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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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‘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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Sharp rise in incidents of AI escaping users’ control, research finds

Sharp rise in incidents of AI escaping users’ control, research finds

The Guardian reports: Incidents of AIs escaping users’ control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways have hit a new high, according to research that also suggests the severity of deception and misalignment is worsening. Analysis of real-world loss of control incidents involving AI models flagged by businesses and individuals almost doubled in July compared with June, with more than 300 cases in the month, according to the Loss of Control Observatory, which monitors reports made by…

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X tries to shift some blame for data center backlash onto Chinese bots

X tries to shift some blame for data center backlash onto Chinese bots

Axios reports: Roughly 200 accounts from a suspected Chinese bot farm have quietly tried to influence Americans to oppose AI data centers on social media, X said Thursday night. Why it matters: The U.S. and China are racing to build the world’s most advanced AI systems — and it appears Chinese propaganda has infiltrated American circles with the hope of slowing the U.S. down. Driving the news: The X Safety team probed suspected Chinese accounts involved in influence operations and identified 200,000 accounts, including 200 accounts “posting in…

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Trump says U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves

Trump says U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration has entered a sweeping agreement with Venezuela that, if realized, could give the U.S. access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost. Trump in a social media post announcing the agreement said it was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez. “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement…

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Trump cannot deport students for criticizing Israel, judge rules

Trump cannot deport students for criticizing Israel, judge rules

The Associated Press reports: Citing the importance of the First Amendment, a federal judge in California says the U.S. government is unconstitutionally silencing critics of Israel’s war in Gaza and others as part of the Trump administration ‘s quest to deport noncitizens who it says disrupted college campuses while expressing their views. Judge Noël Wise, in a ruling Friday, delivered a victory for The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper at Stanford University, which has said some international students were afraid…

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Trump’s DHS is using an obscure customs law to secretly snoop on journalists, non-profits and unions: ‘It’s outrageous’

Trump’s DHS is using an obscure customs law to secretly snoop on journalists, non-profits and unions: ‘It’s outrageous’

The Guardian reports: The Trump administration has been deploying an obscure legal maneuver to try to obtain private information on journalists, non-profits and unions, raising alarm over a power the government has asserted without judicial oversight. In one instance, the government obtained six months of telephone records for Georgia Fort, a Minneapolis journalist. Fort was not notified of the request for her information, nor was she given a chance to contest the government’s effort to obtain them, her lawyers said…

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The revival of eugenics

The revival of eugenics

Dan Falk writes: The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the idea was never really forgotten. In the 19th century, the modern science of biology was in its infancy, but took a leap forward with the work of pioneering researchers like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. But…

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The AI backlash: People are irreplaceable

The AI backlash: People are irreplaceable

Matteo Wong writes: If there’s one thing America seems to agree on, it’s AI. Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, three-quarters of Americans think AI will hurt their job security, nearly 70 percent think the technology is advancing too quickly—the polls go on. Progressive and Republican candidates alike are bashing the tech industry to win primary elections. States and cities are halting plans for data-center development. Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where I…

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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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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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