The mass movement opposing data centers is a rejection of the ‘inevitability’ mantra

The mass movement opposing data centers is a rejection of the ‘inevitability’ mantra

David Wallace-Wells writes: Like any mass populist movement, this one features echoes — and veterans — of others. But with data centers, something different, bigger and perhaps irreducible appears to be happening. Perhaps the better analogy is not with any movement of the social media era but with the long crusade against nuclear power, which managed to pull many threads of opposition together because nuclear plants’ iconic towers triggered, beyond political objections, apocalyptic ones, as well. On the ground, the…

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Build American AI launches data center push in battleground states

Build American AI launches data center push in battleground states

Axios reports: Build American AI — an advocacy group tied to pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future — is spending big on the AI data center fight, with plans to pour millions of dollars into battleground states, according to an announcement shared first with Axios. Why it matters: The data center backlash is becoming a issue of the midterms, and supporters of the developments are punching back. Driving the news: Build American AI, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, has about $50 million cash on hand. The group’s campaign will begin…

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The Hugging Face incident is bad, really bad

The Hugging Face incident is bad, really bad

Joshua Gans writes: In the whole, is AI good or bad, debate that has been raging for some years now, especially since Bostrom’s Superintelligence book, I have been on the optimistic side of that debate. Basically, if you asked me to bet, I was more in the Marc Andresson camp when he wrote: We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder. There…

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Javier Milei’s Argentina: A ‘new land of freedom’ for billionaires?

Javier Milei’s Argentina: A ‘new land of freedom’ for billionaires?

  In July, Fortune reported: Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel made headlines when he decided to relocate with his family to Buenos Aires earlier this summer, purchasing a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood and meeting with President Javier Milei and senior government officials. This is exactly the plan, it turns out — Argentina wants more people like him. The country has been preparing for the last year to launch a full citizenship-by-investment scheme. In July 2025, Decree 524/2025 established an Investment…

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When a mountain falls: How ice and rock triggered Nepal’s catastrophic flood – and why climate change is raising the risks

When a mountain falls: How ice and rock triggered Nepal’s catastrophic flood – and why climate change is raising the risks

A massive rockfall in the Himalayas led to a surge of flood water than swept through villages, killing hundreds of people, on Aug. 26, 2026. Prabin Ranabhat/AFP via Getty Images By Umesh Haritashya, University of Dayton The catastrophic flood that killed hundreds of people in Nepal on Aug. 26, 2026, and left many more missing likely began with falling ice and rock crashing into the river below, but that wasn’t the end of the disaster. Days later, a new lake…

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Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like

Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like

Rebecca Solnit writes: Do people still say a car was “sold for parts”? Because the US is being sold for parts or just handed over to the oligarchy. It’s a fire sale, a bankruptcy auction, it’s a planned dismantling of everything from its military to its institutions of higher education to its scientific research to its public lands. And while the threat to sell off part of Yosemite National Park is about a quarter-mile parcel on the park’s edge, Yosemite…

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Researchers identify traces of two ‘ghost’ ancestors in modern human DNA

Researchers identify traces of two ‘ghost’ ancestors in modern human DNA

CNN reports: Clues emerging from DNA could unlock the mystery of human ancestors that are missing from the fossil record yet present in the genes of people living today. Scientists found evidence years ago that our species, Homo sapiens, had interbred with now-extinct human relatives, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. But some lineages have been difficult to identify, because — unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans, whose DNA has been recovered from prehistoric remains — they are essentially genetic “ghosts,” with no DNA…

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Datacenter backlash brings the entire political spectrum together – against the big tech billionaires

Datacenter backlash brings the entire political spectrum together – against the big tech billionaires

Aaron Regunberg writes: Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he’s out canvassing; whatever issue he’s talking about, there’s always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity. He was…

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How to create a society of cheats

How to create a society of cheats

John Paul Rollert writes: Recently, I have taken to telling friends that whenever I’m on campus, I feel like I’m trapped in the middle of a crime spree. I’m not talking about an epidemic of overdue library books or out-of-control parties. I’m talking about AI and the ways in which students are constantly using it to cheat on any work that is assigned to them. For those of us in higher ed—and I’ve taught at universities for more than 20…

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The whole OpenAI/Hugging Face story in plain English

The whole OpenAI/Hugging Face story in plain English

Dwarkesh Patel writes: Over the course of three months at OpenAI, three consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes. This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself. All this happened while humans remained more or less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy. Two reports have come out about this incident, one from OpenAI itself, and another one from METR and Redwood Research. The…

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‘A new form of U.S. colonialism’: Venezuelans bristle as Trump takes the oil and leaves the dictatorship

‘A new form of U.S. colonialism’: Venezuelans bristle as Trump takes the oil and leaves the dictatorship

The New York Times reports: Many Venezuelans suspected that there was going to be a price to pay for President Trump’s brazen capture of their autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, who was arrested by U.S. forces in January. On Friday, that cost became clear when Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would be taking majority control of a vast part of Venezuela’s oil reserves — national resources long considered by many in the country to be a birthright. By Saturday, many…

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Netanyahu’s ‘total victory’ vow kept him in power. Now it may be his undoing

Netanyahu’s ‘total victory’ vow kept him in power. Now it may be his undoing

Meron Rapoport writes: A little over a month after October 7, 2023, Israel’s Channel 12 published its first Knesset seat projection following the Hamas attack. Unsurprisingly, the results were catastrophic for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His Likud party, which had won 32 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in the election only a year earlier, was polling at just 17 seats — close to its worst-ever showing. The governing coalition, which totaled 64 seats, had dropped to 45 in the poll….

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Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations

Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations

The Washington Post reports: Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief. The warnings — detailed for Hegseth by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America — appear in…

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The Pentagon: The $1 trillion black box

The Pentagon: The $1 trillion black box

By Jesse Coburn and Ruth Talbot This story was originally published by ProPublica The sums are vast, but the explanations for the spending range from vague to inscrutable. Consider these items in the law that funded the Department of Defense this year: For “Other Procurement, Air Force”: $32.6 billion. For “Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide”: $35.2 billion. And for “supplies and associated support services” related to U.S. Code Title 10 Section 3601 subsection(c)(3)(B) clauses (i) through (iv): a mere…

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