A former Washington, DC, Metro transit system contractor retained access to "critical and sensitive" Metro data from his computer in Russia after he left his job in a breach that raises broader security concerns about one of the nation's largest transit systems, according to a report released Wednesday.

Carbon offsets once looked primed for unstoppable growth. Analysts had forecast that the credits, which claim to wipe

The iPhone 15 has gone on sale – though customers might struggle to actually get hold of one today. The four new versions of the iPhone as well as updated Apple Watches were revealed at an event in California last week, and opened for pre-orders on Friday, 15 September. A week later, those pre-orders have arrived in the hands of the first customers and the iPhones are now available in stores. In recent years, Apple has discouraged the long queues that used to greet the launch of the iPhone, instead encouraging people to pre-order online even if they intend to eventually pick them up in store. The new launch was nonetheless met with lines at large Apple Stores. Some versions of the phones are already showing long waiting periods until they are delivered, however. Most models of the iPhone 15 Pro Max are not expected to be delivered until the end of October – and some even later than that. Numerous rumours had suggested that Apple would increase the price of this year’s models. But in fact the cost remained the same – and was reduced in the UK, in a surprise move. The iPhone 15 line-up comes in four different options: the base iPhone 15, a Plus model, and the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The iPhone 15 gets many of the upgrades that came to the Pro phones last year – an updated chip, better cameras and the “Dynamic Island” at the top of the screen – while this year’s Pro models feature a new titanium design, camera improvements and a much faster processor. It also released a new version of the Apple Watch, the Series 9, which brings an improved display and a “Double Tap” feature that lets people control the device just by using their hands. The Apple Watch Ultra was also updated to get that feature.

While we'd hesitate to call 3D printing a mature technology, you might say it has

UPDATE: Nov. 1, 2023, 1:00 p.m. EDT This article has been has been updated with

Super-Sale Alert: Select products featured in this story might be on sale for Prime Day! For more insider information on Amazon's 48-hour event, consult our Shopping team's curated guides to the deals that matter here.

As teams play through the first week of the FIFA Women's World Cup™, which kicked

Steve Wozniak’s space startup Privateer is launching a global online marketplace that aims to connect customers seeking planetary

Scientists have found a new planet they shouldn’t exist, after it seemed to miraculously survived the violent death of its star. Many planets, including our own, face almost certain doom when their stars reach the end of their lives and engulf them. When our own Sun dies, for instance, it will expand to 100 times and swallow the Earth. But the new study offers hope that at least some of those planets are able to survive. The newly discovered world, a Jupiter-like planet known as Halla, managed to survive the demise of its star Baekdu, in what should have been certain death. Astronomers found the planet and discovered through follow-up observations that Baekdu had previously expanded into a red giant. When it did, it would have inflated up to 1.5 times the distance between it and Halla, engulfing the star, and then shrunk back down to its current size. Despite that dramatic and violent event, Halla has managed to persist, sticking around so that astronomers could see it using telescopes in Hawaii. “Planetary engulfment has catastrophic consequences for either the planet or the star itself - or both. The fact that Halla has managed to persist in the immediate vicinity of a giant star that would have otherwise engulfed it highlights the planet as an extraordinary survivor,” said Marc Hon, the lead author of the study. The findings are published in a new paper, ‘A close-in giant planet escapes engulfment by its star’, in the journal Nature today. Halla was found in 2015, using what scientists call the “radial velocity method”, which monitors how stars move and uses that to understand how they might be tugged around by the planets that orbit them. In the years since, scientists found that the planet must have been engulfed by the star, and conducted follow-up observations to better understand the planet. Those observations confirm that the planet had been in its stable orbit for over a decade, and that it really existed. “Together, these observations confirmed the existence of the planet, leaving us with the compelling question of how the planet actually survived,” said IfA astronomer Daniel Huber, second author of the study. But scientists still do not know how it survived. One possibility is that it started on a larger orbit before moving closer to its star, but astronomers believe that is unlikely. Another is that Baekdu was actually once two stars. They may have merged during their death, sparing Halla from being merged at all, by stopping them getting big enough to engulf it. And a separate possibility is that Halla was actually born out of the collision of the two stars. That might have produced a gas cloud that actually gave birth to Halla, and so it may be the result of the demise of its star rather than a survivor of it. Read More Nasa rover spots bizarre donut shaped rock on Mars Strange alien planet could be trapped in edge of the Solar System SpaceX Starship completes six-engine static test fire at base in Texas

Among the hotel patrons snarled in the fallout of MGM Resorts International’s cyberattack was — unfortunately for the

The rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk has just kicked up a notch.

A podcast host is going viral after revealing a little-known iPhone hack that could potentially save your life. Morgan Absher, from Two Hot Takes, demonstrated by how heading into your settings and altering the 'Emergency SOS' buttons, you can easily dial 999 should you need to. "I’m constantly scared about getting kidnapped. Getting kidnapped is my biggest fear", she explains of how she learnt the hack. By turning it on, users can choose to either press and hold their volume and power buttons simultaneously to call the emergency services, or press the power button five times for the same result. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter