and film, died this month at 80, according to the authorities in San Cibrao das Viñas, the municipality where he spent his final years.Mr. Rodríguez’s story came to light in the mid-1970s, about a decade after he had made what he described as an unwilling return to human society. Gabriel Janer Manila, a writer, heard about the case from a friend and wanted to learn more.“At first,…

M Squared Lasers – the Glasgow technology firm was hailed by Nicola Sturgeon as “a great example of the ambitious and innovative companies we have here in Scotland” when the national investment bank was launched in 2020. It went into administration in 2025 with debts of £64mTrojan Energy – the Aberdeen-based electric vehicle charging firm collapsed into administration with debt of almost £30m last yearKrucial – the Glasgow-based start-up, which specialised in satellite technology, folded last year. Orbex – set up to run a planned satellite launch facility in the north-west Highlands, the company is to be liquidated and its…

Zillow and Redfin have reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and five states, ending a legal fight over a 2025 partnership that the FTC claimed hurt competition in the rental-listing market. The settlement was announced on Monday, just as the case was scheduled to head toward trial this morning.  The case stems from a deal announced last year in which Redfin agreed to display Zillow’s rental listings on its websites rather than compete directly with Zillow for rental advertisers. The arrangement could have kept Redfin out of the rental advertising business for as long as nine years.…

Hackers are attempting to exploit two critical authentication bypass vulnerabilities in the miniOrange SAML 2.0 Single Sign On plugin for WordPress that can be used to forge SAML responses and log in as administrators. The miniOrange SAML SSO plugin turns a WordPress site into a SAML service provider, letting users log in through corporate identity platforms such as Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace, or OneLogin instead of separate WordPress credentials. Created by Xecurify, miniOrange is a family of seven plugins, with a free version that has 10,000 downloads and 30,000 customers for the other six. The two vulnerabilities observed…

Coinbase’s tokenized US stocks went live on Base Monday, alongside a Chainlink integration providing price data to support their use across decentralized finance applications.Chainlink Data Feeds will provide continuous pricing for Coinbase’s tokenized stocks, including Nvidia, Apple, Meta and Alphabet. The data allows DeFi protocols to integrate the assets into lending markets, decentralized exchanges and structured products, including as collateral for borrowing.According to Chainlink’s documentation, the feeds value each token using the underlying stock price and a Coinbase-supplied multiplier that accounts for dividends and corporate actions.The stocks are issued as B20 tokens natively on Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain, and are…

The documentation of the endangered red siskin, a rare bird, in Guyana inspired the creation of the South Rupununi Conservation Society.The organization has built a multi-community grassroots conservation approach that is grounded in traditional knowledge, organizes across 16 village boundaries and includes Indigenous villagers, farmers and teachers who research wildlife, develop conservation guidelines and teach local ecology.Projects include community conservation zones to protect wildlife such as giant anteaters, the genetic documentation of species and monitoring.Short-term funding, development pressure and cultural change threaten the model, even as communities invest their own money into projects.See All Key Ideas WICHABAI, Guyana…

The clock is ticking before a tenuous U.S.-China trade truce expires this fall, and the countdown has left U.S. President Donald Trump increasingly desperate to ditch Chinese rare earths once and for all. Few world powers understand that feeling quite like Japan. After all, the country has been in Washington’s shoes before: China shocked the world in 2010 when it halted rare-earth shipments to Japan over a geopolitical spat, driving a supply chain reckoning in Tokyo. Sixteen years later, Japan is often hailed as the country that has most successfully diversified away from Chinese rare earths. Yet it is far…

Timing and Canadian political will could also be a tool for negotiations.Canadians know they will feel economic pain in this dispute – financial analysists estimated the most recent tariffs of 50% on about $20bn of Canadian imports could trim between 0.3% to 0.6% off the country’s GDP in the short term.Still, a majority in the country broadly back Ottawa’s decision to drive a hard bargain against the Trump administration, and other Canadian political leaders have shown a united front.A weekend poll from Angus Reid indicated that some 76% of Canadians support Ottawa’s decision to walk away from trade negotiations even…

Four weeks before President Trump signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail voting, he filed four nominations for vacancies on the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service.All four were Republicans. Three have expressed doubts about who won the 2020 presidential election and the security of voting.The selections broke with a longstanding practice of nominating board members in bipartisan pairs. Two of those nominees are on a fast track for approval, and could reach a full Senate vote when the chamber returns from recess in September. If confirmed, their appointments would effectively tip the board to a majority…