Headlines

Gaining the approval of local communities has become paramount to building data centers in the U.S., Microsoft President Brad Smith said on Tuesday, as towns across the country increasingly protest the developments. The rapid proliferation of Big Tech data centers is driving up the country's electricity demand and power bills, and drawing scrutiny from states and local communities. "You have to win over the local community and sustain their trust if you are going to build a (data center)," [Read more]

MONTREAL - The chief executive of National Bank of Canada says he's not changing the bank's strategy because of the war in the Middle East, but he is urging a faster response from Canada to rising threats abroad. Speaking at the bank's financial services conference in Montreal, Laurent Ferreira says the country should be moving quicker on reducing internal trade barriers and boosting energy supplies. He says Canada needs to look to export more liquefied natural gas westward and transport [Read more]

Traders bet half a billion dollars on the price of crude only 15 minutes before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a five-day delay to attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure that sent the market plunging, exchange data and Reuters calculations showed. Having issued Iran with a Monday deadline to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz or face its power plants being "obliterated", Trump's post on Truth Social at 1105 GMT on Monday unleashed a powerful selloff in oil and natural gas. Brent [Read more]

China is conducting a vast undersea mapping and monitoring operation across the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans, building detailed knowledge of marine conditions that naval experts say would be crucial for waging submarine warfare against the United States and its allies. In one example, the Dong Fang Hong 3, a research vessel operated by Ocean University of China, spent 2024 and 2025 sailing back and forth in the seas near Taiwan and the U.S. stronghold of Guam, and around strategic [Read more]

The United States will continue its strikes on Iran, with the pause applying only to attacks on Tehran's energy sites, Semafor reported on Monday, citing a U.S. official, during what President Donald Trump has described as "productive" talks with unidentified Iranian officials. Earlier on Monday, Trump had postponed for five days a plan to hit Iran's power plants and energy infrastructure. Iran later denied that it had engaged in negotiations with the United States. "The stop on attacks [Read more]

Valero Energy Corp has shut its 380,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, following an explosion and fire at a diesel hydrotreater unit, people familiar with the plant operations said on Monday. The explosion at the 47,000-bpd 243-diesel hydrotreater unit rocked the region in east Texas on the Louisiana border, the sources said, with the blast heard as far as 11 miles away. Shutting the refinery is seen as necessary to contain the fire, which continued to rage nearly [Read more]