President Donald Trump has announced an agreement with Greenland, in which the U.S. will take permanent control of the Arctic island’s security.

“I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday evening.

The president has eyed Greenland since before he returned to the White House in January 2025, arguing that the U.S. needed to control the semi-autonomous Danish territory for national security purposes.

Trump said that the agreement means the U.S. “will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America.”

It’s unclear what exactly is in the agreement Trump claims to have struck with Denmark and Greenland, but he did highlight one major point — U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China will need his approval to work with Greenland militarily and economically.

“From now on, no U.S. adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval,” Trump said.

The president had warned Russia and China would take Greenland if he didn’t step in.

“It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump claimed during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One in January. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security — and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Trump boasted about his role in the new agreement with Greenland that he said would be “cherished by the American People.”

“For over 100 years, Presidents have known the strategic importance of Greenland, but NONE of them were able to do anything about it. I am proud to be the President that permanently and conclusively addressed this very important situation,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many. We will work with the people of Greenland in its development and construction,” he added.

Since Trump began pushing to acquire Greenland, he has been met with opposition, not just from the people of the Arctic island and Denmark, but also from America’s European allies.

“Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” a joint statement from seven European leaders read.

In the January 6 statement, leaders from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and other U.S. allies said, “We and many other Allies have increased our presence, activities and investments, tokeep the Arctic safe and to deter adversaries.”

They said that since Denmark is a part of NATO, “security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively...by upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders.”

Days later, Trump threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on imports from European allies, several of which were part of the earlier joint statement, “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Trump quickly backed down from his tariff threats, claiming to have “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” with NATO chief Mark Rutte.

Even with the new agreement between government officials, it is doubtful that Trump will sway those in Greenland opposed to American intervention.

The day Trump threatened tariffs against European nations if he did not strike a deal to acquire Greenland, protesters in Nuuk held Greenlandic flags and a banner that read “Make America Go Away” and “We Are Not Property!”

“I think he should mind his own business,” Greenlander Lars Vintner, a heating engineer, told the Associated Press in January.

“What’s he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country,” he said. “Every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland.”

A majority of Americans are also not sold on the idea of gaining control of Greenland.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans oppose a U.S. takeover of the Arctic island while 21 percent favor it and 20 percent are unsure, according to a Pew Research Center poll from January.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he was barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House due to what he called unfavorable coverage and “fake news,” and threatened that more such media bans could be coming — the latest salvo in the president's increasingly aggressive response to media coverage he finds unfavorable.

Like many of Trump's other confrontations with news organizations — some of which are playing out in the legal arena — this threat has potential First Amendment implications. There was no immediate indication, though, that he was following through.

Trump wrote on his social media site that effective immediately, “I am banning” CNN, MS NOW and Politico “from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Minutes later, speaking at an event in the Oval Office, Trump was asked to explain his statement.

“Because they’re fake news,” he said. “You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it’s just fake. That’s why their ratings are no good. When you look at MS NOW … , it’s fake news.”

“And when you look at Politico ... the stories they wrote are fake. So there’s a lot of news and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better," he said. "But our country has to have honest news.”

He gave no further details on how the ban would be implemented. Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were still on the White House grounds as of late Friday afternoon with no signs of being removed.

CNN denounced the move, saying it stands behind its White House team and their “fair and accurate reporting.”

“We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government,” it said in a statement posted on X. “Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

Politico said it would “continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.” MS NOW did not immediately return an email asking about the ban.

The White House has confronted the media more in Trump's second term

In his second term, Trump and his administration have upped the ante and punished certain media outlets, both in the courtroom and through regulatory action. Trump has also lashed out at individual reporters in person or over social media, sometimes in strikingly personal terms.

The move follows the president's decision last year to bar Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other events in retaliation for the news outlet’s decision not to follow his lead in changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, which lies partially in Mexican and other waters. The AP said that it would note when appropriate that Trump had ordered it renamed the "Gulf of America."

The AP filed suit and the case is ongoing. Since returning to office, Trump has pursued other legal action against a variety of different outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC. His administration is also involved in a long-simmering confrontation involving ABC over renewal of its broadcast licenses.

Trump seeking to block White House access for CNN is especially notable, as it could upend the traditional five-network television pool that travels with the president and tracks his every move — meant to provide independent coverage of his actions and interactions for the Americans who elected him and for the world. CNN was traveling with the vice president on Friday to Iowa.

The National Press Club was one of several groups immediately criticizing Trump's threatened action. “Banning news organizations from the White House based on the administration’s disapproval of their coverage is a clear attempt to control which voices are allowed to witness and report on the exercise of presidential power,” said the group's president, Mark Schoeff.

In legal terms, that's called “viewpoint discrimination” — the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish. That legal principle is at issue in many of the court cases around Trump's treatment of the media,.

“Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the First Amendment works,” said Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation director at PEN America. “As we’ve seen time and time again, this administration’s hostility toward the press is never about the accuracy of news stories, but about its inability to withstand scrutiny of its actions."

And Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said it was “difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government.”

He added: "These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public.”

Trump provided no details

In his social media announcement, Trump did not provide details on how the ban would be implemented.

It came moments before he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office as part of a health care event. He later planned to take the press pool to his golf club in Virginia for a meeting and dinner sponsored by his Super PAC before spending the weekend at Camp David — one of the few places reporters don’t follow him.

“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” Trump wrote. “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

At the event, Trump doubled down on his opinions about various media outlets.

"The New York Times is so fake. Washington Post is disgusting,” he said.

Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, applauded the decision in a post on X. “The Department of War fully supports President Trump’s decision to kick CNN, MS NOW and Politico to the curb so they can publish their Fake News from outside the White House,” Hegseth wrote.

In the 1977 case Sherrill v. Knight, a federal appeals court ruled that although the White House is not required to open its doors to the news media, once it establishes press facilities for credentialed journalists, it cannot deny access based on the content of a journalist’s coverage.

The court held that any denial must serve a compelling government interest and that the journalist must receive notice, the chance to respond and a final answer in writing.

CAIRO (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied Friday in a government-organized show of defiance after months of war, pledging their readiness to take up arms in the biggest such demonstration since the United States and Israel attacked in February.

Iran's government has sought to rally the people and stress national unity, even as the economy worsens under a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and new U.S. sanctions. On Friday, it claimed another attack on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway it has sought to control since the start of the war.

Estimates varied of the number of people volunteering to receive limited military training and defend the country in an effort described as "Janfaday-e Iran," or the "ones who sacrifice their lives for Iran." They marched through downtown Tehran in combat uniform, carrying flags, as onlookers cheered.

For days, state media have encouraged Iranians to join the campaign, saying training with assault rifles would begin soon. The volunteers would be an additional layer of security to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia, which has played a key role in quashing anti-government protests.

Rally seeks to project strength under US pressure

Tehran's Guard chief, Gen. Hassan Hassanzadeh, told the state broadcaster that over 600,000 people had registered to participate, with over 1 million expected to take part in the training. On Friday morning, the broadcaster estimated over 300,000 people were on the streets.

The new head of the Basij, Hossein Taeb, declared in a speech as the rally began that the volunteers will be ready for "full-fledged defense" and similar rallies will take place in other cities soon.

The new trainees will make a "nightmare" for Iran's enemies, Taeb added, as President Masoud Pezeshkian, military commanders and other senior officials watched the march.

Some participants trampled flags of the U.S. and Israel. Others chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

"I am here to tell (U.S. President Donald) Trump that we Iranians have no fear about his threats against our homeland," said Marzieh Afaghi, 24, who attended the rally with her toddler and husband. "No one in history could invade Iran and remain there."

The rally was also a chance for Iran to show off military hardware. Anti-aircraft batteries were on display, while female Guard members in black headscarves sat with truck-mounted machine guns.

Iran says it attacked another tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

The Guard displayed drones that have been used against ships in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran's attacks and threats have severely affected the Gulf region's shipments of oil and natural gas to the rest of the world.

Iran said it had attacked a Togo-flagged oil tanker, the Trend, for what it called an "illegal attempt" to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the state broadcaster reported. The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center said a tanker was hit by a projectile, sparking a fire on board that was extinguished.

The UKMTO in a separate update said ship transits facilitated by the U.S. military off Oman have averaged 24 a day over the past week but overall traffic remains about 90% lower than before the war.

Iran's new volunteers could help suppress future dissent

Friday's events also suggested that hard-liners like Taeb among Iran's leadership will be more prepared to suppress any future demonstration against the theocracy.

In January, shortly before the war, Iran saw some of its largest nationwide protests in history, which began over the struggling economy and turned to wider grievances. Activists have said a crackdown killed over 7,000 people and saw tens of thousands detained.

In May, government officials said more than 30 million people in Iran — which has a total population of some 90 million — had volunteered via an online form or at public gatherings to lay down their lives for the theocracy. The Associated Press could not independently confirm that.

___

Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran, and Anna from Jerusalem.

The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.

The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.

It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.

The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.” But it also “almost started a war,” the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.

Across the US military and the intelligence community, officials are pushing to weave AI into nearly every facet of their work, from analyzing the huge volumes of raw intelligence the US collects and selecting targets for strikes, to more mundane applications like managing budgeting, logistics and supply chains.

But the episode underscores the profound risks of using this powerful, new and relatively poorly understood technology for targeting in the middle of a war. Analysts have long feared that AI could lead to a catastrophic miscalculation if nation states are relying on poor or corrupted data — the kind of miscalculation that might lead the United States to fire on a Chinese ship based on inaccurate information.

In this particular instance, the analyst queried a chatbot about some intelligence reporting on the ship’s manifest that originated with US Special Operations Command Pacific, based in Hawaii. It was not clear whether the chatbot was a commercially available one or a US government product.

“The internal tools are mostly just copies of the commercial stuff wearing lipstick,” a former senior US official familiar with the AI systems used by military and intelligence analysts.

The bot fused together open-source intelligence with secret signals intelligence in government holdings and reached its fateful conclusion about the material the ship was carrying.

The analyst then used AI again to package the findings into a standard intelligence report — the kind that is trusted by military officials — and disseminated it.

US Special Operations Command Pacific and the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

The rationale for the rapid adoption of AI is that it can help the military make battlefield decisions, like which targets to strike or which military assets to move where, faster. Officials say the US can’t afford to fall behind in integrating AI in case it must one day fight China or another adversary who would potentially be able to stay one step ahead of the US.

In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released his agency’s “Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy” in a bid to speed up the military’s use of AI.

“We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI,” Hegseth said in a speech announcing the strategy.

The strategy also pushes for its broad use across the military, ordering the department to make AI available via several programs with the aim of “democratizing AI experimentation and transformation across the Department by putting America’s world-leading AI models directly in the hands of our three million civilian and military personnel, at all classification levels,” a memo announcing the strategy said.

But the effort is decentralized, multiple US officials familiar with the dynamic said, with different parts of the government using different tools under different orders and safety standards. There’s no one set of standards for how the US verifies the information generated by these tools. The constellation of different AI systems being deployed by disparate corners of the military and intelligence community means that the relative reliability and functionality vary widely.

For weeks, Washington policymakers have been intensely debating AI after a series of dire warnings from Silicon Valley engineers and tech CEOs of the possibility that AI could break free of human constraints, with potentially civilization-ending consequences.

But the episode with the Chinese ship underscores a different, and more immediate risk: human beings making disastrous decisions based on inaccurate or misleading information generated by AI or other automated systems. Sources said that the military is rapidly turning to AI to help with targeting, an area which holds the obvious risk of fatal mistakes.

“AI in targeting is definitely something that is ramping up and there is no real guidance for how having a human in the loop will prevent civilian casualties or fratricide,” another source familiar with the military’s current policies said.

The kind of “hallucination” that the tool used by the analyst in this case conjured has not been an isolated incident across the intelligence community since these tools began proliferating across government, according to one of the sources.

For some older intelligence officials — even those who broadly support the use of AI inside the military — AI has put pressure on analysts to produce and disseminate intelligence faster, opening the door for mistakes. Young analysts in particular, several sources said, are natives on these tools and more likely to trust them uncritically.

“AI allows you to get to a bad idea faster,” one of the sources said.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

President Trump was photographed this week on board Air Force One examining a large poster with the words "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED" printed above a rendering of a construction site, heightening concerns that his administration wants to raze Washington, D.C.'s iconic performing arts venue if his name is not added to its facade.

"I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition," the president told reporters before he boarded the plane Wednesday in North Carolina. "Because frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down." 

Trump's comments and the photographs that followed are the latest developments in a convoluted saga that started when he dismissed the center's trustees in February 2025 — just days after returning to office — and replaced them with loyalists who elected him chairman. 

Despite several legal setbacks, Trump's handpicked board has been pushing ever since to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was built as a "living memorial" to the slain 35th president, after the White House's current occupant. 

The day before Trump was photographed with the "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED" poster, his appointees voted to close the center's main building for renovations. Does this mean Trump will bulldoze the Kennedy Center if he doesn't get the "recognition" he wants? Here's what we know — and what we don't.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

Where things stand

The Kennedy Center is currently closed. Shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, employees heard a sudden notice on the P.A. system: "The center is now closed to the public. Please exit the center by way of the Hall of States." In a statement, officials described the closure as a temporary, emergency action designed to protect people from deteriorating conditions inside the building after a five-foot-long section of ceiling plaster fell during a recent storm.

At the same time, the board has also been locked in a months-long court battle over its renaming and renovation efforts. Just hours before the closure, Federal Judge Casey Cooper again blocked the center from inscribing Trump's name on its facade — and the president himself responded on social media, saying that "the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place" unless an appeals court allows his name back on the building. 

"The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board's approved name," Trump wrote. "If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place."

Last year, Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House after pledging that construction of his new $300 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom wouldn’t "interfere with the current building.”

On Thursday, Cooper instructed the center to provide more than 30 days' notice before carrying out any significant changes to its renovation plan, "including but not limited to any 'demolition' of the center's main building."

On Friday, Kerry Kennedy — niece of President Kennedy and daughter of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — posted on social media that a "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" protest would be taking place at 6:30 p.m. ET. 

"With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions," read the event's invitation. 

Trump takeover 

On Feb. 7, 2025, Trump announced on social media that he was taking over the Kennedy Center. "At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN," he wrote. "I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture." 

"We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!" he added. 

Within days, Trump had installed his former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as interim executive director and replaced the bipartisan board with various allies, including Dana Blumberg (wife of billionaire Robert Kraft), Alison Lutnick (wife of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick), conservative country singer Lee Greenwood, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and second lady Usha Vance.

At the time, Trump said he objected to previous Kennedy Center programming, citing "Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth." He vowed to oversee the performance schedule himself. 

"This marks the first time a president has removed his predecessor's board members at the Kennedy Center and installed himself as chair," the Washington Post reported. 

Alex Brandon/AP

Previously, "political persuasion was never a factor we considered or discussed in artistic programming," Michael Kaiser, the Kennedy Center's president from 2001 to 2014, told the New York Times. "Our Board included 14 members of Congress who were evenly split between the two parties. This balance made it clear to everyone at the center that the only way for us to work was to ignore politics."

In response to Trump's takeover, musician Ben Folds and opera singer Renée Fleming stepped down as the center's artistic advisers; TV producer Shonda Rhimes — formerly treasurer of its board of trustees — left as well. Producers of the musical Hamilton and the play Eureka Day canceled entire planned performance runs. Other artists followed suit. 

"These events have caused a major negative reaction in my musical community to playing at the Kennedy Center," guitarist and composer Yasmin Williams wrote in an email to Grenell.

"I cut the DEI bullshit because we can't afford to pay people for fringe and niche programming that the public won't support," Grenell wrote back. Elsewhere, Grenell said that the center had "spent way too much on programming that doesn't bring in any revenue."

"We have completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution," Trump claimed in August 2025. "We ended the woke political programming, and we're restoring the Kennedy Center as the premier venue for performing arts anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world."

Yet a Washington Post analysis conducted in October 2025 found that, after Trump's takeover, ticket sales for orchestra, theater and dance performances at the center plummeted to their lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new name? 

In May 2025, the new Kennedy Center board revised its bylaws to exclude the 23 federal and local officials who automatically serve as ex officio members from voting. Going forward, only trustees appointed by Trump would be allowed to vote.

On Dec. 18, 2025 — shortly after Trump became the first president to host the annual Kennedy Center Honors — his appointees voted to rename the venue as The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or the Trump-Kennedy Center. Then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the vote was unanimous, but Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio board member, insisted that she "was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice [her] opposition to this move." 

The same day, a new logo featuring Trump's name appeared on the center's website; within 24 hours, workers had added Trump's name to the building's facade. "I was surprised by it, I was honored by it," the president told reporters when asked about the name change. "We saved the building." 

Justice Department lawyers later said the new signage had already been "prepared and/or purchased prior to the Board's vote the day before." 

In protest, more artists canceled planned performances, including Kristy Lee, Chuck Redd and Philip Glass. The Washington National Opera announced it would leave the center. 

"The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law," former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, RFK's grandson, wrote on social media. "It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.

In late December, Beatty filed suit against the Kennedy Center trustees who voted to change the name, arguing that they had no legal power to do so.

A few months later, in May 2026, Cooper sided with Beatty and ordered the center to revert to its original name within 14 days. The center's founding statute "makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board's unilateral say-so," Cooper wrote in his opinion. "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."

By mid-June, Trump's name had been removed from the center's website and facade. But the board also tried to appeal Cooper's ruling, arguing that millions of dollars in donations would have to be returned if the center did not ultimately bear Trump's name, according to its new bylaws. 

These efforts failed, yet Trump's appointees seem undeterred. Last month, they voted to inscribe "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" below the center's name on the building's facade — which led Cooper to again block the board from adding the president's name to the building. 

"Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing," Cooper wrote. "The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted."

Renovation or demolition… or something else?

In tandem with its renaming efforts, the board has also spent the last seven months pushing to shutter the center for renovations.

Trump started to muse about the project in late 2025. The following February, he announced the center would close on July 4, 2026, for a two-year renovation. "I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World," he wrote on social media.

But in his May ruling, Cooper also issued a temporary order blocking the center from fully closing for two years. Instead, he said the center could "move ahead with renovations to the decades-old building and could later decide to close … after its board more fully considered the impact on its statutory requirement to maintain some programming at all times," according to CNN.

At the time, skeptics questioned whether major renovations were necessary, noting that Trump had previously said the center would remain "fully open during construction, renovation and beautification." 

"Trump's contradictory statements and the absence of an independent board or any notification to Congress make these claims of a building in need of repair unverifiable at best," the Atlantic wrote. "A more plausible reason for the closing is that under Trump, the Kennedy Center can't hold on to staff, artists or audiences." 

According to a Washington Post analysis published in August and based on confidential internal documents, "ticket sales had already dropped in the 10 months following Trump's takeover" — "but both ticket sales and donations plunged after the Trump-led board of trustees voted in December to rename the center after him and put his name on the front of the building." As of June, the center's own officials were projecting a $100 million revenue shortfall for fiscal year 2026, with a 70% decline in earned income, the Post reported. 

In response, Trump and his administration have argued that they inherited a "decrepit" structure in dire need of repairs — repairs that cannot proceed unless the president gets credit for them. 

"An order blocking the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up and structural rehabilitation to stop," the Department of Justice wrote in an Aug. 29 filing, adding that without Trump's efforts, "the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down" — possibly to be replaced with "a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River."

Such a venue has "been proposed, by some, for many years," the filing said.

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans' three-month headache about Mitch McConnell's health seems to have subsided – at least for now.

In the days since the Kentucky lawmaker's return to the Capitol, they've defended him in the halls and expressed gratitude that his condition has improved. A fall in June, followed by a bout of pneumonia, kept the 84-year-old off the job for much of the summer and complicated the voting math for Senate Republicans on key legislation.

On his way back into the Senate chamber on the night of Monday, Sept. 14, he joked with reporters about admittedly dodging their questions since he'd been gone. Sitting in a wheelchair with visibly bruised hands, he resolved that it was "time to get back to work" and "finish the ​job for this Congress." He isn't running for reelection and will end his more than 40-year Senate tenure by January.

Immigrants applying to live permanently in the United States can be rejected if they receive public benefits, beginning this week.

Use of Medicaid, food stamps, tuition assistance and free school lunch programs, among other government assistance, could all be grounds for denying a green-card application.

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.

The policy from President Donald Trump’s administration, which took effect Friday, marks a dramatic change to a long-standing federal policy consistent with the president’s efforts to restrict legal immigration pathways.

The rule could reduce federal and state payments by $13 billion a year, by persuading some 950,000 people to disenroll from or avoid federal safety net programs, according to estimates from the Department of Homeland Security. The agency said that the rule aligns with Congress’s intent that noncitizens “in the United States be self-sufficient and not dependent on taxpayer-funded government benefits.”

“Aliens in the United States should be self-reliant,” a DHS policy document for the rule states, “and government benefits should not incentivize immigration.”

Applying for a green card, or legal permanent residency, is a necessary step for those seeking U.S. citizenship.

This week, New York led 21 other states, the District of Columbia and several cities in suing the Trump administration over the new rule. The lawsuit argued that the rule fails “to consider many important aspects” of the problems it creates and warned that the harms will extend to mixed-status families and U.S. citizen children.

“Cruelty is the point,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit this week. “Having a chilling effect on immigrants is the point. Letting individuals know that they are not welcome here is the point.”

The rule allows immigration officers to use their judgment in considering whether use of benefits such as food stamps indicates that a person is “likely at any time to become a public charge,” or dependent on government assistance. Critics warn that an absence of clear guidance on which benefits will be considered in a green-card application will led to inconsistent application and a broader chilling effect.

“The lack of specificity makes it really hard for any family to know what [government-provided benefit] is safe to use,” said Julia Gelatt, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The Department of Homeland Security rule expands the “public charge” policy in place since 1882. Immigration officers have long factored in a person’s health, finances and skills in determining whether they are likely to rely on government assistance in the future. But only direct cash payments, such as disability income, and long-term hospitalization, previously were considered reasons for denying a green-card application.

The new rule applies to immediate family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, including children and spouses, fiancés of U.S. citizens, skilled and religious workers, and others.

Other types of immigrants, including asylum seekers and refugees, will not be subject to the rule.

The first Trump administration introduced a similar rule in 2019 that was later blocked by courts. But the policy spread fear and confusion among immigrant households, leading to a sharp drop in people living in households where someone lacked a green card enrolling in noncash federal assistance programs, such as food stamps, according to an Urban Institute report.

Related Content

Democrats' wary optimism about the midterms gave way to growing confidence this week.

The party has seen strong post-Labor Day polls in key battlegrounds - and even in traditionally red areas. Recent escalations in the war in Iran, including an attack on a major pipeline in Saudi Arabia, mean the rising gas prices bedeviling Republicans will not be going down anytime soon. Republicans have not been able to bring prices under control more generally. And President Donald Trump's unpopularity is at near-record levels.

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.

Considering all this, Democrats now think conditions are right for the party to retake control of the House and possibly the Senate later this year.

"If the election were held today, we would win the majority," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Schumer said he felt "considerably more bullish" about Democrats' chances of retaking the Senate than he did a few months ago. He described the environment as uncannily similar to 2006, when discontent with the war in Iraq helped Democrats recapture the Senate and the House.

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts) said Democrats' recent momentum is driven by their focus on the economy, with voters believing that the party understands the financial pain they've felt in the years since Republicans swept into unified control.

"That is what is driving these polls," Clark told The Post on Thursday.

Still, Democratic fears remain.

Democrats need at least four more seats to take the Senate majority and would have to win at least two in states Trump carried by double-digit margins in 2024. Republicans are seeking to blunt any Democratic gains by flipping Democratic-held open seats in Michigan and New Hampshire, where polls show competitive races. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the Senate contest in New Hampshire from "Lean Democrat" to "Toss Up" this week.

Republicans focused on keeping control of the House argue that they have a more favorable map, partly because a GOP redistricting effort has limited the number of battleground districts, and partly because they believe that Democratic primary voters nominated weak candidates in a handful of key races.

Then there is the incoming flood of GOP money.

Republicans are set to spend nearly $140 million more on ads than Democrats are in the nine most competitive races in the final weeks of the campaign, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The disparity is especially yawning in the Senate contest in Texas, where Republicans have reserved $39.6 million in ads and Democrats have reserved just $5.1 million.

On the House side, the National Republican Congressional Committee plans to run coordinated ads in 39 districts, with more than $24 million in ads reserved.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has plans for coordinated ads in 14 districts.

"The Republican campaign engines are firing on all cylinders, and we are burying House Democrats in battleground districts across the country," said Mike Marinella, spokesperson for House Republicans' campaign arm. "Republicans have the historic fundraising advantage, a more favorable map, stronger candidates, and the firepower to defy history and grow our House majority."

Schumer acknowledged Republicans' financial advantage but said it would not stop Democrats from retaking the Senate.

"We don't need as much money as them given the political climate, given the terrain," he said. "All we need is enough to stay in the ballpark and be able to answer them."

Republicans have begun to openly acknowledge electoral concerns in recent weeks, particularly with polls showing that Democrats are far more eager to vote than Republicans are.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) told reporters Thursday that he was going to Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa to raise money for GOP Senate candidates.

"If you told me six months ago I was going to be having to spend my time in those three states, I wouldn't have believed you. Those ought to be fat guy layups for us," he said, though he predicted Republicans would hold those seats.

"The far left, they're angry," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said this week on the "Pod Force One" podcast, describing this as a "challenging environment" for his party. "They hate President Trump with a burning passion. And they're going to crawl over broken glass to vote."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) acknowledged Wednesday that Republicans are facing "headwinds" but said the Senate races that will decide control of the chamber remain competitive.

"It's not a great environment for us," Thune said. "But we've got really quality candidates in all the competitive races, and the polling that we're seeing in those races shows that these races are tight."

Republicans have been debating how to increase enthusiasm beyond spending more money. Some, largely those closely tied to the president and his political operation, argue that the path to victory is to re-create the electorate Trump built in 2024. Other Republicans - primarily those in battleground districts where private and public polls show that voters are deeply upset with the president - believe the way to win is to distance themselves from the administration and its policies, a difficult task following a decade of Trump remaking the party in his own image.

"I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot," Trump said during one of two speeches he gave at the Republicans' midterm convention in Dallas recently. "Just one more time."

Trump has made it difficult for many candidates, especially those in tight races, to embrace this tactic. In large part, that's because he has repeatedly dismissed the issue that voters say is their main stressor: prices. His trade war has raised prices on goods across the country. And gas prices, which have shot up because of the president's war against Iran, are nearing $4.50 per gallon on average.

However, speaking at a campaign rally Wednesday in North Carolina, a state he has won in three straight presidential elections, Trump said high fuel prices were "a very inexpensive price to pay for what we have done" in Iran.

A Republican operative working on House races, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, responded to Trump's comments with an animated image of actor Bryan Cranston screaming, "F---!"

The president has promised to get out the vote for Republican candidates, including those in trouble deep in Trump country. Some have taken him up on his offer, but not every candidate wants him around, and administration officials' visits to red states have been seen as warning signs for Republicans.

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Kansas this week to stump for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who is in a tighter-than-expected race against Democrat Adam Hamilton. Trump and Vance won Kansas by 16 percentage points in 2024.

Vance is also set to campaign in Iowa on Friday. But the state's Republican Senate nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson, will not appear next to the vice president. A Hinson spokesperson cited previously scheduled events, but the absence comes as the candidate seeks to tout her bipartisan record in a state Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2024. Hinson is locked in a tight race against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek.

And in South Florida, an area Trump dominated in 2024, Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar openly broke with the president Thursday.

"Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," Salazar says directly to the camera in a new campaign ad. "The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today."

Democrats say they began to see a change during what was supposed to be Republicans' hallmark 2026 event: the party's unorthodox midterm convention. The gathering was billed as a way for the GOP to showcase its front-line candidates, but instead it featured Trump defending his record and pledging to give each American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans hold Congress this year, a proposal many Democrats saw as a sign of desperation.

"We're not measuring the drapes, but the ground has shifted," said Xochitl Hinojosa, a longtime Democratic operative and top spokesperson at the Democratic National Committee after the 2016 election.

Some Democratic operatives running campaigns said they had been waiting to see whether Republicans would coalesce around a clear affordability message during the Texas event. But when it became obvious that the event would be a Trump-centric celebration that offered no direct case for why Republicans deserved unified control for two more years, their confidence grew.

"Turns out breaking all your campaign promises and doing everything possible to make life more expensive for everyone is bad politics," said Viet Shelton, spokesperson for House Democrats' campaign arm. "Shocker."

The last time Democrats experienced a wave election was in 2018, when the party swept into control of the House two years after Trump's first presidential win.

Meredith Kelly, a Democratic operative who was the top spokesperson at House Democrats' campaign arm at the time, said that there are plenty of similarities between that year and this one - primarily around Trump's unpopularity - but that the biggest difference is how Republicans' worries are coming from voters who helped them win in 2024, such as rural voters and Black and Latino men.

"Their coalition's floor is falling out from underneath them," said Kelly.

The prospect of a wave election has Democratic candidates in districts once thought entirely unreachable for the party feeling like they may have a shot to do the unexpected in November.

Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy veteran running against GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert in a district that spans eastern Colorado, knows that her odds of winning have always been long. Trump won the district less than two years ago by 18 percentage points. But powered almost entirely by anger at Washington and voters' fears about their personal finances, Laubacher thinks she has an opportunity to take down her outspoken Republican opponent.

"People vote frequently about their pocketbooks and their wallets, but I think the situation is growing ever more fraught for people," said Laubacher. "Every aspect of their life has become more expensive, and they do not feel that the government is doing anything about any of it."

Jarrell Dillard contributed to this report.

Related Content

President Donald Trump has lashed out at leakers in his own administration after a series of behind-the-scenes reports on the Iran war.

As the conflict Trump claimed would be over in six weeks drags into its seventh month, insiders have repeatedly claimed the president was warned against taking action by his own advisors.

“Keep on leaking you dirty dogs! When we find you, you will pay a big price!!!” declared on his Truth Social Thursday night.

The president was responding to an editorial in The Washington Post addressing the war in Iran and a Wall Street Journal report last month revealing that his then-director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, advised him against launching Operation Epic Fury on February 28.

Click here for the latest on the war.

Marc Thiessen’s piece condemned the “self-serving leaks” and said they had ultimately only served to demonstrate “what a courageous decision Trump made” when choosing to stop the nuclear threat posed by Tehran while “surrounded by naysayers” and “doves.”

The journalist argued the “most tragic mistake that world leaders made over the past century was the failure to take the words of the monsters of history seriously” – naming Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. He claimed Trump had bucked the trend and made “the bravest foreign policy decision any president has done in my lifetime.”

“Even if it hurts him politically in November, he will be rewarded by history,” Thiessen concluded.

The president hailed his article as “very interesting” and “a must read,” which counts as rare praise for a newspaper he has regularly derided and which he attempted to sue for defamation in 2023, only for the $3.8 billion lawsuit to be thrown out in July.

The war has proved domestically unpopular for Trump just as the country heads to the midterms, with Reuters / Ipsos polling last month suggesting just 31 percent of Americans support the conflict.

Previous reports have suggested Trump was persuaded to unleash war on Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite skepticism from his inner circle.

Vice President JD Vance was the most vocal in his opposition, according to a New York Times report in April, with CIA Director Jim Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine said to have claimed Netanyahu “oversold” the president.

Since then, the cost of the war has spiralled to an estimated $33 billion, sent gas prices soaring and all but closed the key shipping route the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump previously lashed out at leakers in August after it was reported he had had an argument with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Camp David over a reported shortfall on U.S. missile stockpiles as a result of the war.

“The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” the president fumed. “Long term jail sentences will be sought!”

Similarly, he has previously warned his enemies they will “pay a big price,” doing so in July when ranting about the “vandals” and “sleazebags” he insisted had sabotaged his restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Matt Bell, 52, has been farming for more than half his life in central North Carolina. He grows soybeans, corn and wheat and raises beef cattle on more than 1,000 acres. But Bell, who voted for President Trump, says soaring prices for fuel, fertilizer, and equipment are hurting his farm and leading some of his fellow farmers to consider calling it quits once this growing season ends.  

"I've done this 34 years. I have never worried and stressed like I have the last year," Bell told CBS News in an interview on Wednesday at his farm in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. 

Bell has been forced to make significant changes to his operation as a result of the high costs. He's shifting some of his acreage, trying to stretch out the lifespan of his equipment and producing his own fertilizer. His children have also opened up a storefront where visitors can pick pumpkins and take hayrides in the fall. But Bell is still feeling the pinch. 

"We've cut everything we can cut," he said. "The last several years in agriculture have been terrible, and we have, you know, just cut the fat anywhere we could. But we're just getting to the point now there's nothing left to cut. You cannot run without fuel. You cannot run without fertilizer. You have to have that." 

Bell says his diesel fuel costs have about doubled since last year

The war with Iran has driven up fuel costs and created supply chain disruptions as the Strait of Hormuz remains under a naval blockade with a limited number of oil tankers allowed through the critical waterway. And the intensifying conflict between Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia and attacks by other Iranian proxy forces on Saudi infrastructure are squeezing global fuel supplies in the Red Sea and contributing to a spike in global fuel costs. 

Fighting in Russia and Ukraine has also limited oil refining capacity, driving up prices further. 

Diesel prices nationwide are averaging roughly $6.40 per gallon, according to AAA, nearly double the average price a year ago. In North Carolina Thursday, diesel prices hit their highest recorded average of $6.19 per gallon. 

Prices have been so volatile that Bell said the price he's quoted from his distributor in the morning is only valid until the afternoon — when it rises again. He can't avoid the expense — his farm equipment runs on diesel. Bell showed CBS News his combine, which he says now requires about $600 worth of diesel fuel per day. That's more than twice what he paid last year.  

Bell said he blew through his yearly fuel budget of $35,000 in August. Now, he expects his total for the year to be closer to $50,000 to $60,000. 

"Every piece of equipment on this farm runs on diesel," he said. Without it, his farm wouldn't be able to function. 

Tariff impact: "Everything that we touch has gone up"

It's not just diesel prices that are hurting Bell's business. President Trump's wide-ranging tariffs have also driven up costs — and left him and other farmers in limbo as the president continues to threaten to impose more tariffs.

"Everything we're touching, the fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, seed, parts — you know, the whole nine yards, everything that we touch has gone up," Bell said, noting that many of the price hikes resulted from Mr. Trump's tariff policies. 

Farmers welcomed Mr. Trump's announcement in May that he had reached a deal for China to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S. annually through 2028. China has purchased significantly more U.S. soybeans in 2026 compared to 2025, but its 10% retaliatory tariff on U.S. soybeans remains in place. China imposed the levy in response to Mr. Trump's fentanyl-related tariffs on China. 

Bell said China's soybean tariffs have left the market in limbo: That is, China hasn't increased the prices it's paying for U.S. soybeans, even though everything farmers touch in producing soybeans "has gone up."  

In a letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, the American Soybean Association called on him to push for the elimination of the 10% tariff. 

"I think we've been misled" 

Bell initially supported Mr. Trump's policies and even thought short-term price increases resulting from the Iran conflict would be worth  ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon, one of the president's stated goals of the war. 

But he now says the administration has made miscalculations in the war. "We're just being strung along as a country and that's not good," Bell said. 

Bell criticized the administration's decision-making around the war, saying, "I think we've been misled."

He also says the administration's agriculture policy is not what he was promised. 

"We were sold a bill of goods that agriculture was going to be on the forefront … and there was going to be some policy that would put America's farmers and ranchers first. And right now, that has not happened."

Bell said that while the administration's farmer bailout program sounds significant, "it's not a lot of money." 

This November, Bell says he'll be voting for candidates who he says have "common sense," and listen to Americans' concerns.

"I'm a Republican, but I'm probably going to vote a split ticket," he said.  

"We are fighting for survival" 

Bell said he knows farmers who have been forced out of business as a result of high costs, unable to sustain their business with rising prices.

"I do not want any Americans to feel sorry for the American farmer," Bell said. "I want the Americans to be mad that we have been put in this situation. We are fighting for survival, and we're running out of options." 

And he acknowledged it's possible he could also be forced to shutter his farm. 

"Money's not the problem, I could care less about the money," he said. "But we take a lot of pride in what we do. You can't put a dollar sign on that. But I can't stay in business under these conditions. Something has got to give." 

But asked what he would do if he wasn't a farmer, Bell hesitated: "I don't know. It's all I've ever done." 

A woman from a low-income family in China crossed over into Hong Kong to get to a concert she had spent months saving up for.

It was a trip that Beijing’s vast surveillance apparatus didn’t miss. Now her family face the prospect of losing their government benefits for splurging on “high-end consumption.”

The incident has sparked massive debate across Chinese social media over whether those receiving benefits are also entitled to small luxuries. It’s also a reminder of the staggering extent of the Chinese government’s surveillance system, one turbocharged by advances in AI and the embrace of digital payments.

The story first surfaced in a post on popular site Red Note in early September by a user who said they were the young woman’s cousin.

The woman, surnamed Huang, had “worked hard doing manual labor and saved up from the subsidies” to pay for the concert ticket and expenses of traveling to Hong Kong, around 235 miles (380 kilometers) from her home in Jiangxi province, the post said.

That post has since been taken down, but Chinese officials have said it was indeed written by the woman’s cousin. A screenshot of it has also been used by state media reporting on the case.

Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997 following more than 100 years of British colonial rule. It is governed by separate legal and political systems to mainland China, and mainland Chinese citizens still must apply for permission to travel there.

According to the Red Note post, a local social worker warned Huang before the trip that any border crossing could trigger a review of her family’s eligibility for welfare.

“I can’t tell if she was actually dumb enough to think Hong Kong doesn’t count as going abroad, or if she knew perfectly well and went anyway,” it said.

The family is in “extreme, extreme poverty” and the prospect of losing the payments has left them in “complete devastation,” the post said.

It is unclear what concert Huang had risked so much to go and see.

For many of the legions of K-Pop fans in mainland China, Hong Kong is the most accessible place to see a K-Pop concert. For the past decade, Beijing has placed an unofficial ban on performances by Korean artists on the mainland as it feuds with Seoul over trade and the presence of US weapons in South Korea.

In late August in Hong Kong there was a two-day international music awards festival featuring performances from different K-Pop bands, including some famous ones such as ALLDAY PROJECT, aespa, BABYMONSTER, RIIZE, Super Junior and TOMORROW X TOGETHER.

On September 7, the Social Affairs Management Bureau in Ganzhou in Jiangxi province, where the young woman lives, issued an official readout on its website in response to the heated discussion on the original Red Note post.

The bureau said Huang and her family were under investigation “after she independently traveled to Hong Kong to attend a concert, the trip triggered an alert in the dynamic monitoring system for recipients of the minimum living allowance.”

The city’s New Economic Development Zone’s Social Affairs Management Bureau told CNN on Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.

Over the four decades to 2020, China lifted the vast bulk of its population out of poverty, and in 2021 leader Xi Jinping declared that extreme poverty had been eliminated. But official data shows around 40 million people across the country still depend on government living subsidies.

According to Ganzhou’s policy, if a household per-person income is below the minimum living allowance threshold set by the government, each person in the family could receive 1,005 yuan per month, equivalent to $150 dollars.

The case has sparked so much debate that China’s state media has waded in.

The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily issued a commentary last week saying “of course, reasonable freedom to spend one’s money should be respected, but that freedom has limits, and people receiving public assistance are even more obligated to follow the rules.”

Government basic living subsidies are “meant to cover basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Going to Hong Kong to see a concert is a high-cost form of entertainment, so there is nothing unreasonable about it triggering an alert in the monitoring system,” it said.

The online discussion has drawn over 120 million views on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Some commenters said they thought it would be “cruel” if the family lost their welfare. “Does being low-income mean you are not allowed to enjoy things you like?,” asked one person.

But many other were less sympathetic. “Her family is struggling this badly, and she doesn’t think to use the money she earns to help her family out?” asked another user of the platform.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

The final change of the guard at the storied Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B).

Berkshire Hathaway said Friday that Warren Buffett, 96, will step down as chairman effective immediately. He will move to the chairman emeritus role.

In his place as chair will be his son Howard G. Buffett, as has been telegraphed would happen for years.

Board life will now look much different for Howard, who has a striking resemblance to his legendary investor dad.

And Howard Buffett knows the transition will change his life, which has long consisted of frequent world travel for philanthropic ventures alongside a daily routine of being a farmer who tills his own land.

"I've been to 155 countries or something. And I'm on the road a lot. I've been in Ukraine five times in 2022. And the same thing, five times in 2023 and probably four or five times this year. So those are trips I won't make," Buffett told Yahoo Finance in a 2024 interview.

Buffett, 71, is seen as the "guardian" of the unique Berkshire culture that his father and longtime lieutenant Charlie Munger created over the decades. The business itself is a beast, requiring expert planning and oversight by the Berkshire board.

The business ranges from operating one of the nation's most important railroads in Burlington Northern to supporting the housing market via homebuilder Clayton Homes.

Buffett has an extensive management resume, from working in investor relations at commodities player Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to serving as a board member of his dad's favorite drink and legacy stock investment, Coca-Cola (KO). (Howard retired from the Coke board in 2016 after 17 years.)

Buffett is also the chairman and CEO of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which was founded in 1999.

"I will need to keep in mind that I just need to be around to do my job [at Berkshire] and my responsibility. So I think the risk level of what I do in my life today probably gets decreased," Buffett said in the 2024 interview. "I won't be running the company as a non-executive chairman. My job will be to support [future CEO Greg Abel] in every way that I can."

Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor, host of the 'Power Players With Brian Sozzi' podcast and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.

Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

About 13 years ago, “American Idol” contestant Caleb Flynn gushed about his wife Ashley, who he said encouraged him to audition for the 12th season of ABC’s singing competition.

“I love my wife more than anything,” he said in an interview during his brief stint on the show. “She’s very, very pretty, just – woof, I love her.”

Now, Flynn stands trial for her murder, as investigators allege the former music pastor fatally shot his wife of almost 16 years and staged the crime scene to make it appear she was killed by an intruder.

Flynn, 40, was arrested in February, days after he frantically called 911 to report someone broke into their Tipp City, Ohio, home and killed his wife – a beloved middle school volleyball coach – while he was in their daughters’ bedroom.

“We’re looking forward to trying the case,” his defense attorney, Patrick Mulligan, told CNN Tuesday. “We’ve been waiting for this.”

Flynn has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, and tampering with evidence.

The murder trial, which is slated to last about two weeks, started with jury selection on Thursday. Sixteen panelists – four of whom have been designated alternates – were seated, according to CNN affiliate WHIO. Opening statements are expected Friday morning.

During the proceedings, the jurors are expected to visit the family’s home to view the crime scene and hear testimony from several of Ashley’s family members – including the couple’s preteen daughters, who are crucial to their father’s presumed alibi.

Prosecutors have provided scant details about the investigation and have not yet offered a purported motive for the killing or described the alleged “cover up” – key components jurors will likely consider during their deliberations.

“It will become apparent what the status of the evidence is as things go on,” Mulligan told CNN, adding he didn’t believe the prosecution would be able to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. He previously suggested authorities had made a “rush to judgment” in arresting his client.

“When the government runs out of leads or can’t develop leads and looks at a surviving spouse in cases such as these, the chance of a wrongful conviction increases,” the defense attorney said in a statement to The Associated Press shortly after Flynn’s arrest in February.

If the panel convicts Flynn of the most serious charge, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Weeks before the trial’s start, Judge Jeannine Pratt denied a defense motion to change the venue of the trial and a motion from prosecutors to sequester the jury, with both parties arguing the high public interest in the case could jeopardize the impartiality of the panel.

The court will impose additional measures to ensure jurors are impartial, Pratt wrote in her ruling, and may reconsider the parties’ requests if any issues arise while seating the jury.

‘There’s blood everywhere’

In the early morning hours of February 16, Ashley was shot and killed inside the suburban home she shared with her husband and their two daughters.

Caleb Flynn told investigators he was sleeping in the living room that night because he had a bad cough, according to a conversation captured on police body-worn cameras. He woke up when he heard one of their dogs moving, he said, and assumed one of the children had gotten out of bed.

“I went in their room, and I laid down with them for – I don’t even know how long, and that’s when I heard it,” Flynn told the officers, saying he “froze” when he heard a gunshot.

“When I finally got up, the door leading to the garage was open, but I didn’t see anybody,” he said.

In a 911 call around 2:30 a.m., Flynn reported an intruder had broken into the house and shot his wife.

“My wife, she’s got two shots to her head. There’s blood everywhere,” he said breathlessly. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

Footage from police body cameras showed first responders rushing into the family’s home shortly after and clearing the house with their guns drawn.

“We have a lady with a gunshot wound to the head in her bed,” one officer said. “We got gun casings on the floor. The husband’s here and the kids are here.”

While searching through the garage, police noted a door leading outside was open, as was the center console in a parked truck. Flynn told investigators he had a few guns in the house, including a handgun he stored in his truck, according to the footage.

As officers secured the scene over the next hour, police bodycam footage captured Flynn sobbing, calling loved ones and appearing to vomit. When Ashley’s mother arrived at the home, he fell to his knees, wailing, before they embraced on the front lawn.

“The girls don’t know, the girls are sleeping,” Flynn said as he hugged her. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either,” the grandmother said through tears. “I’m just – I’m in shock.”

Police led astray by ‘staging of the crime scene,’ they say

That night, Flynn agreed to go to the police station to provide a statement about the incident, the bodycam footage shows. “You’ll be riding up front with me,” an officer told him as he pointed to a nearby car.

Three days later, Flynn was handcuffed in the back of a police vehicle on his way to the Miami County Jail, where he’s been held since his arrest. His bond was set at $3.5 million.

Initial charging documents said officers were at first “lead estray (sic) by the staging of the crime scene,” though authorities have not provided details about the alleged cover-up.

“As a result of the investigation, probable cause existed to charge Caleb Flynn with the murder of his wife,” Tipp City police said in a news release announcing his arrest. “Due to the ongoing nature of this case, specific investigative details will not be released at this time.”

Ashley’s family believes the arrest was made “carefully and not without serious consideration,” according to a statement shared with CNN affiliate WKEF.

“After speaking with both local police and federal authorities, we trust the proper steps were taken and the process is being handled appropriately,” they wrote. “We kindly ask for privacy as we work through this complex situation.”

Friends and family mourn a ‘pillar’ of the community

In the aftermath of her shocking death, the suburban community of Tipp City – just north of Dayton – came together to mourn Ashley, a beloved substitute teacher and volleyball coach.

Ribbons and Bible verses adorned the downtown streets in her memory, and local restaurants donated some of their proceeds to her family, according to CNN affiliate WHIO.

“She was such a pillar to the community,” neighbor Tia Turner told WKEF. “She was one of the first people to welcome us in the neighborhood.”

About a week after her death, Ashley’s friends and family commemorated what would have been her 38th birthday. Her daughters blew out candles on chocolate cupcakes, WKEF reported, and her loved ones released balloons with handwritten messages into the sky.

“We miss her in ways words can’t capture. But we hold tightly to this: Ashley’s life was always about pointing people to Jesus and showing them His love,” her family said in a statement provided to WKEF.

“And her legacy will live on – in her daughters, in her parents, in her sister, and in the many lives she touched and influenced along the way.”

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

On Wednesday, OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) revealed six new examples of its AI models displaying "unexpected or concerning model behavior" during testing and evaluation.

The company made the announcement alongside a new framework for "tracking, reporting, and disclosing" instances where AI models take actions they otherwise aren't told to or shouldn't.

It follows a number of reports of AI models from companies hacking into third-party networks and services, including an unreleased OpenAI model breaking into the network of AI model and testing site Hugging Face.

Earlier this week, Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) CEO Dario Amodei penned a lengthy essay calling for a slowdown in the pace of the development of frontier AI models, after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon posted on X that he was resigning from the company because it, and his former employer OpenAI, is "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."

Anthropic alignment science lead Evan Hubinger followed up on Coxon's comments with his own post on X saying that he believes there is a greater-than-10% chance that the technology could "kill all humans."

Chance Yeh via Getty Images

The incidents, posts, and Amodei's essay have renewed fears of Terminator-style AI taking over and ending the world. But the reality of the situation is far from some sci-fi doomsday scenario, experts say.

"This is nothing about AI becoming sentient and coming out to get us," associate professor of computer science and engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering and director of the school's Center for Responsible AI Julia Stoyanovich told Yahoo Finance.

"Essentially, what happened was that … some basic security protocols were not enacted within OpenAI. And so this is actually a wake-up call for the AI companies to remember what we all learned when we studied computer science. That security is a thing," she added

And focusing on end-of-the-world scenarios may take away from preventing other, more immediate harms AI could cause.

Alignment and security

The biggest issues with AI come down to two things: alignment and security. Alignment is how companies nudge AI systems to behave — or not behave — in specific ways.

For instance, if an AI model tries to hack a third-party system, AI researchers will work to alter the model's behavior to prevent it from doing so in the future. Think about it like scolding a child for not following the rules.

AI security comes down to locking down AI systems so that they can't break free and try to hack into outside networks.

Neither misalignment nor security issues, however, means that AI is prepared to take down humanity.

"The pretext for a lot of this is some very actually mundane forms of unexpected consequences of information systems, such as the so-called Hugging Face incidents, which are often [depicted] as these out-of-control agents conspiring and attacking and going on a rampage," explained Georgia Tech professor and program director for the school's Master of Science in cybersecurity policy, Milton Mueller.

"In fact, it was a direct experiment with the security implications of these agentic AI systems that was badly configured by the people doing the experiment. And in a kind of a typical way, when you're dealing with complex information systems, sometimes you forget that there are little nooks and crannies that a smart entity can exploit," he added.

Futurum CEO Daniel Newman told Yahoo Finance that what he's hearing is a "massive need" for alignment on both safety and security. "The industry needs to step up," he added.

Bad actors can definitely use AI, like other technologies, for malicious purposes. Its increased cybersecurity capabilities mean cybercriminals and nation states could more easily hack things like water treatment plants or knock large networks offline.

And Anthropic recently posted a rundown of its efforts to counter the misuse of its AI for developing biological and conventional weapons.

But AI can also be used to help scammers supercharge email phishing operations or by identity theft rings.

Emily Black, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, told Yahoo Finance that while there is no harm in preparing for all eventualities, doing so shouldn't take away from addressing more immediate and less headline-grabbing issues, including AI's impact on discrimination, labor, and education.

"The truth is sort of between two fairy tales," Black said. "There are certainly some credible threats around the continued evolution of AI. I don't think that we need to be hiding under our beds for fear of AI destroying mankind right now."

Yahoo Finance

Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.

For the latest earnings reports and analysis, earnings whispers and expectations, and company earnings news, click here

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance.

President Donald Trump's administration says it has approved the sale of nearly 50 F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in a policy shift for the US that has raised concerns from some members of Congress.

Saudi Arabia has sought for years to buy the world's most advanced warplane, equipped with stealth technology that allows it to evade enemy detection.

Washington had resisted, partly because it supplies F-35s to its ally Israel, which is guaranteed under US law to receive top-of-the-range American weapons compared with those its regional neighbours can access.

Congress has 30 days to scrutinise or attempt to block the $24bn (£17.8bn) sale to Riyadh, which is the largest customer for US weapons.

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, a Democrat, opposed the sale on Thursday.

He warned "it could put the crown jewels of American military technology within reach of the Chinese Communist Party".

Other Democratic lawmakers and some American defence officials have raised similar concerns about giving F-35s to Saudi Arabia.

They said Riyadh might share the sensitive technology with China under a security partnership between the two countries.

The state department said in announcing the deal on Thursday that it would support US "foreign policy and national security objectives".

It said the deal would improve "the security of a major non-Nato ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region".

"The proposed ⁠sale of this equipment and support will not alter the military ⁠balance in the region," the state department added.

Trump has a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who visited the White House last November.

The two also met in May last year in Riyadh, where a $142bn arms sale was sealed – described by the White House as the "largest defence sales agreement in history".

The latest proposed sale announced to Saudi Arabia would include 48 F-35s, which are built by the arms company Lockheed Martin.

This would place the country on a level with Israel, which currently has a fleet of 50 jets.

However, Israel's ministry of foreign affairs announced in May that it would procure another F-35 squadron.

This deal would double the size of Israel's F-35 fleet to 100, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Just one of Lockheed Martin's F-35A jets costs about $82.5m.

Congress has previously questioned arms deals with Riyadh after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Former US President Joe Biden's administration considered supplying F-35s to Saudi Arabia if Riyadh would normalise its ⁠relations with Israel, but that diplomatic effort faltered.

The proposed sale comes as the Saudis are engaged in fighting with the Houthis, an Iran-backed armed group that controls much of western Yemen.

The Houthis have recently seized control of swathes of Yemen's Red Sea coast from Saudi-backed pro-government forces.

The Saudi crown prince has personally pressed Trump to take military action against the Houthis, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News, the BBC's US media partner.

But Trump has so far declined to involve the US military directly, the sources said.

Additional reporting by Sareen Habeshian

• Verified video shows wreckage of Saudi fighter jet shot down over Yemen
• US to sell F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia, Trump says ahead of crown prince's visit

The 36-year-old woman charged with murder in a violent, high-speed crash that killed two people in Chatsworth on Tuesday was under the influence of drugs and had narcotics in the car when she drove the wrong way on city streets and broadsided a Metro bus, prosecutors said.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office on Thursday charged Bailee Lynn Rios with reckless driving, driving under the influence and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of 46-year-old Daniel Castillo and 31-year-old Gage Weida, who was ejected from the bus during the crash.

“The tragedy of the Rios car crash was entirely preventable,” Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said during a news conference on Thursday.

Rios was not charged in connection with the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of a pilot, an NBC4 reporter and a bystander. The helicopter had been hovering a few blocks from the traffic collision, providing a live feed for television news, when it appeared to suddenly lose power and crash.

Rios was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in San Fernando court, but was not taken from the jail to the courthouse because of a medical event. She is now expected to appear in court on Friday, according to officials.

If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, Hochman said.

Video footage of the crash show Rios’ 2004 Ford Expedition speeding on the wrong side of the road on De Soto Avenue, barreling through a red light at the intersection where the avenue meets Nordhoff Street, at roughly 5 p.m. The SUV narrowly avoids a car in the intersection before plowing directly into the side of the Metro Line 166 bus.

Rush hour traffic was moving slowly when Rios’ Expedition entered one of the busiest junctions in the San Fernando Valley, but the SUV did not appear to brake before it T-boned the bus, witnesses said.

The impact was so powerful that the front end of the SUV nearly disappeared into the bus’ frame. Castillo and Weida died at the scene. One passenger, who suffered severe injuries, and five others with non-life-threatening injures were taken to hospitals.

Read more: At least 5 dead in helicopter crash and bus accident in Chatsworth. Driver arrested

Rios mother, Cindy Rios, declined to comment to The Times when reached by phone on Thursday. But she told the Associated Press this week that she was sorry for the families involved.

“The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing,” she told the outlet. “My daughter’s alive. People lost their lives.”

Investigators gathered video from a matrix of security cameras that surround the busy intersection to support their contention that Rios’ actions amounted to murder with implied malice, according to law enforcement sources.

Authorities are also reviewing the SUV’s event data recorder to determine Rios’ speed, braking and acceleration in the seconds before the deadly crash.

That data proved key in prosecutors securing a double murder conviction in 2024 against Rebecca Grossman. In that case, prosecutors said Grossman was impaired by alcohol and Valium when she recklessly sped her Mercedes through a residential neighborhood, chasing her ex-Dodger boyfriend before killing two young boys in a crosswalk.

Prosecutors can prove murder charges based on someone’s intent to kill or through a defendant’s conscious disregard for human life, known as implied malice, legal experts told The Times.

“If you voluntarily behave in a manner that is so obviously and inherently dangerous to human life...a jury could say you’re acting with a wanton and malignant heart,” said Matt Murphy, a former Orange County homicide prosecutor.

Dmitry Gorin, a former prosecutor, said in this case authorities would be able to prove implied malice from Rios’ driving.

“Here, the alleged wrong-way driving, high speed, running a red light, and near collision before striking the bus could be used to show she knew her conduct was dangerous to human life and continued anyway,” he said.

The conduct and the resulting deaths would be a “very compelling theory for a jury to find her guilty of murder,” Gorin said.

Read more: Dramatic recording could help answer why NBC4 helicopter crashed

Court records and interviews paint a picture of Rios as a woman who had long been dogged by drug addiction.

Rios’ friend Lanise Ward told The Times in an interview that Rios was sober when the two met for lunch about a month ago. She had been going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and had been clean for the longest stretch since she began using drugs as a teen, Ward said.

“I really thought this time she was going to do it,” Ward said. “She had been clean for a year and a half already.”

In Simi Valley, where Rios spent much of her life, she had been arrested more than a dozen times by local police mostly on suspicion of drug-related offenses, authorities told The Times. However, the majority of the arrests do not appear to have resulted in criminal charges, Ventura County court records show.

Ward said Rios told her she began using drugs at 14 and struggled with an addiction to heroin. Rios had been to rehab several times, but couldn’t seem to kick the habit long term until recently, Ward said.

Ward said if Rios relapsed she likely felt deep shame about it.

“I think she was disappointed in herself for getting high again, and I think she was trying to just end it all,” Ward said.

In 2016, Rios was charged with possessing Xanax without a prescription and methamphetamine, both misdemeanors. The court dismissed the Xanax possession count and Rios pleaded guilty to the meth possession charge. She was placed on probation, ordered to submit to random drug tests and was referred to a drug treatment program, according to court records.

Less than a year later, she was accused of violating the terms of her probation, but was given a second chance and ordered to re-enroll in a drug treatment program. In 2018, court records show, she again violated probation and was mandated to a treatment program.

In 2019, she violated probation a third time and was granted conditional revocable release meaning if she got in trouble again she could face jail time, according to court records.

In 2022, Rios was back in court facing misdemeanor charges for being under the influence of a drugs, possession of heroin and Alprazolam, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to treat anxiety or panic disorders, and possession of an injection device.

She was also charged with an infraction for driving with a suspended or revoked license. The circumstances around her license suspension were not immediately available. Court records note that it was the result of an accident, but provided no additional detail.

A judge granted her diversion for four months, ordering that she enroll in a Narcotics Anonymous program, which she successfully completed, records show. She ultimately pleaded no contest to driving with a suspended license.

While Rios has no history of receiving a warning from a judge, called a Watson advisement—commonly issued after a driving under the influence conviction—L.A. County prosecutors have used warnings given by officers or others during traffic stops or other incidents to prove defendants showed a disregard for human life.

During the Grossman trial, a California Highway Patrol officer testified that he stopped her for speeding and warned that her that driving above the speed limit could have fatal consequences.

While prosecutors don’t need a Watson advisement to prove second-degree murder it “is a very powerful piece of evidence if they have it,” said defense attorney, Glen Jonas.

“Where there is no record of a court advisement, prosecutors scour prior reports and body cam footage to prove the defendant received a prior warning that her illegal conduct is in inherently dangerous to human life,” Jonas said.

Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

A bipartisan data center bill passed by the House earlier this week hit a roadblock in the Senate on Thursday, opening room for more debate among lawmakers over how far Congress should go to shield Americans from increased electricity costs associated with facilities being built across the country.

The Ratepayer Protection Act (RPA), which was approved by the House on Wednesday with an overwhelming 417-3 majority, would compel state utility regulators to consider adopting a federal standard under which large data centers would cover the extra costs of upgrades. An effort to fast-track the passage of the bill in the Senate was derailed by New Mexico Democrat Martin Heinrich, who said it doesn’t go far enough. 

“When I open my mail, unfold my electricity bill, and read how much I owe, it doesn't say I ‘may' or ‘should’ pay that amount. … I have to pay it,” he said on the Senate floor Thursday. “The same needs to be true for AI data centers.”

Heinrich’s objection doesn’t mean that the RPA is dead, but it does mean it will have to go through a more time-consuming process that will likely table it until after the midterms. 

With the RPA stalled, several senators have pushed for separate legislation that represents much more aggressive efforts to curb data center-related utility costs. Heinrich has proposed a bill that would empower federal regulators to force tech companies to cover certain costs that come from connecting their data centers to the grid. 

A separate bipartisan bill, the GRID Act, would go even further by requiring all new data centers to have their own independent power supply that’s completely separate from the public grid. Progressive lawmakers Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed a full, nationwide moratorium on new data centers “until strong national safeguards are in place.” 

The mounting pushback against data centers on Capitol Hill puts Congress on the opposite side of the issue from President Trump, who has been a vocal advocate for building more of the facilities in the United States. Trump recently warned communities that oppose them that they will end up “backwards and poor” if they block new data centers from being built. 

"If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign," he wrote on Truth Social in late August. "The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame."

Trump's full-throated data center advocacy is at odds with the views of most Americans. Recent polls show that a strong majority of those surveyed oppose a new data center being built in their communities, while only a small percentage strongly support the idea. Even Republican voters are largely against data centers.  

A few years ago, the typical American hardly ever thought about data centers. But they've become a major political issue seemingly overnight. We've seen local lawmakers lose their jobs over their support for new data center projects. Candidates in some of the most pivotal races in this year's midterms have angled to position themselves as the voice of the people's opposition to the data center boom. New York recently became the first state to ban new data center projects. Similar proposals have been put forward in more than a dozen other states. 

All this is happening at a time when the president and the country's biggest tech companies are saying that the U.S. needs to dramatically increase its data capacity in order to build the economy of the future. 

With that in mind, here are answers to some of the most important questions you may have about data centers, including why we need them, why thousands more are being built and what it means for local communities when a new data center comes to town.  

What are data centers?

Data centers are often called the "physical infrastructure of the internet." They are facilities where the servers, networking equipment and storage systems that allow digital data to be processed, stored and transmitted are housed. 

Why do we need data centers?

At a fundamental level, the modern internet simply cannot exist without them. Every email, social media post, video or news article that you can find online runs through a data center. 

How many data centers are there?

There are an estimated 3,000 data centers currently operating across the United States, according to a Pew analysis of industry data. The facilities aren't evenly distributed, though. Virginia has nearly 400, while data centers in some states number in the single digits. 

How many more are being built?

There are roughly 1,500 new data centers in "various stages of development" nationwide, according to Pew. Other estimates suggest there could be as many as 3,000. But that doesn't just mean more of the same types of facilities that already exist are being built. Some of the proposed data centers are much larger than anything that's currently in operation. According to the power market tracking company Clearview, the biggest active data center in the U.S. has a power capacity of 750 megawatts. A single data center that's been proposed in Utah would have an estimated capacity of nearly 9,000 megawatts. 

Data centers aren't just getting bigger. They're also being built in new places. Right now, the vast majority of active data centers are in urban areas, according to Pew. More than two-thirds of the incoming data centers will be in rural areas. 

Why do we need so many more data centers?

The more we ask the internet to do, the more computing power is needed to meet our demands. 

Over the course of the past two decades, the U.S. has had to steadily build more and more data centers as so many aspects of our lives have moved online. But the recent, dramatic increase in data center projects isn't being driven by the spread of social media, the rise of streaming or the remote work revolution. It's being driven by AI.

AI works by processing huge data sets to learn, adapt and make predictions in a way that typical algorithms can't. That takes a lot of processing power. The kind of processing power that America's data infrastructure simply won't be able to handle as AI becomes more complex and widespread, without a massive increase in data center capacity. 

Tech companies are pouring money into building more data centers to support their lofty AI ambitions, which many see as a world-changing technology that will be at the core of everything we do. One estimate found that it could take $6.7 trillion in global data center investment before the end of the decade to create the scale of computing power that's needed to support AI's continued growth. 

How have opinions on data centers changed?

Data centers have been around in some form as long as computers have. Until recently, most Americans had no real strong opinion about them, if they were aware of their existence at all. But public opinion has shifted dramatically against data centers over a remarkably short period of time, as people across the country are being faced with the prospect of having one built in their back communities. The share of Americans who say they would strongly oppose a new data center near where they live more than doubled, growing from 24% to 55%, in the span of just nine months, according to a recent poll by Heatmap. Other surveys have shown that a strong majority of Americans do not want data centers built in their communities. 

Anti-data center sentiment has been especially intense in areas where they're being built. There's a growing list of local lawmakers who have been voted out after approving the construction of new facilities. Data centers have rapidly become a core issue in key congressional races across the country. A recent study tracked the creation of hundreds of new local Facebook groups with more than 400,000 total members dedicated to bringing residents together in opposition to proposed data centers in their communities.

Why have data centers become so controversial?

There are many reasons people cite for why they oppose data centers. The most prominent concerns center around the amount of resources the facilities consume. Data centers use up a ton of electricity and need a lot of water to keep all those servers from overheating. 

New facilities are also massive construction projects, which bring all sorts of disruptions to communities while they're being built — road closures, construction noises, huge trucks clogging up streets and more. 

Many data center critics say it's just unpleasant to live near one. One of the main complaints is noise, which some residents have described as like having a "freight train" constantly running past their homes. Researchers have found that large data centers can have a "heat island" effect that makes the surrounding area noticeably hotter. 

SANDY HUFFAKER via Getty Images

Broader skepticism of AI is also a big factor. Tech companies have argued that the U.S. needs to build all of these new data centers to support their vision of an AI-powered future. But more Americans say they expect AI to have a negative impact on society when you account for how it will affect the labor market, education, environment and our personal relationships. It's a tough sell to ask people to tolerate the downsides of having a data center in their community when they don't want the products that the facilities are being built to support.

Finally, there's the phenomenon commonly known as NIMBYism. The acronym, which stands for Not In My Back Yard, is often used derisively to describe people who say they support the construction of things our society needs — affordable housing, power plants, prisons and public transportation — but refuse to accept those things being built where they live. In the eyes of some proponents of data centers, local opposition to building them is a classic case of NIMBYism in action. 

How much power do they use?

A lot. In 2024, data centers accounted for 4% of all power consumption in the United States. With so many facilities being built, the total amount of electricity data centers consume is projected to more than double by 2030, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. A separate study estimated that data centers could account for up to 12% of all power usage in the U.S. by 2028. 

A typical newly built "hyperscale" facility can require as much power as 100,000 households. The largest data centers can consume more energy than entire major cities, and demand is higher in places with the most facilities. In Virginia, for example, data centers consumed 40% of the state's electricity in 2024, according to a Bloomberg analysis. 

Utility companies have also spent billions building out transmission lines and other infrastructure to connect data centers to the local power grid and building new power plants to meet increased demand. 

How do they affect utility rates?

It's important to note that all of the tangible information we have on data centers and energy prices is based on what's already been built. At this point, experts can only estimate what will happen when all of those new proposed facilities eventually begin operating. 

That said, there's already evidence that the data centers that are currently online have had an impact on electricity rates, thanks to a combination of higher operational costs for utilities and increased demand. 

Residential power rates have roughly doubled over the past 10 years. How much data centers are to blame for that increase is the source of significant debate. Some recent analyses have found that states with the most data centers have seen their energy rates climb at a faster rate than the national average. But another study suggested that their impact on electricity bills has been modest — at least so far.

Some in the energy and tech industries even argue that data centers can actually lower energy prices. While there's some evidence to support that claim in certain areas, most experts believe the large-scale buildout of data centers across the country will push prices higher in the long run. 

A variety of solutions have been proposed to keep that from happening, including forcing data center companies to pay for any new infrastructure or plants that utilities have to build to power them, charging the centers higher rates than typical consumers and even requiring data centers to have their own on-site power plants. 

Brandon Bell via Getty Images

How much water do they consume?

Data centers use water to keep the thousands of servers and other equipment they house from overheating. One estimate found that the typical non-hyperscale data center uses about 300,000 gallons of water per day, about as much as 1,000 U.S. households. Newer, larger facilities can use as much as 5 million gallons every day. 

In total, data centers used up an estimated 66 billion gallons of water in 2023, according to an analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That same study estimated that data center water demand could double by 2028.

While that is a lot of water, it's a relatively small share of the 117 trillion gallons the United States uses every year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

There are also ways to significantly reduce the amount of water data centers use. Historically, most data centers relied on what's known as an open-loop cooling system, in which water is brought in, then evaporated to cool the air around servers. While that's the cheapest way to prevent servers from overheating, it's also very inefficient. There are other, closed-loop approaches that allow facilities to reuse water, which can cut a data center's water demand by up to 70%.

More than half of all global data centers still rely on open-loop systems, but some of the biggest companies in the tech industry, including OpenAI, have said they plan to prioritize closed-loop facilities moving forward.  

That change only addresses the water that data centers use directly. The facilities also impact water supplies in a larger way through their electricity consumption. The vast majority of power plants in the U.S. use water to keep their own systems from overheating. As a result, the extra strain that data centers put on electricity providers accounts for an additional 800 billion gallons of water consumed annually, according to Lawrence Berkeley Lab. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sought to appease concerns about water usage this week, telling the Sources Podcast that data centers use no more water than an office building and that 38,000 ChatGPT queries use as much water as the production of one almond. It's a claim that many experts feel is difficult to verify given the limited amount of public information made available by AI companies and the number of vairables at play when trying to acuurately analyze each data center's water usage.

How many jobs do they create?

Like any major construction project, a new data center creates a lot of short-term jobs while it's being built. But once it's completed and operational, the facilities take a relatively small number of people to keep them running. The average data center creates between 100 and 200 permanent full-time jobs locally, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution. 

Of course, data centers don't only affect employment at the local level. The entire U.S. economy relies on the existence of infrastructure that allows us to consistently and reliably send information over the internet. At a very basic level, we need data centers. The questions of how many we need, where they should go and who should bear the costs are where the real debate lies. 

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photo: Sony Pictures Releasing/Everett Collection

Ahead of the release of Zach Cregger's reboot today, there were already seven Resident Evil movies — six of them in a more action-oriented series starring Milla Jovovich, four of which were directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, plus an unrelated "reboot" in 2021 called Welcome to Raccoon City that went for more of a John Carpenter vibe and was an attempt to truly "adapt" the games. There's also a Netflix TV show version that ran for a single season in 2022. Countless other works in the horror genre have unofficially cribbed from the Resident Evil games over the years. It's an incredibly influential series.

And yet, Zach Cregger, hot off his Oscar-winning original horror film Weapons, is the first filmmaker to truly feel like he's adapting the experience of playing the games, arguably the scariest survival-horror ones ever made, rather than simply incorporating story and plot elements to explain the outbreak of infected people. In Cregger's hands, Resident Evil is pure crowd-pleasing popcorn cinema, best experienced in a packed movie theater with dozens of other people reacting loudly to the madness.

The premise couldn't be simpler — and the runtime a brisk 90ish minutes — as we follow a medical courier named Bryan (Austin Abrams, proving himself to be the Bruce Campbell for a new generation) who unwittingly finds himself fighting for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in a swirl of chaos. Fans of the video games will recognize various easter eggs and nods to game mechanics, including the importance of conserving ammo and checking every last drawer for more of it.

But you don't need to be familiar with the games at all to enjoy the movie, which is an efficient horror set-piece machine that just keeps putting Abrams in increasingly concerning situations. I can't stress enough how much this is a one-man show anchored by Abrams, and he crushes it. He's in every scene, earning tons of laughs simply by reacting as a normal person would in this situation; he's a true audience-surrogate character, ushering us through the chaos. His comedic timing, paired with Cregger's assured camerawork and editing, is a match made in genre-movie heaven.

I didn't expect it to be so heavily inspired by genre classics like The Thing and Evil Dead. In fact, it's a better Evil Dead movie than the last several movies with "Evil Dead" in the title, nailing the horror-comedy tone that only Sam Raimi and a few others can pull off with aplomb. Cregger has a ton of fun with the various monstrous forms that the infected take here, from fusing multiple humans together to crafting his own horror take on a big, scary guy like Dune's Baron Harkonnen. Resident Evil movies have thus far treated the zombies as pretty traditional movie zombies; Cregger's version gets at the attempt to create the next stage of human evolution.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil may not feature characters that gaming fans recognize, but it's spiritually more in line with the games than any of the ones that do. Adaptation stuff aside, it's also just a heart-pounding, adrenaline-fueled roller coaster ride of a movie that has no grander ambitions than getting a rise out of the audience over and over again. It's a blast, and this time, you can't pause it, put your controller down, and walk away when things get too intense.

Resident Evil is now playing in theaters nationwide

From opposite sides of the political spectrum, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Trump administration strategist Steve Bannon will both lead what they are calling a "pro-human" rally on Tuesday, Sept. 15, in D.C. to warn of the dangers posed by artificial intelligence.

Sanders, the Vermont senator and leading democratic socialist, and Bannon, the far-right media strategist and President Donald Trump ally, are an unlikely duo to share the stage in Washington, D.C., illuminating the AI concerns that are spanning both sides of the aisle. The event brings together AI experts, lawmakers and advocates to "share concerns about the technology breaking outside of human control," according to Sanders' office.

In the past week, after an Anthropic employee resigned, warning that AI could one day wipe out humanity, tech leaders and member of Congress have called for slowing down AI. On Monday, Sept. 14, lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill to find intense pressure on both sides of the aisle to act quickly. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, called for an immediate, all-senators classified briefing with Trump administration officials about their plans for AI regulation. The House, meanwhile, is planning to pass a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting Americans' energy costs from increasing because of data centers.

More: As AI panic spreads among Americans, Congress is under pressure to act