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Prominent Texas Republican predicts GOP losses over data centers

Prominent Texas Republican predicts GOP losses over data centers

The Washington Post reports: Texas’s outgoing agriculture commissioner is warning fellow GOP leaders that if they don’t take action soon against data centers, they could lose key races in November. “I’ve been leading the charge against these data centers for a year or more, and it’s all falling on deaf ears,” Miller, who lost his primary election, told The Washington Post on Friday. “It’s going to hurt us in the midterms. I think we could lose some statewide races.” Among…

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Meta has accepted, for the first time, that much of its business model is unacceptable for children

Meta has accepted, for the first time, that much of its business model is unacceptable for children

Nathaniel Lubin writes: For almost two decades, social-media companies have avoided legal consequences for the negative effects of exposure to their products. Damage to users’ mental health, the facilitation of crimes including sexual abuse—outcomes like these have been the subject of public protest, but were never successfully challenged through legal action. Then, about four years ago, prosecutors across America began to focus on companies’ business and design decisions, rather than, as they had in the past, on companies’ promotion of…

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Trump seeks vast, potentially costly U.S. stake in Venezuelan oil industry

Trump seeks vast, potentially costly U.S. stake in Venezuelan oil industry

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is negotiating a long-term stake in a vast share of Venezuela’s oil fields, according to three people close to the discussions, a costly and legally precarious proposal that aims to nudge reluctant energy companies to drill in the risky region. The contours of the plan, which is still evolving and could change or fall apart, would involve the United States taking more direct control over Venezuelan reserves as crime and steep logistical challenges…

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What if Canada joined the European Union?

What if Canada joined the European Union?

Ishaan Tharoor writes: Ever since Trump’s combustive, combative second term began, a conversation once consigned to academic circles and the parlor rooms of Brussels and Ottawa has entered the mainstream: forget being the fifty-first U.S. state—what if Canada became the twenty-eighth member of the E.U.? A widely read column in The Economist from January, 2025, laid out the case: Canada’s huge territory and abundant natural resources offered a complement to the crammed, resource-sparse European continent; Canada’s social-welfare state and social-democratic…

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RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate

RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate

The Guardian reports: Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”. Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps…

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A melting glacier contributed to the deadly Nepal floods. We can expect more like this

A melting glacier contributed to the deadly Nepal floods. We can expect more like this

NPR reports: More than a thousand people are missing and at least 400 people are dead after flash flooding tore through Nepal and Tibet early Wednesday. According to initial assessments, a massive chunk of ice snapped off a glacier and tumbled thousands of feet into the valley below. Rock, ice and mud plunged down for miles, washing away communities along the river. Scientists say glaciers in this region, and around the world, are increasingly unstable because of human-caused global warming….

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Trump champions data centers as Republicans turn against them

Trump champions data centers as Republicans turn against them

The Washington Post reports: As voters in both parties grow anxious about the rapid build-out of data centers, President Donald Trump remains one of the tech industry’s most prominent champions — putting him increasingly at odds with members of his own party. Nowhere is that divergence clearer than in Texas, where Trump travels Thursday to campaign for Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and Republican Senate candidate. The state has courted some of the country’s biggest data center projects, but…

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Max Tegmark: Why is AI unregulated?

Max Tegmark: Why is AI unregulated?

  The biggest danger facing mankind is a machine that can “outsmart the whole species”, argues Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the Future of Life Institute. Tegmark tells host Steve Clemons that governments and tech companies are in a “race to replace” human labour, instead of solving human problems. “It’s aimed at getting more money and power to a very small number of individuals,” he says. But a slew of suicides…

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Democrats will force Senate vote on Israel’s human rights practices

Democrats will force Senate vote on Israel’s human rights practices

The New York Times reports: Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, on Thursday plans to introduce a resolution that would order the Trump administration to provide Congress with a detailed accounting of Israel’s human rights practices in the West Bank, laying the groundwork to force a vote on the matter in coming weeks. The measure, the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to challenge the policies and actions of Israel’s government, invokes a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act…

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Not American enough: The campaign to create second-class citizens

Not American enough: The campaign to create second-class citizens

Toluse Olorunnipa writes: For Carlos Alemán, the pinnacle of the dozen years since he became a U.S. citizen was the night in 2020 when he was elected to serve on the city council of Homewood, Alabama. One of the lowest moments came earlier this year, when he learned that some of the most powerful people in his state are attempting to ban immigrants like him from pursuing higher office. “It seems to be part of a project to reject anyone…

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U.S. intervened in criminal probe of the ‘most effective ATM machine from Venezuela to the external world’

U.S. intervened in criminal probe of the ‘most effective ATM machine from Venezuela to the external world’

The Washington Post reports: Senior U.S. officials intervened in an international criminal investigation into a Venezuelan businessman who was enlisted by the Trump administration to help assert control over Venezuela’s government and oil industries, according to two people familiar with the matter. The officials lobbied to resolve the case in Switzerland in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against the Britain-based businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, and they have not acted on a Swiss arrest warrant against…

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‘Thin air,’ real money: Trump’s crypto products have left investors at least $4.7 billion underwater

‘Thin air,’ real money: Trump’s crypto products have left investors at least $4.7 billion underwater

Public Citizen reports: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” President Donald Trump tweeted in July 2019. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” Seven years later, Trump has become the world’s foremost crypto salesperson, hawking nonfungible tokens, meme coins, governance tokens, stablecoins, and shares in a digital-asset treasury. What changed? The president realized there…

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New tariffs and expired tax credits put a dent in U.S. solar panel sales, but there’s reason for optimism

New tariffs and expired tax credits put a dent in U.S. solar panel sales, but there’s reason for optimism

By Dan Gearino August 27, 2026 This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Rooftop solar installers feel like a dog that’s been repeatedly kicked. President Donald Trump has made solar more expensive—or at least slowed the long-term decline in costs—by imposing tariffs on imported photovoltaic panels and other parts. Trump also signed a measure last year that phased out the main…

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Meta’s $18 billion child-safety deal hinges on age-verification tech that doesn’t work well

Meta’s $18 billion child-safety deal hinges on age-verification tech that doesn’t work well

TechCrunch reports: Meta reached an $18 billion settlement on Wednesday over a lawsuit brought by 29 U.S. states concerning children’s safety. The settlement is historic in scale as Meta agrees with a group of 52 attorneys general to implement sweeping changes to how minors use Instagram and Facebook. The settlement “gives the AGs what they want, which is the political story that they’ve extracted a huge amount of benefit for the public from this settlement, including the platform changes,” Jessica…

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