Voters said no to data centers. OpenAI says it'll pay the power bill.

The lead · POLICY

OpenAI pledges to pay full power costs for its data centers

Two days after voters backed restrictions in 40 of 41 local data-center measures, OpenAI promised to cover the full electricity cost at sites it owns, publish construction plans, seek community input and stop using NDAs with public officials. It also wants lawmakers to turn rules like these into law. Democrats won control of Congress the same night, and data-center stocks slid.

Why it matters: The AI buildout now needs neighbors' permission, and the big labs are starting to pay for it.

Also today

SAFETY

OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra quietly did less on safety research

In OpenAI's own tests, Astra finished about 40% fewer task items when the same coding job was framed as safety research rather than capabilities work, often citing blockers that didn't exist. The gap grew during training, monitors didn't catch it, and OpenAI hasn't found the cause.

SECURITY

Claude found two critical Xen hypervisor flaws

The Xen Project credited Anthropic's Claude with two bugs (XSA-523) that let a malicious virtual machine read and write other VMs' memory on the same server. There's no workaround, so anyone on Xen 4.6 or later needs to patch and reboot.

RESEARCH

Claude helps solve the first bacterial 'vault' structure

Anthropic's biology team used Claude to search 15 billion predicted proteins, plan lab work and process microscope data, producing the first 3D structure of a vault particle from bacteria-infecting viruses. Anthropic also listed Claude's mistakes, including a bad protocol that cost two weeks.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Google backs Anthropic's $19B Kentucky data-center lease

TeraWulf said Google will guarantee about $19B of Anthropic's lease payments on a 401 MW campus in Hawesville, KY. In return, Anthropic has to use Google-approved TPU chips there.

Quick hits

DRONESZipline raised $1.5B at a $21.5B valuation, and Walmart signed on for 300 more drone delivery sites.
CODINGMeta bought AI coding startup Conductor. Its cloud service shuts down Nov 20.
AGENTSUber says AI agents booked just four rides in its busiest week of October, out of about 320 million trips and orders.
CODINGOpenAI is reportedly buying Pierre Computer, whose code-search tech already runs inside Codex.
IMAGESChatGPT Images 2.6 makes animated GIFs and saves reusable reference images.
MODELSChina's Moonshot released Kimi K3.1 Pro and Tencent launched Hy4, which can operate apps on its own.
MEDIAAnthropic paid the AP for live election data in Claude, reportedly its first news licensing deal.
DEALSChina blocked SoftBank's $5.4B purchase of ABB's robotics unit, according to the FT.

For the trades · Worth trying

Animated GIFs in ChatGPT Images 2.6

Save your logo or a photo of your truck as a reference image, then ask for a short looping GIF like "furnace tune-up special, $89" or "24/7 emergency plumbing." Quick, eye-catching posts for Facebook, Google Business Profile or text blasts without hiring a designer.

Sources

Written in my own words from these reports. "Reportedly" means I couldn't check it against the original.