Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Binance has launched Agent OS, a developer platform that allows AI agents to access market data, monitor user accounts and execute crypto trades on the exchange.According to a company announcement, the platform supports AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, allowing users to authorize agents to view account information and place trades within configured permissions and limits.Users can assign agents to dedicated subaccounts to separate funds and trading activity, configure their permissions and revoke access at any time. Binance said it can monitor trades placed through Agent OS but cannot see an agent’s external information sources, interpretation or…

Diamond is famous for its beauty, but its value extends far beyond jewelry. This exceptionally hard form of carbon is used to make the tiny capsules that hold fuel in inertial confinement fusion experiments. Scientists also think diamonds may form and fall like rain far beneath the surfaces of ice giant planets such as Neptune and Uranus. In both environments, diamond is subjected to immense pressure. Yet researchers have struggled for years to determine exactly how the material responds under such extreme conditions because laboratory measurements and computer simulations have produced conflicting results. A new study published in Nature Physics…

ExxonMobil has, on behalf of its partners, awarded $1.1 billion in pre-investment contracts for the engineering, procurement and manufacturing of subsea production systems, large-bore production valves and offshore line pipe for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) development in Mozambique.Source: Corinth Pipeworks ExxonMobil Moçambique awarded the contracts on behalf of the Area 4 co-venturers Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos (ENH), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Eni, KOGAS and ADNOC’s XRG, for the Rovuma LNG project, estimated to cost around $30 billion. For the project’s Phase 1, the largest contract was awarded to OneSubsea UK Limited and OneSubsea AS, with in-country work to…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a move befitting the most economically interventionist U.S. administration in half a century, announced his intention Wednesday to intervene to artificially cap runaway yields on U.S. government debt. The move, which had a tiny positive impact that lasted less than an entire day, is a sign of the Trump administration’s rising panic over rising yields on its long-term debt. Yields on 10-year and 30-year Treasury notes remain at about 20-year highs. That is an indicator that buyers need serious incentives to dip their toes into the increasingly toxic waters of U.S. government debt. U.S.…

Nearly six months after US President Donald Trump vowed a swift victory over Iran, the conflict appears to be at a standstill, with prospects of a military victory or negotiated settlement growing dimmer. To break the deadlock, Trump has vowed an “economic D-Day” under which any country that does business with Iran would face “tremendous” economic consequences. Iran, however, has long faced sanctions and has so far shown a willingness to endure pain and a capacity to adapt to immense economic and military pressure as the conflict drags on. The key question for the US then becomes, will further sanctions…

Aisha Wahab, a progressive Democratic state senator, defeated Melissa Hernandez, a moderate Democrat, in a special election to replace Eric Swalwell in California, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Swalwell abruptly resigned in April amid accusations of sexual misconduct.Ms. Wahab was widely seen as the front-runner to represent California’s 14th Congressional District, after she won the June primary for the race with 43 percent of the vote. But this week’s election results were far tighter, and the race was too close to call for two days as local officials continued to count ballots until Thursday.In the closing days of the…

In one episode of a new reality road trip series starring the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, he takes his family to tour a Boeing plant in South Carolina, eager to view some of the largest planes in the world.In another, as his family embraces cowboy culture in Texas, he peels off to drop in on a subsidiary of CRH, the country’s largest asphalt company, stressing how there would be no interstates to take road trips on without such companies.And in Arizona, before going to the Grand Canyon, he takes several of his children for test rides in Waymo self-driving cars,…

Part of the soundtrack to a day in southern California is the drone of petrol-powered gardening equipment.Noise is one of the main reasons that cities around the US, external are banning petrol landscaping tools or encouraging electric alternatives.These alternatives have the additional benefits of reducing carbon emissions, vibrations and the exposure of landscapers to pollution. In addition they can mean longer working hours, as they can be used at times when residents demand quiet.Today, I’m taking part in training run by the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), an organisation supporting the transition towards electric landscaping equipment.To my surprise, the electric…

The Rust Project has deleted malicious versions of three widely used Rust crates from crates.io after a compromised maintainer account published releases that added a typosquatted dependency whose build script downloaded and executed a remote payload during compilation. The affected releases are arrayref 0.3.10, internment 0.8.7, and append-only-vec 0.1.9, all published from the same owner account on August 20, 2026, and all removed within 86 to 107 minutes. Because the malicious code sat in the build script of the injected dependency, building a project that resolved it was sufficient to run the payload, and nothing from the crates themselves had…

Datavault AI has agreed to acquire BankWyse, a Wyoming banking institution, while promising funding substantially larger than the cash it reported at the end of June.The mismatch leaves a central question for the proposed deal: How can Datavault finance the purchase and capitalize the bank without another layer of debt or dilution?The agreement disclosed on Aug. 19 values the initial consideration at approximately $22 million, comprising $14.66 million in Datavault stock and $7.34 million in cash. BankWyse’s sellers could receive up to another $10 million if they meet milestones, split evenly between cash and stock.Separate from the purchase price, Datavault…