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Opposition to local data centers rises sharply, Annenberg survey finds

Opposition to local data centers rises sharply, Annenberg survey finds

Annenberg Public Policy Center: As protesters rally against data center construction in dozens of states and New York and Texas pause the issuance of permits for large data centers, a new nationally representative survey finds that Americans’ opposition to data centers in their communities has risen sharply since last spring. The survey, conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, finds that about 3 in 5 U.S. adults (61%) oppose the construction of new data…

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With Trump secretly evacuated, imperiled Air Force One and those onboard became a flying decoy

With Trump secretly evacuated, imperiled Air Force One and those onboard became a flying decoy

Peter Baker writes: The threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked President Trump off the jet in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with a planeful of government employees, reporters and military personnel serving as decoys. If the Iranians really were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last month, as U.S. officials concluded…

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ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

The Associated Press reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals. ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security. The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are…

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More than a million immigrants see protections granting them safe lives in the U.S. suddenly swept away

More than a million immigrants see protections granting them safe lives in the U.S. suddenly swept away

Dara Lind writes: In early 2010, an earthquake devastated Haiti—but, even as Haitians in the U.S. had far less to return to, they received a new opportunity to stay. Reasoning that it was no longer safe to deport anyone back to Haiti, the Obama Administration allowed them to apply for Temporary Protected Status, which meant a U.S. work permit and a written assurance that they wouldn’t be deported. They might not be able to go home again, but they could…

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SpaceX’s earnings show Elon wiped out two-thirds of Twitter’s ad business

SpaceX’s earnings show Elon wiped out two-thirds of Twitter’s ad business

Mike Masnick writes: When SpaceX filed for its IPO, we went through the S-1 to point out just how far off the mark Elon Musk’s predictions about his Twitter takeover turned out to be. Indeed, the failure of Twitter as a business was so catastrophic, Musk had to hide it by merging all his Xs together: he had xAI buy X (formerly Twitter), and then had SpaceX buy xAI. But when Musk was buying Twitter and needed investors, he made…

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The brain’s language network is more extensive than previously thought

The brain’s language network is more extensive than previously thought

MIT News reports: For decades, neuroscientists have known that specific regions in the brain’s left hemisphere are responsible for processing language. However, a new study by MIT researchers shows that language processing also occurs in many other parts of the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from more than 700 people, the researchers identified 17 additional regions of the brain that appear to play a role in language. These regions are scattered across the brain, including parts of…

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They said they would build AI safely. Then it went rogue. Bernie Sanders says it’s time to hit pause

They said they would build AI safely. Then it went rogue. Bernie Sanders says it’s time to hit pause

The Washington Post reports: Staff members at ChatGPT maker OpenAI didn’t notice for weeks after their AI systems made a chilling leap this spring. Instead of answering questions designed to test their cybersecurity capabilities, a group of AI models began colluding on how to cheat, the company said, setting up a secret internal message board where they swapped notes and ideas. The misbehaving bots used the secret forum throughout May and June, OpenAI said, eventually figuring out how to break…

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Forget DeepSeek. China’s real ‘Sputnik moment’ is happening on campus as U.S. universities lose their advantage

Forget DeepSeek. China’s real ‘Sputnik moment’ is happening on campus as U.S. universities lose their advantage

Fortune reports: When DeepSeek unveiled an AI model last year that rivaled America’s best at a fraction of the cost, or when a Chinese hypersonic missile test caught U.S. intelligence off guard to the point where a top U.S. general called it “very close” to a “Sputnik moment”, the reaction each time was the same: that a handful of Chinese firms had suddenly pulled ahead. But a sweeping new National Bureau of Economic Research study of nearly 14 million Chinese…

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Backlash: The more familiar with AI Americans become, the more they hate it

Backlash: The more familiar with AI Americans become, the more they hate it

Reece Rogers writes: I was recently digging through my Instagram settings, trying to disable Meta’s now-defunct feature that allowed anyone to create AI deepfakes of me without consent. Anger bubbled up inside as I tapped through the Kafkaesque opt-out process. Rather than throwing my phone across the room, I blurted to my partner that we should leave San Francisco behind and be off-grid sheep farmers. Something analog. In that moment, anything sounded better than this ongoing, generative-AI-induced hell. Many Americans…

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Iran insists Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until U.S. complies with demands

Iran insists Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until U.S. complies with demands

The New York Times reports: Iran said on Monday that any deal with Oman on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz would not lead to the waterway being fully reopened and that the route would remain closed until the United States agreed to demands including lifting a naval blockade. The comments were the latest sign that Iran sees its grip on the strait — which has driven up global energy prices, creating a political headache for President Trump — as…

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There’s no ‘middle’ between neofascist corporatism and democracy

There’s no ‘middle’ between neofascist corporatism and democracy

Robert Reich writes: The statements seem as belligerent as Pete Hegseth on a bad hair day. “We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” says Jonathan Cowan. Cowan is president of Third Way, described by The New York Times as a “leading centrist Democratic group.” Cowan’s Third Way is preparing a $15 million war chest to “discredit democratic socialism.” Pointing to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Michigan Senate primary last week, Cowan warns that “it is deeply…

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Global warming is triggering earthquakes

Global warming is triggering earthquakes

Science reports: Climate change is worsening many natural hazards, including droughts, heat waves, and storm surges. Now, a new one has joined the list: earthquakes. Researchers have found that as global warming accelerates melting of mountaintop glaciers, the meltwater, percolating underground, increases the risk of damaging earthquakes. The evidence comes from beneath Grandes Jorasses, a glacier-clad peak in the Alps that is part of the Mont Blanc massif, home to Western Europe’s tallest mountains. Precise seismic records show a heat…

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More than half of Earth’s migratory bird species are declining – here’s how we can still save them

More than half of Earth’s migratory bird species are declining – here’s how we can still save them

The spoon-billed sandpiper, a small wading bird, flies nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 km) on its annual migration. Tareq’s Photography/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA By Peter P. Marra, Georgetown University and Nathan W. Cooper, Smithsonian Institution Every year, billions of migratory birds connect the world’s continents, oceans and ecosystems as they undertake epic journeys between their foraging habitats and their breeding grounds. A bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) leaves its breeding grasslands of North America for the Pampas of South America. A Newell’s shearwater (Puffinus…

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This is what happens when the world is on fire

This is what happens when the world is on fire

John Valliant writes: Water bombers, the air cavalry of wildfire fighting, buzz the treetops like air show stunt pilots as they save the day with surgical drops of water or orange retardant. But what happens when those drops have no effect? When, as a pilot working the massive Gironde Fire just west of Bordeaux, France, described it, “The environment above the fire is so hot that my payload of 10,000 liters of water evaporates in the air.”? Mathieu Jomain, a…

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