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Nvidia shares rebound after Wall Street rout on DeepSeek fears

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Nvidia shares rebound after Wall Street rout on DeepSeek fears

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Nvidia shares rebounded on Tuesday, as stocks steadied following a tech rout sparked by Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s advances in artificial intelligence.

Shares rose 5.2 per cent in pre-market trading following a historic fall that wiped $589bn off the US chipmaker’s market value. Monday’s losses, which helped drag down the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite index by 3.1 per cent, came as Wall Street and Silicon Valley panicked over a perceived threat from DeepSeek to the continued dominance of the US in AI and the need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in underlying infrastructure.

Futures trading indicated that US stocks were set to claw back part of the previous day’s losses. Contracts tracking the Nasdaq 100 were up 0.7 per cent, while the S&P 500 was set to open 0.4 per cent higher, after a 1.5 per cent fall on Monday.

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In Europe, tech shares remained under pressure but broader markets were stable. The continent’s most valuable technology company, ASML, which makes chip manufacturing equipment, fell 1 per cent. Siemens Energy — which fell 20 per cent on Monday as the tech rout deepened — was up 4.7 per cent in early trading.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index climbed 0.7 per cent.

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“Investors have been reminded that even technology stocks need to have a risk premium,” said Guy Miller, chief market strategist at insurer Zurich. “[The tech rout has been] a healthy reminder that nothing in markets, or in technological development, is a straight line.”

Japan’s tech-heavy Nikkei 225 closed down 1.4 per cent as its chipmaking industry companies continued their decline. The broader Topix, which has lower weightings for Japan’s tech exporters, was flat.

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Tokyo-listed shares in SoftBank lost 5.2 per cent, extending their fall this week to about 12 per cent. Analysts said SoftBank was being affected by the overnight 10 per cent drop in shares of Arm Holdings — the US-listed chip design company in which the Japanese group holds an 88 per cent stake.

Line chart of Indices rebased showing DeepSeek has hit Japanese tech stocks and lifted Chinese ones

The US dollar strengthened 0.5 per cent against a basket of currencies, including the Japanese yen and pound sterling, following the news that US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent was pushing to implement “new universal tariffs” starting at 2.5 per cent on US imports.

DeepSeek’s promise of a much lower-cost AI model has raised the question of whether last week’s unveiling of the Stargate joint venture, involving SoftBank, Oracle and OpenAI in a $100bn data centre investment, “marked the peak of the AI capex boom”, said Chris Wood, strategist at Jefferies.

In the commodities market, LME copper, demand for which is partially driven by the construction of data centres, was down 2 per cent on Tuesday to $9,088 per tonne. Nickel fell 0.7 per cent to $15,565 a tonne.

In Hong Kong, shares in Chinese tech companies recorded gains on Tuesday, although chipmaker SMIC closed down 0.4 per cent after falling as much as 2 per cent. The Hang Seng index closed up 0.2 per cent, led higher by mainland Chinese tech companies including Tencent and Baidu, which closed up 1.4 and 3.6 per cent respectively.

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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