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Driving on the A12 can be an absolute nightmare, in my experience, which I know is an opinion shared by many other local motorists.

It is set to be closed for months

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: America's largest power grid is under strain as data centers and AI chatbots consume power faster than new plants can be built. Electricity bills are projected to surge by more than 20% this summer in some parts of PJM Interconnection's territory, which covers 13 states -- from Illinois to Tennessee, Virginia to New Jersey -- serving 67 million customers in a region with the most data centers in the world. The governor of Pennsylvania is threatening to abandon the grid, the CEO has announced his departure and the chair of PJM's board of managers and another board member were voted out. The upheaval at PJM started a year ago with a more than 800% jump in prices at its annual capacity auction. Rising prices out of the auction trickle down to everyday people's power bills. Now PJM is barreling towards its next capacity auction on Wednesday, when prices may rise even further. The auction aims to avoid blackouts by establishing a rate at which generators agree to pump out electricity during the most extreme periods of stress on the grid, usually the hottest and coldest days of the year. High prices out of the auction should spur new power plant construction, but that hasn't happened quickly enough in PJM's region as aging power plants continue to retire and data center demand explodes. PJM has made the situation worse by delaying auctions and pausing the application process for new plants, according to more than a dozen power developers, regulators, energy attorneys and other experts interviewed by Reuters. PJM says the supply and demand crunch has been caused largely by factors outside of its control, including state energy policies that closed fossil-fuel fired power plants prematurely and data center growth in "Data Center Alley" in Northern Virginia and other burgeoning hubs in the Mid-Atlantic. "Prices will remain high as long as demand growth is outstripping supply -- this is a basic economic policy," said PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields. "Right now, we need every megawatt we can get." New projects totaling about 46 gigawatts -- enough capacity to power 40 million homes -- have been cleared in recent years, "but are not getting built because of local opposition, supply chain backups or financing issues that have nothing to do with PJM," Shields said. PJM has lost more than 5.6 net gigawatts in the last decade as power plants shut faster than new ones enter service, according to a PJM presentation filed with regulators this year. PJM added about 5 gigawatts of power-generating capacity in 2024, fewer than smaller grids in California and Texas. Meanwhile, data center demand is surging. By 2030, PJM expects 32 gigawatts of increased demand on its system, with all but two of those gigawatts coming from data centers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brad Pitt is requesting to see ex-wife Angelina Jolie's private messages in a new legal filing.

Rescuers have made a discovery in the search for a teen surfer on New South Wales' Mid North Coast.

"Max" has officially reverted back to "HBO Max," two years after Warner Bros. Discovery dropped the HBO branding. Variety reports: The switch had been anticipated to take place sometime this summer, but Warner Bros. Discovery hadn't revealed an exact day for the reversal until now. The timing is key: Execs wanted to restore the "HBO Max" name prior to next week's Emmy nominations announcement on July 15. The decision to turn "Max" back into "HBO Max" was first announced in May, timed to Warner Bros. Discovery's upfronts presentation. At the time, WBD said in a press release that "returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering. It is also a testament to WBD's willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach -- leaning heavily on consumer data and insights -- to best position itself for success." The streamer launched as HBO Max in 2020, but then WBD opted to excise HBO from the streamer's name in 2023, changing it to just "Max." (HBO and Max continued to compete under one "HBO/Max" label for industry awards; for next week's Emmy noms, they can once again just be called "HBO Max.") The streaming giant put out a marketing spot announcing that the change was done.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It can be paired with trainers or sandals!

Trump fired off a furious letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday laying out the details of his new tariff.

A California woman's home has been getting inundated with dozens of packages for over a year thanks to a nasty scheme perpetrated by a Chinese seller on Amazon.

Police have intensified their search for a German backpacker who was last seen travelling in a remote region of Western Australia in June. 

Over 240 browser extensions with nearly a million total installs have been covertly turning users' browsers into web-scraping bots. "The extensions serve a wide range of purposes, including managing bookmarks and clipboards, boosting speaker volumes, and generating random numbers," reports Ars Technica. "The common thread among all of them: They incorporate MellowTel-js, an open source JavaScript library that allows developers to monetize their extensions." Ars Technica reports: Some of the data swept up in the collection free-for-all included surveillance videos hosted on Nest, tax returns, billing invoices, business documents, and presentation slides posted to, or hosted on, Microsoft OneDrive and Intuit.com, vehicle identification numbers of recently bought automobiles along with the names and addresses of the buyers, patient names and the doctors they saw, travel itineraries hosted on Priceline, Booking.com, and airline websites, Facebook Messenger attachments and Facebook photos, even when the photos were set to be private. The dragnet also collected proprietary information belonging to Tesla, Blue Origin, Amgen, Merck, Pfizer, Roche, and dozens of other companies. Tuckner said in an email Wednesday that the most recent status of the affected extensions is: - Of 45 known Chrome extensions, 12 are now inactive. Some of the extensions were removed for malware explicitly. Others have removed the library. - Of 129 Edge extensions incorporating the library, eight are now inactive. - Of 71 affected Firefox extensions, two are now inactive. Some of the inactive extensions were removed for malware explicitly. Others have removed the library in more recent updates. A complete list of extensions found by Tuckner is here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two members of the Royal Family joined in with Queensland's jubilant State of Origin celebrations after Billy Slater's side claimed back bragging rights over NSW.

Kai also showed off her slender legs in a white and black polka dot minidress while she wore her blonde hair down and added dark sunglasses. Her father is also an actor.

Secret cameras were installed on the planes and caught ten employees helping themselves to food, causing one member of staff to call his colleagues 'thieving b******s'.

Doodling at work made Roger Har-greaves a multi-millionaire with him drawing cartoon characters in idle moments, which evolved into the Mr Men - Mr Tickle, Mr Greedy and many more.

Dannii Minogue has re-emerged on social media in the wake of ex-husband Julian McMahon's death.

It was another festive feast for French President, who tonight attended a banquet hosted by Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alastair King.

JEFF POWELL: To no surprise among millions of normal humanoids outside SW19, the electronic line calling system is proving to be about as fault-proof as a leaky umbrella on any outside court in a storm.

Earnings of the unemployed who claim ill health payments will overtake those of workers on the national living wage next year, warns a think tank.

Danielle Oliver (right) threw herself at Belinda Stickland (left) without warning inside the Conservative Club in Splott, Cardiff, during a family funeral on June 9 last year.