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SpaceX Seeking to Raise $40 Billion to Buy Nvidia Chips, FT Says (BBG)

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Up to 14 schools closing in Portland Public Schools ‘rightsizing’ scenarios (OPB)

“Portland Public Schools announced two scenarios Monday evening that would result in massive changes for Portland’s elementary, middle and K-8 schools, including building closures, program consolidations and changes to school boundaries.

Scenario A lists 14 schools slated to close: 13 elementary schools and one middle school. Those schools are: Maplewood, Stephenson, Irvington, Rose City Park, Buckman, Creston, Marysville, Woodmere, Lewis, Beach, James John, Peninsula, Sabin and Sellwood Middle School. Students from those schools would go to different “receiving schools.” This scenario includes 38 boundary changes.

Scenario B lists 11 schools, with similar “reconfigurations” and program moves, but with three fewer schools affected by changes. The schools proposed for closure are the same as Scenario A, except that Stephenson, Rose City Park and Lewis elementaries would remain open. This scenario includes 34 boundary changes.

“I figure it’ll go three ways,” said PPS Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong in an interview Friday ahead of the scenarios being published.

“They will choose to accept my recommendation with no changes, they’ll accept my recommendation with maybe some changes, or they’ll choose to defer the conversation about our rightsizing work.”

In a press release Monday evening, the union representing Portland teachers asked the district to take a more “measured and community centered approach.”

“Closing, consolidating, and transforming programs at over 25 schools is a dramatic change,” wrote Portland Association of Teachers president Alisha Chavez. “It’s critical that PPS get the process right, which requires slowing down and involving more stakeholders.”

Gary Gregoricka, principal at Irvington Elementary, stressed in a message to families that no decision has been made yet.

“If the district is moving forward with the change, the Beverly Cleary administration and I will work with both communities on a transition plan that ensures that we are supporting all students, staff, and families in this move,” Gregoricka said.”

After years of lawsuits, allegations and rancor, Oregonians see an opening to rein in data centers (ORL)

“Oregon’s data centers always seem to be one step ahead.

With lawsuits, lobbying, nondisclosure agreements, cozy relationships with public officials and well-timed tax filings, tech companies have hidden details of their operations, locked in billions of dollars in tax breaks and beaten back efforts to regulate or rein them in.

“At this point it looks very much like the data centers, the companies behind the data centers, are winning at the expense of the public interest,” said Kate Titus, executive director of the good governance organization Common Cause Oregon.

Tech companies have capitalized on local zoning rules that haven’t changed in decades and cashed in on incentive programs dating to the 1980s. Oregon data center incentives now top $450 million a year, the result of lopsided negotiations between trillion-dollar companies and volunteer city councils and county commissions across the state.

Data centers’ voracious appetite for electricity has power planners fretting that Oregon faces a power shortage that could trigger rolling blackouts by the end of the decade. In the Portland area, the industry has gobbled up hundreds of acres of scarce industrial land for installations that often employ just a handful of people.

For the first time, Oregon cities and counties are contemplating moratoriums on new data centers. Some legislators want the same thing statewide, and a poll finds two-thirds of Oregonians agree.

The tech industry is gearing up for a fight. Capitol insiders say data center operators have lined up an army of lobbyists for next year’s legislative session. And tech companies are pushing ahead with plans for new data centers, racing to get ahead of any moratorium.

Technology is moving faster than Oregon law and land-use regulations, according to Paul Tigan, a Salem city council member.

Amazon paid $100 million to a fiber-optics provider called Windwave, owned by public officials in Morrow County, even as the Seattle company was negotiating tax breaks and land purchases with those same officials. Three elected officials agreed to pay $2,000 penalties to the state’s ethics commission, which found they sometimes failed to disclose that they could benefit from Amazon’s growth.”

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