‘Soldiers attempted mutiny’: Niger’s defence minister after gunfire, blasts heard in capital Niamey

The incident marked the third attack this year on the capital’s nternational airport, following two earlier assaults by jihadi rebels. The Niger government said a group of soldiers had attempted to stage a mutiny and that the situation was now under control after sustained gunfire and explosions were heard overnight into Saturday in Niamey, the…

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Ex-White House teleprompter operator fined $65,000 for betting on Trump speeches

Former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez. A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to surrender more than USD 107,000 in profits and pay a USD 65,000 fine for using information about Donald Trump’s upcoming speeches to place bets on prediction market Kalshi.According to the BBC, Gabriel Perez made trades predicting words and…

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New plan to end employment authorization for some spouses of H-1B visa holders: ‘600,000+ jobs will open up in next 2-4 weeks’

A DHS agenda item says the department wants to eliminate employment authorization for some spouses of H-1B visa holders. The Department of Homeland Security has come up with a proposal to remove certain H-4 dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders from employment authorization. Not much is known about the proposal and the proposal is listed…

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A Virginia farmer protected his land from development and persuaded his neighbours to follow; 25 years later, nearly 2,500 acres of private farms now form a wildlife corridor

The need for such work is growing as development, roads, invasive species, pollution and climate change alter Virginia’s landscapes. On a humid summer morning in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, the work of protecting nature looks surprisingly ordinary. There are fields to tend, invasive plants to control and young trees to check. But across these farms, two…

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Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans’ Charity Hospital to close in 2005; 21 years later, the million-sq-ft building is being transformed into a $500 million medical research hub

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, doctors at the Charity Hospital scrambled to keep patients alive without power or functioning medical equipment as floodwaters trapped them inside its darkened halls for days on end. The massive hospital that had cared for the city’s residents for years was shuttered after the last patients and…

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In 2009, Minnesota treated Pickerel Lake with fish poison to remove common carp; afterward water clarity rose nearly 600% and plant cover climbed from 4.6% to 90%

For decades, Pickerel Lake in Minnesota struggled with poor water quality, heavy algal growth and extremely low aquatic plant cover. The shallow lake had become dominated by common carp, a bottom-feeding fish that can disturb lake sediments and alter the movement of nutrients through an aquatic ecosystem.But after the invasive fish were removed in 2009,…

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In 1954, aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin donated over 2,500 acres of his Chesapeake Bay hunting preserve; today the refuge spans 4,548 acres and protects migratory birds

Chesapeake Bay (Image Credit: iStock) A piece of Chesapeake Bay marshland that once formed part of an aviation pioneer’s private hunting preserve has become an important refuge for wildlife. What began as a donation of thousands of acres more than seven decades ago now protects tidal marshes, creeks, coves and wooded ridges used by migratory…

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Viking Textile Fragments: Rare textile fragments have survived for around 1,300 years inside a Viking woman’s Danish grave because metallic salts released by two brooches inhibited microbes that would normally destroy the cloth

Credit: Arkæologi Vestjylland Danish archaeologists have unearthed rare textile remains from a Viking woman’s grave near Varde, in the heart of Western Jutland. During excavations at the Skonager site (ARV 661), a team of archaeologists discovered a Viking Age burial in which fragments of clothing survived against all odds. This discovery gives a rare glimpse…

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Researchers piecing together ancient tablets, inscriptions and a statue argue that three forgotten kings ruled Assyria more than 2,700 years ago, potentially changing part of the empire’s accepted chronology

Representative Image (AI-generated) For more than 2,700 years, the story of Assyria’s kings has survived through fragments of clay tablets, royal inscriptions, monuments and carefully preserved lists of rulers. Together, these records have allowed historians to reconstruct the succession of one of the ancient Near East’s most powerful kingdoms. Yet ancient history is rarely as…

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