The Guardian · 13 Aug, 05:00
Rio Tinto has secured a $2.5 billion deal with the Australian and New South Wales governments to support its Tomago aluminium smelter, which will transition to renewable energy by 2033, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 7.1 million tonnes annually.
Rio Tinto has entered into a $2.5 billion subsidy deal with the federal and New South Wales governments to support its Tomago aluminium smelter in Australia. The deal guarantees a below-market power supply for 10 years, starting after the smelter's existing coal-focused electricity contract ends in December 2028. This will enable the smelter to transition to renewable energy by 2033. As part of the agreement, Rio Tinto has committed to invest $1.1 billion in the smelter over the next 12 years, including $100 million for decarbonization activities.
Why it matters: This deal is significant because it ensures the long-term operation of Australia's largest aluminium smelter, supporting approximately 6,000 jobs directly and indirectly. The transition to renewable energy will also result in a substantial reduction of the smelter's greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 1.5% of Australia's annual climate pollution. The agreement also underpins the development of new renewable energy capacity in New South Wales.
$2.5bn, 2033, 7.1m tonnes, 1.5%, 10%, 1,000, 5,000, $1.1bn, $100m, 2028, 3,000 megawatts
“Australia has better sun and wind than any of them and yet we are buying our way out of a shortage instead of selling into a strength,” - Nicolette Boele
The Guardian · 13 Aug, 04:00
Spanish company Nueva Pescanova has shelved plans to build the world's first industrial octopus farm due to 'business and regulatory' reasons. The decision comes amid controversy and concerns over the ethics of farming a highly intelligent and solitary creature.
In 2022, Nueva Pescanova announced plans to invest €65m in the world's first industrial octopus farm and processing plant near the Canary Islands. However, the project was met with opposition from activists and scientists, who raised concerns over the ethics of farming octopuses. Despite predictions that the farm would produce 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year by 2025, Nueva Pescanova shelved the plans in July 2026, citing 'business and regulatory' reasons. The company had reportedly not begun construction on the farm, and sources suggest that the project was not viable.
Why it matters: The decision to shelve the plans for the octopus farm highlights the challenges and controversies surrounding the farming of highly intelligent and solitary creatures. Octopuses are notoriously difficult to farm, and concerns over their sentience and welfare have raised ethical objections to the practice. While there are incentives to find a way to farm octopuses sustainably, the potency of the ethical argument against farming them is likely to remain a strong consideration.
€65m, 3,000 tonnes, 2025, 2026, 20 days, 370,000 tonnes, 40,000 tonnes, 1kg
An octopus is a highly intelligent, naturally solitary wild animal. These are wild animals and they belong in the wild, not these underwater prisons.
The Guardian · 13 Aug, 04:00
Zambia is holding elections with incumbent president Hakainde Hichilema facing opposition from the Tonse Alliance led by Brian Mundubile, amid allegations of authoritarian tactics and a lingering feud with the late Edgar Lungu.
Zambia is holding elections with incumbent president Hakainde Hichilema, 64, bidding for a second term. He faces opposition from the Tonse Alliance led by Brian Mundubile, 55, who was a government chief whip under Edgar Lungu, Hichilema's arch-rival who died in June 2025. The feud between Hichilema and Lungu has continued even after Lungu's death, with Lungu's family wanting to bring his body back to Zambia for a dignified burial. Hichilema's team has denied allegations of authoritarian tactics during the election campaign.
Why it matters: The election is significant as it takes place amid a lingering feud between Hichilema and Lungu, and allegations of authoritarian tactics by Hichilema's government. The outcome will impact Zambia's economy, which has stabilized since an economic crisis in 2020, and its efforts to attract international investment.
64 (Hakainde Hichilema's age), 55 (Brian Mundubile's age), 2021 (year of previous election), 2025 (year of Lungu's death), 2020 (year Zambia defaulted on debts), 6.5% (annual inflation rate), 24.6% (annual inflation rate in July 2021), 8.8 million (registered voters), $1,127 (average annual income in 2021), $1,318 (average annual income in 2025)
What people are asking is: ‘If we are doing well economically, why are we not feeling impact on the ground?’ Because you will find on the ground that it is very difficult to access three meals a day. - Mputa Ngalande
Ars Technica · 12 Aug, 22:02
A new font called ShieldFont has been designed to prevent AI scrapers from collecting valuable training data from websites. The font uses ligatures to replace words with nonsensical alternatives, making the text useless to scrapers while still being readable to humans.
Designers Isaque Seneda and Gabriel Abrucio have created a font called ShieldFont that is designed to disrupt AI scrapers' ability to collect training data from websites. The font uses ligatures to replace words with alternative words, but only when the text is rendered on screen. This means that scrapers that download plaintext source code will receive a version of the text that is subtly edited and nonsensical, while human readers will see the original text.
Why it matters: This development is significant because it represents a new tactic in the ongoing struggle between web publishers and AI companies over the use of online content for training AI models. ShieldFont offers web publishers a practical way to opt out of unauthorized AI training and disrupt the collection of their content by scrapers.
Ars Technica · 12 Aug, 21:13
Physicists with the Beijing Spectrometer III (BES III) experiment have found new evidence of the existence of glueballs, a composite particle made entirely of gluons predicted by quantum theory.
Physicists with the Beijing Spectrometer III (BES III) experiment have uncovered convincing new evidence of the existence of glueballs, an elusive composite particle made entirely of gluons predicted by quantum theory. The results appeared in a preprint posted to arXiv last month and were also presented last week at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP). Glueballs are a direct prediction of quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong nuclear force, and should exist if the Standard Model of Particle Physics is correct.
Why it matters: The discovery of glueballs would confirm a key prediction of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and provide insight into the strong nuclear force. The existence of glueballs has been a topic of research for decades, and their discovery would help to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter.
Ars Technica · 12 Aug, 21:43
A supply-chain attack on the open-source tool LiteLLM exposed terabytes of credentials belonging to major organizations like Microsoft, Amazon, and Cisco. The attack allowed access secrets of over 2,500 organizations to be compromised.
A supply-chain attack on LiteLLM, an open-source tool for AI-driven software development, resulted in the exposure of terabytes of credentials. The attack occurred when victims used compromised versions of LiteLLM downloaded from the Python Package Index repository. The credentials, which included cloud keys, repository tokens, and SSH keys, were extracted during a 40-minute window in March. Security firms CloudSEK and Hudson Rock discovered the breach, with Hudson Rock analyzing a 195TB file to make the discovery.
Why it matters: This breach is significant because it exposed sensitive access secrets of major organizations, potentially allowing attackers to gain unauthorized access to their systems. The attack highlights the vulnerability of supply-chain attacks and the importance of securing software development tools. The breach affects over 2,500 organizations, making it a large-scale security incident.
2,500 organizations, 195TB file, 40 minutes
NPR News · 13 Aug, 05:43
Summary not available.
NPR News · 13 Aug, 01:38
Summary not available.
NPR News · 12 Aug, 20:33
Summary not available.