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News at Face, Tagoloan (2026)

20/08/2026

15 U.S. states still have laws allowing corporal punishment in public schools – even in 2026.

There is no federal law banning the practice nationwide, leaving states and individual school districts to decide whether teachers and administrators can physically punish students.

And it still happens thousands of times.

The latest available federal data shows almost 32,000 reported instances of corporal punishment involving K-12 students during the 2021–22 school year.

Almost all of those incidents occurred in just eight states, primarily in the South.

Corporal punishment usually means paddling or spanking a student for misbehavior.

At one Oklahoma elementary school profiled by NPR, the principal keeps two wooden paddles in his office. They are named “Peace” and “Harmony.”

Students who are paddled place their hands on a desk before usually receiving two swats. Parents must authorize the punishment.

Supporters argue that paddling can deter bad behavior while keeping children in class instead of suspending them.

But major psychological organizations have reached a very different conclusion.

The American Psychological Association opposes corporal punishment in schools and says research links physical discipline with harmful outcomes while finding it ineffective at producing lasting improvements in behavior.

Federal data also shows that corporal punishment is not distributed evenly.

Boys are much more likely to receive it, while American Indian or Alaska Native, Black and white boys have all been disproportionately represented compared with their share of enrollment. Students with disabilities have also historically been subjected to corporal punishment at disproportionate rates.

Learn more:
"15 states have laws that allow corporal punishment in schools. Here's where, and why." NPR

19/08/2026

Elon Musk once described humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels as “the dumbest experiment in history.” Now, his rapidly expanding AI empire is spending billions of dollars on the very energy source he once criticized.

SpaceX has committed more than $2.8 billion toward natural-gas turbines intended to provide electricity for the enormous computing infrastructure supporting xAI.

The spending came to light through SpaceX’s IPO filings following its acquisition of xAI earlier this year. About $2 billion is reportedly connected specifically to mobile gas turbines, with hundreds of millions more committed through additional turbine purchases.

Why the shift?

AI data centers require extraordinary amounts of electricity, while existing power grids can take years to expand enough generation and transmission capacity.

Rather than waiting for utilities to build new infrastructure, xAI has increasingly turned to generating its own electricity directly at or near its data centers.

And much of that electricity is coming from natural gas.

The move creates an obvious contradiction with Musk’s earlier statements about fossil fuels.

In 2015, Musk told Neil deGrasse Tyson that burning ancient carbon deposits was “the dumbest experiment in history.” He argued that fossil fuels were finite and that climate change represented an unnecessary risk that humanity should address by moving toward sustainable energy.

More than a decade later, the explosive growth of artificial intelligence appears to have changed the immediate energy equation.

xAI has deployed dozens of gas turbines near its Colossus computing operations in Tennessee and Mississippi, effectively creating private power-generation facilities alongside its AI data centers.

Those turbines have also sparked environmental and legal battles.

Environmental and civil-rights groups have challenged the operation of some turbines without federal air permits, raising concerns about pollutants including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde being released near local communities. xAI and regulators have disputed whether certain mobile turbines are subject to the same permitting requirements as permanent power plants.

At the same time, the company is moving toward more permanent natural-gas power generation as it continues expanding its AI computing capacity.

Musk has not completely abandoned renewable energy. SpaceX has also promoted a longer-term vision in which powerful AI computing could eventually be moved into orbit and powered by near-continuous solar energy.

But that future is still ahead.

For now, the AI race is expanding much faster than that technology can become practical—and natural gas is helping fill the enormous electricity gap.

The bigger question is whether the AI revolution can ultimately become as energy-efficient and sustainable as Musk once envisioned.

19/08/2026

New provisional federal data put the general fertility rate at 53.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2025, a fresh record low and down about 1 percent from the year before, extending a slide that has cut the rate more than a fifth since 2007. That leaves the total fertility rate near 1.6 children per woman, well below the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable without immigration. The shift is partly about timing, since births are falling among women under 35 while rising for those in their late thirties and forties as people start families later, and Census figures show roughly 40 percent of women in their early thirties have not yet had a child. Researchers point to economic uncertainty, the high cost of raising kids, later marriage and financial instability as the main forces behind the decline.

source: CDC

19/08/2026

A Kentucky mother and daughter walked away from more than $26 million after discovering that their family farmland was being targeted for a massive hyperscale data center.

Delsia Bare and her mother, Ida Huddleston, own land near Maysville that has been farmed by their family for nearly 200 years.

An unnamed company offered Bare $48,000 per acre for 463 acres and Huddleston $60,000 per acre for another 71 acres. Combined, the offers were worth roughly $26.48 million.

At first, the two women agreed to sell.

Then they discovered what was planned for the property.

The proposed development was a 2.2-gigawatt hyperscale data center, part of the rapid expansion of massive computing facilities designed to support artificial intelligence.

That discovery changed everything.

Bare and Huddleston withdrew from the agreements and refused to sell their land.

Bare later recalled telling a company representative: “Kick rocks and don’t come back.”

Their decision has since placed them at the center of a growing rural debate over the expansion of large data centers.

For a small community like Maysville, with roughly 8,700 residents, the issue is complicated. Data centers can bring enormous investments, increase local tax revenue and offer landowners sums of money that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago.

But opponents worry about the other side of the equation: massive electricity demand, water consumption, noise, pressure on infrastructure and the permanent loss of agricultural land.

The proposed project's scale makes the debate even bigger. A 2.2-gigawatt data center campus would consume an enormous amount of electricity, making a small rural community part of the physical infrastructure powering the rapidly growing AI economy.

For Bare, that was never something she imagined facing on land that had remained in her family for generations.

“I never thought I’d be in a battle with a data center,” she said. “I thought I was about as far out in the boondocks as you could get.”

The $26 million offer highlights just how much money is now flowing into the race for land, electricity and computing capacity.

But Bare and Huddleston's refusal sends an equally powerful message: for some families, preserving generations of history and keeping their land is worth more than even a life-changing fortune.

16/08/2026

Colorado has taken a significant step toward protecting wild horses for the long term with the purchase of a massive 22,450-acre property.

The land—an area larger than Manhattan—is intended to give wild horses room to roam, graze, and live in an environment that is closer to their natural way of life.

The move comes as wild horse management remains one of the most challenging conservation issues across the American West.

Many herds live on public lands where drought, shrinking habitat, limited forage, and growing populations can place increasing pressure on both horses and surrounding ecosystems.

Large protected properties could offer part of the answer.

Rather than keeping horses in confined holding facilities, spacious sanctuaries can give them more room while allowing caretakers to monitor their health, food supply, and overall welfare.

For animal welfare advocates, the Colorado project represents an opportunity to combine land conservation with the protection of animals that have become deeply connected to the history and identity of the American West.

A permanent sanctuary won't solve every problem facing wild horses.

But protecting more than 22,000 acres gives them something that is becoming increasingly valuable:

Space to roam. Space to live. Space to be wild.

16/08/2026

AI data centers may be using far more water than companies report—especially when the water required to generate their electricity is included.

Across parts of Texas and New Mexico, AI data centers are expanding in areas already facing serious water shortages. Farmers, cities, and industries are competing for increasingly limited supplies.

The water used directly inside a data center for cooling is only part of the story. These facilities also consume enormous amounts of electricity, and producing that electricity can require significant quantities of water at power plants.

According to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analysis, U.S. data centers indirectly consumed nearly 12 times more water through electricity generation in 2023 than they used directly at their facilities.

But the hidden water footprint depends heavily on where the electricity comes from. Data centers powered primarily by wind and solar generally have a much smaller indirect water footprint. Facilities dependent on nuclear, coal, or other thermal power plants can have a substantially larger one because those plants often require water for cooling.

The issue is particularly sensitive in southern New Mexico, where farmers are already dealing with reduced river flows and greater dependence on groundwater.

One major development is Project Jupiter, an approximately 1,400-acre AI campus associated with Oracle and OpenAI. Its developers say the project will use closed-loop, non-evaporative cooling and an on-site power system designed to reduce direct water consumption.

So the “10 times more” figure should not be applied equally to every data center.

Still, the bigger question remains: when companies report only the water consumed inside their facilities, are communities seeing the full water demand created by the electricity, infrastructure, and supply chains needed to operate them?

In drought-prone parts of the American Southwest, that difference could have major consequences.

The real water footprint of AI may be much bigger than the number on the data center’s water meter.

Learn more: “We Calculated How Much Water Data Centers Actually Use. The Total Will Shock You.” — More Perfect Union

15/08/2026

Ricky Gervais Puts Tour Money Toward Saving Bears in Vietnam 🐻

Ricky Gervais is directing part of the money raised from his Armageddon world tour toward efforts to help end bear bile farming in Vietnam.

The funding came from premium platinum ticket sales, with the extra revenue being allocated to animal welfare causes rather than kept as personal income.

Of an initial $540,000 donated to charities, around $180,000 is supporting bear rescue efforts in Southeast Asia.

The money will help rescue bears from commercial bile farms and move them to sanctuaries, where they can receive long-term care, veterinary treatment and a safer environment.

Bear bile farming involves keeping bears in captivity and extracting bile for use in some traditional medicines. Rescued bears can suffer serious long-term health problems after years of confinement.

The donation is expected to help fund transportation, medical care, sanctuary facilities and the complex legal and logistical work involved in closing remaining farms.

Animal welfare groups in Vietnam have spent years working alongside authorities to phase out private bear bile farming and relocate surviving bears.

While the contribution won't end the industry on its own, it provides important funding for the hands-on work needed to give rescued bears a chance at a better life. 🐾

15/08/2026

113-Year-Old Flood Record Shattered in Indiana

A historic flood record dating back 113 years has been broken in Indiana.

After several rounds of severe thunderstorms, the White River at Anderson climbed to nearly 25 feet, surpassing the previous record set during the catastrophic floods of 1913.

Central Indiana was hit with extraordinary rainfall, with more than 11 inches recorded in some areas during the multi-day storm system. The National Weather Service described rainfall in some locations as being on the scale of a 1-in-1,000-year rainfall event—meaning there is roughly a 0.1% chance of an event that extreme occurring at a particular location in any given year.

The flooding submerged homes, roads and vehicles, while dozens of water rescues were reported as rivers rose rapidly. Already-saturated ground had little capacity to absorb the additional rainfall.

And the threat hasn't fully disappeared. Flood warnings remained active along numerous Indiana rivers as high water continued moving downstream.

📍 Indiana
📸 Credit: Indiana State Police – Sellersburg
📰 Source: AccuWeather

12/08/2026

Children singing made-up songs, talking endlessly, or narrating everything around them may be doing more than simply being noisy. Developmental researchers associate this kind of spontaneous expression with free play, which tends to emerge when children feel safe and relaxed.

When a child’s nervous system is constantly on alert, curiosity and spontaneous expression can become quieter. But when they feel secure, accepted, and connected, their creativity often comes pouring out.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child explains the importance of “serve and return” interactions—when a child communicates and an adult responds. These back-and-forth exchanges help build the foundations for language, social skills, and emotional development.

That endless singing, storytelling, and talking may actually be a sign of something beautiful: a child who feels safe enough to be completely themselves without worrying whether they are being too loud or taking up too much space.

Source: Harvard Center on the Developing Child.

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