Republicans are counting on the president to be generous and think about someone other than himself. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Welcome to this week's edition of the Surge, Slate's politics newsletter that has no time for a joke right here because we have important business to discuss. Starting next week, the Surge is going to look different: sleeker and fresher but still phenomenally trenchant. Alongside a refreshed design, the Surge will break down the news of the week into three categories: What you need to pay attention to now, what you need to keep an eye on, and which story is a bunch of nonsense you should ignore.

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Voters in the US state of Massachusetts head to the polls on Tuesday for a primary election featuring a closely watched United States Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Senator Ed Markey and US Representative Seth Moulton. The race is the latest contest that pits the Democratic Party's progressive and moderate wings against each other. But in a twist, Moulton, the challenger, is part of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, while Markey, the longtime progressive incumbent, is fighting to hold on to his seat. What time do polls open and close in Massachusetts? The Massachusetts primary is Tuesday, September 1, 2026.

Senator Ed Markey says: 'We need to make sure these datacenters don't turn into pollution bombs.' Senator Ed Markey says: 'We need to make sure these datacenters don't turn into pollution bombs.' 'AI accountability agenda': US senator unveils package of bills to curb tech's harms US senator Ed Markey is worried about the perils of unregulated artificial intelligence. All of it: the costs associated with thirsty, energy-guzzling datacenters, intrusive workplace surveillance, bias in discriminatory algorithms, AI overriding workers' judgments, and deepening economic inequality - as those who profit most from AI rake in extraordinary windfalls. The Massachusetts Democrat's interest in convincing Congress to rein in the harmful effects of AI has only grown, as the technology embeds itself deeper across industries. Markey has already authored close to a dozen bills aimed at tackling these problems.

Armed with some Python and a white-hot sense of injustice, one medical student spent six months trying to figure out whether an algorithm trashed his job application. It was mid-October, peak leaf-peeping season in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Chad Markey was on a rare break between clinical rotations during his last year of medical school. He should have been inhaling Green Mountain air and gossiping with his Dartmouth classmates about life after graduation. In a few months, they'd all be going their separate ways to start residency training at hospitals around the country. Instead, Markey was alone in his apartment, deep down a rabbit hole, preparing to go to war. He'd wake each morning, eat breakfast, open his laptop at the kitchen table or settle into the tan armchair with the good back support, and start coding . Some days, he wouldn't notice the sun had gone down until one of his roommates came home and asked why the lights weren't on. For days, Markey had been scrolling through a Discord group about medical residency, a font of crowdsourced knowledge where students report back to their peers on every stage of the application and selection process. He'd watched as other students, lots of them, posted about the interview invitations they'd received.

How the data center boom plunged one small Pennsylvania town into chaos. Valley View Estates is set to be surrounded by data centers. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. "I don't like to see anyone upset," said Nick Farris of Provident Real Estate Advisors. He was sitting in the front of a crowd of roughly 150 inside Valley View High School's auditorium in Archbald, a town of about 7,500, huddled between two mountain ranges in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley. Farris was there to represent the developer for Project Scott, one of many data center campuses coming to town. "I think that this is the best data center site in this area of the country, by far." The audience had been fairly quiet, bundled in thick coats against the late January cold. But as Farris spoke about data centers as a boon for communities, they began to laugh, drawing a rebuke from town officials. "What about the children?" someone shouted from the crowd. The children were watching from the walls; long banners of Valley View Performing Arts students hanging around the auditorium like championship pennants. Project Scott and four other data facilities will sit just a few thousand feet from the middle and high schools. He was referring to Lockheed Martin's 350,000-square-foot Missiles and Fire Control facility directly next to the high school, parts of which are highly contaminated . "That sucks too!" another attendee yelled back.

Catastrophe brings a search for accountability. As fires wreak havoc in California, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., claimed in a post on X the catastrophe is "what a climate emergency looks like." He took aim at President-elect Trump, asserting the incoming president has been bought off by the oil industry. "Trump has been bought for 1 billion by Big Oil. Just a payoff to kill the IRA and the Green New Deal. We know what will happen. The LA fires are preview of coming atrocities," Markey declared in a post on X. Markey, who claims there is a "climate crisis," has also warned about the potential effects of artificial intelligence (AI).

Fox News congressional correspondent Aishah Hasnie has more on the bipartisan effort to prevent AI overreach and the dangers of tech innovation on'Special Report.' The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer has endorsed legislation that would keep artificial intelligence away from nuclear weapons. Kai Bird, a co-author of "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" -- which serves as the main inspiration for Christopher Nolan's new film, "Oppenheimer," opening this weekend -- met with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday to discuss the intersecting threats of nuclear war and artificial intelligence. Markey is one of the sponsors of a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit AI from making nuclear launch decisions. During their meeting, Bird and Markey spoke about their shared concerns over emerging AI technologies and what guardrails are needed for their use in the national defense sector, as well as the risks of using nuclear weapons in South Asia and elsewhere.

Russell Wald, director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, sounds off on'The Story.' A Massachusetts Democrat is calling on the U.S. to pass legislation that would keep artificial intelligence away from nuclear power. On Thursday, Sen. Edward Markey said, "78 years ago this weekend, Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the world's first nuclear weapons explosion. In 2023, we face a new kind of nuclear threat: the militarization of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems." "We must pass legislation to keep AI away from the nuclear button before it's too late," he asserted.

Automakers reported nearly 400 crashes over a 10-month period involving vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 with Teslas, according to statistics released Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautioned against using the numbers to compare automakers, saying it didn't weight them by the number of vehicles from each manufacturer that use the systems, or how many miles those vehicles traveled. Automakers reported crashes from July of last year through May 15 under an order from the agency, which is examining such crashes broadly for the first time. "As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world," said Steven Cliff, the agency's administrator. Tesla's crashes happened while vehicles were using Autopilot, "Full Self-Driving," Traffic Aware Cruise Control, or other driver-assist systems that have some control over speed and steering.