by Derek Seidman | Jul 31, 2026 | AI, Billionaires, blackstone, data centers, Elon Musk, Inequality, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, News Analysis, ultrawealthy
The world’s top megabillionaires — a list dominated by Big Tech and Wall Street barons — enjoy a gamut of luxuries that are unfathomable for most of us. Jeff Bezos owns a half-billion-dollar superyacht. Mark Zuckerberg’s portfolio of lush properties that stretches from Palo Alto to Miami Beach is worth nearly as much. Elon Musk’s wealth roughly equals the gross domestic product of Ireland or…
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by Amy Goodman | Jul 31, 2026 | AI, big tech, China, data centers, Interview, OpenAI, Sam Altman
Artificial intelligence tools are quickly advancing in sophistication and capabilities, raising alarm among researchers and industry figures who say the technology needs to be more tightly regulated. This comes as OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, recently disclosed that one of its experimental AI agents went rogue and secretly hacked into the infrastructure of several other companies in what was supposed…
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by Cathy Rogers | Jul 30, 2026 | AI, big tech, Climate Crisis, data centers, Environment, Op-Ed, Protests
Earlier this year, Gallup asked a national sample of Americans whether they would support an AI data center being built in their local area. Seventy-one percent opposed it, 48 percent of them strongly. Opposition to living near a nuclear power plant was markedly lower, at 53 percent. Republicans, Democrats and independents all rejected data centers. Asked why, respondents most often pointed to…
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by Arthur Allen | Jul 29, 2026 | AI, Department of Health and Human Services, health care, Hospitals, medical care, News, Public Health, Research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services
The Trump administration has effectively shut down most of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s activities, closing the spigot on federal funding estimated to have saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars over the past 27 years by improving medical practice. In a July 15 letter, the small Department of Health and Human Services agency known as AHRQ told researchers it was…
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by Patrick Lohmann | Jul 27, 2026 | AI, AI News, fake news, Flooding, New Mexico, News
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday announced emergency orders directing $500,000 to help with statewide flooding disasters, including in Gallup, where historic monsoon rains in McKinley County flooded streets, damaged homes and tested the city’s aging drainage system. Leah March, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, told Source NM in an email that the funding will provide sandbags…
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by David Armiak | Jul 25, 2026 | AI, ALEC, ALEC annual meeting, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Climate Crisis, Critical Infrastructure Bills, data centers, education, Energy, Fossil Fuel Industry, Heritage Foundation, ICE, Leonard Leo, News Analysis, PFAS, Privatization, Voter ID, Voter Suppression, Voting Rights
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) faithful descend on the Sunshine State this week for the right-wing bill mill’s annual meeting at the four-star JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes. In addition to smoking stogies at a “late night cigar reception,” sipping drinks, and trying out Meta’s latest “AI-powered wearable technologies,” attendees are considering model policies designed to…
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