The Preakness post time is 4:01 p.m. PDT. The race will air on NBC.
Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo isn’t running the Preakness. Cherie DeVaux, the first woman to train a Derby winner, said the schedule was too tight for Golden Tempo, with two weeks between races.
But trainer Brittany Russell has prepared Taj Mahal for the race and could follow up on DeVaux’s big win with one of her own. Russell would be the first female trainer to win the Preakness and could extend a potential female trainer Triple Crown bid in an industry long dominated by men.
“It would sort of feel like probably a fairy tale,” Russell said of a potential win. “ … It would mean an awful lot.”
Iron Honor in the ninth post position opened the day favored slightly at 9-2. Taj Mahal in post No. 1, Chip Honcho in post No. 6 and Incredibolt at post No. 12 were not far behind with 5-1 odds.
Taj Mahal has one other edge, winning three previous races at Laurel Park, home of the Preakness.
HomeTechnologyHere’s Why Mastercard Is Betting Big on BVNK — and Stablecoin
The card company has positioned itself as a bridge between its global network and on-chain payment systems.
For a technology that’s designed to leave traditional finance on the sidelines, credit card payment networks are making significant investments in stablecoins.
Mastercard’s announced acquisition of BVNK, an enterprise stablecoin infrastructure provider, could usher in a new era of digital expansion for the legacy payments company. According to Mastercard, the deal’s final price tag could reach $1.8 billion by the time it closes at the end of 2026.
During last week’s first-quarter earnings call, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach cited BVNK’s ecosystem of stablecoin stakeholders and liquidity providers as the primary driver for the acquisition, with a portfolio of hard-to-get licenses sweetening the deal. Once the sale is finalized, Mastercard will integrate BVNK’s tools to handle digital cross-border payments, merchant transactions, and multi-asset trading directly within its own system.
Meanwhile, rival Visa continues to expand its stablecoin-linked Visa card program.
“We now have over 160 stablecoin card programs globally with key partners, such as Rain, Reap, and Bridge,” said Visa CEO Ryan McInerney during the company’s first-quarter earnings call in January. “And our payment volume continues to grow at a very strong rate, up nearly 200% year over year in the second quarter.”
Credit Card Cannibalization
These investments raise the question of whether card networks risk cannibalizing credit card transactions by investing in a disruptive alternative payment rail like stablecoins.
“Card networks and the largest card-issuing banks take a long-term view to maximize market share and earnings while preserving ‘options’ to integrate new and disruptive technology into their existing platforms and customer base,” said Todd H. Baker, a senior fellow at the Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy at Columbia University’s Business and Law Schools. “They seek to be ready if and when customers demand it.”
Aaron McPherson, principal at executive advisory firm AFM Consulting, also downplayed the cannibalization threat. “The card networks still control the merchant relationship and will act to ensure there is no inherent advantage to using stablecoins over traditional rails.”
McPherson also shares the card companies’ view that stablecoins are primarily a domestic settlement mechanism. “Even when consumers spend stablecoins directly, the vast majority of transactions occur via linked debit cards, ensuring Visa and Mastercards still collect their fees.”
Crossing the Stablecoin Bridge
The card networks see stablecoins as complementary to their core offerings. Credit cards are easy to use, widely accepted worldwide, and integrated into the transaction flow, said McInerney. But of the $13 trillion transactions settled among and between Visa’s nearly 14,500 financial institution partners, nearly all are settled in fiat currency Monday through Friday.
On the other hand, those using stablecoins can complete transactions seven days a week, which provides immense liquidity and efficiency benefits, he added.
The card companies are positioning themselves as a bridge layer between their global network infrastructure and on-chain payment systems like stablecoin. By making these investments, Mastercard has been able to “build out a whole set of new services and additional opportunities,” said Miebach during the earnings call.
Visa is also taking a Visa-as-a-Service approach and engaging with the stablecoins stack at various levels. These bridging solutions have economics similar to the company’s current products, McInerney said.
These strategies have paid off for the card companies. Visa has a $7 billion annual run rate of stablecoin settlement volume, which is up more than 50% since last quarter.
Lionsgate’s “Michael” is on track to unseat “Straight Outta Compton” as the king of musical biopics.
Early returns suggest the Antoine Fuqua-directed film will surpass the $60-million opening weekend box office record set by the N.W.A biopic in 2015, with the studio expecting an opening that could reach $70 million.
“Michael Jackson is one of the most influential artists in human history. His impact on music, fashion, dance, film and business has withstood the test of time,” said Adam Fogelson, the chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group.
“All of those things together seem to have created a profound response from audiences of all ages,” he added.
“Michael,” starring the legendary pop star’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, hits 3,900 screens nationwide on Friday.
That film remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time with nearly $270 million in global ticket sales.
The stakes may be higher for “Michael,” not just because of its roughly $200-million cost, but also its circuitous journey to the big screen.
Early development on the motion picture began in 2019, but frequent changes — both in the storyline and production — forced delays. The original idea was to encapsulate Jackson’s life from childhood fame with the Jackson 5 to his solo commercial peak during the ’80s and end with the child sex abuse allegations he faced in 1993.
That version of the film was well underway when the production was forced to go back to the drawing board due to a legal issue. The Jackson estate, which is in support of the project, reportedly discovered the early draft of “Michael” violated a $15-million settlement with the accuser in that case. Part of the agreement stipulated that the alleged victim would never be pictured or mentioned in a dramatization of Jackson’s life.
Production reconvened for 22 additional days and the Jackson estate took on tens of millions of dollars in additional reshoot costs.
The current version of “Michael,” hitting theaters this weekend, is set between the 1960s and 1988. It closely follows the controlling relationship between Jackson and his father, Joe Jackson, played by Colman Domingo, and tracks the king of pop’s peak stardom. Janet Jackson is notably absent from the storyline.
Depending on how the movie performs, there are plans for a potential sequel. The follow-up would tell the second half of Jackson’s career, where much of the scrapped footage could be used. Lionsgate has done advanced work to ensure that a significant amount of the previously captured footage could be included.
So far, the movie is receiving mixed reviews. As of Friday morning, the critic’s consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was less than favorable, with a score of 40%. But Lionsgate remains confident the film will resonate positively with average moviegoers and Jackson fans, both domestically and globally.
“The audiences that are now starting to watch the movie in early previews have been euphoric,” Fogelson said. “Audiences are speaking loudly and clearly about how much they appreciate the final product.”
Even outside of theaters, Jackson’s story continues to find success. “MJ,” the jukebox musical based on his life, is in its fourth year on Broadway and has had both national and international showings. Michael Jackson’s estate has also collaborated with Cirque du Soleil for several acrobatic productions since 2011. The “Michael Jackson ONE” show, which first premiered in 2013, recently extended its run on the Las Vegas Strip until 2030.
Tiffany Naiman, the director of music industry programs at UCLA, said the sustained interest in the pop icon speaks to his loyal fan base and place in American cultural history.
“He represents not only extraordinary artistic achievement, but also the contradictions of fame at its most amplified,” Naiman said in a statement. “That tension — between brilliance and controversy, innovation and scrutiny — is precisely what continues to draw audiences back, and what will likely shape both the film’s reception and its broader cultural impact.”
Data centres, climate targets and energy security – three forces pushing nuclear power back to the forefront of the global agenda. But behind the technological shift lies a human dimension: the story of nuclear host communities, where quality of life has long defied the familiar fears.
Three Forces Behind the Renaissance
The AI Data Centre Surge
Climate Commitments
Energy Security
Data centres already consume ~2% of global electricity and the figure is set to multiply as AI model training becomes industrial. Only nuclear can deliver baseload power at scale, 24/7, regardless of weather
At COP28, 20+ nations pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. Nuclear emits less CO₂ per kWh over its full lifecycle than solar panels – and far less than any fossil fuel alternative
The crises of 2021-2022 exposed the vulnerability of single-source energy systems. Now, the 2026 Middle East conflict has delivered an even starker lesson: severe disruption of flows through the Strait of Hormuz has triggered what the IEA has described as “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” – worse than the oil shocks of the 1970s. The crisis has made one argument impossible to ignore: energy that is generated at home cannot be blockaded.
In 2024, Microsoft signed a deal to restart a unit at Three Mile Island – the very plant in Pennsylvania whose partial meltdown in 1979 shaped public anxiety about nuclear for decades. The reasoning was simple: the data centres powering AI require enormous quantities of electricity, continuous and ideally carbon-free. A nuclear plant delivers all three. That deal has since become something of a symbol for a much broader shift playing out across dozens of countries.
The industry already calls it a renaissance – not the first in nuclear’s history, but arguably the most structurally grounded. Three things are happening at once: explosive electricity demand from the digital economy, binding climate targets set by governments, and a growing reckoning with the limits of intermittent renewables. Wind and solar are essential to decarbonisation – but they cannot guarantee baseload supply in all weather, at all hours. Nuclear can.
“We need a source that delivers around the clock, every day of the year – sun or no sun, wind or no wind.” That, roughly, is how energy executives frame the problem when they look at what AI actually needs from the grid.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AN UNLIKELY ALLY FOR NUCLEAR
Data centres already account for about 2% of global electricity consumption, and that figure could rise dramatically by 2030 as training and running large language models becomes routine. Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are all in the market for long-term clean power contracts – and nuclear plants are almost the only sellers that can offer both the scale and the certainty those contracts require.
One example already up and running: the Kalinin Data Centre, built directly on the site of the Kalinin nuclear power plant in Russia. It draws up to 80 MW of guaranteed power straight from the plant’s substations – giving it some of the lowest electricity costs in central Russia – and operates to Tier III reliability standards. It has been included in Russia’s national Digital Economy programme. This is not a concept for the future: a nuclear plant is already powering real digital infrastructure today.
In the United States, after decades of stagnation, the first licensing procedures in a generation have begun for new reactors, including small modular reactors – SMRs – that promise lower capital costs and shorter build times. In the United Kingdom, Hinkley Point C is under construction. France has announced six new EPR-2 reactors. Canada has approved a major refurbishment of the Pickering station. These are not isolated decisions. They represent a change of direction that is now systemic.
THE CLIMATE CASE: THE NUMBERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
Nuclear energy produces less carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour over its full lifecycle than a solar panel, and many times less than a gas turbine. For governments that have committed to climate neutrality by 2050, this is becoming a decisive argument – particularly given that large-scale battery storage, the main alternative for backing up renewables, carries its own considerable environmental costs.
It is no coincidence that at COP28 in Dubai, more than 20 nations signed a declaration committing to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. The list includes the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and South Korea. After years on the political margins, nuclear is back in the official climate conversation.
87%
+$9K
€59B
>$2B
of residents in 24 Russian nuclear cities report satisfaction with their quality of life
average household income between US counties near nuclear plants vs. neighbouring counties
projected average annual household income generated by EU nuclear industry, 2025–2050
annual economic impact of Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona, the largest in the US
Nuclear cities sociological survey, Russia
Good Energy Collective / Carnegie Mellon, 2022
Deloitte / NuclearEurope, 2025
APS – Arizona Public Service
NUCLEAR CITIES: THE LIFE THAT RARELY MAKES THE NEWS
In the middle of the technology and climate debate, it is easy to miss a different dimension entirely – the human one. Nuclear energy does not exist in the abstract: it lives in specific towns and regions, alongside real communities. And the data on quality of life in those places tell a story that sits rather awkwardly alongside the image embedded in popular culture.
Research from multiple countries consistently finds that cities and regions hosting nuclear facilities tend to have higher household incomes, better infrastructure, stable employment, and often stronger demographic indicators than comparable areas without nuclear presence. A nuclear plant is not simply a generator. It is an anchor employer, a leading taxpayer, and a structural pillar of the local economy for decades at a stretch.
EVIDENCE FROM AROUND THE WORLD
CANADA – Bruce Power (Ontario)
Bruce Power is the largest employer in Ontario’s Bruce County. Ipsos polling found that 93% of local residents consider the company a “good neighbour” and 96% are confident the plant operates safely. That level of sustained public support sits alongside major refurbishment programmes that will go on creating thousands of regional jobs for years ahead.
HUNGARY – Paks
Paks is a small town on the Danube, 100 kilometres south of Budapest. According to Hungary’s Central Statistical Office (KSH), it ranks among the country’s leaders in per capita income – GDP per capita and purchasing power run roughly 1.5 to 2 times the national average. Male life expectancy in Paks is around 75-76 years, against 73 nationally; female life expectancy is 81-82, against 79 across Hungary.
FINLAND – Eurajoki (Olkiluoto NPP)
The Finnish municipality of Eurajoki, home to the Olkiluoto plant, has a population of around 9,000 and is one of the most financially secure municipalities in the region. In 2022, the plant’s operator TVO paid €20 million in property tax, out of the municipality’s total tax revenue of €57 million. Local authorities describe Eurajoki as debt-free. It also maintains a stable population, which is a genuinely rare achievement for small Finnish communities.
RUSSIA – Udomlya (Kalinin NPP, Tver Region)
The Kalinin nuclear power plant is the largest electricity producer in central Russia, located 3 kilometres from the town of Udomlya. The plant generates 82% of all electricity produced in the Tver Region and 14% of the output of the entire Central Federal District. It is also a major regional employer: together with contractor organisations, the station accounts for around 30% of all jobs among the working-age population of the Udomlya municipal district. The plant supplies the town with heat and hot water, and the construction of the station marked the beginning of rapid development across the entire surrounding area.
UNITED STATES – Palo Verde (Arizona)
Palo Verde is the largest nuclear plant in the United States and generates more than $2 billion in annual economic impact for Arizona. The station directly employs 2,500 people, with a further 5,800 jobs supported in related industries. It is Arizona’s largest private taxpayer – a contribution that matters directly to the funding of local schools and public infrastructure.
SWEDEN – Forsmark
A Novus survey from spring 2023 found that at least 86% of residents in Östhammar municipality – where Forsmark is located – support the construction of a permanent spent fuel repository. Nine in ten local residents believe the presence of operator SKB has a positive impact on regional development.
UNITED KINGDOM – Hinkley Point C (Somerset)
Britain’s largest infrastructure project will employ up to 15,000 workers at peak construction. More than 1,500 apprentices have already been trained, 500 more than originally planned. Three Skills Centres of Excellence in Somerset have put over 8,000 people through training in welding, electrical and mechanical trades. The effects on the regional labour market will be felt for a long time.
CANADA – Pickering (Ontario)
The Pickering refurbishment is expected to create around 30,500 jobs during construction and sustain 6,700 permanent positions during operation. The project received government approval in November 2025, with construction due to begin in 2027.
FRANCE – Nuclear host regions
Analysis by France’s national statistics agency INSEE indicates that nuclear plants generate economic clusters that sustain employment and population in smaller municipalities across the country.
THE PROXIMITY PARADOX: WHY NUCLEAR COMMUNITIES SUPPORT NUCLEAR ENERGY
Sociologists have long noted a pattern that tends to surprise outsiders: the further people live from a nuclear plant, the more they fear it. The closer they live, the more they trust it. A Nuclear Energy Institute study found that 89% of residents within ten miles of a reactor view nuclear energy favourably. Surveys across nuclear host cities in Russia show that 78% of residents feel proud of the industry’s achievements, and more than two-thirds rate its contribution to their city’s development positively. Across 24 such cities, 87% of residents report satisfaction with their quality of life – in some, the figure exceeds 90%.
This is not a coincidence, and it has nothing to do with messaging campaigns. It is the product of lived experience. When a nuclear plant is the largest employer in the area, the main source of local tax revenue, and the sponsor of community sports clubs and healthcare facilities, people’s relationship with it is shaped not by what they read in the news, but by the texture of their daily lives.
The Proximity Paradox: Trust Rises Near the Plant
The closer people live to a reactor, the more they support itSociologists have long documented a consistent pattern: public support for nuclear energy is significantly higher among people who live close to a plant. Daily life near a facility creates a different picture than the one shaped by media coverage from a distance.The effect holds across countries, cultures and decades of polling.
Within 10 miles of a reactor (US, Nuclear Energy Inst.) Bruce Power region (Canada, Ipsos) Forsmark area (Sweden, Novus 2023) Nuclear cities, Russia (satisfied with life)
89%96%86%87%
CONCLUSION: AN OLD SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR NEW CHALLENGES
The nuclear renaissance that gathered momentum through the mid-2020s is neither nostalgia nor ideology. It is a practical response to several problems that landed at roughly the same time: exponential growth in electricity demand from the digital economy; climate targets that cannot realistically be met without firm, low-carbon baseload generation; and hard lessons from successive energy crises about the fragility of systems built around a single source or a single supplier.
Against that backdrop, the accumulated experience of nuclear communities around the world: from Eurajoki in Finland to Paks in Hungary, from the shores of Lake Ontario to the Arizona desert, makes for a substantial body of evidence. Living near a nuclear plant is not a losing proposition for a community. More often than not, it has been the foundation of lasting prosperity, decent public services, and demographic stability that many non-nuclear towns can only envy. That, too, belongs in the conversation about what the future of energy actually looks like.
This analysis draws on data from: Deloitte / NuclearEurope (2025); Good Energy Collective / Carnegie Mellon University (2022); Ipsos Canada; Novus / SKB (Sweden, 2023); KSH — Hungarian Central Statistical Office; TVO (Finland); APS — Arizona Public Service; EDF Energy (United Kingdom); Government of Ontario; INSEE (France); Nuclear Energy Institute (United States); IEA; sociological surveys of nuclear host cities in Russia; Rosenergoatom
