Apr 21, 2025Ravie LakshmananMalware / Vulnerability Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new malicious campaign related to the North Korean state-sponsored threat actor known as Kimsuky that exploits a now-patched vulnerability impacting Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to gain initial access. The activity has been named Larva-24005 by the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC). "In some systems, initial access was gained through exploiting the RDP vulnerability (BlueKeep, CVE-2019-0708)," the South Korean cybersecurity company said. "While an RDP vulnerability scanner was found in the compromised system, there is no evidence of its actual use." CVE-2019-0708 (CVSS score: 9.8) is a critical wormable bug in Remote Desktop Services that could enable remote code execution, allowing unauthenticated attackers to install arbitrary programs, access data, and even create new accounts with full user rights. However, in order for an adversary to exploit the flaw, they would need to send a specially crafted request to the target system Remote Desktop Service via RDP. It was patched by Microsoft in May 2019. Another initial access vector adopted by the threat actor is the use of phishing mails embedding files that trigger another known Equation Editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882, CVSS score: 7.8). Once access is gained, the attackers proceed to leverage a dropper to install a malware strain dubbed MySpy and a RDPWrap tool referred to as RDPWrap, in addition to changing system settings to allow RDP access. MySpy is designed to collect system information. The attack culminates in the deployment of keyloggers like KimaLogger and RandomQuery to capture keystrokes. The campaign is assessed to have been sent to victims in South Korea and Japan, mainly software, energy, and financial sectors in the former since October 2023. Some of the other countries targeted by the group include the United States, China, Germany, Singapore, South Africa, the Netherlands, Mexico, Vietnam, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada, Thailand, and Poland. Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE    

Joao-Pierre S. Ruth, Senior EditorApril 18, 20259 Min ReadElevated view of Gillette Stadium, home New England Patriots, NFL Team. Playing against Dallas Cowboys, October 16, 2011, Foxborough, Boston, MAVisions of America LLC via Alamy Stock PhotoThe gridiron action of the New England Patriots naturally takes center stage in the public eye, but when the team’s owner, holding company The Kraft Group, wanted to update certain tech resources, the plan encompassed its extensive operations.Michael Israel, CIO for The Kraft Group, discussed with InformationWeek the plan for networking upgrades -- facilitated through NWN -- at Gillette Stadium, home field for the Patriots, as well as the holding company’s other business lines, which include paper and packaging, real estate development, and the New England Revolution Major League Soccer club.Talk us through not only the update effort for the stadium, but what were the initial thoughts, initial plans, and pain points that got the process started for the company.The roots of the business are in the paper manufacturing side. We have a paper, cardboard recycling mill in Montville, Conn. I have 10 cardboard box manufacturing plants from Red Lion, Pa. up through Dover, N.H., in the northeast. International Forest Products, which is a large commodities business which moves paper-based products all over the world. When we talk about our network, we have a standardized platform across all of our enterprise businesses and my team is responsible for maintaining and securing all of the businesses.Related:We have a life cycle attached to everything that we buy and when we look at what the next five years brings to us, we were looking and saying we have the host of networking projects coming up. It will be the largest networking set of upgrades that we do from a strategic point over that period. So, the first of which NWN is currently working on is a migration to a new voice over IP platform. Our existing platform was end-of-life, moving to a new cloud-based platform, new Cisco platform. They are managing that transition for us and that again covers our entire enterprise.[We're] building a new facility for the New England Patriots, their practice facility, which will be ready next April. Behind that we have FIFA World Cup coming in next June-July [in 2026] and we have essentially seven matches here. It’s the equivalent of seven Super Bowls over a six-week period.Behind that comes a refresh of our Wi-Fi environment, refresh of our overall core networking environment. Then it’s time for a refresh of our firewalls. I have over 80 firewalls in my environment, whether virtual or physical. And to add insult to injury, on top of all of that, we may have a new stadium that we’re building up in Everett for our soccer team, which is potentially scheduled to open in 2029 or 2030.Related:So as we were looking at all of this, the goal here is to create one strategic focus for all of these projects and not think about them individually. Sat down with NWN saying, “Hey, typically I will be managing two to three years in advance. We need to take a look at what we’re going to do over the next five years to make sure that we’re planning for growth. We’re planning to manage all of this from standards and from a central location.”Putting together what that strategic plan looks like over that period of time and building a relationship with NWN to be able to support it, augment the staff that I have. I don’t have enough resources internal to handle all of this myself. And that’s a large endeavor, so that’s where this partnership started to form.Can you describe the scale of your operations further? You mentioned hosting the equivalent of several Super Bowls in terms of operations at the stadium.If you take the stadium as a whole and we focus there for a second, for Taylor Swift concert or a FIFA event coming in -- for Taylor Swift, we had 62,000 unique visitors on our Wi-Fi network at one time. There’s 1,800 WAPs (wireless access points) supporting the stadium and our campus here now.Related:I got a note on my radio during one of the evenings saying there’s 62,000 people. I said, “How can that be? There’s only 52,000 guests.” Well, it turns out there was a TikTok challenge in one of our parking lots and there were 10,000 teenagers on the network doing TikTok. These are the things that we don’t plan for, and FIFA is going to be a similar situation where typically we’re planning for how many people are physically sitting in the stadium for a FIFA event. Our parking lots are becoming activation zones, so we’re going to have to plan to support not just who's physically entering and scanning tickets and sitting in the bowl, but who’s on the grounds as a whole.And that’s something that we haven’t had to do in the past. It’s something that some of the warmer stadiums down in the South or in the in the West Coast who host Super Bowls, they're used to that type of scenario, but there are 16 venues throughout North America that are supporting FIFA and many of them, like us, we’re not used to having that large-size crowd and your planning to support that is critical for us as we start to do this. We are now 15 months away, 14 months away. We’re in high gear right now.What led the push to make changes? The interests are of the guests to the stadium? The team’s needs? Or was it to meet the latest standards and expectations in technology and networking?If you think about the networks, and it’s kind of irrelevant whether it’s here at the stadium or in our manufacturing plants, the networks have physically been -- if it’s plugged in, if it’s a Wi-Fi attachment, etcetera, you can track what is going on and what your average bandwidth utilization is.What we were seeing over the last year with the increased adoption of AI, with the increased adoption of IoT in these environments, you’re having more devices that are missio- critical, for example, on a Wi-Fi network, whereas in the past -- OK, there’s 50,000 people in my bowl and they’re on TikTok; they’re on Instagram; they’re doing whatever. We want them to have a good experience, but it’s not mission critical in my eyes. But now, if you’re coming to the gate and we’re adopting systems that are doing facial recognition for you to enter and touching a digital wallet and shredding your ticket and hitting your credit card and doing all these things -- they need to be lightning fast.Michael IsraelIf I’m doing transactions on mobile point of sale terminals, half of my point-of-sale terminals are now mobile devices hanging off of Wi-Fi. There’s all almost 500 mobile point of sale terminals going around. If they are spinning and waiting to connect, you’re going to lose business. Same thing in my manufacturing plants where my forklifts are now connected to Wi-Fi. We’re tracking the trailers as they come in and watching for demurrage charges and looking at all of these pieces. These are these are IoT devices that weren’t on the network in the past and if the forklift isn’t connecting, the operators are not being told where to put the materials that they’re grabbing.Basically, they stop until they can reconnect. I can’t have that.The focus and the importance of the network continues to outpace what we think it’s going to do, so what I did last year is kind of irrelevant because as the applications and as the needs are inherently changing, we are society doesn’t like to wait.If someone’s looking to buy something and that point-of-sale terminal is processing and processing -- we did a project last year with autonomous purchasing, where you enter a concession stand and you pick things off the shelf, and it knows what you’re taking. Most stadiums have it at this point in time. But when we started that project, the vendor -- their merchant was actually processing in Europe and the time to get an approval was 11 seconds. If you walked up to one of my regular point-of-sale, belly-up concession stands, the approval was coming in two and a half seconds. We turned around and said you can’t wait nine seconds. People are in a queue line to get an approval on a credit card. We dug into it and found well, we’re hopping here, here, here and it’s coming from Europe.We had to get with that vendor and say, “You need to change how you’re processing.” It’s a question we hadn’t asked before, but had to get it back in line because, this is not necessarily just a technology piece here, but if you’re holding up a queue line, that’s not a satisfactory relationship. If you think about every person going into that concession stand -- 11 seconds, 11 seconds, 11 seconds -- for every six people, you’re delaying a minute. These are the things that as we’re going through planning sessions, it’s not necessarily, “Oh, it’s the latest technology, but what’s the speed of transaction, what’s the speed of throughput?”  We have to be very diligent throughout that process.How far out do you typically plan your IT budget? How often do you reassess to see what the ROI has been for a project such as this?Typically, I am looking 18 months into the future. This is one of the rare times where I'm actually looking 36 to 48 months into the future because of everything that’s kind of stacked up one after another, and I don’t have the latitude if one starts to slip that -- I can't take a 5-year set of projects and make it 9 years. I got to have the depth to say, “Hey, we’re going to finish this, but be ready because while we’re finishing up this voice over IP project, we’re now in FIFA planning. We’re now in network consolidation planning.” They’re just stacked up one after another behind that and the decisions we make now are going to impact what we’re doing in 12 months, 24 months, etcetera.Where do things stand right now in terms of this project? What’s on the road map ahead?Right now, we are in the heart of our voice over IP migration, which is the first major project we’ve set forth with NWN. We’re expecting that to be finished before football season starts. And then we’ll have an overlap of a couple of months and planning out what our core network upgrades are going to look like -- we’ll be in the planning phases, and they’ll start in late fall, early winter, right before football season ends.About the AuthorJoao-Pierre S. RuthSenior EditorJoao-Pierre S. Ruth covers tech policy, including ethics, privacy, legislation, and risk; fintech; code strategy; and cloud & edge computing for InformationWeek. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years, reporting on business and technology first in New Jersey, then covering the New York tech startup community, and later as a freelancer for such outlets as TheStreet, Investopedia, and Street Fight.See more from Joao-Pierre S. RuthReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

If you didn’t watch the first season of Andor on Disney+, you might have heard that it is one of the best Star Wars TV shows ever released on the streaming service. (Spoiler alert: It is!) So you might also be inclined to try out the show now that it is back for its second and final season.If that’s you, but you don’t feel like sitting down and watching every single hour of Andor Season 1 — or you did watch the show and just need a little refresher — we can help. Our latest video gets you up to speed on everything that’s happened so far in Andor, and it also tells you where (and most importantly when) its events fit into the Star Wars galaxy, most importantly A New Hope and Rogue One.Check out our full Andor recap below:If you liked that video recapping all of Andor Season 1, check out more of our videos below, including on about the one sentence that ruined Star Wars, one on Daisy Ridley’s Star Wars movie and the state of Star Wars cinema in 2024, and one on Darth Plagueis’ cameo in Star Wars: The Acolyte and why it is maybe the single most important event in the entire season. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. The new Star Wars TV show, Andor Season 2 premieres this week on Disney+.Sign up for Disney+ here.10 TV Show Flops That Turned Out to Be Huge HitsUniversally beloved TV shows aren't always universally beloved from episode one.Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky

Video Editor - Series A - Legal AIEdinburgh Full-time - HybridFledgeWe are a boutique Talent search firm connecting exceptional Talent with the most innovative companies in the AI and software development industries across EMEA. Our clients are among companies with innovative products that have a positive impact on our societies and we present them with a solution model between fine consulting and flexible recruitment process outsourcing :Fractional Talent acquisition advisoryRecruitment operation toolsOn-demand Talent sourcing expertise Job SummaryAs a Video Editor, you’ll be instrumental in shaping the visual storytelling behind a cutting-edge AI platform transforming the legal industry. Based in Edinburgh (hybrid), you’ll take ownership of post-production projects, crafting engaging content that reflects our mission, voice, and values. You’ll work closely with our creative team to deliver high-quality videos that resonate with our audience and elevate our brand.In this role, you willLead post-production efforts, editing video content into clear, narrative-driven stories.Use tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and After Effects to produce polished, professional videos.Apply motion graphics and perform color grading (experience with DaVinci Resolve is a plus).Collaborate with producers and creatives to shape concepts and refine final outputs.Manage multiple video projects, staying on schedule while maintaining exceptional quality.Required Skills and QualificationsVisual storyteller: You understand how to structure a compelling narrative through video.Technically skilled: Proficient with major editing and motion design tools like Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and After Effects.Detail-oriented: You know how to polish the finer points—from color correction to smooth transitions.Team-focused: You enjoy creative collaboration but can also thrive independently.Organized: Able to juggle multiple deadlines and deliver high-quality content consistently.Passionate: You care deeply about creative problem-solving and producing meaningful, engaging work.🌈 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and BelongingWe are committed to enabling everyone to feel included and valued and trust our partners to do the same. Both the company and its culture are strongest when composed of diverse experiences and backgrounds.All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, family, gender identity, marital status, national origin, physical or mental disability, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws.ℹ️ ImportantIf you have a medical condition or an individual need for an adjustment to our process, and you believe this may affect your ability to be at your best - please let us know so we can talk about how we can best support you and make any adjustments that may be needed.In case of any doubts or questions, please contact Fledge - hello@fledge.netApply NowLet's start your dream job Apply now Meet JobCopilot: Your Personal AI Job HunterAutomatically Apply to Remote Sales and Marketing JobsJust set your preferences and Job Copilot will do the rest-finding, filtering, and applying while you focus on what matters. Activate JobCopilot

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April 21, 20258 min readProposed Trump Cuts to NOAA Threaten Hurricane Hunters and Toxic Algal Bloom MonitoringThe Trump administration has proposed gutting NOAA’s cooperative institutes, which study everything from improving lifesaving weather forecasts to monitoring fish stocksBy Chelsea Harvey & E&E News Commander Mark Nelson, with NOAA, climbs the steps to one of the hurricane hunter planes after a press conference at MacDill Air Force base on Thursday, May 22, 2008. ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock PhotoCLIMATEWIRE | Researchers in Oklahoma are hard at work on a new lifesaving weather forecasting system. In Michigan, they’re keeping tabs on toxic algae blooms. In Florida, they’re studying tropical cyclones by flying into the hearts of hurricanes.These are just a handful of the hundreds of research projects ongoing at NOAA’s cooperative institutes, a network of 16 science consortiums involving 80 universities and research institutions across 33 states.But many CI scientists are worried their work — and their jobs — may soon be on the chopping block.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.A new proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget would dramatically reorganize NOAA and gut most of its climate research programs in fiscal 2026. Part of that plan includes terminating funding for NOAA’s cooperative institutes and its 10 laboratories, which are heavily staffed by CI researchers.The plan, presented last week in an OMB document known as a “passback” memorandum, is technically still hypothetical. While passbacks typically outline the priorities eventually included in the White House’s budget proposal each fiscal year, Congress must ultimately approve the president’s request.But even if Congress rejects the cuts that the Trump administration proposes for fiscal 2026, experts worry that funding for the remainder of fiscal 2025 is still in question.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable.” —Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)Congress last month passed a continuing resolution to avert a shutdown and fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. But the bill provides little guidance for agencies on how exactly they must use their funds.“The administration can largely move money however it wants within the agency,” said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) housed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “That's the authority Congress afforded them by not articulating more detail in its agency budgets.”In theory, some experts say, that means the Trump administration could direct agencies to shuffle their funds in ways that would diminish or eliminate programs previously funded in fiscal 2024.And the OMB passback suggests exactly that: directing NOAA to align its 2025 spending with the plan laid out in the memo — even though that proposal has not yet been approved by Congress.“OMB expects that the Department will exercise all allowable authorities and flexibilities to align the 2025 operating plans with the 2026 Passback,” the document states.There’s no indication that NOAA has yet complied. And it’s unclear whether this direction would legally sidestep Congress’ authority to direct the appropriation of funds.But if the agency began implementing the passback’s plan this year, a broad swath of programs could see their funding suddenly curtailed — including the cooperative institutes.Meanwhile, some CIs across the country have not yet received any of their 2025 funds. Some are still waiting on some of their 2024 money, due to a variety of payment delays. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — head of the agency that houses NOAA — is personally reviewing all funding commitments above $100,000.“The money is very slow in coming, and a number of institutes are at great risk of not having the funding after a couple months from now,” Abdalati said. “If that's the case, we’re required to either lay off or furlough people until the money comes.”Even if Congress restores funding for 2026, cuts and layoffs in the near term would be devastating, he added. Long-term datasets would be disrupted. Many staffers likely would seek new jobs, taking their knowledge and experience with them.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable,” Abdalati said.Meanwhile, CI directors say even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety of the communities they serve.CIGLR — the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, housed at the University of Michigan — keeps tabs on toxic algae in lakes Erie and Huron, where nearby communities are well acquainted with the dangers. A harmful algal bloom sparked the Toledo water crisis of 2014, in which 400,000 residents in and around the Ohio city had no safe drinking water for two days.An algae bloom in Lake Erie, seen here on the shores of Maumee Bay State Park in Ohio, polluted the water supply of Toledo in 2014.Ty Wright for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesBut because of the ongoing funding delays, “we're looking at having to lay off a substantial number of our workers in the next few months,” said CIGLR director Gregory Dick.And it’s possible the institute will have to halt its algal monitoring program. If that’s the case, the region may be less equipped to predict and prepare for events such as the Toledo water crisis.“One of my big fears is that we'll be more vulnerable to such incidents,” Dick said, adding that the program “seems like it's in limbo — it's complete uncertainty.”From the sea to the skyThe cooperative institutes are one part of NOAA’s broader research ecosystem and just one of many proposed cuts across the department.The passback memo calls for the elimination of NOAA’s entire Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which facilitates a variety of Earth system studies. Alongside the CIs, OAR houses 10 laboratories and a number of other programs including its global ocean observing and monitoring program; its ocean acidification program; and its Sea Grant program, which partners with 34 universities on marine research and education initiatives.But the CIs play a special role in NOAA science — and in its impact on U.S. communities — experts say.“The CIs are 50 percent of everything we do in research,” said Craig McLean, NOAA’s former top scientist. “They are of equal vitality and importance to the NOAA mission as every NOAA scientist — many of whom have come from the CIs.”The CIs exist via a particular type of federal funding award known as a cooperative agreement, which operates much like a grant but involves close collaboration with federal employees. Each agreement is awarded on a five-year basis, with the potential to renew for another five years. After that, universities must compete again for a new award.Still, many cooperative institutes have been around for decades — CIRES, the oldest and largest, was established in 1967. Many involve multiple university partners and employ dozens or hundreds of staff. And many maintain long-standing data collection programs with major impacts on human societies.CIMAR, for instance — the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, housed at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa — monitors “basically the entire ecosystem of the tropical Pacific,” said its director, Douglas Luther. That includes everything from the life histories of marine animals to the ocean’s rising sea levels.And CIMERS at Oregon State University — the Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies — keeps tabs on everything from salmon stock in the Pacific Northwest to the movement of ships in the remote Arctic Ocean. It’s also active in ocean exploration, mapping parts of the seabed where methane reserves or critical minerals may be abundant.[The cuts represent a] "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting. It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.” —Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the Union of Concerned ScientistsThese studies help keep the U.S. competitive with other global science leaders, said CIMERS director Francis Chan.“There's a new science race going on,” he said. “People are thinking about what are the different ways of using the ocean.”Other CIs help improve the forecasting tools used by NOAA’s own National Weather Service.Scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies are key members of NOAA’s famed Hurricane Hunter missions, which fly specialized data-collecting aircraft through tropical cyclones.Meanwhile, scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), are developing products to help meteorologists spot dangerous weather events with more advance warning. One of these is Warn-on-Forecast, an experimental system designed to rapidly incorporate radar and satellite observations into a high-resolution model, producing updated forecasts about every 15 minutes.And it’s showing promise.As twisters whirled across the central U.S. last month, amid an outbreak that killed dozens in the Southeast and Midwest, Warn-on-Forecast predictions helped accurately predict a storm track in the Missouri Ozarks with about two hours of lead time, according to CIWRO’s director, Greg McFarquhar.The forecast, combined with other data, prompted National Weather Service staff to contact emergency managers on the evening of March 14 and warn them that long-track tornadoes may be forming. NWS followed up shortly afterward with a Special Weather Statement, narrowing down the tornado tracks to nearby Carter and Ripley counties.When a strong tornado touched down shortly afterward, more than 125 people already had checked in at a nearby Carter County shelter. There were no fatalities reported in the aftermath of the event.Traditional forecasting tools typically predict tornadoes with an average of only 13 minutes of advance warning, according to NOAA. The extra time afforded by new tools like Warn-on-Forecast “makes a huge difference in terms of people being able to get out of the way of these tornadoes,” McFarquhar said.‘A big loss to the American people’With funding delays dragging on and existential cuts looming, scientists say these research projects are all in jeopardy.Some CI directors told POLITICO's E&E News that their institutes likely would shut down without NOAA funding. Larger institutes like CIRES said they might continue to exist in a diminished form — but the loss of NOAA resources would take a huge toll.“We wouldn't be as robust,” said Abdalati, the CIRES director. “And honestly it would be, I think, a big loss to the American people — because we do things that matter, that are important.”Much of the Trump administration’s attacks on NOAA research center on climate science. The conservative policy blueprint Project 2025 referred to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research as the "source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and called for much of its work to be dissolved — a plan reflected in the OMB passback memo.But CI scientists note their projects delve far beyond climate change research. And many have implications for the economy, national security and competition with countries such as China — priorities the Trump administration has claimed to support.“I think that's the part that worries me,” said Chan, the CIMERS director. “Are people making decisions because they don't have the full picture of what science is doing? If that's the case, we're open to providing information.”The cuts proposed in the OMB passback memo have sparked widespread backlash among science advocates.The American Meteorological Society warned in a statement that eliminating NOAA’s research arm would have “unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”The cuts represent a "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting,” said Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the nonprofit advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists. “It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.”Some lawmakers in Congress have raised similar concerns.Nine Democratic representatives from New Jersey submitted a letter last week to Lutnick decrying the proposed cuts, which they argued would endanger their state and its nearly 1,800 miles of coastline. They expressed particular concern about the proposed elimination of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. The lab is a leading developer of the atmosphere and ocean models that inform weather forecasts.“Without their work, Americans will not receive accurate weather or tidal predictions, impacting our safety, economy and national security,” the letter stated.Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said in a statement to E&E News that worsening droughts and wildfires across the western United States mean that the "work our scientists and civil servants do at NOAA is essential to U.S. national security and the personal safety and daily lives of Americans.”Colorado is the only state to house two cooperative institutes, and it's home to the largest of the CIs.Despite these kinds of concerns, McLean, the former NOAA top scientist, said the response from Congress hasn’t gone far enough. Some CIs — like the extreme weather-focused institute in Oklahoma — are housed in red states, where Republicans in Congress have so far raised few objections to cuts at NOAA.“On the Republican side, they're cowering behind Trump's voice and they're not raising any alarm,” McLean said. “And they're going to watch many assets and attributes in their states go away.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws is surprisngly making the jump to Nintendo Switch 2, bringing the gorgeous open-world adventure to the upcoming handheld. With other titles like Assassin’s Creed Shadows teased but unannounced for the new console, Ubisoft will likely be another strong supporter of Nintendo’s latest machine. However, in the snippets of footage shown of Ubisoft’s upcoming Switch 2 release, it’s clear that the current in-development build of the game is still quite rough. While the port certainly looks the part, performance is currently hitting lows of 19 frames-per-second in advertised gameplay scenes. Star Wars Outlaws Switch 2 performance isn’t great Via Digital Foundry’s latest podcast episode, new gameplay footage of Star Wars Outlaws on Nintendo Switch 2 shows a port that may be pushing the new handheld too far. Shown off during the recent Star Wars Celebrations event in Japan, Ubisoft’s open-world game looks like a low-res-but-decent port of the next-gen only game. DF reports that the game’s full ray-traced lighting setup is present in the new gameplay footage, all of which is shown in handheld play. “On the visual front, I actually think it’s alright,” said video game graphics analyst Oliver McKenzie. “Clearly, they’ve retained ray-tracing… which is quite characteristic of Outlaws. Who knows what kind of modifications they’ve made to that system, but at leats it looks kind of like that system from Star Wars Outlaws on the consoles.” On the problematic side, the handheld performance is shown running at a pretty low framerate in small-scale firefights. A hallway section showing Kay Vess fighting in a hallway with a few Stormtroopers is said to run at “19 frames-per-second”, and it looks very choppy in the advertised gameplay footage. “The big issue here is performance,” McKenzie continued. “In this shootout section, I counted it out by hand, and it was running at about 19 frames-per-second at worse… it’s dropping frames throughout… I am concerned about this one.” While the technical analysts at Digital Foundry admires the effort of bringing Star Wars Outlaws to the Nintendo Switch 2, the team admits that some clear improvements need to be made in the months until launch. Of course, there’s still quite a while until Star Wars Outlaws releases on Nintendo Switch 2 with the game’s release date set for September 4, 2025. Hopefully, the game can make some serious performance improvements by the time of release, maybe even by utilising DLSS like Cyberpunk 2077 does on the system. For more Nintendo Switch 2 coverage, read about how the console’s hype is causing MicroSD cards to sell out worldwide. Additionally, read about how developers are very happy with the performance of the handheld, calling it a mid-range PC in a tiny shell. Star Wars Outlaws Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X Genre(s): Action, Action Adventure, Adventure Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

An Ingo Maurer pendant light hangs above a bespoke table and banquette in the kitchen dining area. At the front, an enfilade of reception rooms opens onto an expansive terrace planted with delicate foliage and trees including a Hong Kong orchid. There is a generously sized back garden, too. Though, here, the French landscaper Arnaud Casaus conceived of something more tropical: the space brims with foliage and palms and fragrant fruit trees, such as lychee and star fruit.The planting was done at the same time as construction, long before the interiors, to allow for growth and to give it more of the look of fully grown suspended gardens jutting out from the building. From within, there is a glimpse of ​​green from almost every angle. It is what Marty calls “a bubble of lushness,” in step with a bustling city ensconced in nature. “I love this town so much: its verticality, density, energy…it’s even ‘more’ than New York. Plus, you can see the sea from almost every point of view; it’s a city that is very connected to nature because of its topography,” Fournier adds.A view of the primary bedroom. A Pierre Paulin Pumpkin chair wearing Jules & Jim fabric stands in the corner, and a Pampukh bench by Faina stands at the foot of the bed. A Paolo Moschino chair pulls up to a desk in the primary bedroom. In the primary bedroom, a bespoke enclosure of maple burl with panels of a Pierre Frey fabric wraps around the bed area. Greenery was top of the list for these clients, as was a home well suited to family life. And while there is a clear division between public and private, with the bedrooms upstairs—a main bedroom with his-and-her dressing rooms, a study, the children’s room, and a den—and shared living downstairs, even the formal rooms are for everyday use. “They are sophisticated epicureans, and they pay a lot of attention to their children and how they live,” Marty says of the clients’ profile. The children’s bedroom contains the first Studio KO–designed bespoke double bunk beds.Studio KO–designed bunk beds define the kids’ room. Blue tile by Vicalvi colors the kids’ bath. Sink by the Water Monopoly. From the moment you set foot inside and arrive in the entry hall, there is a sense of occasion. The wide reception hall is fitted with deep-red lacquered wall panels with a graphic Galerie Diurne rug Studio KO designed from a Gabrielle Chanel archival pattern over French oak flooring. That refined elegance flows throughout the living spaces, too, which follow a progression from the dining room, with its mirrored and French cane wall paneling and marble dining table and set of Pierre Jeanneret chairs, through the salon to the music room through a series of jade-colored marble frames.

Molten salt reactor experiment in the Netherlands. Image credits: NRG. China just pulled off a feat no nation has managed before: it kept a nuclear reactor running while swapping out its radioactive fuel. That reactor, quietly humming away in the Gobi Desert, isn’t powered by uranium. It runs on thorium — a silvery metal that offers safer, cleaner, and more abundant nuclear energy with far less waste and no bomb-making potential. This marks the first time anyone has successfully reloaded fuel in an operational thorium molten salt reactor (MSR) without shutting it down. And it puts China ahead in a race that, until recently, most countries didn’t even know had restarted. What is a thorium nuclear reactor? At its core, this reactor works very differently from traditional nuclear plants. Instead of using solid uranium rods submerged in pressurized water, this design dissolves thorium fuel into molten salt. That’s why thorium reactors are often considered a type of “molten salt reactor.” That salty soup has two jobs: it carries the fuel and cools the system. So, a “meltdown” isn’t really a concern for this type of technology. The fuel is already molten. And if there’s a leak? The liquid fuel would simply cool and solidify, like lava turning back into rock. No pressurized steam, no explosions, and no Chernobyl-style nightmares. Theoretically, this kind of system is safer, more stable, and can run at atmospheric pressure. That means thinner pipes, smaller containment structures, and far lower risk of catastrophic failure. Also: far less radioactive waste, and no weapons-grade byproducts. In short, these reactors are the future nuclear advocates have dreamed of — clean, compact, and safe enough to place almost anywhere. But, although they’ve been talked about for decades, no one ever built one — until now. Why now? Thorium isn’t new. It’s been waiting in the wings of nuclear research since the mid-20th century. In fact, the U.S. briefly explored MSRs in the 1940s and ‘50s, even pouring hundreds of millions into a nuclear-powered bomber project that was eventually shelved. But after 1961, thorium reactors were abandoned. Uranium won — largely because it could double as a path to nuclear weapons. That twist of Cold War logic left a trail of public research behind. According to Xu Hongjie, the project’s chief scientist, that archive gave China a head start. “The US left its research publicly available, waiting for the right successor,” Xu said. “We were that successor.” His team at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics dug into the declassified papers, replicated the old experiments, and then pushed the tech forward. “We mastered every technique in the literature — then pushed further,” he said. The reactor went critical in October 2023. By June 2024, it reached full power. And in April 2025, they reloaded it—live. That’s the part that makes this a first. Conventional reactors must power down before refueling. Doing it on-the-fly shows that thorium MSRs can, in principle, be continuous systems — safer, cheaper, and potentially easier to scale. According to Guangming Daily, the experimental unit is located in the Gobi Desert. The reactor in question is small by power plant standards — just 2 megawatts of thermal output. But it’s also experimental. The point isn’t power, it’s proof of concept. Xu didn’t mince words. They may have started from what the US left behind, but now that’s all changed. “We now lead the global frontier,” he said at a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He compared the international thorium race to a classic fable. “Rabbits sometimes make mistakes or grow lazy. That’s when the tortoise seizes its chance.” But this isn’t a China vs US story; this is a clean energy story. Thorium is more abundant than uranium — by a lot. China has known deposits, including a thorium-rich mine in Inner Mongolia that scientists claim could, in theory, power the country for tens of thousands of years. The reactor also dodges one of nuclear energy’s biggest headaches: waste. Uranium reactors produce long-lived radioactive byproducts. Thorium produces fewer and shorter-lived ones. Also, it’s lousy for making bombs. That’s a plus for global security. What’s next? Xu’s team now plans to go bigger. A 10-megawatt version of the reactor is already under construction and slated for criticality by 2030. Rather ironically, they didn’t really publish their scientific results. We couldn’t find any papers or patents. They went straight for the real-world application. So, while Chinese experts have participated in exchanges with experts from other countries, it’s unclear whether they will share any of their recent findings with anyone else. The Gobi reactor is experimental. But the tech works, and that’s the big part. A lot of people see small molten salt reactors as an important part of our green energy transition, filling the gaps left by solar and wind energy. This could, in theory, be scaled globally. And other countries are working on it, too. India, with vast thorium reserves, is advancing its three-stage nuclear program, which includes the development of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) designed to utilize thorium fuel. Norway, through Thor Energy, is investing in facilities to produce thorium-based products for nuclear power. In the United States, research institutions like the University of Tennessee are modeling thorium molten salt reactors, supported by private companies such as Flibe Energy. Additionally, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is coordinating global research efforts to assess thorium’s potential in various reactor designs IAEA. These initiatives could be a sign that thorium is finally stepping into the spotlight. This would be good news because in many ways, thorium is better than uranium. But it greatly depends on political will, engineering advances, and public trust. The thorium tortoise is finally on the move. It remains to be seen how fast it can progress.

Nothing from Nintendo, yet.Walmart has updated its prices for the new Switch 2 amiibo, matching the price increases at retailer GameStop just last week.At the US retailer, prices for the brand new Zelda amiibo — that is, Tulin, Yunobo, Sidon, and Riju — are prices at USD $29.88 each, with the Street Fighter 6 ones priced at USD $39.88 each. That's a $10 increase on all the newly announced amiibo.Read the full article on nintendolife.com