An Arkansas judge has dismissed the murder charges against a local sheriff candidate and Army veteran accused of gunning down a man who allegedly sexually assaulted his teenage daughter. Aaron Spencer was initially charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 67-year-old Michael Fosler in Lonoke County in October 2024. According to court records obtained by Fox News Digital, Special Circuit Court Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. dismissed the charges against Spencer on Thursday.  Prosecutors previously alleged Spencer discovered Fosler alone with his teenage daughter inside Fosler’s pickup truck in the wee hours of the night on Oct. 8, 2024. Authorities said Spencer allegedly forced the vehicle off the road before calling 911 to report he had shot the 67-year-old.GOT A TIP?The judge cited law enforcement’s mishandling of dash-camera and SD card evidence from Spencer’s truck, adding a dismissal is "an extraordinary and extreme remedy" in any criminal case.  "However, based on the totality of the circumstances and the unique, specific, and particular facts and circumstances of this case, the Court finds that conduct by law enforcement was so egregious that dismissal of this case is warranted," the judge wrote.FOLLOW US ON XSpencer’s defense team argued that law enforcement lost the SD card possibly containing footage of the altercation, and did not provide documentation regarding when the item went missing or details surrounding its disappearance.STORE OWNER HELD WITHOUT BOND FOR 3 YEARS ACQUITTED OF MURDER IN TEEN'S SHOOTING DEATHThe judge ruled that "the loss or destruction of the internal SD memory card of the dash camera has adversely impaired the Defendant's ability to defend himself pursuant to these defenses, and thus his right to a fair trial," according to court documents.GET BREAKING NEWS BY EMAIL Fosler had previously been charged with "numerous sexual offenses" against Spencer’s teenage daughter and was out on bond at the time of the shooting, court records indicated.In February, Spencer emerged as the winner of the Republican primary for Lonoke County sheriff after defeating the incumbent, in which he vowed to reform the county’s law enforcement agency.CLICK HERE FOR MORE US NEWS"Through my own fight for justice, I have seen firsthand the failures in law enforcement and in our circuit court," Spencer said in a previous campaign video. "And I refuse to stand by while others face these same failures." While Spencer admitted to gunning down Fosler, he pleaded not guilty to the murder charges. The case was set to go to trial on June 22.Details regarding how the dismissal could impact his candidacy for sheriff have not yet been released. Fox News Digital reached out to the Lonoke County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office and Spencer’s defense team for comment.

Lonzo Ball has endured plenty of highs and lows throughout his NBA career. The veteran guard also knows what it takes to succeed at the position, prompting him to offer a bold opinion on one of the league’s hottest stars.Ball, who most recently played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, called Jalen Brunson "the best Knick to do it...like ever" in a post on X.Ball’s comment came after Brunson scored 30 points to help New York rally for a 105-95 win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COMBall and Brunson last faced off on Christmas Day in New York, when Brunson led the Knicks in scoring in a 126-124 win over the Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden. Ball came off the bench in that game, logging 14 minutes and recording one rebound.Since arriving in New York, Brunson has become known for his clutch play. He has been a key part of the Knicks’ run to their first NBA Finals appearance in more than two decades. After their Game 1 comeback, the Knicks need three more victories to clinch their first title in more than a half-century.NBA BANS TWO FANS FOR LIFE AFTER COURT INVASION DURING KNICKS-SPURS GAME 1Brunson may be the brightest star currently wearing blue and orange, but he plays for a franchise with a deep history — even if recent decades have brought limited success. The Knicks’ past is filled with storied players and Hall of Famers.Willis Reed, Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, Charles Oakley and others have often been ranked among the historic franchise’s top players. If Brunson helps the Knicks bring the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy back to 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, it would certainly strengthen his case for a more prominent place in franchise lore.Brunson briefly headed toward the locker room after an injury scare in Game 1 but ultimately returned to the court. In the game’s final minute, Brunson appeared frustrated with some unidentified courtside fans during teammate OG Anunoby’s foul shot attempts. The NBA has since launched an investigation into the incident, ESPN reported Thursday, citing sources.Game 2 in San Antonio is scheduled to tip off Friday night before the series shifts to New York next week for Game 3.Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Four Senate Republicans broke ranks to kill another effort to pass President Donald Trump's marquee voter ID and election integrity legislation as the GOP marches to fund immigration enforcement. Just like last time, Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Thom Tills, R-N.C., joined all Democrats to thwart the move.It’s the second attempt by Republicans to attach the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act to their budget reconciliation package, and the second time that they’ve failed to get the legislation across the line months after launching a quasi-floor takeover to debate the bill. DOZEN GOP REBELS FAIL TO PERMANENTLY KILL TRUMP'S CONTROVERSIAL $2B FUNDTrying to attach the bill to the nearly $70 billion budget reconciliation package geared toward funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol meant that the amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., needed at least 60 votes to pass.That threshold again proved too high a bar on Thursday night. And it’s a result that further solidified the political reality in the upper chamber that the SAVE America Act has little chance of passing, given the unanimous Democratic resistance and lack of total buy-in among the Senate GOP, even if Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., launched the long sought after talking filibuster. REPUBLICANS FAIL TO ATTACH SAVE AMERICA ACT TO PARTY-LINE FUNDING PACKAGEStill, Graham challenged Democrats to bat down the amendment, accusing them of being "probably into cheating" in elections for not supporting voter ID. "There's no other reason to say you don't have to have an ID. It just makes cheating easier," Graham said. "Who wants a noncitizen voting in our election if you're against that, that makes me wonder."  "And biological males playing girls sports [is] not good for anybody, and a minor should not be allowed to transition their sex," he continued. "That's the biggest change you can make in your entire life. You shouldn't be allowed to do that as a minor. This is what we say. What do you say?"DEMS BLOCK GOP AMENDMENT TYING VOTER ID BILL TO TRANSGENDER SPORTS BANBut Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., noted "that just over a month ago, a similar proposal was defeated on a bipartisan basis.""Current safeguards are working," Padilla said. "And yes, it is already unlawful for non-citizens to vote in the United States. What this amendment does is mirrors earlier attempts to push through the president's priorities, to try to take over elections, to ban vote by mail." "And while we're at it, while they're at it, attacking trans folks during pride month, that's pretty damn offensive," he continued.

Energy experts acknowledge the need for additional power sources, and they’re turning to new technology and infrastructure to address the demand."As an industry, we are investing approximately $1.1 trillion in our infrastructure over the next five years to ensure that we're meeting that need and that demand," Exelon CEO Calvin Butler said.In 2024, data centers consumed about 1.5% of global electricity use and the demand has continued to surge. This year, consumption estimates show data centers are expected to become the world’s fifth-largest energy consumer, with usage falling between the amount Japan and Russia consume.Exelon is one of the largest electric utility holding companies in the U.S. It owns and operates electric grid infrastructure that delivers electricity to power homes and businesses. "We're a pure transmission and distribution company. So, my responsibility every day is to operate a safe, reliable, and resilient grid. So, I'm your pipes and wires. I do not control the generation," Butler said. "What we've seen across the PJM footprint is that supply costs have increased 645% since 2024."RELATED: GOP URGES SCOTUS TO REJECT 'WAR ON AMERICAN ENERGY' THEY SAY WOULD HIT FAMILIES' WALLETSTo keep up with the artificial intelligence (AI) demand, companies are getting creative. Commonwealth Fusion Systems based in Devens, Massachusetts, is working to add 24/7 reliable power to the grid through fusion energy, the power source of the sun and stars. "When you take light nuclei like hydrogen, and you combine them together, and you release energy in that process. That energy is released in the form of heat, which then you can convert to electricity," said Brandon Sorbom, Commonwealth Fusion Systems co-founder and chief science officer. New studies by the company show some in the science community are optimistic about fusion for commercial use. Commonwealth Fusion Systems estimates its ARC fusion power plant could produce 50 times more power than it consumes and that each location could make enough electricity to power a small city for a full year, using only as much fuel as a pickup truck could carry. The papers were co-authored by 58 scientists from major tech universities with support from public-private partnerships and programs. "One of these power plants we think could power about 280,000 American homes," Sorbom said. "It releases about 10 million times more energy per weight by reaction than chemical energy."Fusion still has a lot of uncertainties. MIT researchers estimate fusion could provide anywhere from 10% to 50% of electricity, but the institution's estimate finds it won’t come to fruition until 2100. Other scientists say if any power plants make it to the grid, it’s expected to be an expensive process. RELATED: THE REAL REASON YOUR ELECTRIC BILL IS SOARING THIS SUMMER WILL SURPRISE YOU"The biggest challenge that we have right now is actually the integration piece of the system. So we're building this complex commercial system for the very first time," Sorbom said. "It's sort of like, there's this big dance that we're doing right now of getting all the pieces in and in the right order at the right time and putting them together in the way so that when we turn the machine on, we know that it'll perform exactly like it's modeled."Instead of adding new energy, some companies are moving data centers to locations where less power is required. "The Nordics are wealthy, stable, well-educated populations, business-friendly, great regulations, great fiber connectivity. Plus, there's abundant power — it's green, it's cheap," said Philippe Sachs of AI infrastructure builder Nscale. "There's not a lot of competing industrial demand. So probably the best markets on earth to have data centers."Nscale builds, owns and operates infrastructure for data centers in Nordic countries. The company buys Nvidia chips to rent to clients and provides cloud services and other AI services. Sachs is the company's Europe, Middle East and Africa and global affairs president."I think we started with a thesis around power and the scarcity of power, and in the age of AI, we understood that it was important that you were in the most attractive power markets, and there's probably no more attractive place for that than the Arctic Circle," Sachs said.RELATED: HOW THE WAR IN IRAN REALIGNED EUROPE'S ENERGY FUTURE AROUND AMERICANordic countries have plenty of land and green energy available. The cool climate also reduces the amount of energy required to cool hardware. "Given that it's cold for many months of the year, we can utilize the heat generated by the servers to heat homes. So, we can create a local ecosystem that is extremely efficient in comparison to other markets," said John Wernvik of Sweden-based EcoDataCenter.EcoDataCenter designs, builds and operates data center buildings, then brings in a client’s hardware and makes sure it runs efficiently. "We work with among the largest tech companies in the world and materialize their computer needs and building the runway in terms of data center capacity here in Sweden," said Wernvik, the company's chief external relations and sustainability officer. The market in Norway is especially heating up — 50% of the country’s land is located above the Arctic Circle. It also has some of the lowest energy prices in Europe. "You don't have a very large competing industrial demand for that power, certainly less so than the US, which is in the favor of the Arctic Circle," Sachs said. "In some places, like in northern Norway where we have some of our data centers, the grid isn't even connected to the population center in the South where the capital Oslo is. So, there is no reason why what you do up there would impact electricity prices in the major cities."Nordic countries host around 134 existing data centers with 71 expected to come online in the near future. "AI compute requires a lot of energy and energy is a large part of the cost for running these large-scale systems and to do that efficiently in a sustainable way is, of course, hugely beneficial for our clients," Wernvik said. "During the last 24 months, we've seen an exponential amount of data center builds being announced across Nordics that want to tap into those fundamentals as well." Construction costs for Arctic data centers are plentiful. According to data center consulting firm Turner & Townsend, Nordic capitals Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen have among the 11 highest construction costs."A lot of companies that are building data centers that haven't built data centers in the Nordics before, often are delayed," Wernvik said. "It is a complex thing to handle the weather we have during the next 12 months and given the seasonal changes. So that's definitely one challenge if you come from the outside looking to build."Despite the difficulties adapting to the rising power demand, companies around the world are working to find a solution. "There's a really strong correlation between energy usage and quality of life," Sorbom said. "In general, you want to find ways to make more energy and make it in a clean and a safe way."