Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

New research mapping out the Angolan Highlands Water Tower (AWHT), a stretch of elevated plateau spanning 380,382 km², finds that a significantly larger portion of the region hosts peatland than previously thought.The findings show that the AWHT, named thus because it receives and regulates vast amounts of rainwater, and because it feeds important freshwater systems across southern Africa, is also a critical carbon sink.The research can inform national carbon policies and conservation strategies for these peatlands which store thousands of years-old carbon, experts said.The biggest threats to the AHWT’s peatlands are human-made including slash and burn agriculture and the…

California state Senator Aisha Wahab has won a special election to fill the seat of former United States Congressman Eric Swalwell, overcoming a deluge of attack ads funded by pro-Israel groups in the final weeks of the race.US media outlets projected on Thursday that Wahab, a progressive, had beaten her rival, moderate Democrat Melissa Hernandez.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listShe will now represent California’s 14th congressional district, which includes the southeastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, for the remainder of Swalwell’s term, which ends in January.“I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said…

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has built his political brand pugnaciously trolling President Trump, put aside the partisan warfare on Friday and urged California parents to sign up their children for investment accounts bearing the president’s name.“I’m enthusiastic about encouraging people to get a Trump account,” Mr. Newsom said during a news conference in San Francisco. “It’s one of the best things he’s done.”Trump accounts became available last month as investment vehicles that parents can open for their children under 18. The federal government will deposit $1,000 into accounts for babies born during Mr. Trump’s second term.But in California,…

Jada Jones/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysReports indicate Sonos is readying new hardware as soon as this fall.Also expected is a major AI-powered upgrade to Sonos Voice Control.An upgraded voice assistant is necessary to compete with smarter assistants like Gemini and Siri.After releasing new hardware this year — such as the Sonos Play and Amp Multi — and trickling out app redesigns, Sonos is making it clear that it’s returned in full force. Sonos CEO Tom Conrad said on an earnings call that AI will be a focal point of the company’s comeback, as reported by Bloomberg.Also:…

Threat actors are abusing FTP banners to hide commands that deliver two previously undocumented remote access trojans named E4del and PINHOLE. MalwareHunterTeam observed this unusual technique in July in an attack that used shortcut files (.LNK) and FTP server banners as dead-drop resolvers (DDR) to retrieve commands. FTP banners are text strings the server uses as a greeting message for connecting hosts before they log in. By embedding commands in the initial response sent when a compromised system connects to an FTP server, a malware stager can receive instructions from a remote server. After discovering FTP banners being used to…

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen expects Bitcoin to remain broadly around current levels through the end of the year despite its recent surge, citing interest rates and broader macroeconomic conditions as key factors shaping the cryptocurrency’s outlook.Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets podcast, Chen said predicting whether Bitcoin (BTC) will finish the year above or below $70,000 is difficult, pointing to the possibility of higher interest rates as one factor that could pressure prices.Cointelegraph host interviews Bitget CEO Gracy Chen. Source: Trade Secrets“If any of that happens, the price should go down, at least theoretically,” Chen said, adding that BTC has become…

But the Passivhaus Trust – for which Baeli is a non-executive director – acknowledges retrofitting your home to this standard is “expensive”.The total cost of the work Baeli carried out on her house was around £80,000, not including any additional costs for architectural work.The most expensive purchase, she calculates, were the windows at £30,000, while one of the cheapest measures was making the whole house airtight, which cost £5,000. Baeli says, like most people, she could not fund everything at once and decided to carry out the work in stages over ten years to spread the cost.Although the house does…

The three elected officials who regulate the oil and gas industry in Texas hold an open meeting each month in Austin to vote on matters from pipeline violations to permit renewals. Members of the public can register to speak for up to three minutes at the end of each meeting. People often travel hundreds of miles from South Texas, the Permian Basin and the Gulf Coast for the opportunity to speak directly to the officials who have the final say in oil and gas regulation in Texas. The commission does not accept public comment over the phone during these meetings.…

The claim that the Trump administration uses a legal loophole to sell protected wild horses to slaughterhouses is still under investigation. The rumor stems from reporting by The New York Times in August 2026 and was backed by research by animal rights groups that suggested buyers of wild horses sold through the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Sale Program were transporting the animals overseas for slaughter. According to its website, it is BLM policy “not to sell or send any wild horses or burros to slaughter,” and buyers from the sale program sign a bill of sale…

More than 100 people were in the monastery for a religious retreat, according to a local resident.Published On 21 Aug 202621 Aug 2026A military air strike has killed 14 people at a Buddhist monastery in central Myanmar, an opposition group and a local resident have reported.The attack occurred in Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometres (47 miles) west of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense and Security Organization of Myaung Township (CDSOM) said Friday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listA fighter jet bombed the village monastery’s compound, killing 14,…