Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

A utility mega-merger is all about data centers

A utility mega-merger is all about data centers

Inside Climate News reports: A proposed merger of the largest utility in the country by market value, NextEra Energy, with the sixth-largest, Dominion, would create a megacompany at a time when data centers and rapid increases in electricity demand are reshaping the industry. The proposal, announced Monday morning and contingent on state and federal regulatory approval, would result in a company that leads in nearly every aspect of the U.S. power and utility industry, including overall electricity generation, natural gas…

Read More Read More

More than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had one or both parents detained in immigration sweeps

More than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had one or both parents detained in immigration sweeps

Brookings reports: The Trump administration has made detention and deportation the centerpieces of its immigration policy. Around 60,000 people are being held in detention currently, and around 400,000 people have been booked into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention from an interior arrest since the administration began. Detention capacity is likely to expand, with $45 billion allocated to expanding detention facilities in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Though it is mostly adults who are detained and deported, many children…

Read More Read More

Is the far right driving a Christian revival in the UK?

Is the far right driving a Christian revival in the UK?

  For decades, Britain seemed to be leaving Christianity behind. Then a controversial report suggested church attendance was on the rise, published just as far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson began seizing on Christianity as a symbol of national identity. So is the UK really experiencing a Christian revival and to what extent is it being driven by Christian nationalism? To find out, the Guardian visited churches across the country and uncovered a growing schism over how Christianity is being…

Read More Read More

What do Gödel’s incompleteness theorems truly mean?

What do Gödel’s incompleteness theorems truly mean?

Natalie Wolchover writes: In 1931, by turning logic on itself, Kurt Gödel proved a pair of theorems that transformed the landscape of knowledge and truth. These “incompleteness theorems” established that no formal system of mathematics — no finite set of rules, or axioms, from which everything is supposed to follow — can ever be complete. There will always be true mathematical statements that don’t logically follow from those axioms. I spent the early weeks of the Covid pandemic learning how…

Read More Read More

As the American epoch of oil is collapsing, fossil fuel fascists are trying to turn back the clock

As the American epoch of oil is collapsing, fossil fuel fascists are trying to turn back the clock

Jonathan Watts writes: “Farewell,” the flag-waving Chinese children chanted to Donald Trump as he strolled along the red carpet back to Air Force One at the end of his summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing. The US leader claimed he was leaving with a cluster of “fantastic” trade deals to sell US oil, jets and soya beans to China. That has not been confirmed by his smiling host, but one thing was crystal clear from the two days of meetings:…

Read More Read More

Can the Israel lobby ‘come in and take out a Republican who’s skeptical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies?’

Can the Israel lobby ‘come in and take out a Republican who’s skeptical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies?’

Politico reports: The pro-Israel lobby that’s pumped millions into Democratic primaries this year is facing the next test of its political power on the right in ruby-red Kentucky. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel interest groups have uncorked over $9 million in a bid to unseat Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday in a competitive primary that has shattered spending records. Prominent pro-Israel GOP donors have funneled millions more into a super PAC stood up by President…

Read More Read More

Iran eyes a new source of power deep beneath the Strait of Hormuz

Iran eyes a new source of power deep beneath the Strait of Hormuz

CNN reports: Emboldened by its successful wartime blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is turning to one of the hidden arteries in the global economy: subsea cables beneath the waterway that carry vast internet and financial traffic between Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf. The Islamic Republic wants to charge the world’s largest tech companies for using the subsea internet cables laid under the Strait of Hormuz, and state-linked media outlets have vaguely threatened that traffic could be disrupted…

Read More Read More

Christian nationalists gather in Washington to wage ‘spiritual war’

Christian nationalists gather in Washington to wage ‘spiritual war’

The New York Times reports: Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall on Sunday for a daylong rally blending Christian prayer and political fervor, a gathering President Trump had touted as an opportunity to “rededicate America as one nation under God.” The crowds came to the heart of Washington to hear from spiritual and elected leaders and members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared in a recorded video message, early in the day, exhorting the…

Read More Read More

Thieves are cloning trucks and blowing up pipelines to steal $1 billion in Texas crude oil every year

Thieves are cloning trucks and blowing up pipelines to steal $1 billion in Texas crude oil every year

Moneywise reports: West Texas is losing roughly a billion dollars in crude oil each year to theft — and the people taking it have gotten good enough that they clone service trucks, launder barrels through brokers and occasionally blow up the pipeline they’re trying to rob. “It’s like any other commodity,” Jim Wright, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, told Texas Public Radio. “When the price is high, they just get sexier.” With oil prices elevated by the Iran war…

Read More Read More

A quantum computing deadline looms. It threatens to kick off the worst cybersecurity crisis ever

A quantum computing deadline looms. It threatens to kick off the worst cybersecurity crisis ever

CNN reports: The clock is ticking on Q-Day, the looming yet unknown date when quantum computing will have the capacity to quickly and easily break the encryption keys that keep most internet communication safe. Experts have known about the hypothetical risk of Q-Day since the 1990s. But Google recently warned that quantum computers may be able to hack some encrypted systems by 2029 — a timeline that drastically narrows the window to safeguard data that many cybersecurity specialists had previously…

Read More Read More

A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground

A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground

Max G. Levy writes: One Tuesday in June 2025, a white Chevy Suburban set off down the northernmost highway in North America. The sun of Alaska’s polar summer hadn’t set in 40 days, and it wouldn’t set again for another 35. But for Michael Van Nuland, the biologist in the driver’s seat, time was already running out. The SUV, packed with four days of fieldwork essentials — rubber boots for mucking in marshes, GPS for centimeter-level precision, a steel tube…

Read More Read More

Israel is dividing Republicans, poll finds

Israel is dividing Republicans, poll finds

Politico reports: The Republican Party is starting to splinter over support for Israel — and President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters are largely aligned with the embattled U.S. ally. New results from The POLITICO Poll find that self-identified “MAGA” Trump voters are more supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its relationship with the U.S. than those who don’t identify as MAGA but still voted for the president. Nearly half of MAGA Trump voters say they back Israel and…

Read More Read More

Trump uses Taiwan arms sales as bargaining chip with China, in a risky move

Trump uses Taiwan arms sales as bargaining chip with China, in a risky move

The New York Times reports: President Trump has described a potential multibillion-dollar weapons sale to Taiwan as a “negotiating chip” with China, raising new doubts about the pace and scale of American military support for the island democracy. Taiwan’s government has been waiting for months for Mr. Trump to sign off on a $14 billion package of missiles, anti-drone equipment and air-defense systems intended to fortify the island against Beijing’s military threats. Mr. Trump himself had pressured Taiwan to spend…

Read More Read More

As global crises multiply, scores of American diplomats say they have been forced out

As global crises multiply, scores of American diplomats say they have been forced out

CNN reports: Amid ongoing foreign policy crises around the globe and as the Trump administration struggles to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, the State Department last week finalized the firings of nearly 250 foreign service officers in a brief, impersonal email. “Your reduction in force separation will be effective today,” part of it read. “Thank you again for your service to the Department.” Those reductions in force (RIFs), which were initiated last July, also impacted more…

Read More Read More