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

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Plus, why veterinarians are learning to handle honeybees. Here’s what we’re covering: Primary Elections Live Updates, by The New York Times Stocks Hit a Record as Worries About Middle East and A.I. Ease, by Joe Rennison and Aruni Soni Trump’s Vision for A.I. Dominance Comes With Major Air Pollution, by Hiroko Tabuchi Judge Pained as He Grants Dismissal of Jan. 6 Charges Against Oath Keepers, by Alan Feuer A New Lethal Front in Ukraine: Its Beloved Gas Stations, by Cassandra Vinograd and Oleksandr Chubko Honey, Call the Bee Vet!, by Emily Anthes Tune in, and tell us what you think at [e-mail]. For corrections, email [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, August 5th. Here's what we're covering. To 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-Said, 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. Housing's more expensive than ever, but all we're getting is more chaos. What the heck are they doing? What's also made the race one to watch is the role of A-PAC, the country's most influential pro-Israel group. A-PAC's Super PAC arm poured more than $30 million into ads for Stevens, leading to a fierce debate about the role of big political donations and elections, in addition to questions about Democratic voters' shifting stance on U.S. support for Israel. With the midterms this fall, Michigan is going to be a crucial race for Democrats,

This Senate seat is currently blue, but Republicans are pushing hard to flip it. A lost Democrats can't afford if they want to take control of the Senate. For 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. Stocks have been both spiking and plunging over the last few months. They've been 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 when negotiations with Iran fall apart,

or fears that companies are overspending on AI flare back up. Around the country, there's been intense public pushback over data centers, and it's largely been focused on 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. President Trump himself endorsed the strike. 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 of these gas-burning power plants are currently being built or have been proposed. If they all come online, they could release as much greenhouse 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. Most 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 power. plants from limits on pollution that causes acid rain. And in Texas, regulators have been allowing large projects to be broken up and approved in smaller phases that require less paperwork and oversight. 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. That'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. 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 oathkeepers. 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 capital attack. and together, the judge's rulings mark the final erasure of the vast investigation into the attempted insurrection. The militia members had already been granted clemency by President Trump, something he'd moved to do on his first day back in office when he issued sweeping pardons and commutations 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. When 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 end. or they'll have wood boarding up the pumps, just as any sort of protective layer against a

possible attack. My colleague, Cassandra Vinegrad, 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. According 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 plan 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 United States. They'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, you know, 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. Overnight, Ukraine's capital city, Kiev, was hit with a blistering ballistic missile attack. At least 17 people were killed and dozens more were wounded, according to Ukrainian officials. It was the third major Russian attack on Kiev this week as Ukraine runs desperately low on its Patriot air defense systems. It's only a reliable way to shoot down Russia's most sophisticated missile. missile attacks. And finally, at vet programs around the U.S., 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. UGA'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. Those 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.