Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Because a lactating cow generally produces one calf a year, those cows should have added roughly the same number of calves to the national herd. The agriculture ministry data also shows that during 2024 about 70,000 cattle were slaughtered for meat, which also qualifies for subsidies.   Greece does not publish comprehensive figures for cattle that are culled because of age, declining productivity or disease. But three Greek cattle breeders told POLITICO that such removals amount to roughly 20 percent of the herd each year. Given that there were about 600,000 head of cattle in Greece in 2024, according to ELSTAT, that would be a decrease of about 120,000 animals.   Taken with the subsidies data, that estimate suggests the national herd should have grown by roughly 70,000 that year.  Instead, data compiled by ELSTAT through annual…

A new app seen as a spiritual successor to short-form video service Vine has been released to the public.Much like the original, Divine lets users create and share videos which are just six seconds long and repeat on a loop. The new app also hosts more than two million original Vine videos and – in a bid to further distance itself from other platforms – bans content made by AI.Divine’s founder, former Twitter employee Evan Henshaw-Plath, told the BBC he wanted to create the app because he felt social media needed “a reset”.”I want to see it rival other apps…

U.S. cybersecurity agencies warn that threat actors are using AI-generated scripts to exploit Siemens S7 Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in U.S. critical infrastructure. PLCs are industrial computers used to automate and control machinery and physical processes in factories and other critical infrastructure. The NSA, CISA, FBI, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency issued the joint advisory Wednesday, saying the attacks are ongoing. “This advisory relates to an active threat to Siemens S7 Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs),” reads the advisory. “However, ongoing PLC targeting activity is broader than Siemens PLCs. All PLC owners and operators should apply relevant…

At USENIX Security on Aug. 12, researchers presented a Solana Proof-of-History clock attack they had disclosed privately to Solana developers in December 2025. Anza’s 50,000 SOL Alpenglow competition closed seven days later, and its rules appear to place the attack outside the scope.The paper describes a protocol-valid way for a scheduled leader to stretch its effective block window and suppress honest leaders’ proposals in a fork-assisted version. The path relies on Proof-of-History and TowerBFT, the machinery Alpenglow is intended to replace but had not yet displaced on mainnet in Agave 4.2.The finding creates both a contest-scope story and a transition-risk…

Groundwater reserves beneath High Mountain Asia (HMA), often called the “Asian Water Tower,” are shrinking at an alarming pace, according to a new satellite-based study. The region provides water that supports farming, cities, and ecosystems across more than a dozen downstream countries, making it a critical resource for hundreds of millions of people. Researchers estimate that groundwater storage is declining by about 24.2 billion tonnes each year. The research was led by Prof. Shudong Wang of the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS). The team sought to overcome two major obstacles to understanding groundwater in…

Gruffydd said: “The scheme will include plastic (PET), metal and glass drinks containers from day one, but in line with the Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (Wales) Regulations 2026, a four-year transition period will apply to glass drinks containers, during which glass drinks containers will be exempt from labelling requirements and carry a zero pence deposit.”He added the DRS would “tackle litter while supporting the collection of high-quality recycled materials” and would “help provide a pathway towards the roll-out of reuseable drinks containers” in Wales.The drinks industry welcomed the appointment of Exchange for Change, which was “a crucial milestone in…

South Korea’s Taihan Cable & Solution and Panstar Robotics, established by the Korea Institute of Robotics & Technology Convergence (KIRO), have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly develop remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that would be deployed domestically, in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign equipment and overseas specialists.Source: Taihan Cable & Solution Under the MoU signed on August 19, the companies will develop high-performance ROV trenchers, related operating technologies, and installation solutions, with the aim of building domestic alternatives in areas that currently depend heavily on overseas equipment and expertise, strengthening the self-reliance of Korea’s submarine cable…

Reading Time: 4 minutes President Donald Trump, speaking alongside cryptocurrency leaders at the White House this week, made a statement that Republican and Democratic candidates alike wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. “If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.” It’s not the kind of message anyone is using in competitive midterm races. The race…

Of the mass walkouts of transport drivers in parts of London where temperatures have hit 34C, John Harris says: “Everything is being led by the union Unite” (Andy Burnham has barely acknowledged the climate crisis. If only Britain’s workers had that luxury, 17 August).This action makes perfect sense, although it is addressing one of the symptoms of the climate crisis (heatwaves) rather than one of its primary causes (global heating due to burning of fossil fuels).The irony is that Unite is also pressing the Burnham government to license the Rosebank oilfield and Jackdaw gasfield. Maybe it’s time for both to join…

Claim: An image authentically shows part of a handwritten letter from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Epstein files releases alleging that U.S. President Donald Trump was involved in sex trafficking. Rating: Context According to the letter, the alleged incident happened in June 1967, when Jeffrey Epstein was 14 and Donald Trump was 20 or 21, indicating that the claims aren’t credible. This story includes explicit descriptions of alleged sex trafficking.  In August 2026, social media users circulated a screenshot allegedly from the Department of Justice’s release of more than 3 million files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.…