By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office, Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others weighed in on Dominion Energy’s proposal for allocating the cost of transmission projects driven by data center development at a hearing held by the Virginia State Corporation Commission on Tuesday.

Louise White, Spanberger’s deputy energy officer, said that the governor’s office wants the SCC to apply three solutions in the case: a “but for” cost causation standard; requiring transmission level-contributions in aid of construction, or CIAC, payments; and transitioning to the summer/winter peak and average cost allocation method.

Attorney and lobbyist Will Cleveland testified on behalf of Google that Dominion only recently completed its shift to a 12 coincident peak demands allocation factor, and its new GS-5 rate class for large loads hasn’t yet gone into full effect, saying it’s “simply too early in the process” to know whether these changes alone might fairly reallocate the data center cost burden.

The SCC’s hearing concerns Dominion’s proposed change to its Rider T-1, a line-item charge allocated to cost recovery for transmission investments, which the utility seeks to increase in order to recover around $1.5 billion in transmission costs. Dominion originally estimated that the average residential ratepayer’s bill would increase by around $2.90 a month as a result but lowered that estimate to $0.94 a month based on updated forecasting.

Cleveland said that SCC’s final order in Dominion’s 2025 rate case approved large load provisions like the creation of the GS-5 rate class, with cost shifting as the provisions’ “entire premise … Why is that not sufficient?” He asked the SCC to direct Dominion to revise its line extension policy to allow for voluntary CIAC payments, which he called a “win-win.” 

Andrew Major, an SCC attorney testifying on behalf of commission staff, said that if the commission chooses to adopt a methodology other than 12CP, staff “recommends transitioning over a multi-year period in order to facilitate gradualism and cost responsibility.”

“However, regardless of the cost allocation methodology that is chosen, there remains a glaring cross-class subsidization occurring to the benefit of new GS-5 customers,” Major said. He noted that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta signed a ratepayer protection pledge at the White House in March, adding, “Curiously, none of those companies mentioned this pledge in either pre-filed testimony or opening statements today.”

The SCC continued to hear arguments on Wednesday, and must issue a decision in the case by Aug. 1.

In testimony filed June 11, Amazon witness Cameron Brooks also requested the adoption of voluntary CIAC payments “as a way to reduce ratepayer burden,” saying this would make “the customer’s financial responsibility for the identified facilities … clear, enforceable, and integral to mitigating subsidization and stranded cost risks.”

Jonathan Zader, senior assistant county attorney for Loudoun County — where the bulk of Virginia’s data centers are being developed — testified that “the stakes are particularly high” for Loudoun County, which requests cost recovery under Rider T-1 include direct allocation and CIAC payments for upgrades that are “but for” caused by interconnecting large load customers.

Methodology arguments

Michael Goggin, of Grid Strategies, testified on behalf of Appalachian Voices that concerns about stranded asset risk — enabled by what Brooks called the “socialization of speculative investment” from data center developers — is driving advocacy for CIAC payments as well as direct assignment, which allocates the cost of upgrades directly to the customer or rate class they’re serving.

But Goggin argued that “direct assignment only helps address part of the problem here. Dominion is still far too reliant on supplemental projects and needs to be directed to utilize the PJM regional competitive transmission planning process for the bulk of its transmission investment, so that we can reduce costs for all ratepayers,” he said.

John Farmer, section chief of the insurance and utilities regulatory section within the office of consumer counsel at the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, said the consumer council office “generally supports direct assignment conceptually when it is possible to identify a cost causer,” and “believes that the situations in which we may be able to identify a specific cost causer are growing.”

“But unlike allocating costs among the different classes, something this commission has done with regularity for many many years, there are uncertainties when it comes to the direct assignment of transmission costs that may warrant additional analysis,” Farmer said. For instance, he said, additional analysis on the relative merits of direct assignment to specific customers versus direct assignment to the overall GS-5 rate class “could be helpful.”

Farmer also said that the summer and winter peak average methodology of calculating cost, or an average and excess methodology used alongside 12CP, could be “reasonable alternatives” to the current 12CP methodology.

“Consumer Council does not find [Dominion’s] counterarguments to testimony recommending the SWPA method, in particular, to be persuasive, and expects the evidence that will come before this commission will support a movement to that methodology,” he said.

Dominion uses SWPA for cost-of-service studies and rate structures in North Carolina, but Dominion regulatory analyst Robert Miller said the company “believes that 12CP is the more appropriate allocation methodology for the companies for the Virginia jurisdiction.”

Miller reasoned that Dominion has a much smaller service territory in North Carolina, and he is not aware of any new high load factor customers in that area. He said that 12CP is a preferable methodology for use in Virginia, but agreed with Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Nate Benforado that SWPA “is in the zone of reasonableness.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday said that US TV networks that refused to air his primetime address on election integrity should have their licenses revoked. 

During the address, Trump said that both NBC and ABC News said they “would not cover the speech” – something he called a “rare move.” 

“They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it,” he said, adding “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public, multi-billion-dollar in value airwaves for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting.“

ABC News said on Thursday that they would run the speech – but only on their live streaming platform and ABC News Radio – but not on its broadcast channel. NBC News also aired the speech on its streaming platform. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, Trump announced the declassification of information that he said reveals large-scale Chinese hacking of American voter information, saying that China obtained 220 million voter records during the 2020 election.

The president also detailed the findings of a Homeland Security Department review that found 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in federal elections. Trump said he had ordered the agency to notify states and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from their voter rolls.

White House communications director Steven Cheung called out NBC and ABC News for not airing the president’s address and encouraged viewers to watch it on the White House’s platform instead.

“NBC and ABC don’t want you to hear the truth. All they want to do is hide the facts from YOU. Tune in @WhiteHouse at 9:00pm EDT, where we always get bigger ratings than any of the networks,” Cheung said in a post on X.

Trump had previously called for the broadcast licenses of ABC News and NBC to be revoked over what he described as “unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.” He also accused the networks of being “an arm of the Democrat Party.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in April ordered an early review of license renewals for eight Disney-owned ABC television stations. The FCC was also looking into whether ABC’s daytime talk ​show “The View” violated federal rules requiring broadcast stations to provide equal airtime to all political party candidates.

Via The Libertarian Institute

The US Embassy in Lebanon announced that the State Department is offering grants of up to $250,000 to groups that help promote American propaganda. 

“The US Embassy in Beirut is opening a new Notice of Funding Opportunity for 2026,” a statement published this week explained. “We’re looking for partners to implement programs that strengthen ties between the US and Lebanon, with a focus on highlighting US-led peace and stabilization efforts, and advancing digital literacy to help people identify and push back on false, adversarial narratives.“

The State Department website says the program is expected to award $500,000 to at least two groups to promote US propaganda in Lebanon.

It adds that the program’s goal is to “strengthen local public understanding of US-led peace and stabilization efforts, and its role as a partner committed to security, economic opportunity, and responsible regional leadership.”

Washington is attempting to broker a peace agreement between Tel Aviv and Beirut. However, Israel is at war with Hezbollah, a non-state military that operates outside of the control of the Lebanese government. 

While Beirut and Tel Aviv inked a deal last month, Hezbollah rejected the agreement because it allowed the IDF to occupy Lebanon until the militia is dismantled. 

According to some of the latest from The Associated Press:

After two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Rome, Lebanon and Israel took steps toward implementing “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon where Israeli forces would withdraw and turn over control to the Lebanese army, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began when the Lebanese militant group fired rockets into Israel days after Israel and the U.S. launched their war on Iran on Feb. 28. Israel invaded Lebanon and has since occupied a large swathe of the country’s south. Hezbollah has been vehemently opposed to the direct Lebanon-Israel talks.

The attempt to negotiate a peace agreement between Tel Aviv and Beirut is making it more difficult for President Donald Trump to end the war against Iran.

🇮🇱🇱🇧 Reports claim the Israeli army is actively paving roads and modifying routes inside the occupied town of Odeisseh, Lebanon

That’s despite an agreement with the Lebanese Government where they promise to pull out of Lebanon, eventually…

Source: BintJbeilNews/Writer: Samuel pic.twitter.com/u6R8FgLk1e

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 17, 2026

Iran has linked any ceasefire and peace agreement with Israel ending its war against Lebanon – but Israel has rejected this effort to link the two conflict threatres. 

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

The PJM Interconnection’s just-held capacity auction cleared nearly 7 GW below its reliability target and only drew roughly 500 MW of new power supply, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Laura Swett said Thursday.

“These numbers compound the alarm bells for a call to action in PJM,” Swett said during the agency’s monthly meeting. “Am I surprised that PJM failed to deliver? No, I am not,” Swett said later during a media briefing.

However, FERC isn’t trying to “target” PJM, she said.

“This is a problem that involves people at the federal level, at the market level, the state level, the registered entities, the market participants … all the utilities, the companies there,” Swett said. “This is a very complex issue that everyone has to coalesce around, coming up with a solution.”

FERC aims to address some of the problems at a technical conference on July 23 focused on PJM’s governance issues.

“The current stakeholder process in PJM is slow where it must be fast, opaque where it must be transparent, and vulnerable to vetoes and agenda control exactly when the region needs immediate action,” Swett said.

From the conference, FERC expects to get “ideas on paper, on a record,” Swett said. “I am very optimistic that certain proposals will be front runners that are grounded in the record that we collect next week, so that there should be a more clear path forward for PJM after that.”

FERC Commissioner Lindsay See also highlighted the need for reforms at PJM, the nation’s largest grid operator, serving 67 million people in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions.

“PJM has to be able to get reforms across the finish line in a timely and transparent way,” See said. “Part of that also includes the need for a governance structure that can not only deliver concrete results but that can give parties the type of confidence in those reforms that’s necessary to drive investment where and when it’s needed.”

Last week, FERC Commissioner David LaCerte said the status quo at PJM was “untenable.”

Here are five other takeaways from FERC’s meeting.

Data center reliability standards

FERC set deadlines for the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to develop reliability standards for computational loads — data centers and crypto-mining operations — and the rules for registering those loads by Dec. 31. The grid watchdog is already developing those standards and rules.

FERC also directed NERC to file by March 1 a plan detailing the next steps in its standards development process for computational loads.

“I applaud NERC’s proactive efforts on these matters,” Swett said. FERC set the deadlines because “they are a great mechanism for producing results,” she said.

As part of its Large Loads Action Plan, NERC expects to issue the proposed reliability standards and draft registry criteria for public comment in August, it said Thursday.

FERC orders CAISO, SPP Western seams report

FERC ordered the California Independent System Operator and the Southwest Power Pool to file a report by Sept. 30 on how they plan to manage the seams between their markets and neighboring balancing authority areas in the West. The CAISO-run Extended Day-Ahead Market started operating in May. SPP expanded its footprint into the Western Interconnection in April, and its Markets+ initiative is expected to go live in October 2027. 

“While the increased deployment of organized markets is intended to bring substantial reliability and economic benefits to the West, the resulting seams create reliability, operational, and market efficiency hurdles that warrant proactive attention,” FERC said.

Earlier this month, CAISO President and CEO Elliot Mainzer said the grid operator was working with SPP to develop a joint operating agreement before Markets+ begins operating.

Complaint over PSE&G cost recovery advances

FERC advanced a complaint over Public Service Electric and Gas Co.’s cost recovery of a $546 million transmission project it built in New Jersey. The agency ordered an administrative law judge to conduct hearings on Public Citizen’s January complaint alleging that the costs were imprudently incurred.

In December 2024, PSE&G agreed to pay a $6.6 million fine to settle a FERC enforcement office investigation into the utility’s justifications to PJM for building the Roseland-Pleasant Valley transmission project.

FERC rejects complaint over Duke transmission rates

FERC rejected a complaint that sought to stop Duke Energy Progress from including the costs of four transmission lines that could benefit solar developers into its overall transmission rates. 

The agency dismissed arguments made by North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. in its complaint, saying, “Rolled-in rate treatment for the costs of the four … projects is consistent with longstanding Commission precedent that favors rolled-in rate treatment for integrated transmission facilities.”

FERC eyes changes to ‘hypothetical capital structure’ incentive

FERC approved a 50/50 hypothetical debt to equity capital structure for two transmission projects that Basin Electric Power Cooperative plans to build in North Dakota for about $469.3 million. FERC offers hypothetical capital structures as an incentive for transmission development.

“They can help new transmission companies secure financing for large projects and allow developers to move forward even when their actual capital structure may not yet reflect a project’s long-term financial profile,” Swett said. 

However, FERC is considering changes to the incentive, which increases consumer costs, Swett said at the agency’s meeting.

“This is a very complex topic with significant implications for financing, project development, regional planning, and customer affordability. Even small changes to utilities’ return can have significant impacts,” she said. “I am confident that working with my colleagues, we can get that balance right and ensure that our policies promote needed transmission investment while protecting consumers.”

Apple and the U.S. Department of Justice are reportedly in early discussions to settle the government’s 2024 antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker, though no agreement has been reached and no trial date has been set, Bloomberg reported today.

Apple has made multiple settlement offers this year in an effort to resolve the case, but negotiations remain ongoing and could still fall apart. Neither Apple nor the DOJ commented.

The lawsuit, originally filed under the Biden administration by the Justice Department along with 19 states and the District of Columbia, accuses Apple of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the smartphone market by making it harder for competing products and services to gain traction.

Regulators pointed to restrictions involving messaging apps, smartwatches, digital wallets, cloud gaming services, and so-called “super apps,” arguing the company’s practices harmed developers, competitors, and consumers. Apple lost its attempt to dismiss the case in June 2025.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Apple has already made several changes that address parts of the government’s complaint. The company now supports RCS messaging, allows cloud gaming apps on the App Store, has opened the iPhone’s NFC payment chip to third-party developers, and introduced a framework for mini apps. Apple still does not allow the Apple Watch to work with Android devices, though it has added features that improve compatibility between iPhones and non-Apple smartwatches.

The report also comes as the Trump Justice Department has shown a greater willingness to settle antitrust cases inherited from the previous administration, arguing negotiated agreements can deliver faster consumer benefits while avoiding years of costly litigation. It remains unclear whether the state attorneys general involved in the lawsuit are participating in the settlement talks.

While the Biden Justice Department launched a series of aggressive cases against Big Tech, including lawsuits targeting Apple, Google, Amazon and Meta Platforms, Trump’s DOJ has shown a greater willingness to resolve inherited cases through negotiated settlements rather than years of courtroom battles.

That doesn’t necessarily mean antitrust scrutiny is disappearing, but it does suggest the administration may be more focused on securing practical concessions from technology companies than pursuing lengthy, high-profile litigation.

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday launched a joint website featuring an interactive map of federal enforcement actions aimed at election security, transparency, and integrity.

“Excited to launch the joint @TheJusticeDept @DHSgov election integrity website, an interactive map showing what actions the federal government is taking to improve election security, transparency, and integrity for all Americans! Updated regularly!” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon announced on X on July 16.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Sept. 29, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The website displays a nationwide map of states and the District of Columbia, with users able to click any jurisdiction to view linked enforcement records.

The page lists Justice Department actions targeting states that fail to produce voter registration rolls.

The Civil Rights Division said the effort was to protect the right to vote by ensuring accurate rolls and removing ineligible voters.

The page urges the public to “Get involved and learn more about the division’s election-integrity enforcement actions” and to “Support Election Integrity: Help the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security protect the vote by reporting concerns and staying informed.”

The launch comes as the division continues to press states for full voter registration lists under federal laws, including the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Officials have described clean rolls as essential so that every eligible citizen’s vote counts equally and without dilution.

The interactive map and linked press releases centralize the volume of recent litigation and immigration-related arrests in one place. The site will be updated regularly as additional actions are taken.

Recent Justice Department filings listed include February 2026 lawsuits against five additional states for failure to produce voter rolls; January 2026 actions targeting Virginia, Arizona, and Connecticut; and multiple 2025 cases.

DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) entries detail arrests of noncitizens who allegedly voted in federal elections, including a New Jersey case and an Australian national charged with voting in multiple elections, along with a Mexican national’s guilty plea for falsely claiming U.S. citizenship.

The site opens with a quote from President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14248, issued March 25, 2025: “Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic.”

The executive order highlights that the United States does not enforce basic and necessary election protections, noting that countries like India and Brazil tie voter identification to biometric databases, whereas the United States relies on self-attestation for citizenship.

Days after KeyBanc analysts Brandon Nispel and John Vinh downgraded Apple over concerns that soaring memory chip costs and rising iPad, Mac, and iPhone prices could spark a growth slowdown, HSBC analysts took the opposite view, upgrading the stock to a “Buy” rating to end the week.

HSBC analyst Nicolas Cote-Colisson upgraded Apple to “Buy” from “Hold” on Friday morning and raised his price target to $366 from $260, telling clients that an “AI boost comes at the right moment” and could unleash a major device-upgrade cycle.

Cote-Colisson explained:

A new cycle ahead.

Thus far, we had retained a cautious approach on Apple with a Hold rating.

We had preferred other segments of the AI value chain, more prompt to exploit the bottlenecks created by the high demand in computing power, including hyperscalers or memory makers.

We think Apple is now at an operational turning point: not only can the company stay away from the (too) high capex debate (it only invests 2.5% of its 2026e sales vs 39% for hyperscalers, see page 10), we think it is also well placed to leverage its 2.5bn installed device base with its forthcoming revamped Apple Intelligence.

This AI boost comes at the right moment, when we think Apple has one of its most innovative product pipelines in place.

Cote-Colisson pointed out that Apple is at an “inflection point” as it prepares to deploy an agentic version of Siri capable of accessing information across applications and executing more complex tasks:

• New AI features coming this year represent a key catalyst for an acceleration in Apple’s hardware and Services revenue
• Recent price hikes show confidence from Apple that pricing power can limit the negative impact of memory pricing on margin

HSBC expects the AI overhaul to coincide with a strong product pipeline that includes the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, a book-style foldable iPhone, an iPhone Air, a 20th-anniversary model and eventually AI-powered smart glasses. The combination could accelerate upgrades across Apple’s installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices, particularly among owners of the iPhone 15 and 16.

Putting this all together, the analyst expects the AI overhaul and robust pipeline to begin the “start of a fundamental shift that will force a faster hardware refresh across the 2.5bn+ active device installed base.”

Cote-Colisson also raised Apple’s 2027 and 2028 revenue estimates by 7% to 9%, including an 11% to 13% increase in his iPhone forecasts. He expects iPhone sales to rise 11.6% in fiscal 2027, compared with the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 8.3%. He also lifted his 2027 Services revenue forecast by 5.4%.

His fiscal 2027 earnings-per-share estimate increased about 8% to $10.26, or 7.5% above consensus. Cote-Colisson expects EPS growth of roughly 16% that year, compared with a 12% median among Apple’s peers.

Cote-Colisson pointed out that rising memory prices remain a significant risk: “Downside risks include competition from AI labs introducing new form factors that could challenge smartphones and a longer-than-expected global memory chip shortage compressing margins, although we believe Apple can command a significant degree of pricing power.”

Earlier in the week, KeyBanc analysts Brandon Nispel and John Vinh downgraded Apple from “Sector Weight” to “Underweight” amid fears that rising device prices due to the memory crunch will hit sales in the coming quarters.

In mid-June, Apple CEO Tim Cook told the WSJ in an exclusive interview that price hikes were “unavoidable” because of the memory chip crunch.

Latest Bloomberg data shows 36 “Buy” ratings, 18 “Neutral” ratings, and 4 “Sell” ratings on the stock, with an average 12-month price target of $322.

$322 PT 

Professional subscribers can read more on Apple at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Meta is standing up a cloud business to sell excess computing capacity from its massive data-center buildout, as we detailed earlier this month. The new business line would put Meta in direct competition with industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Meta is in talks to rent computing power from its AI data centers to Anthropic in a deal that could be worth as much as USD 10bln over two years: NYT

Now “excess power”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 17, 2026

The New York Times reported that Meta is considering selling excess computing capacity to Anthropic in a deal that could be worth up to $10 billion over the next two years.

Here’s more color from NYT:

Meta is in talks to rent computing power from its artificial intelligence data centers to Anthropic in a deal that could be worth as much as $10 billion over two years, three people with knowledge of the discussions said, a potential step toward a new A.I. business for the social networking company.

Anthropic proposed the deal in June and Meta is considering it, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss confidential conversations. While the specifics were in flux, Anthropic would pay Meta in monthly increments over the two-year period, the people said. The companies would be able to opt out of any agreement early, they added.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged that AI agent development over the past four months “hasn’t accelerated in the way we expected.”

• “Agent Development Hasn’t Accelerated The Way We Expected”: What Zuckerberg’s AI Agent Confession Means For Token Demand

The company has also said it may build more data centers than it needs based on the number of customers using its AI products. Selling excess computing power to companies such as Anthropic would open a new revenue stream and potentially alleviate investor concerns following Meta’s multiyear data-center buildout spree.

“A generational transfer in free cash flow is taking place: BofA pic.twitter.com/4K9fMrs8II

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 8, 2026

It’s not just Meta. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which acquired his AI startup xAI earlier this year, has been renting massive amounts of computing capacity from its Memphis data centers to Anthropic PBC. That strategy could help xAI generate more than $50 billion in revenue by 2028 and $100 billion by 2030.

Amid a fast-moving AI race…

… Meta’s models are nowhere to be found.