What started as a lipsyncing app called Musical.ly morphed into a powerful platform where viral videos helped turn lesser-known artists like Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat and Benson Boone into global superstars. read more
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Wednesday that Greenland is part of Denmark "for now," while signaling that Washington remains deeply engaged in discussions over the Arctic island's future role in Western security.
California's first-ever anti-data center ballot measure is shaping up to be an absolute shellacking for the tech industry -- part of a wave of opposition rising across the country, as communities and lawmakers grapple with the frenzied push to build AI infrastructure.
A US trade judge took the unusual step of personally responding to the Trump administration's appeal of his order to refund $166 billion in tariffs the Supreme Court declared unlawful, calling the government's filings "colorful" and questioning its legal stance.
The House Armed Services Committee adopted a provision for the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would demand the Pentagon inform Congress why senior military officers were fired or dismissed within five days. The requirement was introduced by Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and was adopted Thursday without objections in a bipartisan voice vote.
Then there's this ...
How Two Former YouTubers Took Over the Weekend Box Office
www.technology.org
... Two filmmakers who built their names on YouTube ran away with the weekend box office, and neither one came up through the studio system. A24's "Backrooms" claimed the top spot, while "Obsession" held second. Both are horror films, and both were directed by creators who learned the craft on a video platform instead of a film set. ...
@#3 ... Why would you even put a data center in California, where electricity is expensive, and building codes are strict? ...
Thoiugh, i do have to add to my comment ...
You raise good points.
So the question that seems to remain open is ... why build a data center in California?
Found this ...
Abundance clashes with affordability in California's data center debate (June 2025)
www.politico.com
... For a state that considers itself a leader in both tech and climate, California is falling behind in both building data centers and putting guardrails around their environmental impacts.
Democrats in Sacramento are taking cues from lawmakers in Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia as they explore special electricity rates for data centers aimed at controlling costs for other customers. They're also weighing new energy reporting standards to better understand the supercomputers' impacts on California's electric grid.
Those proposals come as electric utilities are embracing data centers as a potential business savior that promises to increase electrical demand several fold after an era of energy efficiency.
"This trend is absolutely real for us," Pacific Gas and Electric CEO Patti Poppe said during the utility's most recent quarterly earnings call in April. "This will be so beneficial for our customers."
The handful of bills this year are a reaction to PG&E's November 2024 application to energy regulators for a special tariff for all the new data centers it anticipates connecting to its grid in Northern California " enough to require the power of roughly 6.5 million new homes in the next 10 years and four times the output of its Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. Tentatively planned projects would add an additional 1.5 million homes' worth of power.
"It's a big change, and not expected," said Hunter Stern, assistant business manager with IBEW 1245, which represents PG&E electrical workers. "For years, California's goal was to reduce emissions through efficiency and load growth was an indication that emissions would be going up, and we've changed that."
But for ratepayer and environmental advocates, it could go either way: Data centers could, if managed properly, bring down the per-customer grid costs that have been dominating the political conversation for months -- or they could leave ratepayers with costly stranded assets and even outpace the growth of renewable energy on the grid. ...
'The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer': Opposition to Data Centers
www.nytimes.com
... Americans have soured on data centers, polls show, and the sentiment is profoundly bipartisan. How will that change our politics?
The monthly meeting in Lyon Township, a small town in southeast Michigan, was packed on a recent Monday, even though the main item on the agenda was an easement for a drain.
Residents, holding notes and water bottles, lined up at the mic to talk about the actual issue on everybody's minds: the proposed large-scale data center.
They had come prepared.
"Just a reminder," said a man in a black puffer vest, who identified himself as Larry. "An N.F.L. football field is 57,600 square feet. A 1.8-million-square-foot hyperscale data center is about 32 football fields."
A motorcyclist asked about the potential effects on traffic. Someone asked if the proper procedure had been followed to preserve a habitat of endangered bats. A woman in a pink shirt played a recording of noise from a data center in another Michigan town.
When a town board member gently interrupted a speaker to say her time was up, she exclaimed, "I haven't even gotten off my first page!"
Lyon Township voted for Donald J. Trump in 2024, but party loyalties hardly seemed to matter. In an era when Americans are divided on everything -- even the cars they drive and the TV shows they watch -- data centers seem to have bridged the partisan divide.
Early evidence suggests that Americans -- once agnostic -- are now souring on them. Last month, Maine became the first state to pass a moratorium on data centers -- only to have the governor, a Democrat, veto it -- and similar measures have been introduced in at least 13 other states and dozens of municipalities. ...
This also happened ...
Zelensky proposes face-to-face talks in open letter to Putin
www.bbc.com
... Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a face-to-face meeting between himself and Vladimir Putin in a renewed bid to end the war.
In an open letter to the Russian president, the Ukrainian leader said it would be "wrong to simply wait" until the war in Europe becomes the focus of the US's attention once more, adding peace could only come "through direct engagement between" Ukraine and Russia.
He also called for a full ceasefire for the duration of proposed negotiations - something Putin ruled out earlier on Thursday. ...
Related ...
Putin to confront weak economy at 'Russian Davos', under threat of Ukrainian drones
www.france24.com
... Russia's Vladimir Putin will address a flagship investment forum in Saint Petersburg on Friday, as the war in Ukraine drags the economy into stagnation and days after brazen Ukrainian drone strikes rocked his home city. ...
Jim Carroll Band - City Drops Into The Night ((1980)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
It's when Billy's whores are workin'
They're workin' with the skeleton crew
It's when the sky over Jersey
That sky starts to drain from view
It's when my woman pawns her voice so
So she can make her old excuses sound new
But I just want one clue
'Cause when the city drops into the night
Before the darkness there's one moment of light
When everything seems clear
The other side, it seems so near
What seemed wrong?
I think it's gonna be just about right
Before the city drops, the city drops
Into the night
It's when the door to the River
That door is like 26 miles
It's when ambitious little girls start
They start to dream about a change in style
It's when the slick boys got their fingers
They got their fingers in the telephone dial
But I think I'll just wait a while
'Cause when the city drops into the night
Before the darkness there's one moment of light
When everything seems clear
The other side, it seems so near
What seemed wrong?
I think it's gonna be just about right
Before the city drops, the city drops
Into the night
It's when the sneak thieves are checkin'
They're checkin the alleys for unlocked doors
And Billy's sister's gettin' frantic 'cause
'Cause Billy's sister's little brother can't score
It's when the woman from the dream is
Oh my God! That's the woman on the floor
Each promise was just one promise more
'Cause when the city drops into the night
Before the darkness there's one moment of light
When everything seems clear
The other side, it seems so near
What seemed wrong?
I think it's gonna be just about right
Before the city drops, the city drops
Into the night
It's when Teddy's ghost is on the roof
Beatin' his drum
And Teddy's best friend is two blocks East
And he's makin' Teddy's ex-girlfriend come
You know, they mistook Teddy's blind trust
Just to prove that Teddy was dumb
But listen, you know, I think they are both just scum
'Cause when the city drops into the night
Before the darkness there's one moment of light
When everything seems clear
The other side, it seems so near
What seemed wrong?
I think it's gonna be just about right
Before the city drops, the city drops
Into the night
It's when the body at the bottom
That body is my own reflection
But it ain't hip to sink that low
Unless you're gonna make a resurrection
They're always gonna come to your door
They're gonna say, "It's just a routine inspection"
But what you get when you open your door
What you get is just another injection
And there's always gonna be one more
With just a little bit less until the next one
They wait in shadows and steal the light from your eyes
To them vision's just some costly infection
But listen, you should come with me
I'm the fire, I'm the fire's reflection
I'm just a constant warning to take the other direction
Mister, I am your connection
'Cause when the city drops into the night
Before the darkness there's one moment of light
When everything seems clear
The other side, it seems so near
What seemed wrong?
I think it's gonna be just about right
Before the city drops, the city drops
Into the night
...
@#3 ... It's always seems so... surreal, that the Cult ignores the Fact that there was a REAL Coup Plot and plotters, people from Project25 and such, that REALLY DID hatch a plan for DJT to OVERTURN THE ELECTION.... and that it almost werked. ...
And that MAGA cult seems to be trying to rewrite history to prove their view.
Trump's Jan. 6 story becomes GOP's status quo
thehill.com
Found this ...
Push for raw milk intensifies across the US, despite illness outbreaks and scientists' warnings (April 2026)
www.nbcnews.com
... Backers of raw milk are pushing to make the potentially dangerous product more widely available and easier to obtain, even as a new disease outbreak " one of at least five in the past year " sickens U.S. children.
More than three dozen bills supporting raw milk have been introduced in statehouses across the nation, The Associated Press found. A growing number of states are making it legal to sell. Dairy farmers say they can barely keep it in stock, even though prices can exceed $10 or $20 a gallon. ...
@#3 ... Pulte is a perfect storm of a horrible choice for this job. ...
That depends upon your viewpoint.
A differing view might be that Pres Trump now has in place a confirmed yes-man who has the ability to declare election results invalid.