Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Bitcoin’s price has shown signs of stabilizing after a rough stretch, but even setting aside where prices go in the near term, asset manager Grayscale says adoption of the cryptocurrency over the medium and long run remains largely unchanged. The reason: continued, unsustainable growth in government debt as a factor that keeps inflation and currency-debasement risk elevated.  That backdrop, Grayscale argues, could push a widening range of investors toward scarce assets and alternative stores of value — a category where Bitcoin, with its fixed supply, is increasingly well positioned as a candidate. It added that the adoption of stablecoins and…

Mammal ancestors may have made the evolutionary leap from egg-laying to live birth at least 90 million years earlier than thought. Growth rings within fossil bones from an adult Chiniquodon theotonicus, a species of cynodont that lived around 236 million years ago, reveal that the animal was relatively large when it was a baby, researchers report August 13 in Frontiers in Mammal Science. Such hefty newborns, relative to adult body size, are typical of modern mammals, but not of egg hatchlings, whether reptiles or birds. That, the team says, suggests that this cynodont fossil could be the earliest evidence of…

(FJZEA via Getty Images) In the days leading up to Alaska’s primary election, two super PACs have poured nearly $2 million into the U.S. Senate race. The twist: Alaska’s unusual election format is likely to negate the spending campaigns’ efforts to tear support away from the front-runners. With Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola comfortably leading in both fundraising and polls ahead of the Aug. 18 primary, outside groups are directing much of their cash toward secondary candidates in an apparent attempt to manipulate Alaska’s top-four ranked-choice system before the general election in November. “People are…

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US went to war with Iran in February.Published On 13 Aug 202613 Aug 2026Russian forces have struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, authorities said, a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port.In a statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday, the Izmail Regional State Administration said Russian forces struck “port infrastructure”, causing damage and a fire.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listIt said emergency personnel were at the scene to extinguish it.Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to Ukraine’s largest…

When President Trump sneaked out of Turkey last month in a clandestine operation, he brought a select few with him on the secret flight.The White House aides Natalie Harp, Dan Scavino and Walt Nauta, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were all traveling with the president on a military jet, a U.S. official said.Two cabinet members, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left the country on the decoy flight, which was an older model of Air Force One, the U.S. official and a second official said. That plane carried other aides who had been attending…

Ministers are examining a possible upgrade of security at men’s category C and women’s prisons to deal with an overcrowding crisis across the England and Wales estate, the Guardian understands.Officials have explored diverting prisoners on remand or serving short sentences away from category B “reception” prisons such as HMPs Liverpool, Manchester and Pentonville in north London.Instead, they are assessing the feasibility of holding male prisoners in alternative sites, such as men’s training prisons or repurposed and emptied women’s jails, once security has been improved.Andy Burnham asked the justice secretary, Alex Norris, this week to deliver a plan to free up…

Sometimes, eating makes me feel like Sisyphus. Every day, I must toil up the mountain and the rock to figure out what the heck I want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I tested Factor meals in 2024, and they’re a solid option if you’re the type of person that doesn’t want to fuss over your food. With expansive menus and an emphasis on tracking macros and nutrition, you can simply pick out your meals, get them delivered, and then reheat them in the microwave or oven when it’s time to eat.Texture eaters might not love Factor’s meals, which…

Ravie LakshmananAug 12, 2026Enterprise Security / Vulnerability SAP has released patches to address a maximum-severity security flaw impacting Commerce Cloud (Data Hub Adapter) that could result in arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2026-58231, is rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It has been described as a case of insufficient authorization checks and input validation. “SAP Commerce Cloud allows an unauthenticated attacker to abuse a default authentication client and submit specially crafted input to certain functions lacking sufficient validation,” according to a description of the flaw on CVE.org. “Successful exploitation could enable arbitrary code execution and…

Crypto valuations could at least double as protocols increasingly use revenue to fund token buybacks and burns, according to Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan. On Wednesday, Hougan said crypto outside of Bitcoin is becoming a revenue-driven market in which network activity feeds into native-token value. He said investors have not priced in that change, leaving some crypto assets undervalued.Hougan pointed to Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Aave, Pump.fun and Lighter, protocols that use fees to repurchase or remove tokens from circulation. He said he expects decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and layer-1 networks to adopt similar revenue-capture mechanisms over the next 12 to 24…

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured new images of NGC 2392, a planetary nebula commonly known as the Lion Nebula, revealing the cosmic object in striking infrared detail. The Hubble Space Telescope previously observed the nebula in 2000, imaging the lion face-shaped target in visible light. Those observations highlighted its distinctive appearance, including a “mane” made up of hazy structures resembling comet tails. Webb’s high-resolution instruments now provide an even sharper look at the same object. Webb Reveals Hidden Details in the Lion Nebula In broad terms, the Lion Nebula looks similar in Webb’s infrared observations to the structure…