A ‘super’ El Niño could transform the Amazon. Is the world’s biggest rainforest doomed?

A ‘super’ El Niño could transform the Amazon. Is the world’s biggest rainforest doomed?

Nature reports: El Niño is back with a vengeance. A mammoth patch of warm water is growing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is giving four-in-five odds that the disruptive climate phenomenon will turn into a “very strong” event by the end of the year. Some forecasters say this El Niño is on track to become the strongest in at least 150 years. For the Amazon rainforest, the timing could hardly be worse….

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Navy carrier’s problems are tied to strategic attacks on U.S. base in Bahrain early in war

Navy carrier’s problems are tied to strategic attacks on U.S. base in Bahrain early in war

The New York Times reports: The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln’s supply problems began soon after the first day of the war, as Iranian missiles and attack drones fell on a Navy base in Bahrain. The Iranian attack, retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran, destroyed much of the base. And as it went up in smoke, so did a major logistics hub that the Navy has relied on for decades. The Navy needed a Plan B to continue feeding…

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How Trump’s unprecedented effort to prosecute noncitizen voters fell apart

How Trump’s unprecedented effort to prosecute noncitizen voters fell apart

By Peter Elkind, Jen Fifield, Doug Bock Clark, Ken B. Morales and Andy Mannix This story was originally published by ProPublica It was late March when Joe Teirab, the second-in-command at Minnesota’s U.S. attorney’s office, received an urgent email from Washington. The federal government was scrambling to find criminal cases to back up President Donald Trump’s claims that illegal voting by noncitizens was tipping the scales in American elections. Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a massive federal law enforcement agency,…

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U.S. military family schools will indoctrinate kids on Western civilization and Christianity

U.S. military family schools will indoctrinate kids on Western civilization and Christianity

The Associated Press reports: The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning. The Department of Defense Education Activity operates about 160 schools across 11 countries and educates roughly 70,000 students who are children of active-duty military or civilian service members. Conservatives have eyed the…

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The real reason why data center gas power plants are so dirty

The real reason why data center gas power plants are so dirty

Wired reports: Amazon has acquired a massive off-grid power plant being built in Texas for one of its data centers that could be one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. But size isn’t the only reason its climate toll will be so high. The plant will rely on a much less efficient set of gas turbines than regular power plants use; these kinds of turbines are also increasingly being put to use at other data…

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The data center industry’s PR blitz is backfiring

The data center industry’s PR blitz is backfiring

By Lisa Sorg August 14, 2026 This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. HENDERSON, N.C.—On a recent summer evening Mitzi Parrott, who lives in Vance County, saw a television commercial on the evening news that gave her pause. Kathie Hamm and Bobbie Lequire, also of Vance County, saw it, too, streaming on Sling and posted on Nextdoor. The ad extolled the…

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Netanyahu refers to UK as ‘first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon.’ He doesn’t speak for British Jews

Netanyahu refers to UK as ‘first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon.’ He doesn’t speak for British Jews

The Guardian reports: The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the UK “the Islamic republic of Britain” in a podcast interview, where he also described the country as the “first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon”. His comments, made during an interview for Israel’s army radio, played into a common far-right Islamophobic trope about Britain’s small Muslim population. Netanyahu praised positive coverage of Israel by the journalist Randolph Churchill, the son of former prime minister Winston Churchill, over half…

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Potatoes ‘boil’ in the ground as record heatwave sweeps across swathes of Asia

Potatoes ‘boil’ in the ground as record heatwave sweeps across swathes of Asia

The Guardian reports: In a potato field in Yanggu county, 80 miles (130km) north-east of Seoul, Lee Sang-hyuk dug into the soil and found nothing worth saving. A week earlier the crop, located in Gangwon province, had looked fine. Now the potatoes came up soft and collapsing, “like boiled potatoes”, spoiled by heat that had turned the ground into something closer to an oven. “It’s not just one or two fields like this. How can I even put it into…

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Russian strikes on dozens of grain ships threaten global food supplies

Russian strikes on dozens of grain ships threaten global food supplies

Marc Santora reports: As families strolled along a promenade in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa recently, a lone cargo ship sailed in the distance. Suddenly, a drone dropped out of the clear blue sky and slammed into the vessel, sending smoke billowing across the horizon. The attack, which I witnessed in late July, was part of a Russian campaign targeting cargo vessels that has halted nearly all shipping in and out of Odesa, Ukraine’s most crucial link to the…

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‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman sees an Achilles’ heel in the AI boom

‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman sees an Achilles’ heel in the AI boom

CNBC reports: Steve Eisman is warning that the artificial intelligence boom has become increasingly dependent on the fortunes of just two companies: OpenAI and Anthropic. The investor, best known for his bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, said the two AI startups account for roughly 70% of AI-related revenue at Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet’s Google and Oracle — and as much as 25% to 35% of their cloud revenue. “The futures of these massive companies, in…

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DHS extensively spied on anti-ICE protesters and leftwing groups, records reveal

DHS extensively spied on anti-ICE protesters and leftwing groups, records reveal

The Guardian reports: Newly disclosed records reveal the US government extensively spied on prominent leftwing organizations and on protesters as part of a vast operation into groups opposing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year. Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning nonprofit groups. Nearly 30 internal law enforcement reports were…

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Lawmakers demand answers on conditions aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, at sea for 250 days

Lawmakers demand answers on conditions aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, at sea for 250 days

The Hill reports: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday claimed that conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier have been “completely misrepresented” following reports that sailors, struggling with low morale during a grueling deployment, have attempted to jump overboard. Speaking with Newsmax, Hegseth did not directly address reports of supply shortages, water contamination and deteriorating mental health on the Abraham Lincoln, nor did he say when the vessel would return stateside after leaving San Diego in November. [Continue reading…]…

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U.S. Ambassador Huckabee calls settler siege of Palestinian homes a ‘horrific act of terror’

U.S. Ambassador Huckabee calls settler siege of Palestinian homes a ‘horrific act of terror’

The Associated Press reports: The U.S. Ambassador to Israel condemned the actions of Jewish settlers who are besieging the home of an American Palestinian family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee called the siege a “horrific act of terror.” Since Sunday, according to local officials and family members, settlers have gathered near the home in the village of Qusra and harassed those inside, defying efforts by the Israeli military to defuse the situation. A group that has…

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Physicists are closing in on the origin of matter

Physicists are closing in on the origin of matter

Scientific American reports: Why is there something rather than nothing? Philosopher Martin Heidegger called this “the first of all questions,” and it has vexed scholars and theologians alike throughout history. Science has yet to find an answer, either—but researchers have narrowed it down. What’s clear is that the big bang churned out infinitesimally more baryonic matter—the protons and neutrons that glom together as atomic nuclei—than it did antimatter. This is strange because matter and antimatter annihilate each other when they…

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