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Nvidia shares bounce back as Microsoft increases AI spending

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Nvidia shares bounce back as Microsoft increases AI spending

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Nvidia shares rebounded on Wednesday after Microsoft indicated it would continue to invest heavily in the technical infrastructure underpinning artificial intelligence, highlighting investors’ sensitivity to the spending plans of a handful of Big Tech groups.

Chip stocks including Nvidia, Arm and AMD fell sharply on Tuesday ahead of Microsoft’s latest earnings report. Anxiety about the sustainability of the past year’s monster AI rally had intensified after Google’s quarterly numbers last week, triggering a volatile few days for tech investors that wiped nearly $500bn off the value of Nvidia in little more than a week.

Shares in Microsoft slid nearly 2 per cent in New York on Wednesday after the Seattle-based company narrowly missed lofty expectations for cloud growth. But comments from executives that demand for its AI services continued to exceed available supply of computing power, a problem that was driving continued investment in data centres, boosted market sentiment around their semiconductor suppliers.

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Nvidia climbed 11 per cent on Wednesday, while AMD — which reported strong demand for its AI chips on Tuesday evening — rose 4 per cent. Shares in Arm, the UK-based chip designer, rose 7 per cent.

The gains helped the Nasdaq index rebound from Tuesday’s slump, rising 2.6 per cent.

Microsoft said sales in its closely watched Azure cloud computing platform had risen 29 per cent year on year in the quarter to June 30, missing forecasts for a rise of between 30-31 per cent and below last quarter’s growth rate of 31 per cent.

Microsoft’s capital expenditures for the quarter to June 30 hit $19bn, nearly 80 per cent higher than the same period a year ago and ahead of Wall Street’s forecasts. “Nearly all” of that was cloud and AI-related spending, said its chief financial officer Amy Hood, and those investments would pay off during the second half of the year when Azure growth would “accelerate”.

Analysts at TD Cowen said on Wednesday that they had raised their forecasts for Microsoft’s capital spending from $70bn to $84bn for the 2025 financial year.

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Hood said that half of Microsoft’s capital spending went towards land, building and leases, which “really will be monetised over 15 years and beyond”, while the other half was spent on technical equipment, including chips and servers, which would be “based on demand signals”.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a note on Wednesday: “We believe this new disclosure will go a long way to relax investor concerns regarding the timeliness of converting capex to revenue.”

Tech companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are investing tens of billions of dollars a year in data centre capacity to support what they believe will be a huge wave of AI applications, following rapid adoption of OpenAI’s ChatGPT app since its launch nearly two years ago.

Analysts at CFRA said they expected Amazon to “ramp up” its capex this year to support both its logistics network and the infrastructure underpinning AI, predicting that the total for 2024 was likely to be about $64bn, up from $52.7bn in 2023.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said during an onstage conversation with Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg that the social media group had installed about 600,000 of its latest AI chips. “You’re operating larger than just about anybody,” he said, to which Zuckerberg replied with a grin: “We’re good customers.”

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But even as tech leaders boast about their AI firepower, investors have been growing increasingly cautious about the near-term returns from that spending in recent weeks.

“The market is turning on the realisation that the rate of profit growth at these Big Tech names is almost certainly going to slow,” said Manish Kabra, head of US equity strategy at Société Générale. “Is Nasdaq going to rise more than 35 per cent every year? Perhaps, but probably not. So the market wobbles, and traders rotate in and out of names like Nvidia.”

Chip stocks were further boosted by a Reuters report on Wednesday that new US export restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China would exempt allies including the Netherlands and Japan, home to key suppliers ASML and Tokyo Electron. ASML shares rose 5 per cent on the report.

Video: AI: a blessing or curse for humanity? | FT Tech
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Parts of Florida receive rare snowfall as freezing temperatures linger

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Parts of Florida receive rare snowfall as freezing temperatures linger

A protective coating of ice clings to a strawberry plant in sub-freezing temperatures at a field on Friday in Plant City, Fla.

Chris O’Meara/AP


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Chris O’Meara/AP

A rare snowfall covered parts of the Sunshine State on Sunday for the second year in a row, while freezing temperatures will continue to grip parts of Florida into early this week.

A storm system brought up to 2 inches of snow to southern portions of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, including Pensacola, on Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The snowfall occurred almost a year to the day after parts of Florida received record snow in mid-January 2025 — when Pensacola received between 6 to 8 inches of snow.

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And while Sunday’s snowfall is over in Florida, a blast of arctic cold that has been felt across parts of the state since Friday is not.

Orlando and other areas will face a freeze warning Sunday night into Monday morning, with temperatures falling to at least 25 degrees and wind chills in the low 20s in some places, according to the NWS. Further south, Naples and surrounding areas will be under a cold weather advisory Sunday night into Monday morning, where 29-degree wind chills are expected.

Cold temperatures coupled with snow are abnormal for Florida but the cold weather will be “short-lived,” said Joe Wegman, a NWS meteorologist.

“We’re only expecting this level of cold for tonight. And then, even by tomorrow night, we’ll have lows in the upper 30s. So, just still cold, well below normal,” Wegman told NPR on Sunday. “By Tuesday night, lows are back up into the upper 40s.”

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Did Hunter S. Thompson Really Kill Himself?

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Did Hunter S. Thompson Really Kill Himself?

Almost from the moment Hunter was laid to rest, his widow and his son began to feud, over everything from the future of Owl Farm to Juan’s belief that his father had been mistreated by Anita in his last days.

The estrangement deepened with time, and now, Anita’s suspicions have taken the feud to a more pointed place, revealing a long, bitter fight over the legacy of the man who pioneered the personal, participatory style of reporting known as gonzo journalism.

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But they were all together the weekend Hunter died.

Juan wrote in his memoir that he was in another room and heard a thump that sounded like a book hitting the floor. Anita was at a health club in Aspen waiting for a yoga class to start. She later told the news media she was on speakerphone with her husband before he shot himself, and heard the “clicking” of the gun.

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Looking back, there were signs from that last weekend that Hunter had planned to take his own life, Juan and Jennifer said in interviews.

He insisted on watching one of his favorite movies, “The Maltese Falcon,” with his 6-year-old grandson, Will. He gave away gifts — an old clock that had belonged to his mother and a signed copy of “Fire in the Nuts,” a short book with his frequent collaborator, the artist Ralph Steadman.

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Ralph Steadman spoke about Hunter’s suicidal ideations in an interview after his death in 2005. ITN, via Getty Images By Itn

“So there is nothing new to know about Hunter’s actual death,” said Juan, 61. “So I do not know why she raised this. And I can’t imagine that the C.B.I. would find anything to act on.”

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He and Jennifer said they did not have any role in Hunter’s death. “This is really shocking,” Jennifer said. “It’s been disruptive to our family. It’s obviously been very traumatic to be revisiting this.” She said she believed Anita knew that her husband took his own life, and added, “we hope this brings her closure.”

Jennifer Winkel

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Anita had been an assistant to Hunter, and was 35 years younger than him. At the time of his death, they had been married for less than two years — it was Hunter’s second marriage — and that last weekend they fought constantly. In his memoir, Juan wrote that Hunter shot a pellet gun at a gong in the living room the night before he killed himself, just missing Anita, prompting her to threaten to call the police and have him put in a nursing home.

Hunter was also in poor health. He had difficulty moving and suffered occasional seizures, the result of decades of heavy drinking.

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“Hunter’s body was giving out,” said Debra Fuller, who worked as an assistant to Hunter and helped manage Owl Farm for almost 20 years before Hunter married Anita. “He was having more difficulty writing as well.”

Hunter had often talked of suicide. Like many of Hunter’s friends, Joe DiSalvo, who was undersheriff of Pitkin County at the time of his death, had conversations with him about how his life would end. He recalled that Hunter would demonstrate his intentions by pointing a loaded gun at his head.

“Hunter talked about suicide,” Mr. DiSalvo said. “He talked about the way he was going to kill himself.”

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U.S. military troops on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota

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U.S. military troops on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota

Federal law enforcement agents confront protesters during a demonstration outside the Bishop Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Thursday.

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Up to 1,500 U.S. active-duty troops in Alaska are on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota, a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly has confirmed to NPR.

The move comes days after President Trump again threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to control ongoing protests over the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis as well as clashes between federal agents and residents. Trump later walked back that threat.

The troops on standby are from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which specializes in cold weather operations, according to the division’s website.

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Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Sunday in an emailed statement to NPR that the “Department of War is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.”

Over the weekend, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz directed the Minnesota National Guard to prepare for possible deployment to assist local law enforcement and emergency management agencies, though they have not been deployed yet.

The Guard said in a Facebook post that these “Minnesota National Guardsmen live, work, and serve in our state, and are focused on protecting life, preserving property, and ensuring Minnesotans can safely exercise their First Amendment rights.” If activated, members would wear yellow reflective vests to “help distinguish them from other agencies in similar uniforms.”

The developments follow days of rising tensions, confrontations and violence stemming from what the Department of Homeland Security has described as its largest operation in history, involving thousands of federal agents, including those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that it would be a “shocking step” if Trump sent the military into the city, too.

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“To those that are paying attention, you’ve got to understand how wild this is right now,” Frey said. “In Minneapolis, crime is dramatically down. We don’t need more federal agents to keep people safe. We are safe.”

Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said the Insurrection Act is a “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency type of tool.” It is meant to be used when civilian authorities are overwhelmed by a crisis, he said, and not simply to quell protests — even violent protests.

“It would be a flagrant abuse of the Insurrection Act” if Trump invoked it now, Nunn said, “unlike anything that’s ever happened before in the history of the country.”

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