Trending on KALB.com 09-02-26  KALB | News Channel 5

AP Trending SummaryBrief at 4:50 a.m. EDT  mdjonline.com

AP Trending SummaryBrief at 1:35 a.m. EDT  Caledonian Record

Not Quite a T-Shirt, Not Quite a Sweater—Henleys Are Trending for Fall  Yahoo

Video Jim Thornton, Sadie Sink, Ariana Grande: Here's what's trending  ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

1. Anthropic upgrades Claude’s computer use to run in the background on Mac  9to5Mac
2. Anthropic is giving its AI Claude its own browser.  heise online
3. Here's how both Claude and you can use the same computer simultaneously  Android Authority

1. Xiaomi beats Apple to market with wide Xiaomi 18 Fold reveal  Android Authority
2. China's CXMT to supply memory chip for Xiaomi's upcoming folding phone  Reuters
3. Xiaomi 18 Fold surfaces in benchmark, confirming its chipset and RAM amount - GSMArena.com news  GSMArena.com
4. The iPhone Ultra's and Galaxy Z Fold 8's nemesis to pack a chip from a company that sues the Pentagon  PhoneArena
5. Xiaomi Fold 18 Pro: Supercar Red Foldable With In-House XRING 03 SoC  Nokiamob

1. Anker’s MindBase Wants to Be the Smart Hub for Your Life  Gizmodo
2. Anker's MindBase Is A Smart Home Hub, NAS And Security Guard  Engadget
3. Anker takes a cue from Apple: Standalone stores, simplified branding  Cult of Mac
4. Anker is finally becoming one brand, and IFA launch news  Goosed.ie
5. IFA 2026: Anker Goes All Out On Security, Charging, Audio & More  Comics Gaming Magazine

1. You Might Benefit from a $7.85 Million Payout as PlayStation Settles Anti-Trust Lawsuit  Push Square
2. Facing lawsuit, Sony argues it’s already obvious that digital games aren’t owned by consumers  Game File | Stephen Totilo
3. Sony lawyers argue that nobody is stupid enough to believe they actually own digital games, because then only one person could buy GTA 6  Yahoo
4. 'Reasonable' Consumers Know They Don't Own Digital Downloads, Sony Says  Engadget
5. Sony Legally Argues That Digital Game Ownership Is Not Plausible  TechPowerUp

1. Adobe is making its tools available in Slack  TechCrunch
2. Adobe for Slack brings 70+ creative and productivity tools to Slack  FoneArena.com
3. Adobe integrates Firefly, Photoshop, Acrobat and more with Slack  bestmediainfo.com
4. Adobe for Slack Makes it Easy to Create AI Content  VOI.ID
5. Adobe Brings 70+ Creative Tools Into Slack  WeRSM

If there were an apex predator among fires, tropical peatland fires would be a top contender. These fires, which burn in dried wetland soils, are slow-burning, highly polluting, and notoriously difficult to extinguish because they smolder at low temperatures and often burn underground through expansive deposits of peat. By one estimate, peat fires generate three times more fine particulate matter than other tropical forest fires, five times more sulfur dioxide, three times more organic carbon, and two times more methane and carbon monoxide.

Fire season was underway in Indonesia when the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on September 1, 2026. In the map on the right, each red dot depicts one “fire detection.” A fire detection is a pixel in which the sensor and an algorithm determined there were thermal anomalies indicative of fire. Multiple detections can be generated by a single fire.

Peat fires are a recurring challenge in Indonesia, which is home to about 36 percent of the world’s tropical peatlands. When parched by drought, the archipelago’s peat landscapes have become unrelenting infernos on several occasions over the past three decades, with fires producing blankets of smoke for weeks on end and upending daily life for millions of people.

While fires occur in Indonesia every year, previous El Niño years—1997 and 2015 especially—produced the most extreme burning in recent decades. The climate pattern, assessed by NOAA as present and strengthening in August, typically leads to sharp reductions in rainfall in Indonesia, particularly when combined with a positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole, which was also present.

“Indonesia is only about three weeks into its fire season, but we’re seeing fire activity track sharply upward, similar to 2015,” said Robert Field, a Columbia University researcher who developed a tool called the Global Fire Weather Database that produces experimental, real-time fire weather forecasts. “The strong El Niño is making the dry season drier over the fire-prone parts of the country and exacerbating burning—just as we anticipated it would,” he said. In 2015, after burning for more than three months, Indonesia’s fires had released 1.75 billion tons of greenhouse gas equivalents—more than Japan emits in a year. As of September 2, Indonesia’s 2026 fires, having burned for about a month, have released roughly 10 percent as much as the 2015 fires.          

As in 2015, Indonesia was in the midst of a severe and widespread drought in summer 2026. About 90 percent of the country received little to no rainfall in early August, according to data from the Indonesian meteorological agency. Normally, it’s too wet for fires to spread through underground peat deposits in Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua, but they can in dry conditions. “Surface fires are less of a concern, but when fires get underground, they just won’t stop,” Field said. “They’ll keep burning until the rains come in October or November.” 

The Indonesian government uses NASA and NOAA observations from the MODIS and VIIRS sensors to track active fires in near-real-time. Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry MODIS- and VIIRS-based fire-monitoring platform SiPongi, for instance, tallied 946 hotspots on August 31, 2026.

However, it’s difficult for MODIS and VIIRS to detect fires through thick smoke or clouds, within the forest understory, or underground in peat deposits. When Indonesian fires become the most intense, the number of fires recorded by VIIRS or MODIS can actually decrease. “The worst smoke events, paradoxically, can be the hardest to observe from space with MODIS and VIIRS,” said Mark Cochrane, an ecologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science who has conducted field research on peat fires in Indonesia for nearly a decade.

The large-scale construction of irrigation canals and drainage of peat swamps in the 1990s, part of an effort to establish massive rice farms, contributed to the flammability of the region today by significantly lowering the water table in wetland areas, Cochrane said. He also noted that oil palm and other plantation forestry is common in this region. Yet after an unusually grim fire season in 2015, governments and other organizations have worked to dam up some irrigation canals and restore wetlands. There have also been renewed efforts to improve firefighting capacity and reduce the number of fires that people accidentally ignite.

“This year will be a real stress test of the measures that were put in place after 2015,” said Shi Jun Wee, a University of Maryland graduate student. Wee is working on a team partnering with NASA and MapBiomas to develop new algorithms and techniques to detect more understory fires than MODIS and VIIRS can by tapping into shortwave infrared observations from Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites. As the fires progress, he plans to track developments using NASA’s Worldview data browser, FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System), HLS (Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2) observations, and GFED (Global Fire Emissions Database).

On the ground in Indonesia and neighboring countries, the smoke is already causing widespread disruptions. Indonesian officials have warned that large swaths of the population have been exposed to hazardous smoke. Some schools started shifting to remote learning, nine national parks have closed, and several flights have been delayed due to heavy smoke, according to news reports.

“People tend to focus on these fires during an El Niño and then forget about them,” Cochrane said. “We need sustained focus, even during the years when they aren’t as bad, to solve this,” he said. “These fires create a tremendous amount of emissions.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.

References & Resources

• BMKG (2026, August 13) Analisis Dinamika Atmosfer Dasarian I Agustus 2026. Accessed September 2, 2026.
• Channel News Asia (2026, September 2) Indonesia closes 9 national parks temporarily following forest fires; prioritises firefighting in 6 provinces. Accessed September 2, 2026.
• The Conversation (2026, August 23) Borneo forest fires spike again: Why El Niño isn’t the sole culprit.  Accessed September 2, 2026.
• Field, R., et al. (2016, August 1) Indonesian fire activity and smoke pollution in 2015 show persistent nonlinear sensitivity to El Niño-induced drought. PNAS, 113 (33) 9204-92.  
• Kementerian Kehutanan Republik Indonesia (2026, August 31) Update Terbaru Karhutla: Hotspot Menurun, Penanganan Diperkuat. Accessed September 2, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2015, December 1) Seeing Through the Smoky Pall: Observations from a Grim Indonesian Fire Season. Accessed September 2, 2026.
• ReliefWeb (2026, August 25) IDN: Fire – 07-2026 – Indonesia: Forest Fires and Haze in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Accessed September 2, 2026. Accessed September 2, 2026.
• Van der Werf, G., et al. (2025) Landscape fire emissions from the 5^th version of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5). Scientific Data, 12, 1870.
• Yokelson, R., et al. (2022) Tropical peat fire emissions: 2019 field measurements in Sumatra and Borneo and synthesis with previous studies. ACP, 22, 10173-10194.

Community college students across the U.S. now have another opportunity to discover how their education can lead to fulfilling roles at the forefront of aerospace, science, engineering, and technology. The updated NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) student challenge invites students to learn about the agency and its missions, engage with NASA experts, and explore aerospace jobs while competing for monetary awards.

The applications period is currently open. The deadline to register is Monday, Sept. 28.

“What makes this opportunity unique is that it’s one of few that is specifically for community college students,” said Alicia Baturoni Cortez, project manager for NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, which administers NCAS. “The NCAS student challenge is designed to meet their needs and broaden their career awareness so they can either go right into the workforce or expand their goals to include a four-year degree in STEM.”

A launch pad for new possibilities

For NASA interns Kim Alexander and Ashley Rodriguez, NCAS became an unexpected springboard from community college to new careers.

After eight years as a bartender, Alexander was looking for a way to launch her career. She enrolled at Riverside Community College in Riverside, California, originally intending to pursue graphic design – but fell in love with math instead. Alexander participated in NCAS hoping it would look good on her resume and university transfer application. She ended up on a winning team that designed a human mission to Mars. The experience influenced her entire career trajectory.

“I was just completely overwhelmed by how amazing the program was,” said Alexander, who went on to participate in other NASA student opportunities. “But NCAS was the most monumental, because I really started thinking, ‘Hey, I could pursue a career in this. This is feasible.’”

Rodriguez grew up in South Florida, where she watched space shuttle launches but never considered a career at NASA. Instead, she gained experience in various roles and was parenting a toddler by the time she went back to school at Miami-Dade Community College seeking an IT degree. That’s where she first heard about NCAS, which ultimately set her on a path to a career in strategic communications.

The experience showed her the importance of strategic communications at NASA and helped her to discover a field she enjoys.

In January 2024, Rodriguez and Alexander started NCAS-funded NASA internships in the agency’s Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities Portfolio Office, where they met their mentor, Data and Analytics Manager Erik Lopez.

Today, both have earned university degrees and are starting NASA Pathways internships that could lead directly to full-time NASA employment. Rodriguez is working as a strategic communications intern in the Engineering Performance Management Office at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, while Alexander is beginning an engineering role supporting the Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities Project at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

“They were the first two NCAS alumni interns; they literally onboarded together,” Lopez said. “And the fact that they now both get to come back to the agency as Pathways interns just brings me so much joy.”

NCAS relaunches with updated mission, prize potential

Stories like Alexander’s and Rodriguez’s illustrate the impact NCAS can have, and underscore why the program’s updated mission aims to reach even more community college students.

This school year, NCAS is launching with a two-part mission. The cohort phase, which runs through fall, calls on students to participate in live virtual experiences with NASA experts and submit materials detailing a connection between their current coursework and a role at NASA. Faculty members are key to encouraging students who might not envision themselves in a NASA role. Up to 1,000 submissions will be eligible for a $500 award.

Those who successfully complete this phase will be invited to take part in the next phase, a spring virtual NCAS career fair linking them to experts and industry career opportunities. Upon completion of the career fair, students may submit additional materials for prizes of $250, for up to 500 of the top submissions.

To explore NCAS timelines and eligibility requirements and take your education to the next level, visit: https://nasa-ncas.org/student-overview/.

Recent observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a giant, evolving, 10-sided atmospheric wave encircling Saturn’s south pole. This discovery marks the first time a large, regular-sided jet pattern has been observed in the planet’s southern hemisphere. The feature appears remarkably similar to Saturn’s famous hexagon at its northern pole, but is also distinctly different, suggesting scientists may be witnessing a new atmospheric phenomenon develop on the iconic gas giant.

The results published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. 

By piecing together several years of Hubble observations dating back to 2023, researchers found subtle hints of the structure beginning to emerge before it became a clearly defined pattern. Those observations were taken as part of Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, which has photographed the outer planets annually for more than a decade. 

“We’ve never seen anything quite like this in Saturn’s southern hemisphere,” said Amy Simon, study co-author and OPAL principal investigator, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The northern hexagon has been there every time we’ve looked for more than 40 years. This feature is different — it appears to be strengthening, giving us the rare opportunity to watch a giant atmospheric pattern develop.”

The discovery was possible because Saturn’s changing seasons gradually brought the planet’s south pole back into view from Earth, where astronomers who collectively analyze images of Saturn from ground-based observatories first identified it.

Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, lead author of the new study, is a researcher at the University of the Basque Country in Spain. The university manages a website, called Planetary Virtual Observatory Laboratory, that accepts ground-based images of solar system planets contributed by observers all over the world. It was in those images, first in 2024, that Sánchez-Lavega and amateur astronomers Trevor Barry and Jean-Paul Oger noticed a subtle undulating band along the southern pole. Additional 2025 imagery taken from the ground hinted even more strongly toward this decagon structure.

That’s when the Hubble observations come into the picture. Hubble’s view from space offers unmatched image sharpness and spatial resolution over full rotations of Saturn, without smearing by Earth’s atmosphere. 

“Given Saturn’s symmetry in its north-south jet stream system, we have been searching for a counterpart to Saturn’s northern hexagon on the south pole in Hubble images since 1990,” Sánchez-Lavega said. “Images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn between 2004 and 2017, showed no inkling of a long-lived formation, either. The Hubble data confirmed the feature’s presence back to 2023.”

The wave sits within one of Saturn’s powerful jet streams and extends through multiple layers of the atmosphere, indicating it is not just a cloud-level feature, but a vertically extended atmospheric structure. The decagon’s apparent position shifts slightly, because Hubble captures images from different wavelengths. Those different wavelengths probe different altitudes in Saturn’s atmosphere.

“The most intriguing part to me is that this seems to have just formed recently,” said Simon. “The question is, why did it suddenly form now when we haven’t seen one before?” 

The authors say further study is needed from Hubble and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, as well as analysis of computer models, to understand how the decagon formed, how long it may last, and how it compares to the long-lived hexagon in the north.

Hubble’s long duration in operation has allowed astronomers to track changes over time in solar system planets and other astronomical objects as well.

Rather than providing a single snapshot, the OPAL program allows scientists to follow seasonal changes, track short-lived storms, and identify other atmospheric features that evolve slowly over time.

“When we started the OPAL program, we expected compelling surprises, but we didn’t know what to expect specifically,” said Mike Wong, study co-author, University of California, Berkeley. “A lot of the discoveries we see coming from OPAL are not just based on one observation, but on years and years of data. Regular observations over time are enabling a lot of new findings.”

The team plans to continue observing Saturn to determine whether the decagon settles into a long-lived, stable configuration like the northern hexagon or continues to evolve. Future observations also could help scientists determine what drives the wave, what it reveals about the atmospheric dynamics of giant planets throughout the solar system, and how they may relate to those we see here on Earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

On Aug. 28, 2026 (the evening of Aug. 27 in some time zones), the Moon passed into Earth’s shadow, creating a deep partial lunar eclipse. At the moment of greatest eclipse, 12:13 a.m. EDT, 96.3% of the Moon’s disk was immersed in Earth’s umbra—the central, darkest part of the shadow where sunlight is completely blocked. This stage of the eclipse was visible across much of the Americas (except Alaska and northwestern Canada), as well as western Europe and western Africa.

This image of the eclipse was captured in southern Louisiana, home to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility—the nation’s premier site for manufacturing and assembling large-scale space structures and systems, including the core stages of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket powering the Artemis program.

The Builders Stage is returning to TechCrunch Disrupt, bringing together founders, startup operators, and investors for practical conversations on what it takes to build and scale.

The acquisition also leaves Sequoia-backed Serval as the de facto startup leader in AI IT service automation, industry watchers believe.

On our new Real World AI stage, we’ll be focusing on the intersection between the digital and physical, and all the ways we’ll continue to see a blending of the two.

Google has dodged an effort to break up its ad business, but a judge said Wednesday that the company will need to adjust its business to benefit competitors.

OpenAI’s new Astra model will use “recurrent depth,” a technique that allows the model to operate outside of the sequential thinking that characterizes most reasoning models.