Lima stands for “Lost in Middle America”, Rochelle Twinnings, chairwoman of the local Democrats, tells me. I know what she means. This midsized Ohio town of 35,000 people is surrounded in every direction by corn and soya bean fields. There is a Ford engine manufacturer and a US army tank plant here, but not nearly as much industry as there used to be.
Looming over the fields in one of Lima’s residential neighbourhoods, American Township, a controversial $500m (£372m) Google data centre spanning nearly 400 acres is under construction. Yes, this really is the name of the small, rural district powering the AI revolution. I feel I’ve landed in the middle of nowhere and everywhere all at once.
Welcome to Ohio, where the dirtiest campaign of the midterm elections is unfolding. I’ve come to this state because its mix of farmland and factories has made it a bellwether for the nation. It’s also my “home” state – my American mother grew up on the shores of Lake Erie in the rustbelt city of Cleveland, a Democratic stronghold since the Great Depression.
What to know as crypto industry suffers ‘largest heist in history’
Cryptocurrency worth billions has been stolen from a major exchange in what has been termed “the largest bank heist in human history”.
What we know
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, was targeted by a “complex attack” involving more than $6.3bn (£4.7bn) in digital currency. Around half of the affected assets have been frozen, the crypto giant said.
Deposits and withdrawals have been temporarily “disabled” but as of 8am UK time on Friday, the hacker was still thought to control about $2.4bn (£1.8bn) worth of Bitcoin and Ether, the two biggest cryptocurrencies by valuation.
Detail on suspected hackers
- Several crypto analytics firms said the hack resembled previous North Korean-linked incidents.
- Binance is yet to attribute blame but said initial investigations suggest the hack “may have started with a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop”.
- That “gave an attacker access to a service container, where they submitted unauthorized withdrawal transactions”.
The attacker did not simply use one engineer’s permissions, and this was not a single ‘one-click’ action. It involved a more complex attack process.
Richard Teng, Binance’s co-CEO
Unprecedented scale and speed
Emily Taylor, co-founder of the Global Signal Exchange, told the BBC the hack set a “grim new record” and was conducted “on a speed and scale we’ve never seen”.
The hack is thought to have been planned for at least 36 hours and carried out in about 20 minutes. It is understood to eclipse the scale of the previous largest breach, a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) North Korea-linked hack on the Bybit exchange last year.
Binance promises to cover losses
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Could the UK really be facing a ‘catastrophic decade’?
The Government’s plans to help households with the cost of living will not prevent “catastrophic” living standards from falling, a leading think-tank has warned.
Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said in her post-Budget analysis: “This decade looks set to be the worst decade for growth in household incomes on record.”
The think-tank warned the average median income will fall by 3 per cent from 2027 to the end of the decade.
Chancellor narrows his options
The IFS criticised Chancellor John Healey for choosing to fund a £4.7bn black hole in the defence investment plan in part from the Treasury’s reserves. This further narrows Healey’s options to keep spending plans on course in the event of another global economic shock, the think-tank said, and suggests he could face rampant speculation about tax rises ahead of the next Budget.
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A clear short-term risk with the Chancellor’s choices is that next year, with low headroom and a spending review that looks pretty brutal for some departments, we see another season of damaging speculation about tax rises.
IFS director, helen miller
Bacon butties and grumbling MPs: Inside Healey’s first Budget
When John Healey stood up at the Despatch Box to deliver his maiden Budget on Wednesday, he had reason to feel confident.
Does testosterone really help improve menopause brain fog?
There is “insufficient” evidence to back the claim that testosterone can improve brain fog and memory symptoms linked to the menopause, a new study suggests.
Social media is “flooded” with claims that testosterone can improve these symptoms in menopausal women, experts said.
What you need to nkow
While there is anecdotal information that testosterone can help, experts stressed that there is currently not enough evidence to establish the effect. Experts at University College London said testosterone prescriptions have increased in the UK, reflecting growing interest in its role during menopause.
The team reviewed five studies which looked at whether testosterone can improve memory in post menopausal women.
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A closer look at the detail
244 women
Some 244 women with an average age of 57 involved in the review were given either a placebo or testosterone at varying levels.
- The research team did not find significant improvements for cognitive function among participants taking testosterone.
- “The findings should be interpreted as insufficient to establish an effect, rather than as evidence of no effect,” the authors wrote in the journal Reproduction And Fertility.
The expert view
While there may be some anecdotal evidence for this in perimenopausal women, we cannot claim testosterone improves cognition during menopause without further evidence. More research is needed to understand any links between and brain health.
Professor Aimee Spector, senior author of the study and director of the UCL Menopause Mind Lab
Psychologists sound alarm over chatbots ‘harmful’ mental health advice
Psychologists have raised concerns about unregulated AI chatbots providing “unqualified and harmful” information to people seeking mental health advice.
It comes as a British Psychological Society (BPS) survey found that practitioners have seen a 49 per cent rise in the number of patients using AI for support in the last 12 months.
What did the survey find?
- One member told the survey they are worried people are turning to technology as it feels “safer”, but warned there is a risk of increasing isolation that can impact wellbeing.
- The BPS poll of 197 psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists found seven in 10 are somewhat or very concerned about clients using AI for mental health support.
A closer look at the figures
80%
told the survey they are concerned clients are becoming overly reliant on the technology, while around three quarters (76 per cent) said it is negatively affecting client wellbeing.
- The BPS poll comes after a survey of 2,000 children aged 11-17 by Barnardo’s and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) found more than four in 10 (43 per cent) had used AI for advice or emotional support.
The expert view
This research shows there is real cause for concern for those that use AI for mental health therapy, and that concern is coming directly from psychological practitioners on the frontline providing vital in-person support. The risk of unregulated open access AI chatbots providing unqualified and harmful advice remains very real.
Dr Laura Dean, president of the BPS
Russell Brand’s wife hails ‘kind’ husband but tells court he cheated when dating
Russell Brand’s wife Laura Brand has told his rape trial her husband is “caring” and “kind” and there is honesty at the centre of their marriage.
What Laura Brand told the court
She said they rekindled their romance in 2015, married two years later, and they now have three children together.
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What the court heard
Russell, my husband, is caring, he is kind, he is a wonderful father to our children. He is an amazingly attentive husband. He has got an eye for detail I’ve never known before. The way he treats me is to really know me, I feel very seen by him in every way. I love him very much.
laura brand
- Laura said she knew about his reputation before they met and she learned while they were dating that he had been having sex with other people.
- She said they stayed friends as Brand had a brief marriage to singer Katy Perry, and they got back together as a couple in 2015.
- Asked if she was “aware of his promiscuity” during their time apart, she said: “I was very aware of it. I could read about it regularly in the papers.”
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A closer look at the detail
During his wife’s evidence, Brand could be seen smiling and laughing at times, and he appeared to be mouthing words towards his wife as she talked about his 2024 baptism.
Laura Brand’s evidence was briefly interrupted when defence barrister Ian Winter KC attempted to ask for her view on the “truth of the allegations”. Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC interjected, and the judge pointed out she is not an expert witness.
What we have learned so far
Brand faces claims that he raped and sexually assaulted women over the course of 10 years of his showbiz career.
On Wednesday, he insisted consent is “non-negotiable” and told jurors it is “more important than sex itself”. He denies three charges of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of attempted indecent assault.
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The rest of Ohio, however, is up for grabs. Donald Trump won the presidential elections in this state three times, winning by more than 11 per cent in 2024. At this point, people stopped counting Ohio as a swing state and started regarding it as solid Maga territory. JD Vance’s Appalachian “hillbilly” family moved to Ohio from Kentucky and he has a home in the suburbs of Cincinnati. He became senator for Ohio before being plucked for the vice-presidency.
If the polls are right, the state is back in play. A veteran Democrat retread, Sherrod Brown, has nosed ahead of the Republican incumbent Jon Husted in the race for Senate by two-five points. He needs to flip Ohio blue if the Democrats are to have a chance of winning control of the upper house.
Trump has visited the state four times during the midterms, determined to squeeze out every last Republican vote. The President memorably appeared to lust after Husted, a former college American football star, at a rally in Youngstown last week.
“I looked at his ass, and then I looked at his legs,” Trump said. “I said, ‘His ass, s***, it’s like a pile of muscle’.” This led gay CNN presenter Anderson Cooper to present an arch video montage of the “assman-in-chief’s” most lascivious remarks about men.
However, this isn’t the nastiest or most revealing midterm race – not by a long chalk. That prize goes to the contest for Ohio governor between wealthy Republican entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been swanning around the state on his private jet, and Democrat Dr Amy Acton, Ohio’s former health director during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ramaswamy, who briefly served with Elon Musk at Doge (the Department for Government Efficiency) offended many fellow Republicans, including Husted, by sponsoring a blistering attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur. “It’s not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem,” Arthur said. “She is a liar. She lies about her past.”
What the ad didn’t say is that Acton was allegedly sexually abused by her stepfather when she was between the ages of nine and 12. Acton’s late stepfather, Cledith, was charged with raping her in July 1978. He pleaded not guilty before fleeing the state with Acton’s mother, who lost custody of her children.
Trump and Vance have defended Ramaswamy’s decision to air the ad. Trump described Acton’s mother as a “smart woman” and said Acton was “fair game”. If the plutocratic Ramaswamy loses the governorship, the ad will be blamed, though my Cleveland cousins are convinced that his Indian heritage could also weigh on voters’ minds.
“A lot of Maga bigots will stay home rather than vote for him,” they told me. That’s not something voters will own up to willingly, though I did speak to a couple of Trump supporters who pursed their lips and told me they didn’t “know enough” about Ramaswamy to support him. He currently trails Acton by three to four points.
Twinnings told me she felt disgusted by the ad. “The first thing I thought of was the [Jeffrey] Epstein files. It’s like the Republicans have a national mindset not to believe women,” she said. “Amy’s story is very sad but also very provable. I think it will hurt Republicans rather than help them.”
I met Twinnings and her husband, Rick, a retired toolmaker, at their home on the outskirts of Lima. We could hear a neighbour shooting his firearms down the road. He pops them off every day, including an AR-15 style assault weapon. “There’s nothing we can do about it, it’s fully legal,” Rick said, shaking his head.
The Twinnings live close to the perimeter of the giant Google data centre rising out of the corn and soya bean fields. It is just one of nearly 250 AI data centres in Ohio – making it the state with the fifth highest number of them. A poll by Ohio Northern University and Survey USA on 22 October found that 55 per cent of respondents were against their construction in their state, compared with 22 per cent who supported them.
Rochelle described opposition to data centres as “the biggest issue” of the campaign. “Ohio is particularly vulnerable to data centres because we have so much open land and they need acres and acres to build on.”
Randy Tooker, 57, a former maintenance engineer for Honda, lives on the other side of the outer perimeter. “We first started hearing rumours about the data centre a couple of years ago. It all happened under the table, very quietly. The public basically had no input into it,” he said. Google only acknowledged it was behind the development after the news emerged earlier this year.
Tooker worries about the data centre’s impact on water usage, electricity bills and noise pollution. “If they’re going to build one, it should be in an industrial park where there is already industry and factories instead of taking farmland where people live,” he said.
He drove me in his pick-up to the entrance of the construction site, where trucks rumbled past every few minutes. There was a sign saying, “Private Property. No Trespassing”. Drone photography was expressly prohibited. “I guess they don’t want people actually seeing what’s going on around here,” he added.
Shocked by the unpopularity of data centres, local Republicans have been backing away from the issue, but Trump remains bullish about their value. He claimed on Truth Social: “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”
Tooker voted for Trump in the last two elections, but he isn’t impressed by him. “I mean, I’m not a huge Trump fan. I think he’d be better off if he just shut up, kept his voice quiet.”
He prefers Vance. “I like that he’s from Ohio. Sometimes you can see him distancing himself from some of Trump’s opinions,” he added, reflecting on the Iran war and its impact on fuel prices. “Something needed to be done about Iran, but the war has dragged on way too long. He’s dug himself into a hole and I don’t know what he does to get out of it.”
Tooker told me he was undecided but had been leaning Republican. “Amy Acton was part of when they shut Ohio down under Covid. I wasn’t happy with all that. I thought it was a mess.”
But he is reconsidering his vote for Ramaswamy after the attack ad aired. He said some lines should not be crossed and described the ad as “disgusting”. “I will probably not vote for him after such a horrible ad,” he said. “Are these candidates the best Ohio can offer?”
Tooker’s indecision points to a wider problem for the Democrats. They are tired and out of ideas. Brown, who served as Ohio senator for 18 years, is 73. He doesn’t represent a fresh start for the state, but rather a return to voters’ traditional comfort zones.
“I think there should be term limits,” Tooker told me. “We need new blood in there, new opinions.”
Age, race, money, sexual assault and AI; they’re all on the ballot box in Ohio. The big unknown is whether Trump can seal the deal for the Republicans in the frenetic closing days of the election campaign. The New York Times’s presidential approval rating tracker shows 37 per cent approve and 60 per cent disapprove of his performance in office. However, he still has a devoted fan base in Lima.
At the local Republican party HQ, campaign volunteer Amy Mullen said she was concerned about turn-out. “In presidential elections, everyone is gung ho for the president, especially President Trump. The midterm elections aren’t that important in people’s minds.”
Yet she still cherishes the day she met Trump at a campaign rally in 2019 at a local airport during his first term as president.
“It happened to be my birthday, so I say he came for my birthday,” she said, eyes shining. “My husband and I waited for four hours in a hangar and it was cold. The secret service was there. They wouldn’t let us have any food or drink and we were all in a bullpen. And I said, ‘President Trump, I want to thank you for coming for my birthday.’
“He said, ‘35?’ ‘No, 39,’ I laughed. And he went, ‘Yeah, right.’”