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Thursday, February 26, 2026

Tech Bosses To Meet At White House, Pledge Their Data Centers Won't Boost Electricity Bills

by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Leaders in big tech are expected to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House next week to pledge that their data centers will not increase the energy bills of Americans living near the facilities.

“Major tech companies will join President Trump at the White House next week to formally sign the Rate Payer Protection Pledge that he announced during his historic State of the Union address,” a White House official told The Epoch Times on Feb. 25.

The March 4 event will include representatives from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI.

The initiative will require massive companies to build, bring, or buy their own power supply for new artificial intelligence data centers in order to avoid causing Americans’ electricity bills to skyrocket.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring American AI dominance while simultaneously lowering costs for working families,” the White House official added on Wednesday.

Trump first revealed the plans during his wide-ranging and record-breaking State of the Union address at the Capitol on Feb. 24.

“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said on Tuesday night. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up and, in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community, and very substantially down.”

In July 2025, Trump issued an executive order aimed at streamlining data center projects in America.

“These plans include artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and infrastructure that powers them, including high‑voltage transmission lines and other equipment,” the executive order said. “It will be a priority of my administration to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing federal regulatory burdens.”

Any data center project must have more than “100 megawatts (MW) of new load dedicated to AI inference, training, simulation, or synthetic data generation,” the order stated.

Surging electricity bills caused by data center development was one of the key issues in the November gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia.

Customers in New Jersey paid an average of 19 percent more for energy in 2025 compared with 2024.

Virginia customers who already experienced 30 percent hikes from 2020 to 2023 will likely see rate increases up to 21 percent by 2027.

Big tech is planning a series of data center projects, including a 400 megawatt natural gas plant by Meta in New Albany, Ohio, while Energy Northwest and Amazon plan to build a Cascade Advanced Energy Facility near Richland, Washington.

https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/tech-bosses-meet-white-house-pledge-their-data-centers-wont-boost-electricity-bills

Coca-Cola to invest $6 billion in Mexico, Sheinbaum says

Coca-Cola's global ‌CEO Henrique ⁠Braun ‌informed Mexican President ‌Claudia Sheinbaum of a $6 ⁠billion investment in Mexico during a meeting on ‌Thursday, Sheinbaum ⁠said ⁠in a post on social media.

https://www.streetinsider.com/Reuters/Coca-Cola+to+invest+%246+billion+in+Mexico%2C+Sheinbaum+says/26069982.html

Mamdani makes secret trip to Washington, DC, to meet with Trump

Mayor Zohran Mamdani made an unannounced trip to Washington, DC, on Thursday to meet with President Trump about housing, The Post has learned.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the sit-down said the democratic socialist mayor and the president were set to speak at the White House in the afternoon.

The Oval Office sit-down — the mayor’s second since his election in November — will touch on a “variety of housing projects” that could amount to a “historic investment” in new housing in the Big Apple, one source said.

City Hall made no mention that the mayor was leaving the Big Apple, with nothing on his public schedule for the day. The mayor’s reps confirmed the planned meeting after The Post first broke news of the secret trip.

A source said Mamdani flew to DC to help “put icing” on a proposed bill by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren that would curb Wall Street’s ability to buy housing.

Mamdani, wearing a black hat and mask, was spotted with his entourage Thursday morning riding in the back of a Delta plane. He was joined by a top adviser, Morris Katz, who has no formal role in City Hall.

Trump on Tuesday night gave Hizzoner a shoutout during the State of the Union.

“The new communist mayor of New York City, I think he’s a nice guy, actually,” Trump said. “I speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy.”

The president also made a point during his annual address to highlight his focus on creating more housing for Americans.

“Last month I signed executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up, in the thousands, single family homes … And now I’m asking Congress to make that ban permanent, because homes for people — really, that’s what we want,” he said.

The commander-in-chief and young Big Apple mayor have been talking often since the two met face to face in DC last year.

Their chummy first White House meeting in November shocked the political world, with insiders dubbing it the start of a “bromance.”

Trump at one point even gave Mamdani cover when the then-mayor-elect was pressed by reporters about his prior attacks on the president.

The pair also discussed housing issues at the time, with Mamdani’s team calling the meeting “productive.”

The mayor’s chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, told The Post after that Mamdani and Trump spoke about how the city can cut red tape to fast-track housing development.

Bisgaard-Church said Trump was notably interested in Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (EULER), a 90-day streamlined approval process for affordable housing projects with little zoning adjustments.

The typical process for approval —Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, aka ULURP — can drag out past seven months.

“The president felt very interested in a kind of common sense approach to reduce onerous burdens on the housing and development owners, actually,” Bisgaard-Church said at the time.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/26/us-news/mamdani-makes-secret-trip-to-washington-dc-to-meet-with-trump/

Mass graves found scattered around Mexican soccer stadium set to host World Cup games

Hundreds of bags of human remains were recently found in makeshift graves in the Mexican city at the heart of the startling wave of violence over the killing of a cartel boss — just months before key World Cup games are scheduled to be held there.

Since last year, more than 20 grave sites have been found scattered around Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and home to the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which was led by Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes before he was killed by Mexican authorities Sunday, according to El Pais.

So far, more than 500 bags of remains have been found in just four of the 22 grave sites — some just miles from Akron Stadium, one of Mexico’s three World Cup locations.

The shocking discoveries — compounded with the recent outbreak of cartel violence that left some 70 people dead — has put fans, locals and teams on edge ahead of the international tournament being held there this summer.

Some 130,000 people have vanished in Mexico — a 200% surge in the last decade — with a majority believed to be tied to cartel violence.

“In Jalisco, the missing are made to vanish,” Jaime Aguilar of the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco, an organization of volunteers who search for the missing, told El Pais in December.

“This is so it won’t be known; they want to erase all traces of the disappeared.”

Between February and September 2025, 270 bags filled with human remains were found at Las Agujas, a 54-acre property located in Zapopan — a city next to Guadalajara — and one of the largest mass graves found, according to El Pais.

Since that grim discovery by construction workers, more bodies have been found in the area, including 48 bags of remains unearthed in a clandestine grave in Zapopan in October, CBS News reported.

“All the findings are gaining attention, because they’re being linked to the World Cup. It’s several miles away, but this is happening near a World Cup stadium,” the Guerreros Buscadores said.

Jalisco has been plagued by some of the starkest examples of cartel violence in recent years, including the discovery of a cartel killing site at a death camp known as Izaguirre Ranch last March.

Chaos erupted this week in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states after the Mexican military took out drug lord Oseguera.

In response to the killing, cartel members took to the streets, shooting at soldiers and setting fires to buildings and cars. At least 70 people were killed, including 25 military members, officials said.

Even Mexicans in Guadalajara are skeptical about hosting the World Cup.

“I don’t think they should host the World Cup here,” Hugo Peréz, who owns a restaurant near the stadium, told the Associated Press.

“We have so many problems, and they want to invest in the World Cup? With all the violence, it’s not a good idea.”

The football federation for Portugal, whose national team is scheduled to play Mexico in a friendly match at the end of March in Mexico City, said it was “closely monitoring the delicate situation” in Mexico.

The Mexican government, meanwhile, has promised that the international event — hosted jointly by Mexico, the United States and Canada — will not be affected.

President Claudia Sheinbaum promised reporters this week she had “every guarantee” that there was “no risk” for fans coming to the tournament.

Jalisco Gov. Jesús Pablo Lemus said he had spoken with local FIFA officials, who have “absolutely no intention of removing any venues from Mexico. The three venues remain completely unchanged.”

https://nypost.com/2026/02/26/us-news/mass-graves-found-scattered-around-mexican-soccer-stadium-hosting-world-cup-games/

Kansas invalidates licenses for transgender drivers: ‘There are just two sexes’

Transgender drivers in Kansas have had their licenses invalidated under a new state law that went into effect on Thursday, which requires residents to change their gender identification to the sex they were assigned at birth.

The notice from the state’s Department of Revenue was mailed to the roughly 1,700 drivers after the Legislature’s GOP supermajority voted to prohibit documents from listing any sex other than the one assigned at birth.

“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the state agency wrote, according to the Kansas City Star.

“That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”

While Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the legislation, Republican lawmakers easily overrode the objection last week.

“It’s all happening very quickly, and my heart is broken for anyone who this is directly impacting,” LGBTQ activist Jae Moyer told the Star.

“This bill that the Republicans forced through the Legislature so quickly is doing nothing by causing a problem that doesn’t exist,” the Johnson County Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coalition member added.

But Republican Chase Blaisi, the state senate majority leader, said President Trump’s election triumph in 2024 proves voters are looking “to return to common sense.”

“When I go home, people believe there are just two sexes, male and female,” Blasi said.

“It’s basic biology I learned in high school.”

The state’s Department of Revenue noted in its letter that once transgender drivers give up their current credentials, officials will issue a new card “consistent with the statutory requirements,” according to the Star.

The newly enacted law is among several measures Republicans in the Sunflower State have taken in recent years related to transgender people.

Other measures include restricting which bathrooms, locker rooms and single-sex facilities transgender people can use.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/26/us-news/kansas-invalidates-licenses-for-transgender-drivers/

US Treasury To Allow Resale Of Venezuelan Oil To Cuba to Ease Island's Fuel Crunch

by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday announced a new licensing policy to streamline the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, with the goal of supporting the island’s private sector and bolstering humanitarian efforts amid ongoing fuel crises.

The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) will extend the new licensing policy to specific applications seeking authorization for the resale of Venezuelan oil for use in Cuba.

The move was done “in accordance with the United States’ support and solidarity for the Cuban people,” reads the new policy.

The policy does not cover entities or persons connected to the Cuban military, intelligence services, or other government institutions, including entities on the U.S. State Department’s Cuba Restricted List.

The Treasury’s Cuban Assets Control Regulations generally already authorize U.S. persons to export oil from the United States to Cuba, or to reexport U.S.-origin oil from a third country to Cuba, where that export or reexport has been authorized by the Commerce Department.

The United States has in recent months placed increased pressure on Cuba’s energy procurement network, especially in the wake of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s capture in January. Oil shipments to Cuba plummeted, worsening shortages that have disrupted everyday life.

Canadian officials earlier this month advised citizens to prepare for unpredictable conditions in Cuba due to fuel scarcity. U.S. federal advisories warned against nonessential travel, with oil shortages a key issue.

In January, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs via executive order on any nation selling oil to Cuba.

“I find that the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” the executive order reads.

The United States recently eased certain sanctions, permitting established American firms to trade Venezuelan crude under strict conditions, but it prohibits deals with adversaries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.

In an unrelated press briefing on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s push for reform in Cuba.

“The reason why things are as bad as they are is because they have an economic model that doesn’t work, doesn’t exist anywhere in the world,” Rubio said. “It is not functional. And the only way Cuba is going to have a better future is if it has a different economic model.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-treasury-allow-resale-venezuelan-oil-cuba-ease-islands-fuel-crunch

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