Governments worldwide are implementing heat protection laws as 2.4 billion workers face extreme temperature exposure and 19,000 die annually from heat-related workplace injuries, according to a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report.

Japan imposed $3,400 fines for employers failing to provide cooling measures when wet-bulb temperatures reach 28C. Singapore mandated hourly temperature sensors at large outdoor sites and requires 15-minute breaks every hour at 33C wet-bulb readings. Southern European nations ordered afternoon work stoppages this summer when temperatures exceeded 115F across Greece, Italy and Spain.

The United States lacks federal heat standards; only California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have state-level protections. Boston passed requirements for heat illness prevention plans on city projects. Enforcement remains inconsistent -- Singapore inspectors found nearly one-third of 70 sites violated the 2023 law. Texas and Florida prohibit local governments from mandating rest and water breaks.

Light pollution now doubles every eight years globally as LED adoption accelerates artificial brightness worldwide. A recent study measured 10% annual growth in light pollution from 2011 to 2022. Northern Chile's Atacama Desert remains one of the few Bortle Scale 1 locations -- the darkest rating for astronomical observation -- though La Serena's population has nearly doubled in 25 years. The region hosts major observatories including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory at Cerro Pachon.

Satellite constellations pose additional challenges: numbers have increased from hundreds decades ago to 12,000 currently operating satellites. Astronomers predict 100,000 or more satellites within a decade. Chile faces pressure from proposed mining operations including the 7,400-acre INNA green-hydrogen facility near key astronomical sites despite national laws limiting artificial light from mining operations that generate over half the country's exports.

If global temperatures continue rising, virtually all the corals in the Atlantic Ocean will stop growing and could succumb to erosion by the end of the century, a new study finds. From a report: The analysis of over 400 existing coral reefs across the Atlantic Ocean estimates that more than 70 percent of the region's reefs will begin dying by 2040 even under optimistic climate warming scenarios. And if the planet exceeds 2 degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial temperatures by the end of the century, 99 percent of corals in the region would meet this fate. Today, the planet has warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius over preindustrial temperatures.

The implications are grave. Corals act as the fundamental building blocks of reefs, providing habitat for thousands of species of fish and other marine life. They are also bulwarks that break up waves and help protect shorelines from rising sea levels. A quarter of all ocean life depends on coral reefs and over a billion people worldwide benefit from them, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Anthropic has declined requests from federal law enforcement contractors to use its Claude AI models for surveillance activities, deepening tensions with the Trump administration, Semafor reported Wednesday, citing two senior officials. The company's usage policies prohibit domestic surveillance, limiting how agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deploy its technology. While Anthropic maintains a $1 contract with federal agencies through AWS GovCloud and works with the Department of Defense on non-weapons applications, administration officials said the restrictions amount to making moral judgments about law enforcement operations.

The home appliance industry would like you to believe that gas-burning stoves are not a risk to your health -- and several companies that make the devices are scrambling to erase their prior acknowledgements that they are. From a report: That claim is at the heart of a lawsuit the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers has filed against the state of Colorado to stop it from requiring natural gas stoves, which burn methane, to carry health labels not unlike those on every pack of cigarettes. "Understand the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove," the warning would read.

The law was to take effect August 5 but is now on hold, and state officials did not respond to a request for comment. In its federal lawsuit, the Association -- whose board includes representatives of LG Electronics, BSH Home Appliance Corp. (which makes Bosch appliances), Whirlpool, and Samsung Electronics -- asserts that the labeling requirement is "unconstitutional compelled speech" and illegal under the First Amendment. It calls the legislation a climate law disguised as a health law and, most strikingly, it claims there is "no association between gas stoves and adverse health outcomes."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As Jonathan Roll neared completion of a master's degree in science and technology policy at Arizona State University three years ago, he did some research into recent developments by China's ascendant space program. He came away impressed by the country's growing ambitions. Now a full-time research analyst at the university, Roll was recently asked to take a deeper dive into Chinese space plans. "I thought I had a pretty good read on this when I was finishing grad school," Roll told Ars. "That almost everything needed to be updated, or had changed three years later, was pretty scary. On all these fronts, they've made pretty significant progress. They are taking all of the cues from our Western system about what's really galvanized innovation, and they are off to the races with it."

Roll is the co-author of a new report, titled "Redshift," on the acceleration of China's commercial and civil space activities and the threat these pose to similar efforts in the United States. Published on Tuesday, the report was sponsored by the US-based Commercial Space Federation, which advocates for the country's commercial space industry. It is a sobering read and comes as China not only projects to land humans on the lunar surface before the US can return, but also is advancing across several spaceflight fronts to challenge America. "The trend line is unmistakable," the report states. "China is not only racing to catch up -- it is setting pace, deregulating, and, at times, redefining what leadership looks like on and above Earth. This new space race will not be won with a single breakthrough or headline achievement, but with sustained commitment, clear-eyed vigilance, and a willingness to adapt over decades." "The key takeaway here is that there is an acceleration," said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "The United States is still ahead today in a lot of areas in space. But the Chinese are advancing very quickly and poised to overtake us in the next five to 10 years if we don't do something."

"There's other things along the lines of budget battles," Cavossa said. "We don't want to see the US government scaling back its reliance on commercial satellite communications. We don't want to see them scaling back commercial remote sensing data buys, which is what they've been doing, or at least threatening to do. We want to make sure that there's a seamless transition from the ISS to commercial LEO destinations, and then a transition away from old programs of record to commercial transportation alternatives. That's what the US government can do and Congress can do here in the next couple of years to make sure that we stay ahead."

Microsoft will invest $30 billion in the U.K. through 2028 to expand AI infrastructure and operations, including building the country's largest supercomputer with 23,000 GPUs in partnership with Nscale. CNBC reports: On a call with reporters on Tuesday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his stance on the U.K. has warmed over the years. He previously criticized the country over its attempt in 2023 to block the tech giant's $69 billion acquisition of video game developer Activision-Blizzard. The deal was cleared by the U.K.s competition regulator later that year.

"I haven't always been optimistic every single day about the business climate in the U.K.," Smith said. However, he added, "I am very encouraged by the steps that the government has taken over the last few years." "Just a few years ago, this kind of investment would have been inconceivable because of the regulatory climate then and because there just wasn't the need or demand for this kind of large AI investment," Smith said. Microsoft's announcement comes as President Donald Trump embarks on a state visit to Britain where he's expected to sign a new deal with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer "to unlock investment and collaboration in AI, Quantum, and Nuclear technologies," the government said in a statement late Tuesday.

Nature's editorial board urged governments on Tuesday to reverse decades of rail disinvestment as railways mark their 200th anniversary September 27, citing transport sector emissions that grew 1.7% annually from 1990-2022 and now generate one-quarter of global CO2. Rail produces one-fifth the emissions of cars per passenger kilometer yet carries just 8.4% of EU passenger traffic versus 73% for automobiles.

The journal called for broader investment criteria beyond narrow profitability metrics and noted only one-third of countries have incorporated transport into their Paris Agreement commitments. Global rail freight fell from 38% to 24% between 1980-2017 while US networks shrank from 400,000 to 200,000 kilometers since 1914. Africa operates 87,000 rail kilometers continent-wide compared to India's 65,000 kilometers in one-tenth the area. Transport emissions must decline 3% yearly to meet net-zero targets.

Gallup: Americans have been placing less importance on the value of a college education over the past 15 years, to the point that about a third (35%) now rate it as "very important." Forty percent think it is "fairly important," while 24% say it is "not too important."

When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% found in 2013 and 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as not too important has more than doubled since 2019 and compares with just 4% in 2010. The views of parents of children under age 18 in the Aug. 1-20 poll are similar to the national average, with 38% rating college as very important, 40% somewhat important and 21% not too important.

Getting an MBA in the US has gotten a little more expensive and a little less profitable, according to a Bloomberg analysis of salary and tuition data. From the report: This year's update of Bloomberg's Business School ROI Calculator, based on surveys of more than 9,500 students and alumni, projects a typical return on investment of 12.3% a year for the decade after graduation. That's down from 13.3% last year. The S&P 500 index, by comparison, returned 14.6% over the decade ending Aug. 31.

The main reason for the decline: This year's respondents reported 6.2% better pre-MBA salaries than last year's, while projected postdegree earnings increased only 1.7%. In other words, the MBA pay edge -- the compensation boost graduates get for the degree -- shrank. In the broader US workforce, the average high-skilled worker's earnings rose 4.7% in the year ended July 31, Federal Reserve data show.

Other factors didn't help: The increase in pre-MBA salaries meant students were forgoing more income during their studies. Tuition and other expenses increased 2.4%, some of that financed with bigger loans at higher rates. In all, the typical total investment to get an MBA in the US rose 6.8%, to almost $300,000.

Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: MI5 has conceded it "unlawfully" obtained the communications data of a former BBC journalist, in what was claimed to be an unprecedented admission from the security services. The BBC said it was a "matter of grave concern" that the agency had obtained communications data from the mobile phone of Vincent Kearney, a former BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent. The admission came in a letter to the BBC and to Kearney, in relation to a tribunal examining claims that several reporters in Northern Ireland were subjected to unlawful scrutiny by the police. It related to work carried out by Kearney for a documentary into the independence of the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Kearney is now the northern editor at Irish broadcaster RTE.

In documents submitted to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), MI5 conceded it obtained phone data from Kearney on two occasions in 2006 and 2009. Jude Bunting KC, representing Kearney and the BBC, told a hearing on Monday: "The MI5 now confirms publicly that in 2006 and 2009 MI5 obtained communications data in relation to Vincent Kearney." He said the security service accepted it had breached Kearney's rights under article 8 and article 10 of the European convention on human rights. They relate to the right to private correspondence and the right to impart information without interference from public authorities. "This appears to be the first time in any tribunal proceedings in which MI5 publicly accept interference with a journalist's communications data, and also publicly accept that they acted unlawfully in doing so," Bunting said. He claimed the concessions that it accessed the journalist's data represented "serious and sustained illegality on the part of MI5." Bruce66423 comments: "The good news is that it's come out. The bad news is that it has taken 16 years to do so. The interesting question is whether there will be any meaningful consequences for individuals within MI5; there's a nice charge of 'malfeasance in public office' that can be used to get such individuals into a criminal court. Or will the outcome be like that of when the CIA hacked the US Senate's computers, lied about it, and nothing happened?"

The FTC is investigating whether Ticketmaster is doing enough to prevent bots from illegally reselling tickets on its platform, with a decision on the matter coming within weeks, according to Bloomberg (paywalled). Reuters reports: The 2016 law prohibits the use of bots and other methods to bypass ticket purchase limits set by online sellers. As part of the probe, FTC investigators are assessing whether Ticketmaster has a financial incentive to allow resellers to circumvent its ticket limit rules, according to the report. A settlement is also possible, Bloomberg reported. If the FTC pursues a case and Live Nation loses, the company could face billions of dollars in penalties, as the law permits fines of up to $53,000 per violation.

Robinhood has filed with the SEC to launch "Robinhood Ventures Fund I," a publicly traded fund designed to give retail investors access to startup shares before IPOs. TechCrunch reports: While the current version of the application is public, Robinhood hasn't filled in the fine-print yet. This means we don't know how many shares it plans to sell, nor other details like the management fee it plans to charge. It's also unclear which startups it hopes this fund will eventually hold. The paperwork says it "expects" to invest in aerospace and defense, AI, fintech, robotics as well as software for consumers and enterprises.

Robinhood's big pitch is that retail investors are being left out of the gains that are amassed by startup investors like VCs. That's true to an extent. "Accredited investors" -- or those with a net worth large enough to handle riskier investments -- already have a variety of ways of buying equity in startups, such as with venture firms like OurCrowd. Retail investors that are not rich enough to be accredited have more limited options. There are funds similar to what Robinhood has proposed, including Cathy Wood's ARK Venture Fund, a mutual fund which holds stakes in companies like Anthropic, Databricks, OpenAI, SpaceX, and others. [...] This new closed-end "Ventures Fund I" is a more classic, mutual fund-style, approach. As to when Robinhood's new fund will be available we don't know that either yet.

404 Media: A data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including American Airlines, United and Delta, is selling access to five billion plane ticketing records to the government for warrantless searching and monitoring of peoples' movements, including by the FBI, Secret Service, ICE, and many other agencies, according to a new contract and other records reviewed by 404 Media.

The contract provides new insight into the scale of the sale of passengers' data by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the airlines-owned data broker. The contract shows ARC's data includes information related to more than 270 carriers and is sourced through more than 12,800 travel agencies. ARC has previously told the government to not reveal to the public where this passenger data came from, which includes peoples' names, full flight itineraries, and financial details.

"Americans' privacy rights shouldn't depend on whether they bought their tickets directly from the airline or via a travel agency. ARC's sale of data to U.S. government agencies is yet another example of why Congress needs to close the data broker loophole by passing my bipartisan bill, the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act," Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have reached a tentative "framework" agreement on TikTok's U.S. operations, with Presidents Trump and Xi set to finalize details Friday. "It's between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon," he said. The update comes two days before TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform's U.S. business or potentially be shut down in the country. The deadline may need to be pushed back yet again to get the deal signed. CNBC reports: Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached "on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save."

Bessent indicated the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership. China's lead trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, confirmed the framework deal was in place and said the U.S. should not continue to suppress Chinese companies, according to Reuters.