A Growing Data Center Pollution Threat, and the Last of the Jan. 6 Cases

0:00Gun injuries are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. Some people avoid talking about gun violence because they don't think they can make a difference. But every conversation matters. When it comes to gun violence, we agree on more than we think. And having productive conversations about gun violence can help protect children and teens. Learn how to have the conversation at AgreedToAgree.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council.

0:29From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, August 5th. Here's what we're covering.

0:40To start, two quick updates on fast-moving stories. First, as of early this morning, the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, one of the most heated and most expensive this year, is still too close to call. The matchup is effectively a test for the Democratic Party as a whole. What kind of candidate is their best bet to help take control of Congress? I'm running for U.S. Senate because in the state that built the American dream, it shouldn't be this hard just to get by. Right now, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive who's had Bernie Sanders and AOC stumping for him, has got a slight lead over Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate Democrat backed by the party establishment.

1:25Housing's more expensive than ever, but all we're getting is more chaos. What the heck are they doing? What's also made this race one to watch is the role of AIPAC, the country's most influential pro-Israel group. AIPAC's Super PAC arm poured more than$30 million into ads for Stevens, and that has made support for Israel a big part of the conversation. With the midterms this fall, Michigan is going to be a crucial race for Democrats. Whoever wins the primary will be up against a Republican challenger, Mike Rogers, who is trying to flip the Senate seat red. And if Democrats want to take control of Congress, holding on to Michigan will be key.

2:09For the latest primary results, check nytimes.com. And second quick update. All eyes are on the stock market, where the S &P 500 rallied to a record high yesterday. It's been both spiking and plunging over the last few months, rising when there's hope that the conflict with Iran is nearing an end, or when big tech companies have put out strong earnings reports, then faltering again when negotiations fall apart or fears that companies are overspending on AI flare back up.

2:51Around the country, the intense public debate over data centers has largely been about how much water they'll use, how much noise they'll make, or if they'll drive up electric bills for people who live nearby. But the Times has also been digging into the growing threat of air pollution and planet warming emissions, as the Trump administration encourages data center developers to build their own power plants. We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that's needed. So I'm telling them they can build their own plant. They're going to produce their own electricity.

3:28President Trump himself endorsed the strategy during this year's State of the Union, and tech companies have been quick to take him up on it, hoping to bypass the years-long process of connecting to the normal grid. Now, across the U.S., at least 82 gas-burning power plants are currently being built or have been proposed. If they all come online, they could release as much greenhouse gas emissions as roughly half of all passenger vehicles in the entire country, according to an estimate from an environmental watchdog group. They will also produce harmful pollutants that can contribute to heart disease, asthma, lung cancer, and strokes in people living nearby.

4:09Most of those projects were given permits or announced in just the past 18 months, as the Trump administration, along with certain state governments, have swept aside environmental regulations in order to encourage the industry's growth. For example, the federal government has exempted data center power plants from limits on pollution that causes acid rain. And in Texas, regulators have been allowing large projects to get approved in smaller phases that require less paperwork and oversight before combining them. One expert called it a legal loophole that means the state is essentially ignoring the cumulative environmental effect of when all the pieces are brought together and turned on.

4:52That's what's happening with one huge data center campus in West Texas, which is designed to eventually use as much electricity as a city of 1.5 million households. It plans to try and get approval for its power plants in eight separate phases. The first phase was approved in just three days.

5:17In a courtroom in Washington, D.C. yesterday, a federal judge granted a request by the Justice Department to throw out the criminal cases of eight members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia which played a role in January 6th. The judge expressed deep regret and that he wished for a different ending, but said that his hands were tied by the administration's request. This comes just weeks after another federal judge said he was also pushed to throw out January 6-related cases involving the Proud Boys. All of the cases were for seditious conspiracy, the most serious charges stemming from the Capitol attack.

5:55And together, the judge's rulings mark the final erasure of the vast investigation into the attempted insurrection. The militia members had already had their sentences commuted, something President Trump moved to do on his first day back in office when he issued a sweeping clemency order for people involved in the January 6th riot. But their cases hadn't been wiped away entirely until now. Both judges went out of their way to condemn the DOJ's request, with one writing that it, quote, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions and excuses criminal acts.

6:42When you're driving around Ukraine these days, you will pass destroyed gas station after destroyed gas station on highways. You will see plenty of other gas stations with signs of damage, you know, scorched metal, bent metal on and around the pumps and around the building. Other gas stations will have sandbags really piled up in front of the entrances, or they'll have wood boarding up the pumps, just as any sort of protective layer against a possible attack. My colleague Cassandra Vinograd is part of the team of Times reporters covering the war in Ukraine. She says that in the last few months, Russian forces have developed a new strategy, attacking nearly 250 Ukrainian gas stations, killing a number of people.

7:26According to analysts and officials, it's a systematic deadly campaign in retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, like refineries. This has been really scary and also really difficult for Ukrainians for a number of reasons. One, everyone in Ukraine is on the roads. There are trains, but airspace in Ukraine has been closed since the beginning of the war, so you can't take a plane to get across the country or even out of the country. Driving is critical to most Ukrainians. The other thing is that gas stations are truly beloved in Ukraine. They don't look like what you've got in the United States.

8:01They're sparkling. The bathrooms are sparkling clean. You can get great hot dogs there, tons of food. They've become kind of hubs over the course of the war. So people will stop in for a latte. Closer to the front lines, soldiers will be in getting coffee and taking a bit of a breather. People will charge their phones at gas stations. It's where volunteers distribute aid. So this is having an impact not just on how people are conducting themselves and getting gas and doing the simple things, but it's also having a real impact on the national psyche.

8:39And finally, at vet programs around the country, there's a bunch of things everybody learns to handle. Dogs with a limp, diabetic cats, horses with colic, even wheezing snakes. But now, some vet programs are, very carefully with the right gear, looking at how to help bees. Not that you should try and bring an individual little honeybee in for a checkup, but at the University of Georgia's Veterinary Teaching Hospital, for example, students were out recently examining hives, looking for signs of disease in the colony. It's possible they could need antibiotics. But writing a honeybee prescription isn't something most vets know how to do.

9:23UGA's vet program is part of a growing effort to change that and help address the fact that bees are increasingly in danger due to climate change, parasites, and other factors. Mass die-offs have become common. For example, between 2024 and 2025, the U.S. lost more than half its managed honeybee colonies. One of the professors at UGA said because of this, he thinks honeybees deserve a similar status to the animals that vet students are already required to learn to care for. Considering bees' importance to the food system as pollinators, he said they should be thought of as, quote, basically micro-livestock.

10:05Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow. But one last thing. The Times just made a change that gets you more access to our reporting, even if you are not subscribed to The Times yet. When you download The Times app, you now get a free month of access. Totally free, 30 days, all the stories. You do not even have to put your credit card in. Download The Times app now to get started.