Articles about Data

• The 10-year Treasury yield declined 18 basis points to 3.82% following the cooler-than-expected inflation reading, marking the steepest single-day drop in three months and reflecting a significant repricing of Fed rate cut probability. • Bond investors rushed into longer-duration securities as real yields compressed, with the 2-year Treasury sliding 12 basis points to 3.45%, indicating heightened expectations for near-term monetary easing. • The yield curve steepening trend accelerated, with the 10-2 spread widening to 37 basis points, suggesting market consensus that the Fed will begin cutting rates this spring while maintaining a measured approach to further reductions.

• County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) refreshed data in March 2026 for 34 measures covering physical/mental health, clinical care, housing, and more, including poor or fair health, preventable hospital stays, and uninsured rates. • No typical annual data release will occur in 2026; users access updates via 2025 county/state snapshots, with the website active through December 2026. • A webinar on March 31, 2026, explains changes and supports community health efforts.

Figures shows 42% of callers to Refuge identify former partner as abuser, but only 12% of adults recognise this possibilityThe risk posed to women by ex-partners in cases of abuse is underestimated by large swathes of the British public, according to the charity Refuge.Data from the charity’s helpline found that 42% of people who call Refuge for help identify a former partner as their abuser, a statistic which underlines how common it is for an ex to be a cause of harm after a relationship has ended. Continue reading...

• Perplexity announced b.well as the infrastructure partner behind its health data integration, enabling citation-backed AI search capabilities for actual patient records and medical information retrieval. • The partnership aligns with broader industry trends toward integrating large language models with electronic health record systems, following OpenAI's ChatGPT Health launch and other healthcare AI initiatives. • b.well has emerged as a significant health AI infrastructure company, having also launched bailey (a white-label health assistant) and expanded partnerships with Samsung to transform Galaxy phones into portable health records with point-of-care data sharing.

• U.S. nonfarm payrolls for March will be released Friday amid sharp energy price increases due to Middle East conflict, providing critical snapshot of labor market health as investors reassess economic outlook. • HSBC economists expect "modest but positive growth" in employment, though markets have slashed expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts, with money markets pricing only 42% probability of a rate increase in 2026. • This week's data releases—including ADP private payrolls (Wednesday), JOLTS job openings (Tuesday), jobless claims (Thursday), and consumer confidence surveys—will reveal war impact on business and consumer sentiment.

Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scaleIf you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society. Continue reading...

• Major companies—Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and xAI—signed a federal pledge to provide their own electricity for AI data centers, shielding U.S. consumers from grid overload. • The commitment responds to exploding energy needs from AI infrastructure, following Meta's Louisiana gas plant initiative and similar efforts nationwide. • Industry leaders aim to prevent rate hikes and blackouts while fueling the AI boom central to U.S. tech competitiveness.

• Meta is financing multiple natural gas power plants in Louisiana to exclusively supply electricity for its massive new data center supporting AI operations. • The project addresses surging energy demands from AI training, with the plants designed to generate dedicated power bypassing the public grid amid national infrastructure strains. • This move highlights tech giants' shift toward self-funded energy solutions to avoid burdening consumers and accelerating U.S. data center expansion.

People’s payments, account details and national insurance numbers visible to other users, says Treasury committeeLloyds Banking Group exposed the personal data of nearly 500,000 customers in an IT glitch that left people’s payments, account details and national insurance numbers visible to other users, a committee of MPs has revealed.A letter from Lloyds, published by MPs on the Treasury select committee on Friday, blamed the glitch on a software defect introduced during an IT update to its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland mobile banking apps overnight into 12 March. Continue reading...

• Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation Wednesday to pause new data centers in the United States until national safeguards are established for worker protection, consumer safety, and environmental impact. • A typical AI-focused data center consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, contributing to record U.S. electricity consumption hit in 2024 that is expected to continue rising as data centers expand. • The bill is unlikely to advance in either chamber but signals deep progressive concerns about AI infrastructure's rapid expansion and its effects on working families, democracy, and technology equity.

About 38% of children in London live in relative poverty, compared with 29% in England as a wholeLondon has England’s highest levels of child poverty and most extreme concentrations of hardship, data has revealed. In two boroughs more than half of children live below the breadline.In Britain, child poverty rates flatlined in 2024-25 compared with the previous year. About 4 million youngsters (27%) live in households earning less than 60% of the national median income after housing costs are taken into account. Continue reading...

• ARM unveiled its first proprietary AGI CPU for AI data centers, shifting from licensing designs to manufacturing its own silicon. • Early adopters include Meta, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and Cerebras, positioning ARM directly in the AI infrastructure market. • This move underscores the intensifying competition in AI hardware, where control over end-to-end production is becoming critical for major players.

• Marquis Software Solutions filed a lawsuit against SonicWall, blaming it for a August 2025 cybersecurity breach that exposed data of over 400,000 people. • The suit claims hackers used credentials stolen in a prior SonicWall incident to bypass Marquis' firewall. • Marquis seeks damages for negligence, unjust enrichment, and indemnity, highlighting supply chain vulnerabilities in cybersecurity.

• USPS implemented a rule on December 24, 2025, potentially disrupting vote-by-mail processes critical for elections. • Department of Justice sued 24 states over sensitive voter data access, sparking privacy debates and participation concerns. • U.S. Commission on Civil Rights approved report on language access for limited English proficient voters, highlighting gaps in election equity.

Lawmakers say moratorium on construction would buy time to create strong, federal guardrails for AIAmid an unprecedented energy crisis and the rapid buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure, progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy to place a moratorium on the construction of AI datacenters.The policy, announced by Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democratic representative, on Wednesday morning, aims to ensure the AI boom protects the environment and communities, and benefits workers instead of harming them. A temporary ban, the lawmakers say, would give the US government time to create strong federal safeguards for AI, which is “affecting everything from our economy and wellbeing to our democracy, warfare and our kids’ education”. Continue reading...

• Baker Hughes announced a collaboration with Google Cloud on March 24, 2026, to develop AI-enabled power optimization and sustainability solutions for data centers. • The Houston-based initiative targets efficiency in high-demand AI computing environments using advanced cloud technology. • This partnership addresses growing energy challenges in U.S. data centers powering AI workloads.

• Perplexity AI introduced Perplexity Health on March 23, 2026, enabling users to connect provider health information via B.Well alongside data from Apple Health, Fitbit, and Withings. • The dashboard tracks personal health metrics and answers questions based on individual user data using AI-powered search capabilities. • This tool addresses growing demand for accessible health data integration amid criticisms of inaccurate crowdsourced medical advice from platforms like Google.

• The United States hosts nearly 5,500 data centers and accounts for three-quarters of the world's computing power as of May 2025, providing a substantial advantage over China in the global AI race according to EpochAI research. • America's semiconductor superiority remains the primary AI advantage, with Nvidia chips significantly outperforming China's most powerful Huawei-produced chips in both processing power and bandwidth memory, and the performance gap will increase substantially in coming years. • ByteDance plans to invest $23 billion this year on AI infrastructure including chips, while US companies are coordinating with the White House to secure additional grid capacity for data centers to prevent consumer price hikes.

Labor under pressure over fuel crisis as federal parliament returns. Follow updates liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastGovernments around the world are unprepared for the growing threat of drones being used to carry out terror attacks, a report warns.Advances in drone technology, 3D printing and AI-assisted navigation should prompt leaders, including those in Australia, to rethink anti-extremism strategies, the paper from the Lowy Institute says.The combination of easy accessibility and payload potential, and the limitations of domestic counter-drone systems, presents a growing challenge. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Allowing US tech firm to analyse intelligence in name of tackling fraud raises fresh concerns over privacyFCA deal gives Palantir yet more access to inner workings of power in BritainPalantir is to be granted access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data, in a deal that has prompted fresh concerns about the US AI company’s deepening reach into the British state, the Guardian can reveal.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded Palantir a contract to investigate the watchdog’s internal intelligence data in an effort to help it tackle financial crime, which includes investigating fraud, money laundering and insider trading. Continue reading...

• The U.S. Department of Energy announced a public-private partnership on March 20, 2026, to develop a major 10-gigawatt data center with dedicated power generation on a decommissioned uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. • SoftBank, through SB Energy, is partnering with AEP Ohio to invest $4.2 billion in grid upgrades and new transmission lines, with companies asserting the project will not raise customer rates. • The initiative is part of the U.S.-Japan Strategic Trade and Investment Agreement and supports SoftBank's collaboration with OpenAI and Oracle on Stargate, an AI infrastructure project with potential $500 billion investment.

• The Trump administration has granted Silicon Valley-based nuclear companies expedited pathways to test experimental reactor designs, with the DOE creating a new program and assigning concierge teams to help companies navigate bureaucracy. • About a dozen advanced reactor companies are currently planning to participate, with the administration targeting some reactors to achieve "critical" status—a key milestone toward functioning power plants—by July 2026. • The DOE quietly overhauled safety rules for new reactors and shared the revised regulations with companies before making them public, addressing long-standing complaints that companies lack opportunities to experiment.

• AI is expected to drive data center power consumption up 175% by 2030, creating unprecedented grid shortages that have pushed electricity prices higher across the country and compelled tech companies to seek alternative power sources. • Google's deal to power a new Minnesota data center blends wind and solar with a 30 gigawatt-hour battery from Form Energy, while the U.S. is expected to have nearly 65 gigawatts of battery storage capacity by year-end. • Dozens of startups including Amperesand, DG Matrix, Heron Power, Camus, GridBeyond, and Texture are developing power conversion and grid management technologies to address the critical energy shortage.

• The Trump administration, through Energy Secretary Chris Wright's leadership, is accelerating AI data center expansion via a 'Ratepayer Protection Pledge' encouraging major tech firms including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI to fund their own power generation. • Utilities have signed agreements for 183 gigawatts of data center capacity, equivalent to 22% of 2025 U.S. electricity demand, with initiatives including streamlined permits and federal land use for construction. • The expansion presents challenges in deregulated markets like Texas and mid-Atlantic states, where utilities manage only transmission infrastructure rather than power supply responsibility, requiring state and regional coordination to ensure adequate power plant development.

Admission came during questioning at Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearingThe Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, FBI director Kash Patel said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.Patel’s admission came in response to a question from the senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is a longtime opponent of the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Wyden told Patel that his predecessor, Christopher Wray, testified in 2023 that the FBI did not at that time purchase location data derived from internet advertising, although he acknowledged that it had done so in the past. Continue reading...

• The bipartisan Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act seeks to prohibit law enforcement and intelligence agencies from buying sensitive data like geolocation from third-party brokers. • Current privacy laws fail to cover data brokers, allowing circumvention of Electronic Communications Privacy Act restrictions via middlemen. • Similar provisions in Government Surveillance Reform Act and Security and Freedom Enhancement Act would limit purchases, with exceptions for emergencies and warrants.

Government’s first published land use framework maps how land is used and how it can be adapted to meet changing needsAbout 7% of England’s land – an area roughly two-and-a-half times the size of Cornwall – will need to be given over to nature, forests and renewable energy, to meet the UK’s environmental targets, new data shows.But there will still be enough land to grow the food needed, and to house a growing population, according to the government’s first “land use framework”, published on Wednesday.Placing a high priority on restoring peatland, all but 13% of which is degraded across England, but this will not include an outright ban on development such as wind or solar farms.Encouraging the “multi use” of land, for instance with livestock grazing alongside wind and solar farms, and wildlife protection and nature restoration on arable land.Encouraging local authorities to put nature reserves in urban areas as well as in the countryside.Grouse moors to come under closer scrutiny and tighter regulation, which will go further than EU rules.No new “right to roam” is included in the framework, but there will be a consultation on “making landowner liability more proportionate”, which could open up areas for public access.A national soil map will be published.A new “land use unit” will be established.Government planning for changes to the UK’s landscape under global heating of 2C above preindustrial levels, and of much higher heating of 4C. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Drug users face felonies and prison under Prop 36, with analysis showing racial disparities and little helpCalifornia prosecutors have filed nearly 20,000 drug possession felony cases under a tough-on-crime measure passed in 2024. But despite promises to get people into services, the vast majority of those arrested have not received drug treatment, state data reveals.Proposition 36, a state ballot measure, enacted harsher penalties for minor theft and drug offenses, with proponents pledging the crackdown would lead to “mass treatment to keep people alive, out of jail, and off our streets”. Continue reading...