A once-quiet town in the Midwest has unexpectedly emerged as a key front in the national dispute over AI data centers, with local voters expressing their discontent through the election process.

In Festus, Missouri, a small community of 14,000 near St. Louis, residents have decisively removed four city council members who were in favor of developing a large AI data center. These officials have been replaced by candidates who stood firmly against the project.

The political shake-up didn’t end there.

After the election, newly elected officials were met with enthusiastic applause during a crowded City Hall meeting. In stark contrast, Mayor Sam Richards, who continues to support the data center initiative, was greeted with boos and heckling from the attendees.

“You’re next!” one resident called out, highlighting the intensifying tensions surrounding the issue.

At the center of the dispute is a proposed $6 billion data center spanning roughly 360 acres, designed to support the growing demands of artificial intelligence.

Supporters say the project could transform the local economy – generating an estimated $32 million a year in tax revenue for decades, funding schools, roads, and public services.

But many locals aren’t convinced, and opponents fear the development could strain the electrical grid, push up utility bills and disrupt daily life with years of construction. 

In Festus, a community of around 14,000 people near St. Louis, residents have ousted four city council members who backed plans for a massive AI data center

Festus mayor Sam Richards (pictured) was met with boos and jeers at a recent community meeting

Other residents worry about environmental risks, including pollution from backup generators and wastewater systems – concerns shaped by the region’s industrial past.

In a bid to scrap the development, locals have launched a website and a Facebook group titled No Data Center in Festus, which has attracted more than 3,000 members.

The backlash quickly spilled into local politics: In the landslide election, all four incumbents who supported the data center were voted out. 

‘It was an annihilation,’ said one local campaigner. 

Since then, more than 4,000 residents have signed petitions seeking to recall the mayor and other officials still backing the plan.

The controversy also triggered a lawsuit, with residents accusing city officials and the developer of holding closed-door meetings and failing to fully inform the public. Both the city and developer deny the claims.

Festus is far from alone in its municipal battle against AI data centers.

Across the US, more than 90 local governments are either restricting or considering limits on new data centers, reflecting growing unease about the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure. 

Opponents fear the development could strain the electrical grid, push up utility bills, and disrupt daily life with years of construction

In Maine, lawmakers considered a first-in-the-nation temporary ban on data center construction, though it was ultimately vetoed by the governor.

In St. Charles, Missouri, residents pushed back against a similar proposal from the same developer, forcing plans to be withdrawn.

Communities in parts of Virginia – home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers – have raised concerns about energy use, land consumption and environmental impact from the facilities.

In Archbald, Pennsylvania, locals have rallied through social media and packed community meetings to oppose plans to transform the area into a hub for as many as 51 data warehouses.

A Facebook group titled ‘Stop Archbald Data Centers’ has swelled to nearly 10,000 members – more than the town’s population of around 7,000 – with residents sharing updates and organizing resistance.

Across the town, hundreds of homeowners have planted signs reading ‘no data centers’ in their yards – echoing the scenes in Festus.

These conflicts highlight the growing tension between the nationwide push for AI growth and the local impact of the infrastructure required to support the technology.

Data centers are massive, energy-hungry facilities that are essential for powering everything from chatbots to cloud computing. 

In a bid to fight the data center, Festus residents launched a website and a Facebook group that attracted more than 3,000 members

In Archbald, Pennsylvania, locals have rallied on social media and at packed community meetings to oppose plans to transform the area into a hub for as many as 51 data warehouses

But for communities, the trade-offs are becoming harder to ignore.

Some residents worry about property values. 

Others question what happens if the AI boom slows – leaving behind vast industrial sites and uncertain economic promises.

‘I know it’s the future,’ one longtime Festus resident said. ‘But I wish they’d build it somewhere nobody lives.’

With elections looming and public concern rising, opposition to data centers is quickly becoming a political issue nationwide.

Polls suggest many Americans – across party lines – would oppose having such facilities in their own communities, citing electricity demand and water usage as top concerns.

Back in Festus, the message from voters is already loud and clear: When it comes to AI infrastructure, local communities want a say, and they’re willing to use their votes to get it.

A man aged 39 entered a plea of not guilty on Friday following accusations of making threats against Prince Andrew near his recently acquired residence within the royal family’s Sandringham estate.

The individual in question, Alex Jenkinson, also 39, has been charged with employing threatening, abusive, or derogatory language or actions directed at the former prince. Prince Andrew had his royal titles revoked last year by King Charles III, following controversies related to his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Jenkinson is facing charges on two counts, alleged to have made threats towards Andrew on Wednesday and another individual on Tuesday.

In the upcoming trial scheduled for July 29 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, the former Duke of York is expected to testify.

A 39-year-old man pleaded not guilty on Friday to threatening former Prince Andrew near his new home on the royal family’s Sandringham estate. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Andrew was allegedly yelled at by a masked man while walking his dogs near his home, the Daily Telegraph reported.

“Officers attended, and the man was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and possession of an offensive weapon,” the police statement said.

The incident comes three months after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, was arrested, himself, on suspicion of misconduct in public office connected to his Epstein ties and his time as the U.K. trade envoy.

Former Prince Andrew was arrested on Feb. 19. (Reuters)

Andrew moved to Sandringham earlier this year after he was asked to vacate his home at the Royal Lodge in Windsor.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor now lives on Marsh Farm on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk after being evicted from his home at Windsor. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

Virginia Giuffre, Andrew’s main accuser, claimed that she was forced to have sex with the royal three times starting when she was 17 years old.

Andrew has denied all of the accusations against him, but settled with Giuffre in 2022 over her civil sexual assault lawsuit. She later died of suicide in 2025.

Virginia Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times, starting when she was 17 years old and sued him for sexual assault. She died of suicide last year. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service)

Jenkinson appeared in court remotely from King’s Lynn Police Investigation Centre in Norfolk on Friday with his arm in a sling.

He did plead guilty to failing to provide specimen of blood while in custody.

Jenkinson was released on bail on the condition that he doesn’t enter the county of Norfolk, attempt any contact with Andrew, and he must stay 500 meters away from Sandringham, Buckingham Palace, Balmoral Castle, Windsor Castle and Highgrove.

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A friend of mine, who leads a prominent finance firm in New York City, is actively exploring opportunities to relocate to Miami. His interest extends beyond just acquiring office space; he’s also considering purchasing a home there. And it’s not solely driven by tax considerations.

This individual, who has requested to remain anonymous, is a well-known figure in the financial sector.

Should he choose to make the move, it would certainly capture media attention.

He oversees a significant workforce, including highly-paid executives and essential middle-class support staff.

Collectively, they contribute to the economy by paying taxes, as well as covering their mortgages and grocery expenses.

They drop plenty of cash at the Big Apple’s restaurants and theaters.

The higher-ups are big donors to local charities, the museums and the opera. 

He says he hasn’t made up his mind just yet but based on the tenor of our conversation, he has at least one foot out the proverbial door. He’s serious. 

What is crystal clear — and this is true of many of the business types I have spoken to who have packed up and left Gotham — is that this isn’t about paying a few more dollars a year in taxes. 

They would have no problem if it funded good schools, or more policing or better roads and bridges.

It doesn’t, of course.

Most of all, they’re sick of being portrayed as the enemy by feckless public officials. 

Foremost among the latter is our socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who would like you to believe that rich people are at fault for our affordability crisis because they drive up rents when they buy penthouses.

Or maybe it’s simply because they are the enemy in his version of Mao’s Little Red Book. 

His solution is to milk them with a vast expansion of the welfare state.

He wants the rich “paying their fair share” of taxes, failing to note they already shoulder the brunt of the highest combined city and state income tax rate in the country. 

Of course, he leaves out the fact that it’s the rich, the aspiring rich and the middle class that have always paid for big government here.

That includes billions every year in free healthcare for the indigent as well as major subsidies for food, housing and transportation.

He also fails to mention that rent control, a perk he enjoyed before his November election, drives up rents for free-market units even as it reduces incentives to create new housing stock. 

‘Pied’ after they paid 

Now Mamdani is looking to tax second homes worth more than $5 million for non-residents who pay property taxes.

We’re telling rich people who don’t use services to look for real estate elsewhere — and they will, if the story of London is any indication — while welcoming people who want all the welfare we can give. 

Just look at the numbers of who’s coming and going from this once great city that attracted the best and the brightest: Our population is buttressed by a continued flow of poor migrants, while the taxpaying class flees to lower cost venues like Florida, Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina. 

To be clear: I’m not shading the world’s poor who are seeking a better life; that’s part of my lineage.

But my lineage came here to build the subways, work in factories long before the city subsidized everything and chased out the rich who paid for it.

They also came here legally when we needed labor. 

Blame game dishonest 

So why would Mamdani do something as brazenly stupid and reckless as to film himself standing outside Ken Griffin’s townhouse, mock him for his success while the Citadel founder is considering a major expansion here?

Understandably, Griffin voiced disdain for the “creepy” social-media spot to tout a highly dubious pied-à-terre tax and is now weighing sending yet more jobs outside the city. 

So are the people at Apollo Global, headed by co-founder and CEO Marc Rowan.

The private-equity giant, as I reported last week, is on the verge of moving a second HQ to Austin, Texas, or the Miami area, employing as many as 1,000 people who would have been New Yorkers if this city and its public officials understood who pays the bills. 

I know I called Mamdani and his ilk feckless, but there is a theory that he is actually an ideologically driven, clever man seeking fewer capitalists to create his Marxist utopia. 

He knows his blame game is intellectually dishonest: It’s the city’s costly welfare state that he wants to grow at all costs as opposed to the rich that is at the heart of our affordability crisis. 

Or maybe our smirking commie of a mayor is just uninformed.

After all, if you spend your college years at protests and in Africana studies classes, you may find it hard to balance a checking account, much less a $127 billion budget that only the people he’s attacking can pay for.