Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

SEOUL — A record-breaking heatwave swept through a broad swath of Asia earlier this month, causing deaths and heat-related illnesses. This year’s extreme weather has been linked to El Niño, which, according to weather experts, could be one of the strongest ever recorded. The “super” El Niño, which officially arrived in June, is expected to intensify over the rest of the year, bringing prolonged warmer weather, droughts and adverse health risks to people in the region. Here’s what you need to know about the extreme weather: How hot has it been in Asia? Very hot. On Aug. 2, the mercury…

Claim: In August 2026, U.S. consumers could buy “lab-grown” eggs “cleared” by the Food and Drug Administration, and brands were secretly including the eggs in their products. Rating: What’s True Several companies produce animal-free egg white protein in the U.S. Some of these products have been available since 2021. The EVERY Company made its OvoPro product available directly to consumers in March 2026. What’s False We found no evidence that brands that used OvoPro were omitting it from their product ingredient lists. Federal law governs what must appear on ingredients labels. What’s Undetermined OvoPro’s exact status with the FDA was…

This year’s El Nino weather pattern will be the biggest in over a century, warming sea surface temperatures to an “unheard-of” level, Britain’s national weather agency predicted Friday. The El Nino weather pattern is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5C above the baseline average, triggering worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall patterns, and causing warmer global temperatures overall. Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office, told the BBC that: “We are expecting the biggest El Nino for over a century, peaking at something over three degrees – that is unheard-of in modern…

Figures from government and other official sources can be revised between publications. This page shows data as presented in the latest available release.Immigration, emigration and net migration*The net migration figure for the UK will not exactly equal immigration minus emigration because the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes it as a rounded number.Immigration and emigration estimates, external from the ONS are updated twice a year.Net migration figures use the internationally recognised definition of a long-term migrant: “A person who moves to a country other than that of their usual residence for at least a year.”Visas for legal migrationThe total number…

Andy Burnham has called on local leaders to offer all rough sleepers in England a route off the streets by Christmas, as he pledges another £100m to end street homelessness.The prime minister has promised he will mount a Covid-style campaign to get everyone off the streets this winter, arguing that rough sleeping has become so common it now “feels like part of the scenery”.Tackling homelessness is a central policy for Burnham’s government.We would like to speak to people who have been homeless in the past. What helped you get off the streets and into accommodation for good? Was it a…

Sapphire/Moment/Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysThe Chinese government is dumping Windows for some desktops.A Linux desktop version will replace Windows.The most likely candidates are Kylin OS or UOS.According to a Bloomberg report, attributed to China’s Ministry of State Security, the country has ordered some government agencies to drop Windows 10 China Government Edition for Chinese-made Linux distributions. Why not Windows 11? Because China, like many other non-US governments, no longer trusts American companies with their software and services. This approach is all about digital sovereignty.Also: How digitally sovereign is your organization? This Red Hat tool…

North Korean hackers are responsible for a new open source software (OSS) supply chain attack targeting the Rust ecosystem, cybersecurity firm Wiz reports. The attack occurred on August 20 and involved one of the most popular Rust crates, arrayref, an array-conversion utility with over 245 million downloads, found in approximately 75% of environments where Rust is used. The malicious package version, [email protected], was pushed to crates.io from its legitimate maintainer’s account. Roughly 20 minutes later, poisoned versions of internment and append-only-vec, two crates from the same owner, were also released. These packages, as well as attacker-owned crates (aovine, arone, aronenao,…

Feds have hit 17 Iranians with criminal charges for allegedly conducting a years-long campaign of cyber attacks — including trying to extort HBO for $6 million in bitcoin. The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that the 17 individuals were working with the Mabna Institute, which carried out hacking campaigns on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian government and university clients. Hundreds of U.S. and ⁠international universities, dozens of companies, and at least five state and federal government agencies were targeted in the campaign.  Part of the indictment mentioned Behzad Mesri, who was previously charged with…

LINZ, Austria—A summer-long series of heatwaves that has been blistering much of Europe since June has turned political. Elected leaders are facing growing scrutiny for their lackluster response to the deadly consequences of climate extremes, even as their parties continue to pursue policies that worsen the crisis.The extreme temperatures, along with drought, have drained rivers, parched crops and turned fields and forests to tinder and flames, prompting Green parties and citizen groups to call for heat summits and stronger government action.  And in some countries, far-right nationalists are weaponizing the heat and fires by blaming governments they oppose for failing…

Norwegian authorities have approved drilling activities that Norway’s oil and gas player Aker BP is planning to undertake in the North Sea on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), with rigs owned by two offshore drilling contractors, Noble Corporation and Odfjell Drilling. Noble Interceptor rig; Source: Noble Corporation The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has granted Aker BP consent to use the 2014-built Noble Interceptor jack-up rig as an accommodation unit at the Valhall field. The consent includes the use of the rig as an accommodation facility for the offshore completion of the PWP project at the field in the southern…