The Nashville Zoo has launched a public campaign to block construction of a proposed 69,000-square-foot AI data center that would sit directly adjacent to habitats for endangered animals, including vulnerable clouded leopards.
Zoo officials warn that the facility’s constant noise, bright artificial lighting, and electrical hum could seriously disrupt animal behavior, stress levels, and long-established breeding programs. The zoo is home to more than 3,700 animals representing over 350 species and maintains one of the most important collections of rare and endangered wildlife in the United States.
This conflict highlights a growing backlash against the rapid expansion of data centers driven by the AI boom. These facilities require massive amounts of electricity and operate 24 hours a day, prompting communities nationwide to raise concerns about energy consumption, water use, noise pollution, and environmental impacts. Wildlife conservation groups are now joining the resistance.
More than 180,000 people have already signed a petition opposing the project.
The developer behind the data center states that it will use waterless cooling systems, meet all local noise regulations, and comply with environmental standards. However, zoo leaders argue that the location itself, immediately next to sensitive animal habitats, makes the project unacceptable regardless of technical mitigations.
The dispute underscores a broader challenge of the AI era: how to build the vast digital infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence without placing undue pressure on local communities, ecosystems, and wildlife.
Update: Shaking has been felt across much of Florida in the aftermath of the 6.1 magnitude quake just west of Cuba.
*NO* tsunami threat is expected from the earthquake.
BREAKING: Ozempic / Wegovy linked to ~30% lower breast cancer risk in 111,000 women (new Penn Medicine study at ASCO 2026).
Even bigger: Women already diagnosed with breast cancer who took GLP-1s were 50% less likely to progress to Stage 4 (Cleveland Clinic data).
Prevention + slowed progression.
Here's what the studies actually show — and the caveats. 🧵
#GLP1 #Ozempic #Wegovy #BreastCancer #ASCO2026
UPDATE: New World Screwworm is no longer contained to Texas.
USDA says that the infested dog announced earlier today lives in Lea County, New Mexico and will be reclassified as the first detection in that state.
And now a goat in Gillespie County, TX, has also been confirmed.
A massive nuclear waste tomb in the Pacific is beginning to crack and leak.
The Runit Dome, constructed in the late 1970s on a remote island in the Marshall Islands, was built to contain over 120,000 tons of radioactive debris left behind by U.S. nuclear testing. Among the waste is plutonium-239, a highly dangerous isotope that remains radioactive for more than 24,000 years.
The dome stretches roughly 377 feet (115 meters) across and was never properly sealed at the base. Instead, it rests directly on porous coral, allowing groundwater to flow freely beneath it.
Now, rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms are stressing the structure. Cracks have formed in the concrete, and scientists have already detected elevated radiation levels in the surrounding soil and water.
While the current leaks are still considered relatively minor, experts warn that as oceans continue to rise, the risk of a much larger release will grow.
Built as a temporary fix decades ago, the Runit Dome now stands as a stark reminder: the radioactive waste sealed inside it will remain hazardous long after our civilizations are gone.
Top-secret clearance requires vetting for insider threats. One standard red flag: hostility to the US government. Another: foreign military interest.
Irizarry entered the Capitol through a window with a metal pole. Was convicted. Pardoned. Allegedly texted about joining Russia's military if America's wouldn't have him. Now works in Pentagon counterterrorism with top-secret clearance.
The vetting process produced this result because the vetting process is now loyalty. The clearance follows from the pardon. The pardon followed from January 6th. The circle is complete.
This is a devastating interview.
Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a “thumb on the scale” for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.
Here’s his explanation of exactly what happened.
This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.
The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.
And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.
Record-breaking temperatures.
A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.
The response?
Yank out the instruments and walk away.
That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.
For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.
The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.
That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv
BREAKING: D-DAY DISGRACE! Pentagon Pete shames our fallen WWII heroes at the Normandy ceremony by comparing migrant boats to the Allied invasion against the Nazis!
Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegseth delivered an incredibly disrespectful performance at today’s D-Day commemoration in Normandy, using the solemn event to push anti-immigrant rhetoric.
While standing on the hallowed beaches where Allied forces launched the largest invasion in history to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation, Hegseth said:
“Today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. In Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”
OMG. D-Day was the moment American, British, Canadian and other Allied troops risked everything to storm those beaches and defeat fascism. A day when it really seemed the future of the world hung in the balance.
To cheapen the 82nd commemoration of that day with B.S. xenophobic political posturing about migration is just unconscionable.
On behalf of the handful of youthful heroes still with us at 100 years of age or more, we apologize on behalf of the American people.
At one of the most sacred and historic sites in the world, the Trumper Hegseth couldn’t even show some basic respect to the fallen by leaving politics the f*ck out of it for once.
Shame on you, Pete. Quiet, piggy.
.@AP, you need to remove the “.” from the end of the hyperlink for the list of prohibited items on the Secret Service website in this article. It currently returns a “page not found” due to the period.
https://t.co/BV558DKH6L