DOJ Intervention in Musk Data Center Dispute

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, june seventeenth. Here's what we're covering country as the Trump administration has been carrying out its mass deportation campaign. The guy in the left is from Guatemala gu from Mexico It's been recruiting state and local police officers to help He said Hey, do you have to have my name? canan I see it? He's like, Oh yeah, no problem. I got my green card for these guys don't. And the Times has been looking at how that's playing out on the ground. Technically, living in the US without authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. And local police have no responsibility to enforce federal immigration law The administration is expanding cooperation between local and federal authorities. and for the first time, the government is offering cash incentives for local law enforcement agencies to sign up and make arrests After completing a forty hour virtual training, officers can ask people they encounter in the course of routine police work about their immigration status and take them into custody if they get the go ahead from IC These newly certified de facto ICE officers are now working in thirty one states And while the number of arrests they're making is still relatively small The arrangement is extending ISI's reach far beyond where the agency typically operates My colleagues recently followed along with sheriff's deputies in Wyoming for a night of traffic stops The deputies made a couple arrests, and they detained seven immigrants, earning a combined one thousandteen hundred dollars in overtime from the federal government As the program grows, some big agencies could receive millions for their cooperation and really small local agencies stand to benefit too The chief of the pololice Dpartment in Coolbrook, New Hampshire, said they've received around one hundred thousand dollars in federal funds, and they've made two Iice arrests this year. The chief said they would have participated even without the money because quote, to have the authority to detain someone that may be here illegally It all comes down to community safety Imigrants rights groups and critics of the program say it has the opposite effect As more police officers work for Iice immigrants may be discouraged from reporting crimes out of fear of deportation onents also say it can lead to racial profiling The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer detailed questions about the program You can see a map of where state and local law enforcement are working for IC at nYimes. com In Washington today, Kevin Warsh will step up to the microphone, face the cameras, and give his first press conference as the new chair of the Federal Reserve He's taking over the role as head of the central Bank at a time of deep economic uncertainty. with inflation surging due to energy shocks caused by the war in Iran I think it's really important to kind of think about the context with which Worsh is stepping into this job Colby Smith covers the Fed for the Times. She says the central bank has a tradition of staying out of politics trying to set monetary policy like interest rates for the health of the U. S. economy without interference from lawmakers or the White House That's been tested in the past year as President Trump has repeatedly berated the Fed for not doing what he wanted And the president hand picked Warsash to be the new Fed chair One of the things that has kind of dogged him is his close relationship with Trump and questions that have swirled around his ability to operate independently And one of the labels that he's really had to try to jettison is that he is going to be Trump's sock puppet. We heard that in the confirmation hearings from a lot of Democrats who were questioning just how independent he's going to be. And so I think that Warsh is going to be coming in with this shadow over his head having to kind of prove that he is going to operate independently as he said he's going to do Colby says that today, the Fed is expected to announce that it's leaving interest rates where they are as it tries to tamp down rising prices At the Department of Justice, officials have made an unusually aggressive move in a dispute about a massive data center run by Elon Musk's AI company The facility, which is just outside Memphis, uses as much electricity as about one hundred thousand homes, and to help power it Musk's company, XAI installed dozens of natural gas powered turbines XAI never got permits to install those turbines, which can be a major source of air pollution. And so the company was sued by the NAACP. The group said that XAI is violating the Clean Air Act by polluting the nearby neighborhoods, which are predominantly black Now though, the DOJ has stepped in and asked the federal court overseeing the case to throw out that lawsuit against XAI in a memo signed by the DOJ's third highest ranking official The agency made a series of arguments It said that President Trump has made global AI dominance a priority Turning off the turbines at the plant would threaten national security nototing that XAI's technology had been used in the war with Iran Beyond that, the DOJ also argued that the federal government should have unchallenged power to stop these kinds of lawsuits more broadly. It's basically taking aim at so called citizen suits, which have long been a key tool for environmental groups trying to compel polluters to follow the law. one of the legal experts who helped bring the case on behalf of the NAACP and who used to work at the DOJ under President Biden. told The Times, quote It's remarkable for the United States to intervene on behalf of a polluter in a case like this Ordinarily, they would intervene to enforce the law. XAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously argued that the turbines are temporary and exempt from strict permitting requirements the message If we don't stop this outbreak very soon, It would be even worse than what we had in West Aica. At an emergency meeting yesterday, the head of the Africa CDC warned that the current Ebola outbreak could become the worst on record if the transmission rate keeps rising The deadliest Ebola outbreak was in West Africa about a decade ago and killed more than eleven thousand people currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Nearly two hundred people have died since the outbreak was identified last month, and there have been hundreds more confirmed infections though officials say that could be a significant undercount Getting the virus under control has been a major challenge. experts say that this outbreak was identified late cuts to U. S. foreign aid have made mounting a response much more difficult, and that armed conflict in the region has displaced millions of people, making the virus even harder to trace Containment and treatment efforts have also run up against rumors and misinformation One aid official told the Times that some people have resisted going to the hospital because they believe that patients are being injected with Ebola at treatment wards that foreign aid organizations have set up and funerals have also become a major point of friction trraditional burial practices in many areas dealing with a virus involve touching the bodies of loved ones, sometimes bathing them bodies of Ebola victims are extremely contagious. In response, one aid group has started using body bags with clear plastic windows so that families can quote See the face of the deceased and begin the process of grieving At the moment, there's no targeted treatment for this particular strain of the virus. And scientists around the world are racing to find one trials are beginning on several drugs that have shown promise in preliminary studies Finally endless debate around the perfect setting for a first date. Do you go to coffee or dinner? Maybe just meet up at a bar? O how about Go to the gym There has actually been a boom lately in dating apps trying to connect people who love to work out There's even one called Leg Day The idea is to unite people with a shared interest. And for people who are super into fitness, it's often a way of life, something they want to have in common with their prospective partner The concept is not new Back in the nineteen eighties, Rolling Stone dubbed Jims the newew Singles bars though the etiquette of hitting on people at gyms largely shifted away in the decades since One thing about these new dating apps is that they're focused on getting people to meet in person as quickly as possible even partnering with events where people can meet up and run laps side by side the very first time they meet beyond just getting people's heart rates up in person element is specifically response to the dating app burnout become rampant across the industry Some of the major platforms are struggling to attract and retain users, particularly younger ones Basically, people are swiped out apps are looking at new ways of trying to connect them Those are the headlines. Today on the Daily A look at how one high school history teacher in New Jersey is trying to help his students navigate the AI powered future. You control where things are going. You are not a passenger who's just sitting there letting AI happen to you. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow