Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

US job openings cooled modestly in August, but September households grew more worried about inflation and interest rates. That split left Bitcoin investors with only part of the case for easier financial conditions after Sept. 29 releases.Bitcoin registered an intraday low of $82,775.94 on Tuesday, and a reclaim of the $84,000 support level depends more on the path of yields and new demand than on a single vacancies report.The labor and consumer surveys describe different pressures, and neither establishes the cause of Bitcoin’s price.Job openings ease as rate worries riseAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, August job openings were…

New research reveals that pastoralist communities are turning to wild plants to cope with food shortages in northern Uganda.As in Uganda, experts reckon that edible wild plants can be a boon to countries like Nigeria, where roughly 15% of the population faces serious hunger.The study’s findings raise a broader question: Will communities with less richer botanical diversity be less capable of coping with food crises?See All Key Ideas For decades, the global outlook for food and agriculture has brought heightened concerns  as climate patterns create a mix of droughts and floods across the world. Consequently, fears of diminishing…

In her article, Polly Toynbee mentions the rise of racism globally, citing Donald Trump and the usual suspects (There is a racism and cohesion crisis in Britain, and someone needs to lead us out of it. His name is Andy Burnham, 22 September). She fails to mention that the Labour party has also indulged in overt and dog-whistle racist rhetoric.Keir Starmer spoke about Britain becoming “an island of strangers”. He later retracted it, but the message was out there. Wes Streeting, when health secretary, agreed with Katie Lam on the problem of foreign doctors (rather than the real problem of disastrous NHS…

France indicated Tuesday it plans to borrow a record amount on the bond market next year, even as worries about the government’s spending has seen borrowing rates hit levels unseen since the global financial crisis. The AFT agency that manages the government’s borrowing on debt markets said it plans to borrow 340 billion euros ($385 billion) in 2027, some 28 billion euros more than this year, to help finance government spending and repay debt coming due. AFT, in its announcement two days ahead of the presentation of the government’s 2027 budget, said it plans to issue a mixture of medium-…

Burnham did not set out details of who would lead his proposed commission, or when it would begin its work.Any move to change the voting system would be supported by the Liberal Democrats, who had previously urged Burnham to introduce proportional representation before the next election, which must be held by 2029.However, any move away from first-past-the-post is likely to be resisted by the Conservatives. Reform UK backed introducing PR at the last election, but there has been speculation that its enthusiasm for the move may have since cooled.Speaking to broadcasters after Burnham’s speech, Reform leader Nigel Farage said he…

The focus of OpenAI’s Dev Day on Tuesday may have been on its agentic assistants known as Dots, or its new AI models, but combined, the AI company’s announcements pointed towards a bigger plan: a disruption of the traditional app store model. Taken together, today’s announcements turn ChatGPT itself into the place where software can be discovered, launched, and used by people and agents alike. In addition, OpenAI introduced a way for people to bring their ChatGPT identity with them, while also allowing them to use their existing AI allowance in third-party apps. This isn’t the first time OpenAI has…

An attacker used stolen passwords of staff at France’s tax administration to take tax data on hundreds of thousands of taxpayers and businesses in June and July. Neither the tax administration nor France’s national cybersecurity agency saw the data leave. The attack was not sophisticated, the agency, ANSSI, says in a report (in French) published on Tuesday: it worked because of weak login protection, poorly separated networks and gaps in monitoring. The tax administration, known as the DGFIP, runs France’s tax website, impots.gouv.fr. The data came from E-Contact, the tool taxpayers use to message the tax administration. The stolen data…

Investors withdrew over 4,000 bitcoins worth over $334 million at today’s prices in one hour after hacked Bitget resumed customer withdrawals, the company’s CEO has said.  Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told Bloomberg Television Tuesday that withdrawals from the exchange had since stabilized following the immediate bitcoin transactions. Hackers last week made away with $388 million in crypto after targeting the Victoria, Seychelles-based exchange’s hot wallets.  “The withdrawals actually stabilized a lot today,” Chen said. “Those hundreds of millions [in bitcoin withdrawals] actually most of them happen on the first hour of the withdrawal restart.” In a Monday X post, Chen…

NASA will participate in the 77th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Antalya, Türkiye, from Monday, Oct. 5, to Friday, Oct. 9, highlighting America’s leadership in human exploration to the Moon and Mars, advancing responsible exploration under the Artemis Accords, world-changing science, and support for the commercial space sector.  The IAC, organized by the International Astronautical Federation, is hosted this year by the Turkish Space Agency (TUA).  The NASA delegation, led by NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson, will take part in plenary sessions, technical discussions, and media engagements throughout the week.  Monday, Oct. 5   3 a.m. EDT (10 a.m. TRT): “One-to-One…

For the first time in 150 years, kiwi once again live in the hills surrounding Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. More than 250 manu (“birds” in the Māori language) were successfully translocated back to the region, thanks to the efforts of the iwi (nations of Aotearoa), community members, and landowners behind the Capital Kiwi Project.Paul Ward, the project lead and founder, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to explain the yearslong effort to make this possible.A large part of it was removing stoats, which prey on kiwi before the chicks reach “fighting weight” (1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds), which is when…