By MARC LEVY

SPRING CITY, Pa. (AP) — Tech companies and developers looking to plunge billions of dollars into ever-bigger data centers to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don’t want to live next to them, or even near them.

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Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other’s battles against data center proposals that are fast multiplying in number and size to meet steep demand as developers branch out in search of faster connections to power sources.

In many cases, municipal boards are trying to figure out whether energy- and water-hungry data centers fit into their zoning framework. Some have entertained waivers or tried to write new ordinances. Some don’t have zoning.

But as more people hear about a data center coming to their community, once-sleepy municipal board meetings in farming towns and growing suburbs now feature crowded rooms of angry residents pressuring local officials to reject the requests.

“Would you want this built in your backyard?” Larry Shank asked supervisors last month in Pennsylvania’s East Vincent Township. “Because that’s where it’s literally going, is in my backyard.”

Opposition spreads as data centers fan out

A growing number of proposals are going down in defeat, sounding alarms across the data center constellation of Big Tech firms, real estate developers, electric utilities, labor unions and more.

Andy Cvengros, who helps lead the data center practice at commercial real estate giant JLL, counted seven or eight deals he’d worked on in recent months that saw opponents going door-to-door, handing out shirts or putting signs in people’s yards.

“It’s becoming a huge problem,” Cvengros said.

Data Center Watch, a project of 10a Labs, an AI security consultancy, said it is seeing a sharp escalation in community, political and regulatory disruptions to data center development.

Between April and June alone, its latest reporting period, it counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion in 11 states that were blocked or delayed amid local opposition and state-level pushback. That amounts to two-thirds of the projects it was tracking.

People opposed to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds talk during a break in an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups say they’re fielding calls every day, and are working to educate communities on how to protect themselves.

“I’ve been doing this work for 16 years, worked on hundreds of campaigns I’d guess, and this by far is the biggest kind of local pushback I’ve ever seen here in Indiana,” said Bryce Gustafson of the Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition.

In Indiana alone, Gustafson counted more than a dozen projects that lost rezoning petitions.

Similar concerns across different communities

For some people angry over steep increases in electric bills, their patience is thin for data centers that could bring still-higher increases.

Losing open space, farmland, forest or rural character is a big concern. So is the damage to quality of life, property values or health by on-site diesel generators kicking on or the constant hum of servers. Others worry that wells and aquifers could run dry.

Lawsuits are flying — both ways — over whether local governments violated their own rules.

Big Tech firms Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook — which are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers across the globe — didn’t answer Associated Press questions about the effect of community pushback.

Microsoft, however, has acknowledged the difficulties. In an October securities filing, it listed its operational risks as including “community opposition, local moratoriums, and hyper-local dissent that may impede or delay infrastructure development.”

Even with high-level support from state and federal governments, the pushback is having an impact.

People listen during an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting where an agenda item involved a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Maxx Kossof, vice president of investment at Chicago-based developer The Missner Group, said developers worried about losing a zoning fight are considering selling properties once they secure a power source — a highly sought-after commodity that makes a proposal far more viable and valuable.

“You might as well take chips off the table,” Kossof said. “The thing is you could have power to a site and it’s futile because you might not get the zoning. You might not get the community support.”

Some in the industry are frustrated, saying opponents are spreading falsehoods about data centers — such as polluting water and air — and are difficult to overcome.

Still, data center allies say they are urging developers to engage with the public earlier in the process, emphasize economic benefits, sow good will by supporting community initiatives and talk up efforts to conserve water and power and protect ratepayers.

“It’s definitely a discussion that the industry is having internally about, ‘Hey, how do we do a better job of community engagement?’” said Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, a trade association that includes Big Tech firms and developers.

Data center opposition dominates local politics

Winning over local officials, however, hasn’t translated to winning over residents.

Mike Petak of Spring City gestures while speaking to East Vincent Township supervisors in opposition to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Developers pulled a project off an October agenda in the Charlotte suburb of Matthews, North Carolina, after Mayor John Higdon said he informed them it faced unanimous defeat.

The project would have funded half the city’s budget and developers promised environmentally friendly features. But town meetings overflowed, and emails, texts and phone calls were overwhelmingly opposed, “999 to one against,” Higdon said.

Had council approved it, “every person that voted for it would no longer be in office,” the mayor said. “That’s for sure.”

In Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, Minnesota, a proposed data center campus several times larger than the Mall of America is on hold amid challenges over whether the city’s environmental review was adequate.

Residents found each other through social media and, from there, learned to organize, protest, door-knock and get their message out.

People opposed to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds attend an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

They say they felt betrayed and lied to when they discovered that state, county, city and utility officials knew about the proposal for an entire year before the city — responding to a public records request filed by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy — released internal emails that confirmed it.

“It’s the secrecy. The secrecy just drives people crazy,” said Jonathan Thornton, a realtor who lives across a road from the site.

Documents revealing the extent of the project emerged days before a city rezoning vote in October. Mortenson, which is developing it for a Fortune 50 company that it hasn’t named, says it is considering changes based on public feedback and that “more engagement with the community is appropriate.”

Rebecca Gramdorf found out about it from a Duluth newspaper article, and immediately worried that it would spell the end of her six-acre vegetable farm.

People sign in and head into an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting where an agenda item involved a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

She found other opponents online, ordered 100 yard signs and prepared for a struggle.

“I don’t think this fight is over at all,” Gramdorf said.

Follow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter.

Edith Renfrow Smith, the first Black woman to graduate from Grinnell College in Iowa and a longtime Chicago schoolteacher, remained mentally sharp well past 100, becoming the subject for medical researchers studying what they called “SuperAgers.”

Smith, 111, died of natural causes on Friday at the Breakers assisted living facility in Edgewater, where she had moved in October, said her daughter, Alice Frances Smith.  She previously had lived in Lakeview.

Edith Renfrow was born in Grinnell, Iowa, on July 14, 1914, the fifth of six children. Her grandparents, George Craig and Eliza Jan Craig, were born into slavery. Her father was a hotel chef.

The Renfrows were one of the only African American families in Grinnell at that time, and her parents stressed the importance of education for all of their children.

“My mother insisted that education was the only thing that could not be taken away from them,” Smith told National Public Radio’s Scott Simon in 2023.

Smith graduated from Grinnell College in 1937 — 91 years after the college was founded — with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, becoming the first Black woman ever to graduate from the small liberal arts college and the 11th Black graduate of the college to that point.

While at Grinnell, Smith met Amelia Earhart when the famed aviator visited the campus.

“She was one of the celebrities that came to Grinnell to talk to the students,” Smith told National Public Radio in 2023. “And she was just like another one of us. It was a delightful visit.”

She married Henry Smith in 1940. The couple moved to Chicago’s South Side, and Smith worked at a South Side YWCA,  at the University of Chicago and as a secretary to Ald. Oscar Stanton De Priest. She began a 22-year teaching career at Ludwig Van Beethoven Elementary School at 25 W. 47th St. on the South Side, retiring in 1976.

Jazz great Herbie Hancock lived across the street from the Smiths while growing up.

“(Edith) was a very sophisticated lady, and she and my mother hit it off very well,” Hancock told the Tribune in 2024. “My mother was always looking at things like art and culture and those things, and in the neighborhood, there weren’t a whole lot of people looking at that.”

Hancock credited Smith with introducing him to Grinnell College, from which he graduated.

“She talked about Grinnell being a great college for academics, and it made me think that Grinnell would be a really nice thing to do, it’d be a new experience because I’d never lived in a small town and I didn’t know anything about corn, and let’s see what happens,” Hancock said. “I’m happy I went there — it really changed my life, (because) it was where I really decided I wanted to be a jazz musician.”

In retirement, Smith was a longtime volunteer at the Art Institute of Chicago. As she reached her late 90s in the 2010s, she began drawing interest from researchers from Northwestern and from the news media, both of which were intrigued by Smith’s keen, vivid memory and her strong cognitive functioning.

She participated in Northwestern medical school’s 2017 study of “SuperAgers” that showed what was obvious to Smith: Social connections keep one sharp.

“I’m just a person who likes people,” she told the Tribune in 2017. “When you like people, you communicate.”

Edith Renfrow Smith works during an arts and crafts class on Nov. 7, 2017, at Bethany Retirement Community in Andersonville. Smith died Jan. 2, 2026, at 111. She was one of the “SuperAgers,” a group studied by Northwestern made up of elderly adults with the cognitive abilities of much younger adults. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

And that love of people extended to strangers, as well. At one retirement community where she resided, Smith was one of nine people assigned to welcome new residents and to try to help make them feel at home.

“I have a smile for everybody,” she told the Tribune in 2018. “I try to learn someone’s name as soon as they come in.”

In 2018, Smith appeared on NBC’s “Today” show, and three years later, she appeared in a PBS program, “Build a Better Memory Through Science.”

Grinnell awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2019, named a library after her in its Black Cultural Center, and named a student art gallery for her in another campus building in 2021. And in 2024, a residence hall building at Grinnell was named for her. Smith — at age 110 — was on hand for its dedication ceremony, in September 2024.

Due to her many years of volunteer work, Smith was inducted into the Chicago Senior Citizens Hall of Fame in 2009.

“Wake up every morning and thank the good Lord that you are alive and able to look at his wonderful world,” she told NPR in 2023.

Smith’s husband of 73 years, Henry, died in 2013. She is survived by a daughter, Alice.

An earlier version of this story misstated the first name of Edith Renfrow Smith’s husband. 

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

By MATT O’BRIEN

Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas for the first time Monday at the CES tech showcase, ratcheting up a competition with Tesla and other rivals to build robots that look like people and do things that people do.

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“For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage,” said Boston Dynamics’ Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom.

It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company’s general manager for humanoid robots.

The company said a product version of the robot that will help assemble cars is already in production and will be deployed by 2028 at Hyundai’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia.

The South Korean carmaker holds a controlling stake in Massachusetts-based Boston Dynamics, which has been developing robots for decades and is best known for its first commercial product: the dog-like robot called Spot. A group of four-legged Spot robots opened Hyundai’s event Monday by dancing in synchrony to a K-pop song.

Hyundai also announced a new partnership with Google’s DeepMind, which will supply its artificial intelligence technology to Boston Dynamics robots. It’s a return to a familiar partnership for Google, which bought Boston Dynamics in 2013 before selling it to Japanese tech giant SoftBank several years later. Hyundai acquired it from SoftBank in 2021.

It’s rare for leading robot makers to publicly demonstrate their humanoids, in part because fumbles attract unwanted attention — such as when one of Russia’s first humanoids fell on its face in November. Robotics startups typically prefer to show off their research prototypes in videos on social media, offering them the opportunity to show the machines at their best and edit out their failings.

At the end of Monday’s live Atlas demonstration, which appeared flawless, the humanoid prototype swung its arms in a theatrical gesture to introduce a static model of the new product version of Atlas, which looked slightly different and was blue in color.

Crossover excitement from the commercial AI boom and new technical advances have helped pour huge amounts of money into robotics development, though many experts still think it’s a long time before truly human-like robots that can perform many different tasks take root in workplaces or homes.

“I think the question comes back to what are the use cases and where is the applicability of the technology,” said Alex Panas, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who helped lead a CES robotics panel that attracted hundreds of people earlier in the day. “In some cases, it may look more humanoid. In some cases, it may not.”

Either way, Panas said, “the software, the chipsets, the communication, all the other pieces of the technology are coming together, and they will create new applications.”

Humanoids don’t yet have enough dexterity to threaten many human jobs, though a debate over their effects on employment is likely to grow as they become more skilled. The same Georgia plant where Hyundai plans to test out Atlas was the site of a federal immigration raid last year that led to the arrests of hundreds of workers, including more than 300 South Korean citizens.

Kaohly Her, the newly sworn-in mayor of St. Paul, has announced several key hires who will serve as top staffers in her administration, including four assistant mayors.

Her will ditch precedent and abandon the traditional mayor/deputy mayor structure, opting instead to split city operations under the general purview of the four assistant mayors chosen from her transition team and former campaign staff.

The closest to a traditional deputy mayor is Erica Schumacher, a lifelong St. Paul resident and former staffer under former Mayor Chris Coleman and the Minnesota Senate DFL. Schumacher, who most recently worked in the office of Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, will be senior assistant mayor for Safety and Justice, overseeing the city attorney’s office, police, fire and emergency medical services, Emergency Management and the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Nick Stumo-Langer will serve as assistant mayor for Housing, Economic Vibrancy and Infrastructure, overseeing Planning and Economic Development, Safety and Inspections, Public Works, Financial Services, the Office of Financial Empowerment, and Equal Economic Opportunity/Procurement. He has held staff positions with the Minnesota House DFL, Minneapolis City Council, Minneapolis Election and Voter Services, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and multiple campaigns.

Jodi Pfarr will serve as assistant mayor for People and Neighborhood Vitality, overseeing Parks and Recreation, Libraries, Water, Human Resources, the Office of Technology and Communications, and Human Rights. Pfarr, president of J Pfarr Consulting, is the former executive director of Emma Norton Services, a nonprofit that provides housing for homeless women and families. She has consulted for or held roles within the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. She is a former chaplain with the St. Paul Police Department.

Hnu Vang, Her’s former campaign director, will be the assistant mayor for Staff and Strategic Partnerships, effectively serving as chief of staff and director of operations within the mayor’s office. Vang work experience includes staffing Minnesota House DFL Leadership, the Minnesota Senate DFL, the Office of Congressman Dean Phillips, the Office of Congresswoman Angie Craig, and multiple political campaigns.

Irene Kao will serve as city attorney. Kao recently led the legal team at the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency as it implemented the state’s $1.3 billion affordable housing package in 2023. She previously worked for the League of Minnesota Cities, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Minneapolis law firm of Goetz & Eckland and Macalester College, where she was an assistant dean of students. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Cedrick Baker will lead the Office of Neighborhood Safety. Baker, who was recently the chief of staff for the McKnight Foundation, is a former chief of staff for the St. Paul Public Schools and equity manager for the Metropolitan Council. He is a doctoral candidate in organizational leadership at the University of Minnesota.

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Marcus Owens will be the director of the Office of Financial Empowerment. Owens is the founder of Nawe, Inc., a financial and strategic planning consulting firm for nonprofits, which has worked closely with the Pohlad Family Foundation, Girls on the Run MN, African Economic Development Solutions, the GroundBreak Coalition and other agencies. He was previously the chief executive officer of the African American Leadership Forum and the Northside Economic Opportunity Network, as well as an employee relations consultant at Target.

Matt Wagenius, Her’s campaign spokesperson, will serve as executive director of Public Affairs and Communications. He is a former staffer with the Minnesota House DFL, Gov. Tim Walz and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. He runs North Star Digital, which provides communications and fundraising consulting for Democratic political campaigns across the country.