data

STILL paying daily roaming fees abroad? Stop: a simple, budget-friendly tech trick is officially killing off old-school data charges this summer. 

If you are jetting off abroad, the dread of returning home to a monster phone bill is all too real. But travel-savvy tourists are sidestepping airport SIM card kiosks entirely and using a game-changing digital alternative: the travel eSIM. 

Get 20% off your first purchase of an Ubigi Football Fever data plan using code THESUNFOOT20

Leading the charge is Ubigi, a pioneer in the travel eSIM space since 2018. It offers affordable travel eSIM data plans, providing instant mobile internet access across more than 200 destinations worldwide. 

Best of all, Sun readers can score an exclusive discount to keep connected for less. 

What is an eSIM and how does it stop roaming fees?

An eSIM is a digital SIM on your smartphone, with no need for a physical card.

Instead of swapping physical plastic cards or getting hit with eye-watering daily roaming fees from your service provider, you simply download a digital data plan. 

With Ubigi, you will get a data-only travel eSIM, meaning you’ll get an eSIM dedicated strictly to high-speed mobile internet rather than phone calls or texts. 

This allows you to keep costs incredibly low while retaining the freedom to use WhatsApp, FaceTime, Google Maps and any social media platforms exactly as you would at home.

Catching ‘Football Fever’? Unlimited USA and Canada data 

Heading across the Atlantic for the final matches of the World Cup? Ubigi has launched specialised Football Fever data plans, offering unrestricted, unlimited data across the USA and Canada. 

Whether you need a quick fix or a longer stay, it has you covered with unrestricted tethering allowed so you can share your connection with other devices. Choose a plan that suits your travel needs:  

• 7-Day USA + Canada Unlimited Football Fever Plan 
• 15-Day USA + Canada Unlimited Football Fever Plan 
• 30-Day USA + Canada Unlimited Football Fever Plan 

Don’t forget to use the code THESUNFOOT20 to slice 20% off these specific plans!

Why Ubigi beats competitors

Unlike many eSIM providers, Ubigi is a ‘Full MVNO’ backed by telecom veteran Transatel (part of the giant NTT Group).

This means it doesn’t just resell other networks; it has wide regional partnerships, delivering top-tier, reliable 4G and 5G coverage while reducing any potential dead zones. 

Travel-ready and stress-free

Setting up is beautifully simple, and you can buy your plan up to six months in advance to get organised early. 

Thanks to Smart Start functionality, your plan’s countdown duration doesn’t begin when you buy it; it only triggers the moment you land, and your phone detects the local network. 

You install the QR code once, and you can top up on the go via the Ubigi app seamlessly. The app even supports biometric login (FaceID/fingerprint) for rapid, secure access while you travel.

Ready to dodge the data traps on your next getaway? 

Activate your Ubigi Travel eSIM free trial or grab your 20% off Football Fever plan here!

Published on
02/07/2026 – 9:39 GMT+2

Most Asian stock markets dropped on Thursday, dragged down by a wave of selling in semiconductor shares, as European bourses made a subdued start and Wall Street looked set to open in the red before the release of key US employment figures.

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The pullback centred on the technology sector, where investors retreated from the chip stocks that have powered much of this year’s rally, amid growing unease that the vast sums Big Tech is spending on AI could leave the market awash with supply.

South Korea’s Kospi bore the worst of it, tumbling around 5% as its heavyweight chipmakers slid. Memory specialist SK Hynix lost close to 8% and Samsung Electronics fell more than 6%.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed about 1.5%, with chip-equipment maker Tokyo Electron down around 5.6%, while Taiwan’s Taiex slipped 1.1% as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, gave up 1.8%.

The falls followed a rough session for chip stocks on Wall Street this Wednesday, where Micron Technology dropped more than 10% and Intel sank around 9%.

The moves stand in sharp contrast to a stellar year for Asian tech, with the Kospi and the Nikkei still up roughly 85% and 34% respectively in 2026.

On the other hand, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose about 0.8%, lifted by an 8.7% jump in electric-vehicle maker BYD after it reported a second straight monthly rise in sales, while India’s Sensex added 0.5%.

In Europe, markets opened flat as both the Euro Stoxx 50 and the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 traded within a 1% range at the start of Thursday’s session.

The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, France’s CAC 40 and Spain’s IBEX 35, all traded between 0.1% and 0.3% higher.

Italy’s FTSE MIB led the pack and rose about 0.4%.

Oil extends its slide and US jobs in focus

Crude prices fell again, trading below where they sat before the Iran war began in late February, as hopes grew that supplies through the Strait of Hormuz will steadily recover.

Brent crude, the international standard, eased around 1% to about $70.89 a barrel while WTI, the US benchmark, dropped 3% to roughly $69.

Attention now turns to the US, where stock futures edged lower ahead of the June employment report, brought forward a day because of Friday’s Independence Day.

Economists polled by Dow Jones expect around 115,000 jobs were added last month.

The figure carries extra weight under the new Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, with investors wary that a strong reading could harden the case for keeping interest rates higher for longer.

According to economists at Capital Economics, demand for AI may keep growing but at a slower pace than many expect, a caution that helped sour sentiment towards the sector.

Additional sources • AP

Chinese stocks advanced after fresh manufacturing data pointed to sustained factory expansion and President Xi Jinping reaffirmed his commitment to promoting high-quality economic development. The upbeat market reaction reflected growing optimism over the resilience of China’s industrial sector and the continued strength of technology and innovation-driven industries.

However, investor sentiment remains tempered by concerns over uneven economic growth, with persistent weakness in consumer confidence, the labour market and the property sector continuing to weigh on the broader recovery.

Strong factory activity boosts market confidence

China’s manufacturing sector expanded for a seventh consecutive month, marking its strongest quarterly performance since late 2020. The data reinforced expectations that industrial production remains a key pillar of economic growth despite ongoing challenges in other parts of the economy.

The stronger-than-expected factory activity provided investors with reassurance that export-oriented manufacturing and industrial output continue to support China’s recovery.

Xi reiterates commitment to high-quality growth

President Xi Jinping renewed his pledge to pursue high-quality development, signalling that Beijing remains committed to an economic strategy centred on technological innovation, industrial upgrading and sustainable long-term growth.

The remarks reinforced expectations that policymakers will continue prioritising advanced manufacturing, strategic industries and innovation rather than relying solely on traditional stimulus measures to support the economy.

Technology sectors continue to outperform

Technology-related stocks led gains as investors increased exposure to sectors expected to benefit from China’s industrial and technological ambitions. Chipmaking equipment, biotechnology and software companies posted strong advances, reflecting continued confidence in industries viewed as central to China’s long-term economic transformation.

The rally highlights investors’ preference for sectors with stronger earnings potential and policy support.

Traditional sectors show signs of broader participation

Alongside technology stocks, gains also spread to agriculture and property-related shares, suggesting investor optimism is gradually broadening beyond high-growth industries.

Although these sectors continue to face structural challenges, their recovery indicates improving market sentiment and expectations that policy support could help stabilise weaker areas of the economy.

Economic recovery remains uneven

Despite encouraging manufacturing data, investors remain cautious about China’s broader economic outlook. Consumer spending continues to be constrained by weak confidence, labour market pressures and the prolonged downturn in the property sector, creating an uneven recovery across different parts of the economy.

The divergence between strong industrial performance and softer domestic demand continues to shape investment strategies and policy expectations.

Future Outlook

Chinese markets are likely to remain supported by resilient manufacturing activity, continued policy backing for innovation and expectations of further measures to sustain economic growth. However, the durability of the rally will depend on whether improvements in industrial production translate into stronger domestic consumption and broader economic recovery.

Investors will closely monitor upcoming economic data and government policy announcements for signs that Beijing can address persistent weaknesses in the property market, employment and consumer confidence while maintaining momentum in high-value manufacturing and technology sectors.

With information from Reuters.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location data showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”

She said the data “resembles other private materials—think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”

Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.

The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.

But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”

In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Some times, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.

Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.

Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.

The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.

By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.

Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.

The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.

After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.

A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional “search”, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.

Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.

The new and disputed geofence warrrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.

The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barracks on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.

In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”

Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.

Even before the first naira changes hands or the first customer calls, Musa Lekki reaches for his phone. It is 5:32 a.m. on a Tuesday, and like many smartphone users, he begins his day with a glance at his phone screen. The 42-year-old provisions trader lives in Yola, northeastern Nigeria, and runs a small wholesale business supplying neighbouring shops and customers with rice, beverages, and household goods. 

As he unlocks his phone, there is already work waiting for him. A supplier has sent a voice note. A customer wants to confirm a payment. Another customer has placed an order. Before he has even left his bed, Musa is responding to messages and preparing for the business day ahead.

What appears to be a routine start to the morning is also a series of digital interactions. Within minutes of waking up, Musa has engaged with systems that recognise his phone number, device information, account credentials, and network location.

Each interaction leaves a data trail. A phone call generates telecommunications records. A bank transfer creates transaction logs. A utility payment produces another digital entry. Individually, these fragments may seem insignificant. Together, they form an increasingly detailed portrait of everyday life, which is increasingly mediated and supported by Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) rails, a set of foundational digital systems that form the backbone of modern societies, enabling secure and seamless interactions between people, businesses, and governments. 

Musa does not think about any of this. Most mobile phone and internet users do not. 

“During the day, I use my phone for transfers, calls, and ordering goods, and by night I check my account balance before closing for the day,” he said.

As Nigeria expands its digital identity and payment systems, everyday activities such as making calls, sending money, paying bills, and accessing services are becoming increasingly dependent on interconnected digital infrastructure. Musa’s daily routine shows how Digital Public Infrastructure is reshaping daily life, expanding access to services while also raising questions about privacy, transparency and accountability.

What Musa sees is a phone. What he does not see is an invisible infrastructure that increasingly determines who can communicate, who can make payments, who can access services, and who can participate fully in modern economic life. By the time he goes to bed, several institutions will have processed fragments of his personal information. Many of those interactions will happen without him ever knowing.

This is how millions of Nigerian residents increasingly navigate life as data points within systems they rarely see.

The identity that travels ahead

At 6:45 a.m., Musa calls a supplier in Kano. The conversation lasts less than three minutes. It is a routine business call, yet that call depends on a national identity system. In 2020, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) directed all mobile network operators to link users’ Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards to their National Identification Number (NINs) and to bar those who did not comply. Musa’s line was among those affected. 

“There was a time my SIM was restricted because of an issue with my NIN linkage,” he recalled. “I couldn’t make calls for some days and also lost customers, until I sorted it out.”

The experience taught him something many Nigerians have learned: The ability to make a phone call increasingly depends on proving who you are. Identity is one of the key layers of a DPI. In Nigeria, the NIN is the foundational identity document, managed by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

As of December 2025, the NIMC reported more than 127 million NIN enrolments nationwide, making it one of Africa’s largest digital identity databases, while over 172.67 million SIM cards had been linked to NINs. 

Nunaya David, a senior enrolment officer at the NIMC, Yola, said, “NIN is increasingly required for banking, telecommunications, social programmes, and several government services.” Identity is no longer simply something Nigerians carry in a wallet; it is increasingly verified continuously in the background.

The money moves, the data moves too

Shortly after 7 a.m., Musa pays ₦45,000 to a supplier. The transfer takes less than a minute. Money leaves one account and appears in another. With a few taps, Musa has interacted with another stack of the DPI: the payment layer. Behind that transaction, the payment infrastructure operated by banks, fintechs, and the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) performs multiple checks.

“Once a transfer is initiated, the request passes through several systems before reaching the recipient,” Hakeem Abdulkareem, a tech specialist with NIBSS, explained. “These systems communicate with one another to confirm and complete the transaction.”

Identity verification, fraud screening, account authentication and transaction routing all happen in the background. Most of it occurs within seconds. The customer sees only a debit alert while the infrastructure works in the background. 

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, electronic payment channels now account for the majority of retail payment activity, with internet transfers, mobile payments and point-of-sale transactions becoming increasingly dominant. Data from NIBSS show that Nigeria recorded ₦284.99 trillion in electronic payment transactions in the first quarter of 2025, representing a 17.7 per cent year-on-year increase compared with ₦234.49 trillion recorded in the same period in 2024. This reflects how deeply electronic payments have become embedded in everyday economic activity. Each transfer generates records that move across banks, payment switches, and settlement systems, creating the digital trail that allows modern commerce to function.

A market built on digital trust

For Musa, these systems are largely invisible. What he sees are payment alerts arriving on his phone and customers walking through his door. By mid-morning, those customers have started to arrive. One of them is Aisha Bello, a 21-year-old student at Modibbo Adama University, preparing for a new academic session. Like Musa, she relies on digital systems she rarely thinks about.

Her school registration requires identity verification. Her bank account relies on Bank Verification Number (BVN). Her mobile line and BVN are all linked to her NIN. 

As she pays Musa electronically, two very different lives intersect through the same digital infrastructure. Neither sees the systems operating behind the scenes, yet both depend on them.

The same is true for Grace Ezra, a nurse at Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital in Yola. Like Musa and Aisha, she increasingly relies on digital systems to manage her salary payments, telecommunications services, tax records, and pension contributions.

Frank Akabueze, a digital identity expert, describes Nigeria’s journey as a gradual shift from fragmented systems to interconnected ones. “We have moved from having several disconnected identity systems toward greater integration.”

Increasingly, a person’s ability to study, work, save, communicate, and transact begins with a digital identity record. This speaks to the third layer of DPI, interoperability, the ability of different digital systems to speak to each other securely. 

The invisible checks 

Around noon, Musa buys airtime through a mobile app. Moments later, he pays an electricity bill. The transactions feel routine, but each leaves a digital footprint. Each creates records, generates data and triggers some form of verification.

Airtime purchases, utility payments, transfers and merchant payments may appear unrelated, but increasingly they travel through interconnected platforms that rely on identity verification, payment infrastructure and data exchange mechanisms working together in the background. The power of DPI lies in the ability of these systems to communicate with one another. This interoperability allows a verified identity, a payment instruction and a service request to move across different platforms within seconds.

Esther Kolo, a staff member at Opay, a leading digital financial services provider in Nigeria, explains that many customers only notice verification during registration. “Most people notice identity verification during account registration, but checks can also happen when account details are updated or when unusual transactions are detected. In many cases, these checks happen in the background.”

The reality is that verification does not end after account creation. It becomes part of daily life. The systems simply become invisible. Every interaction leaves behind another record. Those records may sit in various databases, often connected in ways users never see. By midday, Musa has become far more than a trader buying and selling goods. He is part of a growing collection of records moving across this ecosystem. 

When identity becomes the gatekeeper 

Later in the afternoon, Musa receives a call from his younger brother. He is trying to resolve a problem involving identity records required to open a bank account. 

Across Nigeria, mismatched records, incorrect dates of birth, missing details, and verification failures have become common sources of frustration. As systems become more interconnected, a discrepancy in one database can sometimes affect access to services that depend on another.

Such complaints have become familiar in identity management centres and online forums, where citizens report problems ranging from incorrect personal details and outdated biometric records to difficulties validating identity information across different systems. According to Nunaya of NIMC, “The person may experience delays in accessing certain services until the issue is resolved.”

As more services become interconnected, identity functions as a gatekeeper. When systems work properly, access becomes easier. When records fail, opportunities can disappear, sometimes without warning. The same infrastructure designed to enable inclusion can also create new barriers. 

For instance, in August 2025, Catherine Bello, a beneficiary of a humanitarian cash assistance programme in Adamawa, was unable to receive support because a minor discrepancy between her name on the beneficiary list and her National Identification Number (NIN) record caused the verification process to fail. Similarly, others have recounted losing access to mobile services and facing banking restrictions because their NIN, BVN, and SIM records did not match across government databases.

Who is watching the data trail?

As evening approaches, conversations throughout the day prompt Musa to reflect on something he rarely considers: who actually has access to all this information? His answer is uncertain. “I know my bank, telecom company, and government agencies have my details. Honestly, I don’t really know who else can access the information or how it is being used.”

Digital rights advocates say Musa’s uncertainty underpins the challenges facing millions of Nigerians. As more services become digital and become interconnected through digital identity and payment systems, citizens often have little visibility into how their information is shared, stored, or processed across institutions.

Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights advocacy organisation, said the challenge is not only the collection of personal information but the lack of transparency surrounding its use. 

“Many people provide information to access essential services without fully understanding where that data goes, who can access it, or how long it may be retained,” he said, adding that public trust in digital systems depends not only on efficiency and convenience but also on clear safeguards, transparency and accountability.

As identity systems, payment systems, and service delivery platforms become more interconnected, questions about transparency become increasingly important. 

According to Vincent Olatunji, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), for identity management to be effective, there is a need for harmonised policies, secure technologies and inclusive systems. “The more systems are connected, the greater the impact if information is mishandled or exposed,” he noted. 

Reports have shown how vulnerable these systems can be when safeguards fail. In 2025, the Foundation for Investigative Journalism uncovered websites that offered access to Nigerians’ sensitive personal information, including NINs, BVNs, photographs, and other identity records, for small fees. One platform reportedly sold access to personal records for ₦70-₦150, while another provided unauthorised identity-related services despite not being licensed by the NIMC. 

These incidents illustrate the risks that emerge when large volumes of personal data are concentrated within interconnected digital systems without proper safeguards. 

Olatunji of NDPC noted that the Nigeria Data Protection Act has established rules governing how personal information should be collected, processed, stored, and shared. Citizens have rights and organisations have obligations, but awareness is limited. “Organisations are generally expected to explain why information is being collected and how it will be used,” he explained. 

Under the Act, citizens have several rights over their personal information. These include the right to know why their data is being collected, the right to request access to personal information held about them, the right to seek correction of inaccurate records, the right to withdraw consent for certain forms of data processing, and the right to seek redress when their information is misused. The law also requires organisations to explain how personal data will be used and gives individuals the right to lodge complaints with the NDPC when they believe their rights have been violated.

In practical terms, these rights mean that citizens are not merely sources of data, but they are entitled to ask questions about how their information is used, request access to records held about them, and challenge organisations that fail to protect their information. Yet awareness of these protections remains low among ordinary users.

Musa says he has heard of data protection laws but does not know what rights they give him. Like many Nigerians, he uses digital services every day without fully understanding who controls the information he generates.

Before bedtime, by 9:45 p.m., Musa checks his account balance for the final time. The day is over. He has made phone calls, received payments, sent transfers, paid utility bills, purchased airtime and verified identities. Each action took only seconds. Each left a record somewhere. Some records sit inside telecom databases. Others exist in banking systems, payment switches, identity registries and government platforms. Together they form a digital version of Musa’s day, one that is often more detailed than he realises.

“Many people do not realise how often their identity is being checked behind the scenes,” Frank noted. 

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

Every morning Marisol Winfrey Herrera’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Jo reminds her to turn off the tap while washing her hands and brushing her teeth.

When they leave home, she reminds her mother to keep a bottle of ice with them to offer it to homeless people, who they sometimes find wilting in the Tucson heat. At first, they press the ice-filled bottles on the homeless folks to help them revive, then they offer the water to drink and hydrate. At her daycare, Jo is taught water-saving habits to combat Tucson’s soaring heat.

It is what prompted Herrera to join No Desert Data Center, a residents’ group that opposes two large data centres coming up on either side of Tucson – the $3.6bn project on the city’s southeast edge and a $5bn project on its northwest side in the town of Marana, together known as Project Blue.

The group believes these would consume more water and power than the city set in the Sonoran Desert can afford.

“We are in the middle of a 30-year drought, which is now an extreme drought,” says Lisa Shipek, co-executive director of the Watershed Management Group, a Tucson-based nonprofit.

“Water was a unifying theme in our campaign. The Colorado River cuts are looming, and this project would take water away,” Herrera told Al Jazeera.

Water flows in the Colorado River, which provides much of Tucson’s water through the Central Arizona Project canal system, have dropped by 20 percent since the year 2000 compared with water flows in the 20th century due to climate change, melting snow caps and warmer weather, making water cuts to Tucson imminent as the state could face as much as 77 percent water cuts.

“We say Not One Drop for data centres,” says Herrera, speaking of the campaign’s particularly emotive appeal for residents as water cuts get deeper and temperatures rise, with Tucson recording the warmest weather in 125 years last July and August.

Beale Infrastructure, a San Francisco-based company that is owned by investment management company Blue Owl in New York, had asked the city of Tucson to acquire 290 acres that were outside city limits for Project Blue. That would make it the city’s largest water consumer and among its largest power consumers. Beale did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

But at city council meetings, City Councillor Kevin Dahl began seeing hundreds of residents turn up to express their opposition to the project.

“Not for many issues do we get so much response,” he said. Herrera was among those who went.

Pitting environment against unions

At council meetings, Beale executives proposed that Project Blue could be the economic engine the city needed. It would create a few thousand jobs for construction workers, ironmongers, plumbers and other such workers during the construction of the project and a few hundred after that.

“Sometimes people travel as far as Phoenix for work,” Dahl said about Arizona’s largest city, which is nearly a two-hour drive from Tucson.

The project could bring jobs closer. Beale also expected the project to generate nearly $250m in taxes for the city, county and state in the first 10 years.

This left councillors with a difficult decision to make, weighing the project’s economic benefits against allocating it a share of the city’s increasingly scarce water and power.

Activists also raised concerns about whether Tucson Electric Power (TEP), the power utility, would raise rates for consumers so it could expand capacity to provide power for Project Blue. After raising rates by 10 percent in 2023, TEP proposed a 14 percent rate hike in June 2025 for grid upgrades made in the previous year.

Lee Ziesche, an activist from the Democratic Socialists of America who is campaigning to make TEP a public utility, said Project Blue could “lead to higher temperatures and higher rates” because of the heat island effect of the air conditioners and higher rates for power.

She often hears from residents that a rate hike would make it hard to pay bills or put on air conditioning, even as the number of 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.8 degree-Celsius) days has increased in Tucson, which is among the hottest cities in the United States.

The same concerns of needing ramped-up air conditioning would plague data centres too, experts say.

“The viability of data centres in Arizona will always be subject to climate change and heat risks,” says Kate Gordon, chief executive of California Forward, a think tank that works on a sustainable economy.

“The heat in Arizona makes energy less efficient, and servers heat up, so projects will need higher amounts of water and cooling, which developers have to balance against a possibly lower real estate and labour cost,” she said. “I am always amazed at how climate does not figure in business plans.”

Dahl and Andres Cano, a supervisor in Pima County, in which Tucson is located, had discussions with Beale representatives.

“We thought they would go elsewhere if the city did not acquire the land” for the project, Dahl said. Cano also came away with the same impression.

In August 2025, Tucson councillors voted unanimously not to acquire the land for the project or provide it with water and power. In December, Cano became one of only two supervisors in Pima County to oppose the project, and it was approved for construction in an unincorporated part of the county.

“It will create short-term construction jobs for what will ultimately be a project with few wins,” Cano said. “This pitted the environment and unions, but industry is not for unions. This will have just about 100 jobs when it is done.”

With no access to Tucson’s water supply, Beale decided to cool its servers with air conditioners rather than water and use a closed-loop water system, so it would recycle and reuse water.

But Vivek Bharathan, a spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said using air conditioners would increase power usage.

Nearly half of TEP’s power comes from fracking, he says. Data centre demand will only mean “more fracking somewhere else, climate and health consequences all along the way”.

The state’s largest data centre

Even as Project Blue was making its way through a fraught approval process, Beale announced another data centre project in the neighbouring farming town of Marana. It was to be spread over 600 acres (242 hectares), twice the size of Project Blue. The area was spread over two farm plots, one owned by the Mormon church and the other by a family trust of city council member, Herb Kai.

This project, too, is slated to bring thousands of construction jobs to a farming town as well as tax revenues.

But when Jackie McGuire, a mother of three and former Wall Street banker, heard about it, she and other residents launched a campaign to stop the land from being rezoned for a data centre. Residents wanted Marana to stay a farming town.

McGuire, who works as a research analyst, said the data centres’ servers and large air conditioners that would be installed to keep them running would raise the project’s cost and make Marana unbearably hot.

Temperatures rose by up to 2.2F (1.22C) downwind from data centres in the Phoenix area, a study published in May had found.

“The heat generated will be like one to two million space heaters,” McGuire says. “It can go up to 112 degrees [44.4C] here already. The heat island effect could make Marana uninhabitable.”

The Marana data centre will be provided power by TEP and Trico, which announced a 7.23 percent rate hike in January.

McGuire and other residents campaigned to have a referendum on whether the land could be rezoned for a data centre. Their plea was not successful, and the city council approved the rezoning of the land.

But the experience of the campaign had invigorated McGuire, and she decided to run for city council herself. The central issue of her campaign is to bring transparency to the data centre’s functioning.

Even as the campaigns in Pima County and Marana raged on, La Osa, the state’s largest data centre project, took shape in Tucson’s neighbouring Pinal County. The 3,300-acre project by the Vermaland real estate group was expected to house 59 data centres and two of its own natural gas facilities, as well as a utility-scale battery storage system.

But residents worried about noise pollution from protracted project construction and a possible increase in power costs.

“I’m worried about the constituents in that area, about the power bills going up, even though you’re saying that they’re going to pay for it,” Pinal County Supervisor Rich Vitiello said in a board of supervisors meeting on May 27.

In the face of such opposition, a La Osa lawyer spoke at the meeting to say the project had been scaled down and would now house 11 data centres from the 59 planned earlier.

‘A straw to the aquifer’

Sharing limited water has long been an emotive issue in the state, and the looming Colorado River cuts and data centre projects have brought such concerns to a head.

Arizona fought one of the longest-running cases, stretching more than three decades, in the US Supreme Court over the sharing of Colorado River water with California. Eventually, Congress adjudicated to provide California with a greater share of the water, which turbocharged its economic growth.

“No water can flow into Tucson and Phoenix unless California gets its full share,” says Jason Robison, co-director of the Gina Guy Center for Land and Water Law at the University of Wyoming College of Law.  “Arizona has always been in a tough spot.”

It strengthened the state’s long-held tradition of conservation.

“Arizona communities have been preparing for the drought conditions we see today since 1980,” a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Water Resources said in an emailed response.

Authorities have curtailed lawns in Tucson, he said, and educational campaigns of the kind Herrera’s daughter underwent are the norm.

It has meant that groundwater reserves go deep, and homeowners are assured of a water supply before it is given to data centres or farms.

“The use by data centres is low compared to farm use, especially alfalfa and hay,” says Eric Kuhn, retired general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District and co-author of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.

However, “data centres are not under the same rules to replenish water” as other industries, says Sharon Medgal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona. “So it adds a straw to the aquifer.”

Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, who is up for re-election in November, has represented to the Bureau of Reclamation that the state is home to essential industry, including semiconductors, space and data centres, and so needs a higher share of water from the Colorado River. Water, as well as its use for data centres, has been an important issue in primary races across the state.

Construction began for Project Blue at the end of April. No Desert Data Centers’ activists arrived just after dawn to protest. Within days, they found subcontractors bringing in water to control dust on site from construction. County authorities cited Beale.

Then Beale began digging wells on site after reportedly receiving permits allowing that from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. This is likely for 31,000 gallons  (more than 117,000 litres) a year, which is just enough for toilets and kitchens and will likely be recycled for reuse after.

“This may not yet be a winning story,” Bharathan, the spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said. “But it is a continuing story.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to require proposed data centers to provide estimates of their water usage last year, saying he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements” without understanding the impact on businesses and consumers.

Opposition to the mammoth tech hubs and their massive thirst of water, power and land has only escalated throughout the state and nation ever since. In just a matter of months, Newsom again could find himself in the political crosshairs.

Several bills to regulate the facilities and increase public transparency on their impacts are progressing in the California Legislature, which could create a conundrum for a governor who has long aligned with the tech industry but also paints himself as an environmental and social justice advocate.

“I think the governor is in a fragile position,” said Megan Mullin, a public policy professor at UCLA. “Tech has been a long backer of his, but at the same time there is this growing national outcry against data centers.”

Data centers have existed for decades but are rapidly expanding due to the worldwide boom in artificial intelligence. The newer centers built to power AI are far larger than their original counterparts and require immense amounts of water and energy.

The facilities also contribute to fossil fuel emissions, with Cornell University researchers estimating last year that AI growth could add 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually by 2030. Fossil fuel emissions are drivers of climate change and linked to a range of health conditions, including asthma, various cancers and birth defects.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last week that the Trump administration will not set national environmental requirements or recommendations for the data center industry, leaving it to state lawmakers to determine best policies.

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said the nation will likely look to the Golden State for guidance.

“California’s laws will create a national model,” he said. “We’re the home of Silicon Valley and we’re just a massive state — the way we regulate data centers will set the tone.”

The political landscape around data centers has since changed since Newsom’s veto in October, said Dan Schnur, a political science professor who teaches at UC Berkeley and USC.

“No one should assume he will automatically act in the same way,” Schnur said. “Newsom is an incredibly savvy politician so he is clearly aware that voters are a lot more upset or concerned about data centers than they were a year ago.”

A Gallup poll released last month found 7 out of 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their area.

The facilities can create thousands of jobs for construction workers and generate significant revenue for local governments due to sales and property taxes. The artificial intelligence they power is also — at least temporarily — boosting the stock market, leading to more tax dollars for California.

But residents who live near hyperscale centers have expressed outrage over a range of issues, including health impacts, spiking utility bills, constant noise, dropping water pressure and concerns about potentially losing their land through eminent domain. Meanwhile, community meetings about data centers are growing contentious, with police arresting a farmer in Oklahoma, three women in Wisconsin and a man in California.

Earlier this month, residents of Monterey Park voted overwhelmingly to ban data centers, making the San Gabriel Valley city the first in the nation to do so by public vote.

“Six months ago, politicians of both parties were falling all over each other to bring data centers into their states,” Schnur said. “Now that the public backlash has erupted, they are working just as hard to distance themselves from these projects.”

With Newsom eyeing a presidential bid in 2028, he might be reluctant to brand himself as a defender of an increasingly unpopular industry.

But Schnur said the governor likely also has concerns about angering one of his biggest backers.

“The tech community is a critical part of Newsom’s donor base, so he has to keep fundraising in mind when he makes these decisions,” Schnur said.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office declined to comment on data centers or pending legislation.

Newsom, during an interview at a Center for American Progress conference in May, said the concern that data centers may drive up electricity costs for Californians is a “legit issue,” but not the main one.

“The tech genie is not going to go back in the bottle,” Newsom said. “Just saying that you should not or cannot build a data center is not going to slow this technology down. What can be, will be. Nature of technology. And so we just have to steer it and not make the mistakes we made with social media.”

Among the measures in the Legislature are two bills from Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego). SB 886 would create a corporate tariff to cover the cost of data center-related grid upgrades. SB 887 would ban data centers from receiving ministerial exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA.

Neither bill picked up support from Republicans, but both cleared the Senate and were recently referred to the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee.

Padilla represents Imperial County, a farming community near the border of Mexico where plans for a 950,000–square–foot data center face fierce opposition from residents. The county exempted the proposal from CEQA, which requires projects to undergo an extensive state environmental review before breaking ground.

The city of Imperial sued the county earlier this year, arguing the project should not have received an exemption. The San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club joined the lawsuit last month. The county board of supervisors last week approved a 45-day moratorium on all new data centers to allow the county to evaluate proposed data center development.

Two other data center-related bills recently passed the Assembly, each picking up support from a few Republicans. They now await action from the Senate.

AB 2619 from Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) would require data center owners to provide an estimate under penalty of perjury about expected water usage and sources before applying for a business license. AB 1577 from Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) would require data center owners to submit monthly information to a state commission about water and fuel consumption.

Ben Green, an assistant public policy professor at the University of Michigan who is researching how data centers impact communities, said reporting requirements are a “bare minimum” type of regulation, making it especially noteworthy that Newsom vetoed a similar measure last year.

For comparison, several states are weighing more restrictive bills — New York recently sent legislation to the governor’s desk that would enact a one-year moratorium.

“It seems that there was a ton of lobbying pressure that he was getting,” Green said. “The tech industry doesn’t want to have any restrictions.”

Green said data centers could be a hot topic in upcoming elections, as Americans on both sides of the aisle are expressing valid concerns.

“There’s not an easy fix for getting the public on board with data centers because their critiques are grounded in reality,” he said. “This is not just some sort of reactionary NIMBY-ism or pearl clutching.”

The chain confirmed information exposed in the breach includes ‘certain guests names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and/or home addresses, along with other reservation details’

Hotel guests have been warned to watch out for convincing scam messages after a data breach at a major hotel chain. Data including personal details of people booked to stay at one of the chain hotels was exposed over a six month period.

BWH Hotels, the parent company for WorldHotels, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and Sure Hotels notified customers of the breach in an email when it said “certain guests’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and/or home addresses, along with other reservation details” had been accessed between October 14, 2025 and April 22. It added: “Importantly, payment and other financial information was not stored in the affected system and therefore was not accessed.”

It confirmed the firm had taken action to stop the unauthorised access and that it was also taking steps to strengthen safeguards to stop any further breaches. And they urged any affected customers to take steps to ensure any scammers did not take advantage of them, warning them to be extra vigilant about unexpected emails, texts, WhatsApp messages or calls referencing hotel stays.

Now privacy experts have warned the concern is not only what was stolen, but how that information could be used next. Hotel booking data can make follow-up scams look far more believable because criminals may be able to reference real stays, dates, locations or reservation numbers.

Peter Nguyen, a privacy expert from Protect My Data, says travellers should not dismiss this kind of breach just because payment details were not exposed. “A hotel reservation contains more useful information than people realise.

“A scammer does not always need your card number to target you. If they know your name, phone number, hotel, stay dates and booking reference, they can make a fake message look extremely convincing.

“That is the risk with travel data. It gives criminals context. Instead of sending a vague scam, they can contact you with details that feel personal and accurate.”

Nguyen says guests should be especially careful with any unexpected message claiming there is a problem with a booking, payment, refund or reservation. He warned a scammer could pretend to be from the hotel, a booking platform, customer support team or payment department.

The message may claim a card needs to be reverified, a stay could be cancelled, a refund is waiting, or extra information is needed before arrival. He said: “The most dangerous message is one that sounds helpful. It might say your booking needs confirming, your payment failed, or your refund is ready. Because it references a real hotel stay, people are more likely to click.

“If the message asks for payment, codes, logins or verification, do not engage through that message. Go directly to the hotel or booking platform yourself.”

Nguyen says WhatsApp and SMS messages are particularly risky because they feel more direct. “A text or WhatsApp message creates urgency. It feels like someone is dealing with your booking right now. That pressure makes people act faster than they would with an email.”

BWH Hotels’ own warning urged customers not to engage with suspicious communications asking for payment, codes, logins or verification, even if they reference a BWH Hotels property or an upcoming reservation.

Why reservation data is so valuable

Many people worry most about card details in a breach, but Nguyen says contact and booking information can still create serious risk. He explained: “Names, phone numbers and email addresses are the starting point for phishing. Add reservation details and the scam becomes much more targeted.”

“A criminal could send a message saying, ‘Your stay at this property on this date needs confirmation.’ That feels completely different from a generic scam email because it contains something real.”

He said postal addresses can also make scams more credible. He explained: “If a scammer has your address, they can make a fake message feel more official. They might use it in a fake invoice, refund notice, complaint response or identity check.”

Special requests may also reveal details guests did not expect to become part of a security issue. “People sometimes include personal information in hotel requests, such as accessibility needs, arrival times, family arrangements or reasons for travel. Even small details can help scammers tailor their approach.”

What guests should do now

Nguyen says anyone who has stayed with, or booked through, a BWH Hotels property during the affected period should be alert, but not panic. He added: “The first step is awareness. If you receive a message about a Best Western, WorldHotels or SureStay booking, slow down and verify it independently.”

He advised guests to avoid clicking links in unexpected messages. “Open the official hotel website yourself, use the original booking confirmation, or contact the property through a trusted number,” he said. “Do not use a number or link sent in a suspicious message.”

Guests should also be careful if they are asked to confirm personal information, he said. “A genuine hotel may need basic details to find your booking, but they should not ask for banking codes, account passwords or card security codes through an unexpected message.”

If someone has clicked a suspicious link or shared card details, Nguyen says they should contact their bank immediately. He warned: “Speed matters. If you entered payment details, call your bank straight away. If you entered a password, change it immediately, especially if you use it anywhere else.”

He also recommends securing email accounts, as email is often the route scammers use to reset other accounts. “Your email account is the front door to much of your digital life,” he said. “Use a strong, unique password and switch on two-factor authentication.”

Why this warning matters for summer travel

The breach comes as many travellers are booking summer stays, weekend breaks and last-minute trips. Nguyen says that makes hotel-related scams especially dangerous.

“Travel season gives scammers a huge advantage. People are expecting hotel messages, payment reminders and booking updates. That makes fake messages easier to hide among real ones.”

He says guests should be particularly wary of messages close to their check-in date. “A message sent shortly before a stay can create panic. If it says your room will be cancelled unless you act now, that is exactly when you need to stop.”

The safest rule, Nguyen says, is to treat unexpected booking messages as suspicious until proven otherwise. He said: “If a message knows your hotel and dates, that does not automatically make it real. It may simply mean the scammer has booking data. Do not let accurate details rush you into clicking. Verify through the official route every time.”

In its email, signed by Bill Ryan Chief Technology Officer of the hotel chain and sent last month, it said: “BWH Hotels, the parent company for WorldHotels, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and Sure Hotels, takes the privacy and security of our guests’ personal information very seriously. We are writing to let you know that on April 22, 2026, we identified unauthorised activity in one of our web applications that houses certain guest reservation data.

“We have learned that certain guests’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and/or home addresses, along with other reservation details (e.g., reservation numbers, dates of stay, and any special requests) for reservations in our system were accessed by an unauthorised third‑party between October 14, 2025 and April 22, 2026, including yours. Importantly, payment and other financial information was not stored in the affected system and therefore was not accessed.

“Upon discovering the incident, we immediately took the application offline and revoked the unauthorised access. We have engaged leading external cybersecurity experts to support our incident response efforts and to assist with the further strengthening of existing safeguards.

“We advise guests to be extra vigilant when viewing any unexpected or suspicious communications about hotel stays. If you receive a suspicious communication such as an unexpected email, text, WhatsApp message, or telephone call that asks for payment, codes, logins, or “verification,” even if they reference a BWH Hotels property or an upcoming reservation, do not engage. Navigate to sites directly rather than clicking links.

As part of protecting your personal information and to prevent payments to fraudulent parties, here are some precautions you can take:

• Stay alert for suspicious sender addresses, urgent or unexpected unsolicited requests, and strange links, especially any unexpected request for payment or personal information. Treat any suspicious request with caution. If you have a question regarding a suspicious request, please contact our customer service team
• Scammers may create webpages that closely resemble legitimate hotel booking pages. Always review the web address before entering payment details. If a page looks unexpected or unfamiliar, stop and verify it with our customer service team before proceeding. If you entered or shared any payment (credit card) information in response to a scam, please immediately report it to your financial institution and follow security steps they recommend. If you have any questions, please contact BWH Hotels’ data protection office at dpo@bwh.com

June 12 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Trade Ministry is accelerating a project to convert master workers’ tacit manufacturing knowledge into artificial intelligence data as the country seeks to preserve industrial skills threatened by aging and labor shortages.

Tacit knowledge refers to experience and know-how that skilled workers often use without writing it down. In manufacturing, it can include judgment used in process optimization, quality control, welding, equipment checks and other work that depends on years of experience.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held the fourth M.AX conference Friday at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in central Seoul. The conference focused on development and cooperation strategies for using master workers’ tacit knowledge in manufacturing AI transformation.

Officials and experts discussed how to build AI systems that can capture knowledge from industrial sites and how labor and management can cooperate in the process.

The ministry said skilled manufacturing experience is becoming a core asset in the AI era. Officials warned that if the know-how of retiring workers is lost, companies could face weaker process control, lower quality management and reduced manufacturing competitiveness.

The government is using 48 billion won, or about $31.2 million, from this year’s supplementary budget to support pilot projects for 30 manufacturing processes. The projects will build tacit knowledge datasets and develop AI models.

The ministry plans to prioritize processes with high safety risks or severe labor shortages. AI models developed through the project are also expected to be used to train new workers.

The conference included examples of AI already being applied in manufacturing. Sungwon, a stainless steel pipe maker, said it is using AI in welding work where skilled workers previously relied on visual judgment to support operators’ decision-making.

Participants said the project’s success will require data standardization, verification systems, proper compensation for workers who share their knowledge and sufficient communication with employees before implementation.

Some participants also proposed creating an advisory group of national quality masters so the project can better reflect expertise from actual manufacturing sites.

Kim Sung-yeol, head of the ministry’s industrial growth office, said the project is designed to protect South Korea’s manufacturing base.

“This project is about protecting manufacturing and manufacturing sites, which are among our core assets,” Kim said. “Because it is a project to preserve and transfer the tacit knowledge of master workers, we will do our best to help solve difficulties at manufacturing sites.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260612010004392

NEW YORK — The proportion of Americans without health insurance held steady at around 8% of the population in 2025, according to new findings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The national survey results, released Thursday, show the all-ages uninsured rate has stayed significantly down from where it was several years ago, but the ranks of the uninsured could soon expand as the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to the health landscape begin to take hold.

Massive changes to Medicaid, the government’s safety-net health program for low-income Americans, passed into law last year could result in 10 million more uninsured individuals over a decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

And the expiration this year of certain Affordable Care Act subsidies — which had offset premium costs — is also contributing to reduced participation in marketplace health programs. Around 5 million fewer people are expected to enroll in those plans in 2026 compared with 2025, according to the healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

The government has multiple programs for tracking Americans’ insurance status, which can give different numbers depending on factors like timing and question wording. Many researchers consider the U.S. Census Bureau to be “the official scorekeeper,” said David Howard, an Emory University health policy and management professor.

But the CDC survey results tracks closely with that, and they offer the first complete data for all of 2025 — the first year of President Trump’s second term in office.

The Trump administration has sought to expand access to low-premium catastrophic health insurance plans and lower drug prices for Americans who don’t have health insurance. It has also suggested that projected insurance enrollment declines indicate a drop-off of fraudulent and ineligible enrollees, rather than eligible Americans.

Although the share of insured and uninsured stayed roughly the same in 2025 as the year before, the number of uninsured grew by about 800,000 — 300,000 of them children. The growth of the overall U.S. population helps explain that.

The survey results also suggest a possible increased insured rate among Hispanic Americans. But that may in part reflect the effects of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, if uninsured members of that group left the country, Howard said.

Most Americans 65 and older have health insurance through the federal Medicare program. It’s different for younger Americans, many of whom are covered through a patchwork of public and private insurance programs.

The percentage of Americans under 65 who were uninsured rose in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s — from 12% in 1980 to more than 18% in 2010. It fell following passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which expanded Medicaid programs and enacted measures to make affordable health insurance available to more people.

By 2016 it dropped nearly to 10%, before rising to 11 to 12% during Trump’s first administration, according to historical survey data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the rate of uninsured fall again, as a result of government policies put in place to preserve coverage as people faced disruptions related to the pandemic. The rate hit an all-time low in 2023, falling below 9%.

It’s not clear yet how big the increase in uninsured Americans will be this year, but experts agree it will likely rise in the coming years as a result of changes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.

“The decisions being made now — in Congress, state legislatures and state Medicaid agencies — will determine what happens next,” Nancy Brown, chief executive officer of the American Heart Association, said in a statement Thursday.

“Policymakers should act immediately to protect and expand access to affordable coverage, strengthen Medicaid and maintain pathways that make coverage and care accessible,” she said. “Without deliberate action, including reversing dramatic cuts to coverage, uninsured rates will continue to rise, putting quality health care further out of reach.”

Stobbe and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

May 22 (Asia Today) — LS Electric Chairman Koo Ja-kyun called for stronger quality and delivery competitiveness as the South Korean company seeks to expand in the North American data center power infrastructure market.

Koo recently visited LS Electric’s Cheongju plant, a key production base for power equipment used in North American data centers, the company said Friday.

During the visit, Koo inspected switchgear production lines, the smart factory system and high-voltage circuit breaker lines.

“The U.S.-centered data center market does not allow even the slightest error in next-generation power grid fields such as direct current distribution,” Koo said. “Top-level high-end quality and flawless delivery capability are essential.”

He said the company should go beyond merely meeting customer standards.

“We must secure competitiveness strong enough to overwhelm global partners based on our smart manufacturing capabilities,” Koo said.

Industry officials say the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers has pushed the power infrastructure market into a “power supercycle,” driving demand for high-end power solutions such as high-voltage distribution equipment and circuit breakers.

Koo also called for early investment and technological innovation.

“The global power market is facing a major transition,” he said. “If we remain complacent, we will fall behind. Bold innovation that breaks through limits is necessary.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260522010006606

SIX in ten Brits say free roaming is their top priority when choosing a phone plan – with a third being stung by additional fees.

A study of 2,000 adults revealed of the 34 per cent who had been charged, 22 per cent had to fork out £50 or more extra from a single trip – with 1.5 million travellers facing bills of over £100.

Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) admitted they had no idea different charges applied to varying countries in Europe.

Almost half (48 per cent) who were hit with surprise additional costs due to roaming said it had negatively affected their holiday as a result.

The research was commissioned by iD Mobile, which has teamed up with the former King of the Jungle and I’m a Celebrity… South Africa returnee, Harry Redknapp, to beat the sting of holiday bill shock.

A spokesperson for the network provider, which offers inclusive roaming as standard in 50 European destinations, said: “Being hit with a huge roaming bill when you return home is genuinely frustrating.

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“Our research shows just how many people are unsure about roaming charges, how they work, and where they apply.”

The study also found, of those who have been charged with unexpected roaming fees, 90 per cent were shocked by the amount.

Meanwhile 54 per cent said they do not understand how such charges are calculated on their current mobile phone plan, including what they are charged for calls, texts and data when abroad.

Over a quarter (28 per cent) said they did not understand what mobile roaming is and how the charges would work when travelling abroad.

When using their phone abroad, 42 per cent said it left them feeling anxious, regularly checking their usage (29 per cent) or actively limiting what they do to avoid unexpected costs (13 per cent).

Tactics to avoid unexpected fees included switching off mobile data entirely (40 per cent) and not sending photos or videos to family and friends (20 per cent).

The study also found 30 per cent felt disconnected from friends and family while on holiday abroad, according to OnePoll.com figures.

In a bid to stay connected, for 21 per cent, finding Wi-Fi would be the first thing they would do.

ATM withdrawal or foreign transaction card fees were the most unexpected costs (25 per cent), as well as hotel extras for pool towels, Wi-Fi and safe hire (16 per cent).

A spokesperson for iD Mobile, which partnered with Harry Redknapp for a campaign video which features the football star fighting the sting of roaming bills with his ‘Roaming Sting Repellent’, added: “People feel it when it comes to using their phones abroad.

“Many travellers don’t know what’s included in their phone plan, or when charges might apply, until they’re already away.

“That confusion is clearly influencing how people behave on holiday, with some cutting back on phone use entirely to avoid the risk of unexpected costs.

“No one should have to worry about being stung by their phone bill while trying to enjoy a well-earned break.”

April 24 (UPI) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday vetoed a bill that would have paused artificial intelligence data center construction in the state for 18 months.

Mills said she decided to veto it because it would have potentially harmed a permitted and in progress data center expected to create hundreds of jobs, both for construction and once the center opens.

The project, a $550 million data center in Jay, Maine, is a multi-year effort to redevelop the former Androscoggin Mill, which was damaged in a 2020 boiler explosion and then closed in 2023, took with it hundreds of jobs and 22% of the town’s tax revenue.

The bill would have been the first in the country restricting or slowing the spread of large-scale data centers required for power-hungry AI systems, which have driven up the cost of both electricity and water for residents living near them, NBC News and Politico reported.

“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and electricity rates,” Mills said in a press release.

“But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region,” she said.

There are more than 5,000 data centers in the United States — more than any country in the world — and that number has grown significantly in the last four years as artificial intelligence has become a focus the tech industry.

While many state and local leaders have started to respond to concerns among residents about the huge amounts of electricity needed to power AI data centers and the huge amounts of water needed to keep them cool, as have some members of Congress.

As states have contemplated increased regulation and scrutiny from tech and AI companies, President Donald Trump at the same time has worked to keep the cuffs of tech companies because they “must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” he said in December.

“Excessive state regulation thwarts this imperative,” Trump said in an executive order meant to prevent states from creating new regulations.

Mills said she worked with Maine’s legislature to carve out an exemption for the data center in Jay but was unsuccessful, so she vetoed the law.

The development in Jay, she said, is under contract and permitted, and is expected to create 800 construction jobs, more than 100 high-paying permanent jobs and “substantial tax revenue” for the Town of Jay.

In a letter informing the legislature that she planned to veto the bill, Mills said she plans to issue an executive order to establish a council to study the impacts — real and potential — of data centers in Maine.

“I believe it necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in Maine, as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more widespread,” Mills said.

“Given the serious conversations about data centers here and around the country, I believe this work should commence without delay,” she told legislators.

Published on
23/04/2026 – 16:10 GMT+2

Météo-France has initiated an inquiry to determine whether the meteorological infrastructure managed by them was targeted by individuals seeking to influence prediction markets.

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This development follows reports of highly unusual temperature spikes that triggered significant financial payouts on the blockchain-based site Polymarket, where users place wagers on real-world events.

Investigators are examining if the integrity of the national weather network was breached through physical or digital interference, as the precision of the winning bets suggests the actors involved may have had direct control over the reported data.

Online rumors, which remain unverified for the time being, claim the temperature reading was manipulated by someone using a hair dryer to generate a higher temperature.

Polymarket reportedly settles Paris temperature bets on a single Météo-France sensor sitting near the Charles de Gaulle airport perimeter.

On 6 April, the reading from the sensor abruptly rose 4°C in twelve minutes, crossing the 22°C threshold despite data from other sources showing different figures.

A user on Polymarket aggressively bet on readings above 21°C on that specific day, even though the consensus was lower at 18°C, and profited almost €30,000.

A second similar anomaly occurred on 19 April leading to suspicions that the sensor was tampered with.

Météo-France announced that it has filed a complaint with the Roissy air transport gendarmerie brigade “for [the] alteration of the operation of an automated data processing system,” after an analysis of sensor data.

Polymarket suspended its reliance on the compromised weather data source for Paris, shifting its resolution metric from the sensor in Charles de Gaulle airport to the one in Paris-Le Bourget airport.

However, it did not cancel the contracts or refund the bets, leaving the resolved contracts final, even though on previous occasions it has suspended the resolution of certain bets until further clarification on the rules and circumstances.

Decentralised ‘oracles’ and prediction markets

This incident has reignited the debate over the reliability of the “oracles” that feed data to prediction markets in order to settle bets.

In decentralised finance, an oracle is the mechanism that feeds external, real-world information into a smart contract to determine a financial outcome.

Polymarket relies on these feeds to settle its contracts, often pulling data directly from official government websites. If the primary source of that data is corrupted, the betting market lacks any internal mechanism to verify the truth.

Additionally, the decentralised nature of these platforms makes it difficult to freeze assets even if an investigation identifies the individuals behind suspicious trades.

This is the latest case that highlights a new frontier of white-collar crime, where the manipulation of the physical world is used to exploit the vulnerabilities of automated prediction markets in order to win bets on real-world events.

The number of babies born rose at a record high pace in February of this year, driven largely by an increase in childbirths by women in their 30s, government data showed Wednesday.

A total of 22,898 babies were born during the month, up a solid 13.6 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to findings by the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

The figure was the highest for the month since 2019, when 25,710 babies were born, and the growth pace was also the highest for any February since record keeping began in 1981, the ministry said

The number of newborns has been on an upward trend since July 2024.

The country’s total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, rose 0.1 from a year earlier to 0.93 in February.

The ministry said the recent rise in births was mainly led by women in their 30s, with the number of births per 1,000 women in their early 30s rising by 9.1 to 86.1 and the corresponding tally for women in their late 30s increasing by 9.2 to 61.5.

The number of births per 1,000 women in their late 20s only rose by 1.6 to 23.9.

The number of marriages in February declined 4.2 percent on-year to 18,557, turning lower after 22 straight months of increase, on the fewer number of working days due to the extended Lunar New Year holiday.

The number of divorces went down 15.6 percent on-year to 6,197 in the cited month, the data showed.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths dropped by 3.5 percent from a year earlier to 29,172, resulting in a natural population decline of 6,275.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Ruling is latest loss for Trump administration, which has sought access to state voter data ahead of the US midterms.

A federal judge in the United States has dismissed a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to access voter data from Rhode Island.

The decision on Friday was the latest loss for the administration of President Donald Trump, which has sought to access voter data in dozens of states across the country.

In the ruling, US District Court Judge Mary McElroy sided with election officials and civil rights groups, writing that the Justice Department does not have the authority “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here”.

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore praised the ruling in a statement afterwards.

“The executive branch seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states,” Amore wrote.

“But the power of our democratic republic, built on three, coequal branches of government, is clearer than ever before.”

The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states for their voter information, maintaining it needs the information to secure election security. State officials have said that turning over the data raises an array of privacy concerns.

Under the US Constitution, state officials administer elections. Only Congress can pass laws related to how states oversee voting.

But Trump has sought to transform election administration, claiming that voting has been marred by widespread fraud.

In particular, Trump has continued to maintain that the 2020 election, in which he lost to former President Joe Biden, was “stolen”.

No evidence has ever been put forward to support the claims.

Federal judges have rejected attempts in California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon to force the states to hand over voter files to the federal government. At least 12 states, however, have willingly provided or pledged to provide voter information to the Trump administration.

The push for voter information is one of several actions that have raised concerns over how the Trump administration will approach the midterm elections in November, which will decide the makeup of the US Congress.

He is currently calling on Republicans to pass the so-called SAVE America Act, a bill that would create higher documentation standards for voters to prove their citizenship when registering to vote and casting ballots.

The majority of Republican lawmakers have embraced Trump’s claim that the law is needed to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote, despite studies showing that instances of voter fraud are glancingly rare.

Critics say the measure would risk disenfranchising millions of voters, particularly those who have legally changed their names, which is a common practice in US marriages.