By Christian Bonilla

Artificial intelligence is booming — and America’s power grid is struggling to keep up. 

At the World Economic Forum, President Trump recently warned that “We need double the energy we currently have in the United States for AI to be as big as we want to have it.” Elon Musk has echoed similar concerns, predicting that AI data centers could overwhelm the electricity supply next year. The Department of Energy predicts that AI-driven electricity demand could increase sixfold by 2030.

They’re right about the scale of AI’s electricity needs. But they’re wrong about the diagnosis. 

America doesn’t suffer from a lack of energy resources. We have vast oil and gas reserves, plus growing solar and wind energy capacity. The real problem is getting the electricity that’s already, or soon could be, generated from these energy sources to the data centers where it’s needed.

Solving this coordination challenge will require a new approach to energy infrastructure — one with an eye toward future needs.

This distinction between coordination and total capacity matters. If the problem were simply about generating more electricity overall, the solution would be straightforward: build more power plants and transmission lines to bring power to all the new data centers. But that would — and will — take years, if not decades. New transmission lines alone often take years to complete.

Instead, we need to build new data centers next to existing energy deposits — such as natural gas fields in places like West Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and elsewhere — so that power-hungry data centers can build on-site generating plants and obtain the electricity they need, without having to connect to the broader grid. Using standardized data center designs and prefabricated components could further accelerate construction timelines and get data centers up and running years faster than previous generations of data centers built in traditional hubs like Northern Virginia or Silicon Valley.

Data center developers already recognize the advantages of this coordinated approach. A recent KPMG survey revealed that 77% of data center stakeholders consider it key to build alongside energy generation.

But in practice, data center developers often struggle to understand and vet energy producers. And in turn, those producers often misunderstand the needs of data center operators. 

This is a challenge even for the largest AI developers. The Stargate project, a $500 billion AI data center investment backed by OpenAI and SoftBank, chose Abilene, Texas, as its flagship site after fielding interest from sixteen different states — largely for Abilene’s energy availability, alongside other land and regulatory advantages. Despite the initial fanfare, practical challenges quickly tempered aspirations, and the initiative has mostly stalled. As a result, Stargate has quietly scaled back its 2025 ambitions to building a single data center — in Ohio.

To lead in the AI age, America will need more than chips and capital. It needs clearer rules, faster transactions between energy producers and AI developers, and a system that rewards coordination just as much as production.

If we solve this coordination challenge, America can lead the AI revolution and improve everything from health care to education to national security. But if we fail, we’ll be left with plenty of power — just not where it matters.

Christian Bonilla is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of DMARK Energy Solutions. 

By David Eagle

Imagine ordering your favorite entree at the neighborhood restaurant you’ve gone to for years. It’s the same dish, off the same menu, delivered by the same server. But suddenly, it costs 800% more – because the place just got new owners.

Few diners would accept such naked price-gouging.

Unfortunately, what’s unthinkable in the restaurant industry is standard fare in health care. Federal law and regulations allow hospitals to charge Medicare much more than independent physicians charge Medicare for the exact same procedures and health care services.

This structural inequity costs taxpayers and patients billions of dollars each year – and it will only get worse if Congress doesn’t act.

Hospitals have spent much of the last decade buying up independent physician practices. Between 2019 and 2024, they acquired some 7,600 physician practices nationwide, allowing them to reclassify those practices as hospital outpatient departments, according to the Physicians Advocacy Institute.

For hospitals, acquiring physician practices is a smart financial move. On the flip side, such hospital-driven consolidation is a raw deal for patients and taxpayers.

Routine services such as echocardiograms and colonoscopies are much more expensive when performed in a hospital rather than in a physician’s office or an ambulatory surgery center.

A peer-reviewed study that I co-authored this year in the Journal of Market Access and Health Policy proves as much – and shows just how costly those hospital referrals can be. We found that Medicare beneficiaries treated by hospital-affiliated physicians had just a 37% chance of receiving care in the lowest-cost setting.

The cost implications are massive. Consider a cystoscopy, a procedure used to diagnose and treat problems in a person’s urinary tract. In a hospital setting, Medicare pays $731 for the procedure. In a doctor’s office, Medicare pays just $239.

For some procedures, total Medicare reimbursement was eight times higher in a hospital outpatient department than in an ambulatory surgery center or doctor’s office.

This disparity imposes a hefty burden on federal taxpayers who bear the burden of paying for Medicare, and it also drives up premiums and cost-sharing for Medicare beneficiaries themselves.

The high payments give hospitals more revenue, which they are using to buy up additional physician practices and consolidate their markets even more, exacerbating the problem.

Congress and regulators have previously taken small steps to make Medicare payments more equal across different sites of care and to eliminate some of the perverse incentives that encourage hospitals to acquire independent physician practices.

For example, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 directed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to stop using the higher hospital payment system for services furnished in physician practices that were acquired by hospitals and became part of the hospitals’ off-campus provider departments after the law’s effective date. Unfortunately, the rule doesn’t apply to any other services, such as diagnostic tests and procedures.

What Congress should do now is to embrace reforms that would require Medicare to pay the same price not just for clinic visits but also for services – regardless of where they’re performed.

Enacting payment reform would yield significant savings for Medicare – to the tune of more than $200 billion over 10 years, according to a 2023 study.

If Congress demands that Medicare standardize reimbursements for health care services and procedures – regardless of where or from whom patients receive them – private health insurance companies would follow suit.

Restaurant-goers wouldn’t accept it if a neighborhood cafe started charging higher prices for the same dishes under new ownership. Likewise, when hospitals buy up medical practices, patients and taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay more for the same diagnostic tests, procedures and other healthcare services either.

David Eagle, M.D., is a board-certified hematologist-oncologist and president of the American Independent Medical Practice Association. This piece originally ran in U.S. News & World Report.

Peter Story (left) / Nicholas Jones (right) Image source Polk County Sheriff’s Office

Paul Sacca Blaze News

A late-night food run escalated into a stand-your-ground shooting at a McDonald’s when two Florida men caused a “McMess,” according to police.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said a McDonald’s got overwhelmed by orders after several events in the area ended early in the morning of Oct. 12.

Yoan Soto — a 21-year-old employee at the McDonald’s in Davenport, the sheriff’s office said — was working an overnight shift.

Two men — 20-year-old Peter Story and 18-year-old Nicholas Jones — pulled into the drive-thru to order food. However, there was reportedly a long wait.

According to Judd, Soto told Jones and Story, “Hey, sorry guys, but we’re way behind … our online orders are overwhelming us.”

However, the two customers allegedly became furious.

Judd said, “They threatened to attack the man who just told them, ‘We’re busy, we can’t take any more orders,’ and he did that because the manager told him to.”

Sheriff Judd said the two customers threatened Soto with violence.

“We’re going to hang out here,” the pair allegedly told Soto, according to Judd. “When you get off, we are going to beat you up.”

Judd added, “What do these goober smoochers do? They park their vehicle, and they come into the restaurant.”

Sheriff Judd said Soto and the two customers began “jawing” and “having a McArgument in the McDonald’s over McHamburgers, or lack of McHamburgers.”

The 22-year-old McDonald’s manager reportedly told Story and Jones to leave because they were trespassing.

Judd said the two customers threatened to commit a “mass shooting” at the McDonald’s, which allegedly had other customers inside the restaurant.

Surveillance video shows Soto walking out of the back of the restaurant with a gun and pointing it at the unruly customers — and Judd backed Soto’s actions as self-defense.

“And [Soto] comes into the lobby to confront these guys who’ve threatened him and threatened the store and threatened to shoot the place up,” Judd said. “And now he’s trying to get them out of the store.”

Jones and Story are seen swinging their hands in an apparent attempt to take Soto’s gun.

Judd noted that “as they try to grab his gun, [Soto] pulls the trigger, and he shoots Peter Story in the neck.”

Jones then drove Story to a local hospital.

“It’s a blessing that it was a very minor wound,” Judd said.

Judd said Soto retrieved the bullet casing and projectile from the floor and fled the McDonald’s.

Authorities allegedly convinced Soto to return to the scene of the crime, and he cooperated with police.

Soto was charged with tampering with evidence, which is a felony.

Story and Jones were charged with trespass after warning and disorderly conduct.

“Listen folks, it’s never OK to threaten a mass shooting,” Judd stressed. “It’s never OK to threaten to beat people up at a business. And it’s never OK to grab your ammunition and your firearm and run after a shooting.”

Judd again backed Soto’s self-defense attempt: “He has a right to stand his ground and protect himself, and these guys are threatening to do violence after they’ve already threatened on the outside of the store and came inside.”

Judd said of the two customers, “They created a well-founded fear in him and the store manager. It was just a McMess, but we’ll sort it out because we are McGood at investigating McCrime.”

Courtesy: Blaze News

Paul Sacca is a staff writer for Blaze News.@Paul_Sacca →

Camden, NJ – A Camden man has been arrested and charged in reference to a fatal shooting in the city on Sunday night, reported Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay and Camden County Police Chief Gabriel Rodriguez.

Neftalie Sanabria, 40, is charged with 1^st-degree Murder in the death of 32-year-old Joshua Cruz of Camden.  He is also charged with 2^nd-degree Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, 2^nd-degree Possession of a Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose, and 2^nd-degree Certain Persons Not to Possess Firearms.

On Sunday, October 12, 2025, at approximately 8:53 p.m., officers from the Camden County Police Department responded to the 2500 block of Baird Boulevard in reference to a person shot.  Upon arrival, officers located a gunshot victim, identified as Cruz.  The victim was transported to Cooper University Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased at approximately 9:34 p.m.

During the investigation, detectives from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit and Camden County Police Department determined Sanabria was the individual responsible for shooting Cruz.

Sanabria was taken into custody in Camden on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, by the U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force – Camden Division.  He was remanded to the Camden County Correctional Facility.

Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Vincent Russomanno of the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit at (856) 225-8669 and Detective Andrew Mogck of the Camden County Police Department at (609) 519-8588. Tips can also be sent to CAMDEN.TIPS. 

All individuals charged with crimes are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Philadelphia Police Department is investigating a critical shooting in the 3rd District. At approximately 11:12 a.m., on Monday, October 6, officers responded to the 13XX Reese Street for a shooting of a 39-year-old male inside that location. The victim was transported to Jefferson -Center City Hospital in critical condition. At this time, there is no arrest or motive. The investigation is ongoing with the Shooting Investigation Group.

The Philadelphia Police Department is investigating a fatal shooting in the 22nd District. At approximately 11:43 a.m., on Monday, October 6, officers responded to the 2900 block of West Gordon Street, where a 24-year-old male was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds throughout his body. The victim was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:04 p.m. The scene was secured by police. At this time, no arrests have been made, and a motive has not been determined. The investigation remains active and ongoing with the Homicide Unit. This information is preliminary and subject to change as updates become available.

By William E. Cleary Sr.

CHEER

—The borough of Brooklawn hosted two free community shred events in cooperation with the Camden County Board of Commissioners. Residents had documents securely destroyed at Borough Hall on two occasions in September. 

JEER

—A member of the Gloucester City Little League recently commented on the organization’s social media page regarding William E. Cleary Sr., the editor of CNBNews. The comment highlighted that Cleary parked his van horizontally, taking up two spaces in the parking lot at the Johnson Blvd Little League campus. In response, Cleary explained that it was early in the morning when he parked this way on the empty lot to avoid a flock of geese nearby. He was there to walk his dog on the jogging track and wanted to prevent her from stepping in goose droppings or chasing the geese. Cleary acknowledged his oversight and apologized for any confusion caused by his actions.

CHEER

—North Carolina Democratic Governor Josh Stein recently signed “Iryna’s Law,” which enhances scrutiny of criminals released on bail. It also prohibits cashless bail for certain violent offenses and most repeat offenders. This legislation follows the tragic stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte light-rail train in August. violence when deciding on bail. Iryna Zarutska, 23, (photo)was killed on August 22, and Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., a repeat offender with over a dozen arrests, has been charged with murder in her case. (Insert her photo)

Continue reading “CNBNews Cheer & Jeer Oct. 2025” →