As planes make their final approach to Washington DC’s Dulles Airport, just below lies Ashburn, a town otherwise known as Data Center Alley — where an estimated 70 percent of all global internet traffic at any moment finds its way.Decades ago, the expanse of empty lots, forest and farmland in this corner of northern Virginia was slowly filled with suburban development. Then came the advent of the internet and an influx of data center builders. They emerged with pledges of tax revenue and investment in return for building structures that, while not pleasing to the eye, were the backbone of a digitally connected world.Why here? A combination of strategic location, robust infrastructure, pro-business policies, and affordable energy helps explain it. The Pentagon and the US government are just down the road, as were the headquarters of AOL, the early web giant that once defined being online.The benefits to Ashburn from these anonymous buildings over the past two decades are undeniable.Woven through the expanse of data centers are new stores, residential neighborhoods, an ice skating rink and public facilities that prove this town is in no way short of money.Ashburn is in Loudoun County, the richest county per capita in the United States, with towns the world over looking at the Washington suburb as a way to win the future — even if others see it as a cautionary tale.Among its 40,000 citizens, Ashburn alone has 152 data centers currently in operation over its 40 square kilometers (15.4 square miles), with more bursting from the ground, part of an AI investment boom creating a race for ever more massive structures.In 2025, private companies are spending roughly $40 billion a month on data center construction in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau, much of that for megaprojects by the major AI players: Google, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI.This compares to just $1.8 billion a decade ago.- Off limits -AFP reporters were given a tour of a typical data center facility by Digital Realty, a specialized real estate company that operates 13 data centers in Ashburn.”We provide not only the space that you see here, but the power, the cooling and the connectivity,” said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty.The servers in any given data center give life to basically anything we do online.Computer rooms here — which are strictly off limits to outsiders — are filled with racks of servers for a single client or broken into separate “cages” serving smaller clients. The emergence of AI has catapulted the industry to another dimension, creating new challenges as tech giants, caught in a bitter AI rivalry, scour the globe to build AI-capable data centers quickly.These new generation buildings require unprecedented levels of power, cooling technology and engineering: servers running Nvidia’s graphics processing units, necessary for training AI, are incredibly heavy, requiring bigger and sturdier structures that need massive amounts of electricity.”If we think about Virginia alone, just the data centers last year used about as much electricity as all of New York City,” said Leslie Abrahams, deputy director of the Energy Security and Climate Change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.Data servers deploying ChatGPT-like technologies run very hot and require new-generation liquid cooling—air conditioning will no longer do the job—and in most cases this means access to local water.Not surprisingly, the new necessities have made new constructions a harder sell.”Growing up, we started to see a few data centers, but honestly, not at this accelerated pace — they’re just popping up everywhere,” said Makaela Edmonds, a 24-year-old who grew up in Ashburn.Her family’s home is part of a suburban development that abuts a massive construction site.Another issue is that jobs in data centers are mostly found at the construction phase. Teams in hard hats work the sites, often around the clock. But once operational, many sites betray very little human activity.”The benefits of data centers tend to be more regional, national and global than local,” Abrahams said. – ‘Monumental growth’ -In a major shift, local politicians in northern Virginia are now running campaigns to slow the expansion instead of promising to attract more construction.For companies like Digital Realty, the challenge is to work with communities to prepare them for what bringing in data centers entails.Despite any doubts, the demand is not abating.”The growth and demand in this market is monumental,” said Sharp.

Flipping their gender setting to “male” and even posting photos with fake mustaches, a growing number of women on LinkedIn have posed a provocative challenge to what they allege is an algorithmic bias on the platform.Last month, female users began claiming that adopting a male identity had dramatically boosted their visibility on the professional networking site, setting off a chain reaction.Women adopted male aliases — Simone became Simon — swapped their pronouns for he/him, and even deployed AI to rewrite old posts with testosterone-laden jargon to cultivate what they describe as an attention-grabbing alpha persona.To add a dash of humor, some women uploaded profile photos of themselves sporting stick-on mustaches.The result?Many women said their reach and engagement on LinkedIn soared, with once-quiet comment sections suddenly buzzing with activity.”I changed my pronouns and accidentally broke my own LinkedIn engagement records,” wrote London-based entrepreneur and investor Jo Dalton, adding that the change boosted her reach by 244 percent.”So here I am, in a stick-on moustache, purely in the interest of science to see if I can trick the algorithm into thinking I am a man.”- ‘Gendered discrepancies’ -When a female AFP reporter changed her settings to male, LinkedIn’s analytics data showed the reach of multiple posts spiked compared to a week earlier.The posts cumulatively garnered thousands more impressions compared to the previous week.Malin Frithiofsson, chief executive of the Sweden-based Daya Ventures, said the LinkedIn experiment reflected “gendered discrepancies” that professional women have felt for years.”We’re at a point where women are changing their LinkedIn gender to male, swapping their names and profile photos, even asking AI to rewrite their bios as ‘if a man wrote them,'” Frithiofsson said.”And their reach skyrockets.”LinkedIn rejected accusations of in-built sexism.”Our algorithms do not use gender as a ranking signal, and changing gender on your profile does not affect how your content appears in search or feed,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told AFP.However, women who saw their engagement spike are now calling for greater transparency about how the algorithm — largely opaque, like those of other platforms — works to elevate some profiles and posts while downgrading others.- ‘More successful’ -“I don’t believe there’s a line of code in LinkedIn’s tech stack that says ‘if female < promote less,'” Frithiofsson wrote in a post on the site. “Do I believe gendered bias can emerge through data inputs, reinforcement loops, and cultural norms around what a ‘professional voice’ sounds like? Yes. Absolutely.”LinkedIn’s Sakshi Jain said in a blog post that the site’s AI systems and algorithms consider “hundreds of signals” — including a user’s network or activity — to determine the visibility of posts.Rising volumes of content have also created more “competition” for attention, she added.That explanation met with some skepticism on the networking site, where more visibility could mean enhanced career opportunities or income.Rosie Taylor, a Britain-based journalist, said the boost her profile got “from being a ‘man’ for just one week” saw unique visitors to her newsletter jump by 161 percent compared to the previous week.That led to an 86 percent spike in new weekly subscriptions via LinkedIn.”Who knows how much more successful I might have been if the algorithm had thought I was a man from the start?” Taylor said.burs-ac/msp/iv

US pop singer Sabrina Carpenter on Tuesday disavowed the use of one of her songs in a video shared by the White House on social media, describing the clip depicting immigration enforcement raids as “evil and disgusting.”The video, posted Monday, features Carpenter’s 2024 song “Juno” accompanying footage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in action, tackling people and clipping handcuffs onto detainees.”This video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda,” Carpenter wrote in response to the White House post.White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson retorted: “Here’s a Short ‘n Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologize for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?”Several other artists have protested President Donald Trump and his team’s use of their music. American singer and guitarist Kenny Loggins recently demanded the removal of a video posted by the president that used his hit “Danger Zone” from the movie “Top Gun.” The video used AI-generated images of Trump as a fighter pilot dropping excrement on political opponents.In 2024, Celine Dion condemned the use of one of her songs, “My Heart Will Go On,” in a campaign video, and Beyonce reacted similarly over use of her song “Freedom” the same year.

A doctor who supplied “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine in the months before he fatally overdosed, is to be sentenced in Los Angeles on Wednesday.Salvador Plasencia, 43, one of five people charged over Perry’s death, has admitted to four counts of distribution of ketamine.He faces up to 40 years in prison as well as a fine that could run into millions of dollars. He will also surrender his medical license.At an earlier hearing, Plasencia’s attorney, Karen Goldstein, said her client regretted his actions.”Dr. Plasencia is profoundly remorseful for the treatment decisions he made while providing ketamine to Matthew Perry,” Goldstein said in a statement.”He is fully accepting responsibility…acknowledging his failure to protect Mr. Perry, a patient who was especially vulnerable due to addiction.”Plasencia did not provide Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine but supplied the actor with the drug in the weeks before he was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.Another doctor, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.”I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors.The four other people who have also admitted their part in supplying drugs to the actor will be sentenced over the coming months.They include Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, who could be jailed for up to 65 years.Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.- Addiction struggles -The actor’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of “Friends” fans.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.In his plea deal with prosecutors, Plasencia said he went to Perry’s home to administer ketamine by injection and distributed 20 vials of the drug over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023.Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug.”Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

The US Department of Justice has dismissed eight immigration judges in New York City, the association representing them said Tuesday, amid tensions with the courts as President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on undocumented migrants.According to the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), which confirmed media reports, the eight judges all worked at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The address houses a court that reviews cases of migrants attempting to regularize their status.For months, masked federal officers have been patrolling the hallways of the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building daily. The officers make arrests of migrants as they leave hearings, but under the watchful eye of the press, which is frequently present.Images of scuffles with police and of immigrant families being separated have gone viral around the world, making 26 Federal Plaza a symbolic site of the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants nationwide. It’s unclear what led to the eight New York judges being dismissed. However, they join approximately 90 judges who were dismissed over the year across the country out of about 600, according to a report by the New York Times.As migrant advocacy groups see them, these dismissals are aimed at replacing the outgoing judges with others who are more aligned with the administration’s immigration policy.The dismissals took place after several dozen people gathered in Manhattan over the weekend to try to prevent a possible raid by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) against street vendors. The New York police made several arrests.As a so-called sanctuary city for migrants, New York City voluntarily limits cooperation between its local authorities and federal immigration services. However, it does not prevent their operations.

San Francisco is suing makers of the ultra-processed food that health experts say has led millions of Americans into obesity during decades of over-consumption, the city said Tuesday.In what officials said was a first-of-a-kind lawsuit, the liberal California city is taking to task some of the largest names in groceries, including Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, Nestle and Kellogg.”These companies created a public health crisis with the engineering and marketing of ultra-processed foods,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said. “They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body.”Ultra-processed food, including candies, chips, sodas and breakfast cereals, are typically made from ingredients that have been broken down, chemically modified and combined with artificial additives.They frequently contain colors, flavor enhancers, sweeteners, thickeners, foaming agents and emulsifiers, and typically cannot be produced in the home.”Americans want to avoid ultra-processed foods, but we are inundated by them. These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused,” Chiu said.- A common cause -With its lawsuit, lodged in San Francisco Superior Court, the Democratic-run city is making common cause with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement that has coalesced around Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy.The movement is a significant part of the fractious coalition that President Donald Trump rode to the White House for his second term in office.Kennedy has frequently taken aim at processed foods, calling them “poison” and blaming them for rising obesity, chronic illness and poor health, especially among young people.The US Centers for Disease Control says 40 percent of Americans are obese, and almost 16 percent have diabetes, a condition that can result from being excessively overweight.The lawsuit lodged Tuesday, which is demanding unspecified damages, claims that around 70 percent of the products sold in US supermarkets are ultra-processed.It says manufacturers employed a similar strategy to that of tobacco companies, pushing a product they knew was harmful with marketing that ignored or obscured the risks.”Just like Big Tobacco, the ultra-processed food industry targeted children to increase their profits,” a statement said.”The companies surrounded children with consistent product messages and inundated them with advertising using cartoon mascots like Tony the Tiger and Fred Flintstone.”Despite having actual knowledge of the harm they had caused, the ultra-processed food industry continued to inundate children with targeted marketing and make increasingly addictive products with little nutritional value.Sarah Gallo of the Consumer Brands Association, an umbrella grouping of many of the companies targeted in the suit, said manufacturers “support Americans in making healthier choices and enhancing product transparency.””There is currently no agreed upon scientific definition of ultra-processed foods and attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities.”Companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards established by the (government) to deliver safe, affordable and convenient products that consumers depend on every day.”