Reuters World News - UPDATE: Clancy mistrial, Kyiv attack, data center backlash

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. It's Friday, September 4th. Today, the Lindsay Clancy murder trial has ended in a mistrial. US job growth climbed in August, boosting expectations of a rate hike. NVIDIA makes a $13 billion bet on open AI models. And Texas Republicans revolt against data centers. This is Reuters World News.

Starting point is 00:00:30 bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, charged with the killing of her three young children, has ended in a hung jury. Under the statute and the case law, I don't feel I have any choice but to declare a mistrial. Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial after the jury deliberated for a week without reaching a verdict. Clancy admits to the murders, her attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued. the killings occurred while she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. He filed an emergency appeal to compel jurors to continue deliberating. That appeal was denied. The trial has stirred

Starting point is 00:01:20 debates about how women's postpartum mental health is treated in the United States. U.S. job growth surged in August, with the job market adding 162,000 positions. That's nearly triple what economists expected. Unemployment held steady at 4.1%. The report is boosting rate hike expectations for the U.S. Central Bank's September meeting. The employment gains were driven by a rebound in leisure and hospitality, as well as local government education jobs. But the strength comes as mortgage rates hit a one-year high above 6.7%. And that's raising concerns about further strain on the housing market if the Fed hikes rates. While markets are anticipating a rate hike, President Trump is demanding a cut.

Starting point is 00:02:12 In a truth social post, Trump has threatened to cut off trade with countries where the U.S. runs a trade deficit, that is, unless the Fed lowers interest rates. He says high rates put America at an unfair disadvantage, and he wants the U.S. to have the lowest rate of any country in the world. Now, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has said he will guide the central bank and set monetary policy independent of what the White House demands. Nine days underground and still alive. A man is rescued from a flooded hydropower tunnel in Nepal, one of two workers pulled out. The first survivors rescued from the hydropower projects since a catastrophic glacier collapse swept through the valley, killing more than 1,200 people.

Starting point is 00:03:03 Sanjay Sa and Kabir Maharajan are among 900 workers believed to be trapped in the hydropower tunnels. Both men have been airlifted to hospital in Kathmandu. A Russian drone has struck Ukraine's Sbu security service headquarters in central Kiev, injuring more than a half-dozen people. Ukraine's president, Volodomir Zelensky, calls it a major escalation. Heavy black smoke rose in Kiev's central city as the attack on the security service struck close to St. Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the four and a half years of war, it's been rare for Ukrainian government buildings to be damaged in strikes. The SBU has been behind some of Ukraine's most ambitious operations

Starting point is 00:03:52 against Russia, including the Crimea bridge bombing and drone strikes deep in Russian territory. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance says the government is investigating an airstrike that Iranian officials say hit a wedding party in Iran, killing four people and wounding dozens. The United States never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that. And unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen. But in this particular case, I don't think that we have any information one way or the other. Aroyder's investigation finds the strike was likely a direct hit by a U.S. munition based on analysis by four independent weapons experts. On Thursday, a funeral was held in Iran for victims of the attack.

Starting point is 00:04:39 A backlash against AI data centers is creating an unexpected political split in the Republican Party, especially in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott once touted the state as the epicenter of AI development. Now he's calling for new restrictions. Attorney General Ken Paxton has also sharpened his criticism as key elections approach. The shift away from President Trump's pro-AI agenda comes as more residents raise concerns about rising power costs, water use, and the impact these massive facilities can have on local communities. That pressure is putting some of the world's biggest tech

Starting point is 00:05:13 companies on the defensive, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build political support. Royter's reporter Dawn Kopecki has more. This is a sea change for data centers. It's a sea change for big tech. It's a wake-up call to that industry. And you're seeing not just socialist Democrats. I mean, you're seeing Greg Abbott in Texas, the Texas Republican governor, very conservative governor, and his views on data centers are more in line with Bernie Sanders and AOC than they are with Trump in the White House.

Starting point is 00:05:53 And so they're going to have to pause. They're going to have to take a look. They're going to have to spend more resources, not just in lobbying, politicians, but in actually giving money back to communities. So you are seeing that with Google and Meta and some other companies that have rolled out development programs, jobs training programs, and other things to benefit local communities. But a lot of Republican strategists we spoke with said it's two years too late. The explosive growth of data centers,

Starting point is 00:06:38 has certainly been good news for NVIDIA, and now the chipmaker is making one of the biggest deals in its history. Invidia will buy AI developer platform Hugging Face for nearly $13 billion. The acquisition gives the company something it increasingly wants, direct access to a huge community of AI developers. That's particularly important as some of its biggest customers, including meta, open AI and Microsoft, develop their own chips. CEO Jensen Wang says Hugging Face will remain an open platform.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Tech reporter Stephen Nellis has more. Hugging Face is one of the central places that AI development has taken place over the past few years, and that's because it's the central place where people go to share the code for their open store software, tweak it, share it back with other developers,

Starting point is 00:07:23 and push the entire field forward as a community. Now, you might be wondering, how does Hugging Face make money? Well, it charges a subscription to host that code securely and for other features and things like that. Now, why would it be wondering, Nvidia want it? Well, Nvidia is best known for making AI chips, but it's actually also a huge

Starting point is 00:07:42 player in AI software. It gives away a ton of AI software for free for the pretty simple reason that if you have great software sitting there for free, you're more likely to want to buy Nvidia's chips versus competing chips from another company like Intel or AMD. Stephen says the deal also has geopolitical implications for the US and China. China has been making big waves in recent years by releasing some of its best. and most compelling AI as free open source models. Most of the leading AI technology from the U.S. comes from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic

Starting point is 00:08:15 that are closed source. Nvidia is trying to make a big bet on U.S.-based open source, and this will be pushing that forward. Now, the big question is whether the two countries, the U.S. and China, will continue to pursue those strategies and how. But either way, Nvidia is going to be a big player by becoming both a huge provider of the chips and hardware

Starting point is 00:08:35 and now a huge repository of open source AI software. A federal grand jury has indicted ICE agent Christian Castro and he's back in custody after being released from jail a week ago. Prosecutors say Castro shot and wounded Venezuelan migrant Julio Cesar Soza Salas in Minnesota, then lied to investigators claiming he was attacked with a snow shovel and a broom. The charges are an extraordinary step by the Justice Department, the first known prosecution of a federal immigration officer

Starting point is 00:09:05 involved in the Minneapolis operation. Castro has been suspended by the Department of Homeland Security. He already faces state charges and a separate civil rights investigation is underway. And it's also embarrassing when people hear that you live on Trump. John Germano, a resident on Trump Avenue in the Ottawa neighborhood of Central Park.

Starting point is 00:09:26 The street name was chosen when Donald Trump was best known as a New York City real estate developer, But now he's U.S. president, he's hitting Canada at tariffs and just signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America. The message from some Canadians, anything you can do, we can do too, according to Ottawa City Councilor Riley Brockington. And he does not deserve to have his name associated with any street in Ottawa, let alone anywhere in Canada. Renaming Trump Avenue could take up to a year, but residents say they're taking immediate steps to protest the U.S. I haven't traveled there since this last administration came in. I don't feel inclined to go down there so much anymore.

Starting point is 00:10:08 I've found a lot of fun places in Canada to visit and overseas and whatnot. That's Dave Semodlenko, and he's not the only one. Visits from Canada to the US declined by over 10% in the first three months of the year compared to a year earlier. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out roiders.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week.

Reuters World News - UPDATE: Clancy mistrial, Kyiv attack, data center backlash

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