Texas has shut down the web portal for its automated construction permit filing system and suspended construction permits of 17 data center projects. The change came after 404 Media reported that a group of Texans discovered the state had continued to issue construction permits related to data centers despite Governor Greg Abbott calling for a pause in September.

On Monday, the watchdog groups FracTracker Alliance and Public Citizen published reports detailing more than two dozen permits issued to Texas data center projects. On Tuesday, the website for STEERS – an application filing system for construction projects run by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) – returned a 404 error.

By Wednesday, the site had this message on it: “TCEQ’s electronic filing application used for automatic authorizations has been temporarily shut down to ensure all applications are reviewed by agency staff to determine if they are related to data centers.”

Before TCEQ shut the portal down, 404 Media viewed 17 different permits related to data center projects and saw that they’d been moved from “active” to “suspended” in the TCEQ central registry. 

“STEERS is a portal that TCEQ uses to rubber stamp construction approvals,” Sam Law, a researcher at FracTracker Alliance told 404 Media. “It seems like they forgot about it and the portal has been quietly issuing approvals since the governor’s order for a pause, including for OpenAI and Amazon this Monday and Tuesday.”

The 17 suspended permits are related to stormwater construction, an approval that allows construction companies to raise and level ground. It’s a key, and sometimes final, part of the approval process for any construction project in Texas.

“Now they’ve taken the unprecedented step of suspending 17 approvals and taking down the whole site as they switch to a more involved human review process,” Law said. “The irony is not lost on me. When fighting the AI data centers build out, it’s nice to have a clear example of how some work is better left to humans.”

Law said he reached out to TCEQ and didn’t hear anything from them. The commission also didn’t respond to 404 Media’s request for comment. “I am very concerned that since contractors are accustomed to this automated approval process, they might not be aware of the suspension and continuing construction at some of the largest hyperscale facilities in Texas,” Law said.

NEW YORK (ANP) - De Amerikaanse aandelenbeurzen zijn donderdag hard omlaaggegaan. Vooral techaandelen moesten het ontgelden door slecht ontvangen cijfers van grote techbedrijven en nieuwe zorgen over de houdbaarheid van de forse investeringen in AI. Onder meer Meta Platforms verloor fors nadat het moederbedrijf van Facebook de boeken had geopend.

De onderneming van topman Mark Zuckerberg kampte door de enorme AI-uitgaven voor het eerst in ruim tien jaar met een negatieve kasstroom. Ook kondigde Meta plannen aan om aandelen zonder stemrecht uit te geven om kapitaal op te halen voor nog meer investeringen. Dit alles maakte beleggers zenuwachtig, hoewel Meta afgelopen kwartaal wel betere resultaten liet zien dan door kenners werd verwacht. Het aandeel zakte 7 procent.

Tesla leverde na cijfers ruim 3 procent in. De fabrikant van elektrische auto's zag de winst flink dalen. Ook verlaagde het bedrijf de prognose voor de kapitaaluitgaven dit jaar. Dit roept vragen op over het tempo waarin Tesla zijn AI- en robotica-activiteiten uitbreidt.

Actor also had roles in M*A*S*H, A River Runs Through It and Picket Fences in career spanning 60 years

Tom Skerritt, the actor known for roles in Alien and Top Gun, has died at the age of 93.

His publicist confirmed to Variety that he died from natural causes.

Becky Drury says she was hit by gunfire before she could intervene in attack that killed four, including three children

A teacher wounded in last week’s shooting at a Bend, Oregon, elementary school shared her account of the incident, and how she was shot before she could intervene and “[pretended] to be dead”.

Becky Drury was seriously wounded at Silver Rail elementary when Griffin J John II, a 16-year-old former student at the school armed with a shotgun, broke in and headed toward a special education classroom. He shot six people, killing Megan Lambert, a 25-year-old teacher, and three children, including five-year-old Rhoam Summer.

Republican Mike DeWine said ad featuring estranged mother of Democrat Amy Acton was ‘wrong’

Donald Trump issued a swift rebuke against Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, who on Thursday said gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was “wrong” to release an ad critical of his Democratic rival Amy Acton that featured her estranged mother.

DeWine had implored Ramaswamy to take the ad down, but hours later, Trump urged Ramaswamy to keep airing it and accused the Republican governor of disloyalty.

Who got bored to death in the castle – and who is left with extreme yawning paranoia? Follow all the action along with us

Kemp’s death has rattled everyone. It makes no sense to anyone, least of all Jerry Hall (who survived by the skin of her teeth) who has to be sat down and told that Ross Kemp was murdered.

OK, FLASHBACK TIME! We’re back in the yawning room. Is anyone going to yawn? YES. And it’s ROSS KEMP. The man who was hysterically paranoid about being murdered in plain sight has been murdered in plain sight. As he dies, he quotes Shakespeare. It’s the famous part of Romeo and Juliet where Benvolio freaks out because Bella Ramsey puts a hat on him.