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Satellite data shows a browning trend across the planet since around the turn of the century. Credit: ezypix/GettyAround 56 million years ago, a sharp rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to severe global warming that transformed the planet’s surface. A detailed reconstruction of an ancient ecosystem suggests that this transformation included a widespread decline in forest cover. The study1, published in Science on 13 August, has parallels for what could happen as a result of human-driven climate change, say the authors.“We’re seeing that now all over the world. Many forests are in states of decline,” says co-author Regan…

New Zealand have broken rank with Oceania’s football governing body to become the latest nation to withdraw support for Fifa president Gianni Infantino.Infantino has lost support from three regional confederations – Europe’s Uefa, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Concacaf (North and Central America and the Caribbean) – over his aborted plans to sell 20% of the World Cup’s commercial rights to private investors.The Confederation of African Football (Caf) and South American governing body Conmebol have backed the 56-year-old to win a fourth presidential term at the Fifa Congress in March.New Zealand have followed several individual member nations including England,…

For this year’s Korean Cinema Award, the Busan International Film Festival will be honoring one of its own — the event’s founding OG, in fact. Kim Dong-ho, who established BIFF in 1996 and ran the event for its first 14 years, will receive the prize at the festival’s opening ceremony on Oct. 6. The award goes annually to figures who have advanced Korean cinema’s standing in the world — and few, perhaps, are as worthy as the founder of the festival himself. When BIFF launched in 1996, Korean films were still routinely submitted to government censors for pre-screening before public…

US firm tightens oversight of automatic licence-plate readers after reports of misuse by police officers.Published On 14 Aug 202614 Aug 2026Flock Safety has unveiled stronger privacy protections following reports of US police officers using the AI-powered company’s automatic licence-plate readers to stalk and harass women.Flock, based in Atlanta, Georgia, operates some 120,000 cameras across the US that capture images of vehicles and licence plates for storage in a searchable database.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listFlock markets its products as crime-fighting tools for law enforcement and private groups such neighbourhood watch committees, but critics accuse the company of operating…

For decades, they lay in a secret room in her attic gathering dust. Now, newly discovered artworks by the Booker prize-winning author Iris Murdoch – including the only self-portrait she is known to have painted, four surrealist landscape paintings and three sketches of female nudes – will go on display for the first time on Friday.The artworks were created at the start of the second world war when Murdoch was a student at Oxford. They expose her early interest in surrealism and fascination with the naked female form.Until now, Murdoch was only known to have created three paintings in her…

Nigel Farage (C), leader of the Reform UK party, celebrates the victory of Sarah Pochin, the party’s candidate, in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election at the DCBL Stadium in Widnes, north-west England, in the early hours of May 2, 2025. Oli Scarff | Afp | Getty ImagesNigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, has won re-election to parliament in a vote he triggered himself last month by stepping down amid controversy over his finances.Farage, who has previously been praised by U.S. President Donald Trump and was a figurehead in the U.K. campaign to leave the European Union, faces…

Virgin Galactic wants your help naming its new Delta class spaceship – Ars Technica Horizon</em>, Explorer</em>, Ascend</em> or Apeiron</em>?”,”image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/news-081226a-lg-500×500.jpg”,”listing_image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/news-081226a-lg-768×432.jpg”}”> Skip to content Will it be the VSS… Horizon, Explorer, Ascend or Apeiron? Virgin Galactic is accepting votes on what to name its new Delta-class spaceship. The poll ends on Aug. 27, 2026. Credit: Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is accepting votes on what to name its new Delta-class spaceship. The poll ends on Aug. 27, 2026. Credit: Virgin Galactic As Virgin Galactic nears christening the first of its next-generation spaceship designed to launch customers on suborbital flights, it still is missing…

The Osun State election scheduled for Saturday, 15th August 2026, is an important moment in the political history of our dear state. It is therefore my sincere appeal that the election must be peaceful, free, fair, credible and transparent. Politics must never become a reason for brothers and sisters to fight, communities to be divided, lives to be lost or properties to be destroyed. Recent reports have raised concerns about election-related violence ahead of the poll and this makes the responsibility of every stakeholder even more required. Since the people of Osun State have the constitutional right to choose their…

Health authorities and development partners have identified shortages of health workers as a major constraint to routine immunisation services in three northern states. The issue was highlighted during a Joint States Stakeholders Meeting with New Incentives – All Babies Are Equal Initiative (NI-ABAE), held in Sokoto from 10 to 11 August. According to a communique issued at the end of the meeting, human resource shortages at health facilities remain a major constraint to routine and outreach immunisation across the three states. The two-day meeting brought together 34 participants, including representatives of the Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara state ministries of health…

Alden GonzalezAug 13, 2026, 07:26 PM ETCloseESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.Multiple AuthorsLOS ANGELES — Although Shohei Ohtani’s contract contains a “key man” clause that would allow him to opt out in the event Mark Walter sells his stake in the Los Angeles Dodgers, a source with knowledge of the two-way star’s thinking confirmed to ESPN on Thursday that he’d be unlikely to do so in that scenario.In the wake of Walter selling his portion of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers to Josh…