public pressure

This week, another New Mexico county commission unanimously approved a data center moratorium.

The Sierra County Commission met in Truth or Consequences Tuesday to vote on a resolution opposing the development of large-scale data centers within the confines of the county. By the end of the roughly three-hour meeting, commissioners had amended the item into an 18-month moratorium on data centers.

"The protests that came out at last Monday's City Council meeting was the most intense and emotional; in just the sheer numbers they've ever seen on any subject in Salem," said Salem resident Brian Hines.

He went on to say, "I had mixed feelings, but now I think I'm happy [with Kotek's decision], because it shows, like the sayings go at every protest that I've been to, you know, this is democracy in action when people come out loud, angry, sometimes impolite, but it got the city's attention, and it looks like it got Gov. Kotek's attention."

The city of Newport is ending its Flock pilot program, will remove the cameras from the city and will not move forward in purchasing the technology.

Newport announced Tuesday afternoon that it is ending its Flock Safety pilot program and will not purchase the automated license plate reader cameras. The city said the cameras helped police with criminal investigations and showed promise as a public safety tool, but officials decided not to continue the program after reviewing the pilot results, public feedback and recent developments in Fourth Amendment law. 

The cameras have drawn mixed reactions from residents. Some support the surveillance technology, while others argue it violates privacy rights. LAPD officials said those concerns influenced the department's decision not to renew the agreement.

"This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras," said Dean Gialamas, LAPD's chief information officer. "The LAPD had to make a difficult decision, in this case discontinuing using Flock services until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship."

However, the feature was met with near immediate backlash over its “opt-out” policy, which required users above 18 with public accounts to disable the feature in order for their images to be excluded from the image generator. CAA, whose clients include the likes of Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, said it raised its concerns with Meta directly and urged the platform to take on “a more reasonable approach.”

“No one’s name, image, likeness, voice or creative work should be used by any third party, including AI models, without clear, documented consent,” CAA said in a statement. “True innovation puts creators first: respecting their rights, protecting their livelihoods, and giving them real control, not handing it over to platforms.”

A new law signed by Gov. Bill Lee signed new legislation aims to protect utility ratepayers’ pockets when new data centers come to town.

The law, sponsored by Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) and Rep. Ed Butler (R-Rickman), requires data centers that have a peak demand of at least 50 megawatts of electricity during the first three years of operation to pay for their own electricity infrastructure so the ratepayers aren’t stuck with the bill.

“Under no circumstances should ratepayers have to pay for the infrastructure improvements needed by these data centers and their insatiable appetite for energy,” Taylor said.

Hungary’s new government, led by Péter Magyar, has put forward a constitutional amendment that would limit prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office, in effect barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role.

The draft amendment was submitted on Wednesday, just over a week after the new government took office. It marked Magyar and his Tisza party’s first step in dismantling a constitution that was unilaterally rewritten and amended more than a dozen times as Orbán and his Fidesz party worked to turn Hungary into what they called a “petri dish for illiberalism”.

The Metropolitan Police has been blocked from signing a contract worth up to £50m with the US technology firm Palantir, after London's deputy mayor refused to approve the deal.

The Met had proposed a £25.3m contract with Palantir UK for 2026-27 to support criminal investigations and reforms aimed at improving the force's culture and standards. It included an optional one-year extension worth a further £24.8m.

But the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) said it was not satisfied the Met had adequately ensured or demonstrated value for money.

It also cited concerns around the firm's values and ethics, although legally this cannot influence a deal refusal.

Fortunately for all of us, an unlikely and unruly coalition has emerged to resist the AI takeover by taking aim at the industry’s core infrastructure. In 2025, about 48 datacenter projects worth an estimated $156bn were blocked or stalled by local opposition. By all measures, 2026 is shaping up to be an even bigger year for the AI resistance.

From rural North Carolina to suburban Virginia to the foothills and farmlands of New Mexico and Oregon, ordinary people are coming together across partisan divides to say no to a status quo that allows tech lobbyists to ram through datacenter deals at a breathtaking clip, often behind a veil of secrecy enforced by NDAs. In deep red Indiana, more than 10 counties have enacted moratoriums or temporary bans on new AI datacenters; the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma recently passed a moratorium for their territory; and across New Jersey, project after project has been cancelled due to local fury about the raw deals on offer.

A Republican-led bill that would change how the U.S. protects endangered animals was pulled from the House floor schedule this week after a surge of public opposition, a top Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday.

Rep. Jared Huffman of California said people across the country contacted Congress to oppose the measure, known as the ESA Amendments Act (H.R. 1897). The bill would update the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 law that helps keep animals and plants from going extinct, or disappearing forever. The legislation was led by Rep. Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.