Extra, Extra

Can’t You Smell That Smell? “Already, the air smelled of soot, gasoline, and asphalt. Then I felt a tickle sliding up my nostrils and down into my throat, like I was getting a cold. As we approached, I heard the rumble of cranes and trucks, and then from behind a patch of trees emerged a forest of electrical towers. Finally, I saw it—a white-walled hangar, bigger than a dozen football fields, where Elon Musk intends to build a god.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of Ai Data Centers.

+ Powell to the People: “In a scathing 27-page opinion, Judge James Boasberg said Friday that the government has produced ‘essentially zero evidence‘ to substantiate its criminal case against Jerome Powell.”

+ Synagogue Attack: “The FBI is investigating a car ramming attack on a large Detroit-area synagogue Thursday as a ‘targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,’ the special agent in charge for the region said … [the driver] lost several family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon last week, according to a local Lebanese official and a mayor in Michigan.”

+ A Familiar Story: “Almost half of Republican voters younger than 50 believe that the Holocaust did not happen as historians describe, according to a recent study by the Manhattan Institute. One-quarter of that cohort openly expresses anti-Jewish views; another 30 percent don’t reject openly anti-Semitic individuals.” Anti-Semitism Is Becoming Mainstream.

+ The Correspondent: “John F. Burns, an acclaimed foreign correspondent whose frontline dispatches for The New York Times from the war zones of Afghanistan and Bosnia secured coveted Pulitzer Prizes, and whose frequent television appearances from Baghdad made him one of America’s best-known journalists covering the chaos and perils of the conflict in Iraq, died on Thursday.”

+ All Dolled Up: “Cuddly blankets, soft toys and cardboard cutouts ‌featuring the minister have gone viral in the Latin American country following the February 22 raid that killed infamous cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, better known ​as El Mencho … The operation, which Garcia Harfuch helped lead, was personal for the security chief, who ​blamed El ​Mencho for a 2020 assassination attempt that left him with three ​bullet wounds and killed two of his bodyguards.” Mexico’s heartthrob security minister now available as miniature doll, shirtless or dressed as Batman. (Don’t give Trump any ideas…)

+ Weather Whiplash: The weekend weather? Uh… U.S. forecasts blizzard, polar vortex, heat dome and atmospheric river all at once.