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Kalshi adds required employment verification for some prediction market bets

10 June 2026 at 21:18
Kalshi logo on a green background.

The CFTC is considering its first regulation for prediction markets, as arrests over "insider trading" on everything from military operations to Google Search data continue to stack up. As CoinDesk reports, a notice of proposed rulemaking says "the proposal would establish a structured framework for evaluating whether such contracts involve an activity enumerated in Section 5c(c)(5)(C) of the Commodity Exchange Act -activity that involves terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or conduct that is unlawful under federal or state law-and, if so, whether that contract is contrary to the public interest."

Separately, Kalshi announced on Wednesda …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Two pangolin traffickers in South Africa sentenced to eight years in prison

10 June 2026 at 20:51
The Molopo Regional Court in Mahikeng, South Africa, sentenced two wildlife traffickers, Edward Motlatsi Phiri, 46, and Tlhoriso France Ralph, 51, to eight years in prison. They were convicted of smuggling a Temminck’s pangolin, a vulnerable species native to Southern and Eastern Africa, according to a statement released by the North West province’s environment agency. The judgment, delivered on May 26, 2026, followed the arrest of four suspects on June 2, 2023, when law enforcement authorities, acting on a tip, intercepted a vehicle in which they were traveling and seized a live female pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) intended for sale. During the court hearing three years later, charges against two accused traffickers were withdrawn while Phiri and Ralph were found guilty. “This sentence sends a strong message that wildlife crime is a serious offense with devastating environmental consequences,” said Bitsa Lenkopane, with the Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism in the North West province, in a statement. “Every operation, every investigation, and every successful prosecution strengthen our collective fight against illegal wildlife trafficking.” Pangolins are trafficked for their scales, worth thousands of dollars on the black market. They are falsely believed to have medicinal qualities in East Asia. The demand has driven steep declines in pangolin numbers worldwide: Six of the eight species are classified as endangered or critically endangered today. Pangolins are also consumed as bushmeat in parts of Africa. These mammals are protected under South African law, which prohibits their possession, sale, display or transportation. Their international commercial trade…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Untangling the cosmic web

10 June 2026 at 20:23

There is a pattern found in nature. It is indeed the largest pattern there is. It is so vast that it spans the universe, filling up its observable volume. The pattern is made of individual units in the same way your body is made of cells — if each of your cells were a galaxyContinue reading "Untangling the cosmic web"

The post Untangling the cosmic web appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

A blueprint for effective activism 10 years after defeating a dam in Borneo (analysis)

In October 2015, Indigenous activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, the United States, and Honduras, together with delegates from longhouse communities throughout the Malaysian state of Sarawak, gathered at Tanjung Tepalit, an Indigenous Kenyah village on the Baram River on the island of Borneo. They called the gathering WISER: the World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers. Tanjung Tepalit hosted the gathering because the village, along with more than two dozen others along the river, was scheduled to be drowned. The Baram Dam, a 1,200-megawatt hydroelectric mega project backed by the Sarawak state government and aligned with a regional industrial development scheme called the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), would have flooded an area of more than 400 square kilometers (more than 150 square miles) and displaced an estimated 20,000 Kenyah, Kayan, and Penan people. Muslims, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, agnostics, and people who followed traditional Indigenous religions were among the attendees. As we gathered, Peter Kallang, the Kenyah founder and chair of the local advocacy group SAVE Rivers, addressed the assembly: “We are people of many faiths,” he said, “but we are united in one mission. To protect our forest homes and our ways of life.” In one sense the WISER gathering was a strategy meeting to coordinate an international coalition against a state-corporate project. In another, and perhaps deeper sense, WISER was rooted in something older. It was an assertion that the values that hold communities to their land across generations — the sanctity of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Solar power hits new milestones in the US even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy

10 June 2026 at 19:57
Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. New reports released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember and the Solar Energy Industries Association show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. Ember says in May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever. The Republican president has been helping the struggling U.S. coal industry while curtailing solar and wind. A Democratic California congressman says the coal industry is dying. By Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press Banner image: Solar panels operate on a farm with cattle Tuesday, April 28, 2026, in Christiana, Tenn. Image by Joshua A. Bickel via Associated PressThis article was originally published on Mongabay

Claude Fable won’t answer basic biology questions

10 June 2026 at 19:43

Anthropic just released Claude Fable 5, calling it the most powerful AI model it has ever made widely available and praising its skills in biology, among others. But the model won't answer basic biology questions - the kind you'd expect a high schooler to handle. Instead, it hands off the query to the former flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8.

It isn't because Fable doesn't know the answers. It's because Anthropic won't let it, by design.

Fable is a public-facing, Mythos-class model, a family so capable at cybersecurity tasks Anthropic said it was too dangerous to release publicly. But while Anthropic has spent much of the extended Mythos rol …

Read the full story at The Verge.

New study suggests Ethiopia’s protected areas may be impacting local wellbeing

10 June 2026 at 19:24
A new study published in the journal Nature shows that Ethiopia’s protected areas successfully slowed deforestation, limited agricultural expansion and helped maintain grasslands. But the study also suggests the same conservation gains may also be linked to declines in food security and wellbeing for nearby communities — while underlining some caveats in their findings. The study, conducted through collaboration between researchers in Ethiopia and the UK, and the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority, assessed both environmental and social outcomes across 25 protected areas in Ethiopia during the period 2000–2020. They measured forest cover, agricultural expansion, grasslands, food security, dietary diversity and material wellbeing. While protected areas were broadly effective at reducing environmental degradation despite mounting pressures from population growth, agricultural expansion, and land demand, the researchers found “trade-offs” between environmental and social outcomes in their assessments. Twelve of these protected areas experienced  positive environmental performance at the cost of social wellbeing. Meanwhile, five of the protected areas had “win-win” outcomes for biodiversity and social outcomes and three protected areas had “lose-lose” outcomes. “Ethiopia is exceptionally biodiverse, but also faces major challenges around poverty, food security and demand for land,” said Sophie Jago, lead author of the study and research assistant at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the UK. “The fact that protected areas are delivering measurable benefits for nature in this context is important … The difficult finding is that these environmental gains have come with costs for nearby communities, particularly around food security.” A ranger discusses with community members…This article was originally published on Mongabay

How silk caterpillars became a tool for conservation in Madagascar

10 June 2026 at 19:23
When Catherine Craig first went to Gombe in 1972, she was not thinking about silk. She was an undergraduate in a four-seat plane with Jane Goodall, flying over the Tanzanian forest where Goodall’s work on chimpanzees was changing how scientists understood animals. Craig spent six months there, learning to recognize individual chimpanzees and helping track mothers and infants through the steep woodland above Lake Tanganyika. The forest stayed with her. So did the sight of people living nearby with few choices, and the later realization that even forests thought to be protected could disappear. Her path back to conservation was indirect. Craig became a biologist of spiders and silk, earning a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from Cornell and later joining the biology faculty at Yale. For two decades, she studied webs, foraging behavior, insect flight, and the properties of silk. It was work at the level of fibers, mechanics, and evolution. Yet the question that had formed at Gombe remained: how could habitat be protected where people had few ways to earn money? The answer she pursued was both plain and difficult. If farmers could earn income from native silk-producing caterpillars and the plants that fed them, then habitat might become something worth tending. The idea drew on her scientific expertise, but it also required skills that science had not taught her: product design, marketing, patience, and the ability to listen across languages, cultures, and expectations shaped by past disappointments. Borocera cajani Vinson, 1863 family Lasiocampidae. Adult moth, caterpillar…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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