It’s Tuesday, July 28. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: River Page on “secular sharia” and the latest victims of social media’s new morality police. Tyler Cowen on why you should stop worrying about AI-generated articles. Casey Babb interviews the Jews who are leaving Canada in droves. And much more.
But first: Is there a way out of the data-center bind?
America is living through a technological revolution—and the physical footprint of that revolution is data centers: hulking structures built on vast, multibillion-dollar campuses to store the computers needed to power the boom in artificial intelligence. These data centers are the biggest infrastructure build-out in U.S. history.
They are also becoming one of the most controversial issues in American politics. One recent survey found that just 14 percent of respondents are comfortable with a data center being built nearby. Across the country, more than 300 local governments have imposed bans or temporary moratoriums on data-center construction. Earlier this month, New York governor Kathy Hochul signed a one-year freeze on any new data centers.
Economically speaking, data centers are inevitable. Politically, they are anything but. This collision—between economic logic and political reality—touches almost everything, from who controls Washington next year to whether the U.S. or China wins the race for global supremacy. But with the stakes so high, is there a way out of the data-center bind? That’s what we asked Joe Nocera to investigate. He spoke to supporters and opponents across the country, the investors trying to get data centers built, the activists trying to stop them, and the policymakers searching for solutions. Here’s what he found.
—Oliver Wiseman
Welcome to secular sharia: crowdsourced morality police, brought to you by social media. Its latest offenders—two lawyers caught kissing on a Central Park bench—had their lives upended in the time it took one stranger’s nosy video to go viral. “With secular sharia, any day can be Judgment Day,” writes River Page. Read his column on the phone-toting citizen shamers.
On Sunday, two Jewish-owned bakeries were attacked in the latest incident driving Canadian Jews to consider relocating from a country that no longer feels like home. The emigration reveals more than a crisis of antisemitism, writes Casey Babb, who spoke to some about why they are leaving. One said that “Canada is past the point of no return.”
Substack has launched a new feature that flags writing that looks like it was done by AI. Right now, chatbot-generated language might be a turnoff, but how long will that last, asks Tyler Cowen. In a couple of years, he argues, LLMs will become such skilled writers that these detectors won’t work—and people won’t care. Read his latest column on why you one day won’t mind if a robot wrote what you’re reading.
Ask Tough Love’s Editor Anything
Calling all Abigail Shrier fanatics: Submit your questions for an AMA with Tough Love editor Freya Sanders. On July 30 at noon ET, Freya will coach you on how to get your letter into Abigail’s inbox—and answer your questions live. Only paid subscribers can submit questions via this thread—become one today for access to The Free Press Forum, Tough Love, livestreams, and much more.
Trump’s Pause in Iran—and America’s Ammo Crisis
The Iran war has reached a stalemate—in part due to a shortage of U.S. munitions. But our missile shortages go far deeper than this conflict, writes Aaron MacLean. In his latest column, he dives into the past, present, and future of U.S. weapons shortages, and argues that the real problem is not to do with Iran, but China.
Increasingly, the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and even China’s looming threat over Taiwan, are becoming intertwined. Today, retired U.S. Navy rear admiral Mark Montgomery joins School of War to unpack the pause in U.S. air strikes on Iran after intensified bombing, the possibility of a revised ceasefire, and how the wars of our time relate to one another.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
Former JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana retreated from some of the most salacious claims in his “sex slave” lawsuit against the bank and an executive, alleging in a new suit that he was the target of racism in the workplace. The new suit claims that colleagues called Rana racist names and sought to keep JPMorgan white and Christian. A bank spokesperson said the allegations have no merit, and the executive has filed a defamation suit against Rana.
Authorities relied on an unvetted tip that turned out to be false to temporarily separate Pete Buttigieg from his 4-year-old twins last month, according to The Washington Post. Police only vetted the accusations of child abuse after taking the children into custody. The accuser was later found to possibly be “mentally unstable.”
Firefighters are racing to contain raging wildfires in Spain and France that claimed two lives over the weekend and forced more than 300,000 people to flee. French president Emmanuel Macron called the fires “totally unprecedented” and warned that “the coming weeks will be tough.”
A mass shooting at a Seattle food festival on Sunday that killed three people and wounded four others may have been gang-related, according to police. Authorities arrested a 15-year-old suspect on Monday, while another suspect was among those killed and a third suspect remains at large.
New York City halted the conversion of a Manhattan office tower into a 32-story apartment building after city inspectors said they found multiple cracked beams in the building, according to The Wall Street Journal. The stop resulted from a wave of inspections after last month’s buckling of two columns in another Manhattan building undergoing a conversion.
The Cracker Barrel CEO who oversaw a widely scorned rebranding effort that included banishing the overall-wearing icon Uncle Herschel and his rocking chair from the restaurant company’s logo is stepping down. Julie Masino reversed the changes, but same-store sales suffered. She said she felt “fired by America.”
President Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Tuesday for the first time since the start of the U.S.-Iran war. “You’re fucking crazy,” Trump told Netanyahu in a tense phone call, accusing him of ingratitude, Axios reported.
Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow his administration to enforce an executive order aimed at curtailing the use of mail-in ballots. The order would create a federal list of eligible mail voters and bar state governments from sending ballots to anyone not on the list. Lower courts have blocked the order in about half of all U.S. states.
Ironic that Pete Buttigieg was a victim of “Believe all (fill in the blank).
Regarding the public shaming story: I remember when cell phones capable of taking photos first came out, there was a huge public discussion about invasion of other people's privacy. If you took a selfie, you had to make sure there wasn't anyone in the background who didn't consent.