CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — A helicopter hovers over the Gee family farm, the noisy rattle echoing inside their home in this rural part of West Virginia. It’s holding surveyors who are eyeing space for yet another power line next to the property — a line that will take electricity generated from coal plants in the state to address a drain on power driven by the world’s internet hub in Northern Virginia 35 miles away.

There, massive data centers with computers processing nearly 70 percent of global digital traffic are gobbling up electricity at a rate officials overseeing the power grid say is unsustainable unless two things happen: Several hundred miles of new transmission lines must be built, slicing through neighborhoods and farms in Virginia and three neighboring states. And antiquated coal-powered electricity plants that had been scheduled to go offline will need to keep running to fuel the increasing need for more power, undermining clean energy goals.
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“It’s not right,” said Mary Gee, whose property already abuts two power lines that serve as conduits for electricity flowing toward the biggest concentration of data centers — in Loudoun County, home to what’s known as Data Center Alley. “These power lines? They’re not for me and my family. I didn’t vote on this. And the data centers? That’s not in West Virginia. That’s a whole different state.”

The $5.2 billion effort has fueled a backlash against data centers through the region, prompting officials in Virginia to begin studying the deeper impacts of an industry they’ve long cultivated for the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue it brings to their communities.

Biden leads Trump, 45 percent to 37 percent, among people ages 18 to 29 in a Harvard Youth Poll released Thursday, with 16 percent undecided. That 8 percentage point margin is much smaller than at this point in the 2020 election. At that time, Biden was leading Trump by 23 percentage points among young people.

Biden’s margins widen when the pool is restricted to registered and likely voters. But, still, his 19-point lead over Trump among the voters under 30 who are considered likely to turn out is significantly smaller than his 30-point advantage this time four years ago.

Biden holds wide leads among likely voters who are non-white and women — up by 43 points and 33 points over Trump, respectively. He trounces Trump among the higher-educated set, leading the presumptive Republican nominee by 47 points among likely voters who are college graduates and 23 points among college students.

But Biden’s margins are far slimmer — or nonexistent — among other key demographics. He’s just 6 percentage points ahead of Trump among likely voters who are young men, according to the poll, and just 3 points ahead among white voters. When it comes to young people without college degrees, Biden and Trump are in a dead heat.

Rep. Mike Levin — one of California’s few vulnerable Democratic House members — called for a change in Israeli leadership on Thursday.

“It appears to me that new leaders are needed,” Levin said to a small group of reporters, adding that he thinks the current leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are not “ultimately leading to a more peaceful outcome” in the region.

Levin is endorsed by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel group that has launched campaigns across the country to unseat elected officials calling for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Levin is also the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s only listed vulnerable “frontliner” from California.

AIPAC declined to comment on Levin’s remarks.

As Speaker of the House Mike Johnson fends off another conservative rebellion over his four-part foreign aid plan, he’s garnering support from former speaker — and infamous conservative pugilist — Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich, who claimed the gavel in 1995 after leading Republicans to their first majority in the House in nearly 40 years, is a somewhat surprising ally for Johnson. As a junior member of the House, Gingrich pioneered the style of confrontational conservatism and bare-knuckle partisan brawling that today’s Republican hard-liners — led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz — have seemingly made their signature.

But times have changed, Gingrich said this week when I called him to ask whether he had any advice for Johnson. With a conservative like Johnson in the speaker’s chair, Gingrich told me, it’s time for Republicans to shut up and fall in line. “The truth is, I would blame head-on the people who are acting like selfish idiots,” Gingrich said, name-checking Gaetz.

Having faced down his own Republican-led coup attempt in 1997, Gingrich urged Johnson to hold his ground and pass the foreign aid packages — even if it ultimately costs him the speakership.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/19/newt-gingrich-mike-johnson-speakership-qa-00153117

A woman was arrested, and her uncle was sent to the morgue after she wheeled his corpse into a bank in Brazil and tried to obtain a loan with his signature.

He couldn’t give it, of course, being dead.

Security video showed Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes, 42, wheeling the late Paulo Roberto Braga, 68, into a Rio de Janeiro bank on Tuesday and requesting a $3,250 loan on his behalf.

The loan was already approved but needed his signature, CNN reported. He was silent.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/04/18/woman-dead-uncle-brazil-bank-loan/

Shamsuddin Riza pleaded guilty Thursday to helping orchestrate a straw donor scheme that pumped illegal cash into Mayor Adams’ 2021 campaign in what prosecutors say was a scheme aimed at currying political favor in the hopes of landing city contracts.

Riza is the fourth defendant to plead guilty after being charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office with facilitating the straw donor scheme.

A construction company owner, Riza entered his plea during a Thursday morning court hearing in Manhattan to one felony count of attempted grand larceny. Prosecutors said Riza facilitated the donations in hopes it would put his firm in line for lucrative city contracts once Adams became mayor.

Neither the mayor nor his campaign are implicated in or accused of having known about the scheme.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/04/18/key-player-in-adams-campaign-straw-donor-scheme-pleads-guilty/