WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) – The White House plans to bring together utility companies and data center developers to make a voluntary pledge designed to ensure that rapid growth in electricity demand from artificial intelligence does not drive up power bills for households and businesses, according to three people familiar with the plans. An event to announce the initiative is expected in the coming weeks, with several companies taking part and vowing to protect current ratepayers from shouldering all the costs of AI expansion. The guest list is still being finalized, the sources said. Surging demand from power-hungry data centers has prompted regulators, consumer advocates and lawmakers in several states to warn that households could end up subsidizing grid upgrades needed to serve some of the world’s largest technology companies, raising questions over whether the pledge will deliver concrete commitments or remain largely symbolic. As President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to accelerate the expansion of AI infrastructure, it hopes to avoid a political backlash over rising electricity bills.  Earlier this year, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed a voluntary “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” at a White House ceremony, committing to finance the electricity infrastructure needed for their AI projects rather than passing those costs on to existing utility customers. The companies agreed to help pay for new power generation, grid upgrades and other costs tied to their data centers, including unused reserved capacity. The White House said the commitments were designed to prevent households from subsidizing the growth of AI infrastructure. “President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge has been so impactful that additional stakeholders also want to sign it,” a White House official told Reuters. The new event is expected to broaden those commitments by bringing together electric utilities, companies that build and operate data centers on behalf of Big Tech, and governors of states leading the expansion of the power infrastructure needed to accommodate the expected surge in electricity demand, the people familiar with the plans said. The White House has argued that the United States can win the global AI race only by rapidly expanding electricity generation and transmission, while maintaining that consumers should not bear the financial burden of that buildout. Administration officials have cast the initiative as an effort to reassure voters that AI investment and lower energy costs can coexist. (Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Laila Kearney; additional reporting by Courtney Rozen and Sergio Non; Editing by Nia Williams)

President Donald Trump on Monday urged South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to appoint the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to serve as the state’s interim U.S. senator. The recommendation came two days after Graham died following heart complications. “I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina. This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. McMaster is expected to announce Graham’s replacement at 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday. Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., would be a strong choice. “Trey Gowdy would be a fantastic placeholder, but certainly there are other names in the mix,” Scott told CNN on Monday. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Trey would serve well.” Whoever is appointed will serve until the winner of November’s general election assumes office on Jan. 3, 2027. The seat is expected to remain in Republican hands. The state will hold a special primary August 11 to determine who will replace Graham as the GOP nominee in November and face Democrat Annie Andrews. If no candidate gets a majority of the votes, a runoff will take place two weeks later on August 25. Potential Republican candidates could include Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Ralph Norman, and Rep. Nancy Mace, all of whom were unsuccessful in South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary and have been floated as possible contenders.

AUSTIN, Texas—The close timing of two high-casualty earthquakes in Venezuela on June 24 and a June 25 Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to deport some 605,000 U.S.-based Venezuelans has given rise to a mounting pressure campaign arguing that President Donald Trump must, on moral grounds, let them stay. Seizing on one tragic event during which 100 recently deported Venezuelans died in the quakes, pro-illegal immigration activists, human rights groups like the Venezuelan American Caucus, Democrat lawmakers, and midterm candidates are pushing a narrative that is bleeding into political campaigns as a real issue. The objective is to shame President Trump into reactivating the Temporary Protected Status that had shielded Venezuelans from deportation and that the Supreme Court allowed him to revoke. Their underlying argument goes pretty much like this: “It is unthinkable to send children and families, who have committed no crimes, into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who is running for reelection, wrote in a Facebook post. This voice-cracking cry to save Venezuelans from earthquake chaos is gaining traction, though the administration has resisted demands to restore TPS. But the argument is an easily debunked false dilemma based on inaccurate premises. The truth is that most of the deportable Venezuelans need not be shipped anywhere near the smoking rubble of shaken Caracas. Most Venezuelans let in after crossing the southern border during President Joe Biden’s term were already firmly resettled in 17 foster countries, where more than seven million had lived safely for many years, often legally, even prosperously, and far from any earthquake epicenter, according to planning documents for a sprawling United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights “Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan” resettlement program, which was launched in 2017 to address the exodus. The administration could continue deportation flights to Venezuela because, of course, the earthquakes devastated only parts of the capital and La Guaira state on the coast. But the administration could instead airlift the 600,000 much faster—and in perfectly good conscience—to many of those 17 original host governments and even offer the deportees their choice of country. The 7 million Venezuelans began their exodus in about 2015, fleeing Venezuela’s economic collapse under the socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro. Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil topped the long list and still do, the U.N.’s RMRP reports. Up to a million departed these kind nations because Biden’s open border policies offered an irresistible chance at an American lifestyle upgrade, which is not a legally eligible claim for temporary protection. If anything, the omission of last country of long-term residency may constitute fraud. Foster Countries Next Door No one knows how many of the U.S.-based Venezuelans came from countries other than Venezuela. That’s because U.S. Customs and Border Protection tracks aliens by country of citizenship, not last residence, making it easy for migrants to omit if they’d been safe and sound for years and thus ineligible for TPS. Not that anyone ever asked. We know a substantial majority were firmly resettled, in part, because the vast majority of the many hundreds of Venezuelans I interviewed along migration trails during those years told me they hadn’t lived in their home country in years. I’m not alone; pro-illegal immigration activists know it too. A February 2025 Migration Policy Institute paper reported that, while some Venezuelans who crossed did come directly from Venezuela, “many others arrived after prior residence in other Latin American countries.” They were not motivated by reasons that justified TPS. Instead, they came for “the prospects of economic opportunity … in the United States,” the institute reported. Where nearly 7 million Venezuelans have resettled for a decade in Latin America and the Caribbean. Source: United Nations RMRP report, April 2026 Likewise, a Washington Office on Latin America 2024 report acknowledged, “Some Venezuelans had departed from Venezuela, but many had been living in Colombia or elsewhere in South America but decided to move on.” It’s easy to see why the Venezuelans adopted these countries. Economically robust Ecuador started offering Venezuelans temporary protected status in 2017 while Chile followed suit in 2021 entitling all to benefits and services, Georgetown University’s Journal of International Affairs noted. The U.N. RMRP reports bury any notion that Venezuelan settlers faced unbearable danger and persecution in these countries. In 2026, Brazil was still offering “long-standing regularization pathways” with residency and work permits. Uruguay offers “inclusive residency policies with improved access to rights, employment and social protection for Venezuelans and refugees,” the U.N. organization reported. Colombia, with by far the most Venezuelan settlers (2.8 million), had granted residency to 69%, along with work authorization, health care access, and education. The nation is working to give the rest that status this year. “Government efforts toward regularization of refugees and migrants have advanced” in Peru, the country with the second most Venezuelan settlers (1.6 million) and which last year launched a legalization initiative to get 480,000 more onboarded, the 2026 RMRP plan states. Argentina has opened its arms wide. In the Caribbean, Aruba offers a new program granting work permits. The Dominican Republic has issued more than 26,000 temporary worker and student permits since 2021. In Guyana, “a humanitarian approach remains in place providing free, renewable stay permits and access to public services.” And on and on, the U.N. says. The Way Forward In June 2025, the Supreme Court cleared the administration to send illegal aliens to agreeable safe third countries other than their own. Since then, the administration has collected formal agreements with 15 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean with more coming. The administration and all those who support its deportation goals have facts in pocket to smoke the patently false binary choice being peddled that it can either heartlessly send Venezuelans straight to “hell” or let them remain illegally in the U.S. Beyond its opportunity to beat down a fake narrative, the administration possesses the moral and legal authority—and a rich buffet of options it probably didn’t realize it had—to actually speed up this large new deportation project.

REUTERS—President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States was reinstating a naval blockade on Iran and would be reimbursed 20% on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran claimed it had closed the vital waterway.  “The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on Truth Social. “The U.S.A… will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World,” he said. He said the process would begin immediately, but did not elaborate. ‘GUARDIAN ANGEL OF THE STRAIT’ The president floated the idea earlier in a phone interview on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program, saying the U.S. would probably take over the strait and should be reimbursed.   “We’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll call it the guardian angel of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that,” he said.  Control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global oil supplies, has become one of the main battlegrounds of the conflict. Iran’s effective blockade of the strait has pushed up energy prices and increased concerns about inflation globally. “We’re going to be reimbursed, because the other nations are very wealthy. They’re on our side, and we can’t be expected to do that for nothing,” he said.  After announcing the waterway’s closure on Saturday following what it described as an unauthorized transit, Tehran said on Sunday that passage remained suspended and that permits would be issued once “stability and calm” were restored. “We had a deal. It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people, and so we’re just going to hit them very hard,” Trump said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement on Monday that the only way to restore regular shipping traffic through the strait was to end U.S. military interventions in the waterway, and warned that “continued interference could lead to greater incidents in the global oil and gas sector.” U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged heavy missile and drone attacks over the weekend and into Monday, with Tehran saying it had struck U.S. military facilities across the Gulf and kept the Strait of Hormuz closed, driving oil prices higher. The latest exchanges mark a sharp escalation in both the pace and geographic reach of attacks over the past week, casting doubt on an interim U.S.-Iranian agreement signed last month to reopen the strait and halt hostilities while the sides pursued a further 60 days of negotiations. (Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Bhargav Acharya; editing by Michelle Nichols)

Saving taxpayer dollars by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse is a priority at all levels of government. Floridians can rest easy knowing Gov. Ron DeSantis is dedicated to good governance and fiscal responsibility. Federal spending attracts substantial media attention, but the scale of state and local spending—which handles the bulk of public services—requires systematic reviews to identify duplication and outdated programs and to hold budgets accountable. Under DeSantis, Florida has paid down over one-third of its debt, filled its rainy-day fund, and saved taxpayer dollars through prudent measures such as restricting environmental, social, and governance investments with public funds. Most recently, he vetoed $1.6 billion from Florida’s fiscal year 2026-27 state budget. To capitalize on this winning track record of fiscal accountability, Gov. DeSantis established the Florida Department of Government Efficiency in 2025 through Executive Order 25-44. The task force mirrors federal efforts, popularized by Elon Musk’s DOGE, by leveraging emerging AI technology to audit waste within state agencies, universities, and municipal governments. Eric Soskin, a graduate of Harvard Law and former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general, was appointed to lead FL-DOGE. The task force immediately identified $878 million in unused federal dollars that were then returned to the Treasury. The Florida Legislature supported efforts through Senate Bill 2502, which authorized FL-DOGE to request information from cities, counties, and state universities and allowed financial penalties for noncompliance. With this authority, the task force conducted broad data requests, on-site reviews, and analyses of public spending records. In January 2026, FL-DOGE released a report outlining wasteful spending by 12 local governments. The document contained jaw-dropping spending abuses varying from left-wing pet projects to poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars: Miami-Dade County budgeted a $9 million “art allowance” for a detention center and a $125 million climate-related shore power energy program for cruise ships. In Jacksonville, a capital improvement plan allocated $54 million more for bike lanes and sidewalks than for fire and rescue. Thirty million dollars in police and fire pensions were found to be invested with firms emphasizing DEI and ESG priorities. St. Petersburg taxpayers funded a chief equity officer and LGBTQ+ coordinator, making $219,000 and $87,000, respectively. The city even spent over $100,000 annually on LGBTQ+ Pride events. In Pensacola, “general government” spending grew by $2.58 million (up 40%) from fiscal year 2019-20 to 2024-25. One source is a taxpayer-funded city administrator making $200,000 annually, nearly four times the median salary. These public findings, among others, identified waste and prompted legislative responses. For example, Senate Bill 1134 banned local governments from funding, promoting, or implementing DEI programs. FL-DOGE additionally facilitated a series of AI pilot programs within local governments to help identify savings and further cut waste, making the case for public-private partnerships between firms and governments to promote efficiency. In Manatee County, government officials partnered with Promota.ai to perform systems and data analyses. AI agents sifted through roughly $5 billion in public transactions and spending budgets, spotting red flags and formulating plans to recoup money or close loopholes. Efforts led to between $15-$50 million in annual savings opportunities. Efficiency possibilities centered around identifying and canceling expired business licenses, duplicative software or licenses, and cases of blatant waste and fraud. This pilot program cost Manatee County only $4,900, meaning an average of $32 million in potential savings produces an outrageously good return on investment for taxpayers. The Lee County school system saw similar savings potential after partnering with AI vendor Echelon. The school board had already saved $26.5 million in administrative cuts under conservative Superintendent Denise Carlin in her first two years. In collaboration with FL-DOGE partners, $5-$10 million in additional savings is projected for the year ahead. These cases highlight viable public-private models for AI application within government to efficiently and inexpensively identify opportunities for fiscal savings. FL-DOGE’s work extends beyond initial efforts focused on weeding out waste within government spending, to newly revealed pilots working to actualize savings in all processes of government. Florida’s approach to fiscal responsibility has positioned itself as a leader among states pursuing DOGE-style reforms. By combining traditional oversight, AI, and legislative tools, the governor’s office has advanced transparency and accountability—consistent with the state’s broad record of prudent governance. For states seeking similar models to reduce budgetary waste, they should look to Florida and DeSantis for the DOGE playbook on how to win.