John Vithoulkas, the county manager in Virginia’s Henrico County, is asking county employees to cut back on power usage as electricity rates soar 25% across Virginia, the state with by far the most data centers. 

In a June 26 email sent out to all county employees and obtained by the Henrico Citizen, Vithoulkas asked employees to adjust individual habits as electricity rates increased by 25% and noted that prices were likely to shoot up even higher.

“Beginning July 1st, the rate we pay for electricity used in all Henrico County government and school facilities will increase dramatically — by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year. We anticipate more rate increases for electricity in the years ahead,” Vithoulkas wrote.

Vithoulkas laid out a number of steps that employees should take to reduce their power usage, including turning off lights when leaving work, shutting down computers, pulling blinds closed and unplugging chargers.

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Virginia’s Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas. (Henrico County)

He compared the electric austerity request to the county’s efforts to cut back during the late 2000s Great Recession. 

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“Those of you who have been here long enough will recall the many cost-saving measures we implemented to help navigate the Great Recession more than 15 years ago. We are seeing this same innovation and creativity as each department seeks ways to reduce expenses by 3% in next fiscal year’s budget,” Vithoulkas wrote.

Henrico County is a member of the Virginia Energy Purchasing Governmental Association (VEPGA). The 25% price increase, the Henrico Citizen reported, applies to all counties that are members of VEPGA, which includes the majority of Virginia municipalities north of Richmond.

The Virginia State Capitol is shown on July 12, 2023, in Richmond, Virginia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Virginia is by far the state with the most data centers in the U.S., the vast majority of which reside in the northern and central regions of the state. 

Northern Virginia dominates, with more than a quarter of U.S. data centers and 13% of the world’s, according to Virginia’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission (JLARC). But with the north near capacity, central Virginia areas like Richmond are increasingly absorbing new builds and rapidly becoming a hub for new facilities, JLARC notes. 

“Data Center Alley” during high temperatures in Sterling, Virginia, on Monday, June 23, 2025. (Pete Kiehart/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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While Vithoulkas did not specifically cite Virginia’s explosion of data center construction in recent years as a factor in energy increases, JLARC’s 2023 data center assessment concluded that “the data center industry boom in Virginia has substantially driven up energy demand in the state,” adding that “data centers’ increased energy demand will likely increase system costs for all customers, including non-data center customers.” 

FOX Business contacted Vithoulkas and Henrico County for comment. 

DUBAI — Dubai International Airport is open and operating normally today, Friday, July 4, with flights processing through all three of its terminals and live flight tracking data showing hundreds of active arrivals and departures across major global air corridors, including connections to Europe, South Asia, East Africa, North America and the broader Middle East.

The airport is now fully functional, handling hundreds of flights with only a small number of delays. Airlines, especially Emirates and flydubai, have resumed their normal operations.

The return to full operations represents the culmination of a difficult five-month recovery that followed the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran conflict in late February, during which Dubai International’s passenger volumes, airline schedules and airspace access were all significantly disrupted even as the airport itself never formally closed.

Dubai International Airport operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Flight operations may still be subject to short-notice changes depending on the regional security situation. As of this report, real-time flight boards confirmed normal operations throughout the facility.

Several major airlines continue to maintain regular services to and from Dubai, including routes operated by Emirates, flydubai, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, Air India, IndiGo, and Singapore Airlines. Flights connecting Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America through Dubai remain active, although some carriers may use alternative flight paths to avoid restricted airspace.

The path to today’s normal operations was neither straight nor smooth. The crisis began in late February when the escalation of the U.S.-Iran military exchange triggered a series of overlapping airspace restrictions across the Gulf region. While Dubai’s airspace was never formally closed during the conflict’s peak phases, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a Conflict Zone Information Bulletin ordering European-regulated carriers to avoid UAE airspace, effectively grounding dozens of major international airlines that relied on Gulf routes and dramatically reducing the range of airlines operating through DXB for weeks.

The disruption traces back to late-February drone and missile attacks linked to the wider Gulf conflict, which prompted temporary airspace closures across the UAE. While a 5 April cease-fire allowed regulators to relax the most stringent flight bans, the General Civil Aviation Authority kept a one-rotation-per-day limit on many foreign carriers until at least 31 May to maintain contingency capacity.

Throughout that constrained period, Emirates and flydubai functioned as the primary pillars of connectivity at DXB, maintaining combined schedules that kept the airport from becoming a ghost terminal even as dozens of foreign carriers scaled back or suspended services entirely. Combined operational activity from Emirates and flydubai reports 417 weekend departures covering Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East.

Recovery accelerated meaningfully after the tentative U.S.-Iran ceasefire that took effect in early April, with successive airline reinstatements following as the EASA gradually softened its advisory language for UAE airspace from outright avoidance to cautionary guidance and then lifted restrictions as diplomatic stability held. British Airways resumed Dubai flights in July, initially at a reduced frequency of one daily service rather than its pre-conflict three per day, in what was described at the time as the clearest signal yet from a major European carrier that the post-crisis landscape was beginning to take shape. Qatar Airways had already resumed daily Dubai flights from late April, with Gulf carriers including Saudia also returning to the route around the same time.

The popularity of Dubai as a global tourist destination continues to grow, with data recording 19.59 million international arrivals to Dubai, a 5% increase over 2024 and the third consecutive year of record arrivals. The top source region was Western Europe, with 4.1 million arrivals representing 21% of the total, followed by the CIS and Eastern Europe and South Asia.

Operationally, DXB spans three main passenger terminals with a clear division of carriers. Emirates uses Terminal 3, flydubai and regional carriers operate from Terminal 2, and the majority of other international airlines use Terminal 1, which connects to Concourse D via an airport transit train. Passengers are still advised to verify their specific terminal assignment with their airline before traveling, as some flights were reassigned during the disruption period and not all carriers have reverted to their original gate and terminal configurations.

Dubai Airports recently completed a major Terminal 1 bridge expansion project, increasing road access capacity and improving passenger flow ahead of the peak summer travel season. The infrastructure improvement has been timed to coincide with what the airport expects will be a period of rapid demand recovery as international leisure and business travel rebounds through the summer.

For travelers arriving today or in the coming days, the practical guidance is consistent with what Dubai Airports and airline operators have communicated throughout the recovery period. Confirm your specific flight and departure time directly with your airline rather than relying solely on published schedules, arrive at the airport earlier than the minimum recommended time given that some residual administrative processes from the disruption months remain in place, and review any applicable government travel advisories for your country of origin, as national guidance on travel to the UAE has varied across different governments and may have been updated since the ceasefire took hold.

Dubai Airports recognized the airport had sustained global connectivity through regional disruption and is readying for a return of strong demand as UAE airspace restrictions ease.

As of Friday, July 4, Dubai International Airport is fully open, actively processing flights, and operating with the efficiency expected of the world’s busiest international aviation hub by passenger volume, a status the facility has now been able to maintain consistently since the diplomatic de-escalation of the U.S.-Iran conflict allowed regional airspace to normalize over the course of the past several weeks.

Tackling unemployment linked to long-term illness will unlock economic growth that’s “hiding in plain sight”, former John Lewis chair Sir Charlie Mayfield has said.

More than 250 of the UK’s biggest employers, including British Airways, Tesco, Royal Mail, and several government departments, have signed up to his Get Britain Working taskforce.

The group aims to prevent people dropping out of work due to ill-health and encourage those signed off to come back, with official figures showing the issue costs the UK £212bn a year.

However, some employers have said previously that tax rises mean many firms cannot afford to invest, while others have warned against pushing ill people into work.

The companies signed up will track sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes, and disability participation, which the government said would make workplace health performance visible for the first time.

Many big UK businesses, including Sainsbury’s, EDF Energy, and Currys, as well as 10 mayoral authorities, including London and Manchester, have agreed to take part.

Sir Charlie told the BBC: “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who said: ‘I was signed off work for three months, or six months, and I never had any contact with my employer at all.’

“That’s not because the employer is a bad person. It’s because we’ve got a situation at the minute where people don’t talk to each other when they really need to.”

Sir Charlie’s comments come as pressure grows on Andy Burnham, who is widely expected to take over as prime minister later this month, to reduce the UK’s welfare bill to free up money elsewhere.

According to government figures, total welfare spending in Great Britain is forecast to be 23.6% of the total amount the government spends in the 2025 to 2026 financial year.

Sir Charlie said his plans could help cut that bill.

“Fixing these problems at the fundamental level, could make a really big contribution to getting this economy working better — for employers, for employees, for the taxpayer, for all of us.”

He added: “This is not a zero-sum game. It’s not a question of employers win and employees lose and vice versa. Everybody can win.”

Sir Charlie suggested Burnham would back his plans.

“I can’t see any reason why he wouldn’t because of what Andy has said about good growth. If this isn’t good growth, I’m not sure what is, quite frankly.”

He said getting people back into work who are currently not working due to ill-health would be a simple way of boosting the workforce.

“You wouldn’t have had to build a single house, open a new channel of immigration, you wouldn’t have to wait for a cohort of young people to join the workplace. This is basically growth hiding in plain sight.”

SEOUL — South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix filed an amended registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 30, formally launching what could become the largest American depositary share offering in history and potentially setting the stage for trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market as early as July 10.

The company, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker and the dominant force in the high-bandwidth memory chips that power Nvidia’s artificial intelligence accelerator systems, is seeking to raise approximately $29.4 billion through the listing of 17.79 million American Depositary Shares under the ticker symbol SKHY. That figure, if achieved at the expected ADS price of approximately $166 per share, would surpass Alibaba’s $21.8 billion New York debut in 2014 as the largest ADR listing in recorded market history.

SK Hynix Chief Executive Kwak Noh-jung addressed the strategic rationale behind choosing a Nasdaq listing directly at the announcement.

“The U.S. market, where global big tech is listed, will allow large institutional investors to properly reassess corporate value,” Kwak said.

BofA Securities, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan are serving as global coordinators for the offering. The registration statement has not yet become effective, and prior to the offering, no public market has existed for the company’s ADSs. SK Hynix will continue to maintain its existing listing on the Korea Exchange KOSPI Market under identification code 000660, achieving a dual-listing structure that gives both Korean and American investors direct access to the company’s equity.

The 17.79 million shares being offered represent approximately 2.5% of SK Hynix’s total outstanding shares, a stake structured specifically to ensure that SK Square, the company’s largest shareholder, retains at least the 20% ownership required under South Korean regulations governing major corporate shareholders. The company said proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures for new semiconductor fabrication facilities and the acquisition of advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment, with a delivery target of December 2027.

The primary destination for that capital is the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, a massive new campus of memory chip fabrication plants being built in South Korea and set to begin coming online in 2027. SK Hynix is also constructing what will be its first manufacturing presence in the United States, a $4 billion advanced packaging facility in Indiana designed to bring some of the most complex chip production work closer to American technology customers.

The decision to list on Nasdaq rather than the New York Stock Exchange reflects a deliberate strategic calculation about where SK Hynix’s equity belongs in the global investment landscape. Analysts at BofA Securities have noted that passive investment funds now account for a larger proportion of global capital flows than active funds, and that a substantial share of that passive capital is concentrated in Nasdaq-listed technology and growth stocks. Once SK Hynix is included in Nasdaq indices and the ETFs that track them, it would generate continuous and stable inflows from index-tracking vehicles that currently have no mechanism to hold Korean-listed shares without going through intermediary ETF structures.

That dynamic mirrors the journey taken by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which has traded on the New York Stock Exchange for decades. HSBC noted in a June 2026 research note that the years after American capital gained easier access to TSMC marked a sustained re-rating in how the company was valued relative to comparable businesses, and applied that framework to SK Hynix’s anticipated Nasdaq debut. The bank applied a 20% premium to its prior price-to-book ratio for SK Hynix, lifting the estimate from 2.8 times to 3.4 times and upgrading its price target for the company’s Korean shares from 2.9 million won to 4 million won, a 38% increase, reflecting what it described as improved accessibility to global investors and more proactive shareholder-friendly initiatives.

SK Hynix’s competitive position in the segments most relevant to the current AI infrastructure buildout is difficult to overstate. As of the first quarter of 2026, according to IDC data cited in the company’s own SEC filing, SK Hynix ranked second globally in DRAM by revenue with a 29.1% market share, first globally in high-bandwidth memory with a 56.4% revenue share, and second in NAND flash storage with an 18.5% share. Its customers include Nvidia, Google and Microsoft, effectively the full roster of companies spending tens of billions of dollars annually to build the computing infrastructure underlying the global AI expansion.

The high-bandwidth memory segment, where SK Hynix holds its most dominant position, has been at the center of a global supply shortage that has driven both extreme price appreciation and a dramatic revaluation of memory chipmakers broadly. Goldman Sachs raised its 2026 forecast for the global DRAM supply-demand gap to 4.9%, up from an earlier estimate of 3.3%, calling it the most severe memory shortage in 15 years. That shortage has been the primary driver behind SK Hynix’s Korean share price surge of more than 280% year to date, pushing its market capitalization above $1 trillion and establishing it alongside Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics as one of the three companies most directly positioned to benefit from continued AI infrastructure spending.

The Roundhill Memory ETF has climbed 160% so far this year, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF has gained 96%, performance gaps that reflect how specifically the market has rewarded memory-focused businesses relative to the broader chip sector. With a U.S. listing, SK Hynix would give American investors direct exposure to the world’s leading HBM supplier through a familiar exchange, without the friction of converting Korean won or navigating foreign brokerage infrastructure.

SK Hynix’s operating margin stood at 58.58% as of its most recent reporting period, reflecting the extraordinary pricing environment in which the current memory cycle is operating. The company’s Altman Z-score of 22.42 indicates extremely low financial distress risk, and its price-to-earnings ratio of approximately 24.88 places it at a moderate valuation relative to semiconductor peers, a multiple that analysts say could expand meaningfully once the stock begins trading on Nasdaq and passive capital flows begin accumulating automatically.