First Thing: Donald Trump calls China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot a ‘wake-up call’

Launch of competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT wiped $1tn off the US stock market. Plus, Trump reinstates unvaccinated troops to military

Good morning.

Donald Trump has labeled the launch of a Chinese chatbot, DeepSeek, a “wake-up call” for the American tech industry after it wiped $1tn off the US stock market.

Investors questioned the US artificial intelligence boom after the Chinese tool appeared to offer a comparable service to ChatGPT with far fewer resources. Nvidia, a leading maker of the computer chips that power AI models, saw its shares collapse by 17%, which works out to the single largest fall in absolute dollar value in US stock market history.

“The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company, should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” said Trump. The DeepSeek assistant surpassed ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store on Monday.

How has OpenAI, which made ChatGPT, responded? CEO Sam Altman called DeepSeek “impressive” but said the US industry would speed up development.

What are some differences between the chatbots? DeepSeek appears to censor answers to sensitive questions about China and its government: see what happened when the Guardian asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan.

Trump condemned over ‘blatantly illegal’ firings of watchdogs

The independent watchdogs who were dismissed without notice by Donald Trump have condemned the sudden development as illegal, warning that it threatens democracy and opens the door to unchecked institutional corruption.

The firing of the 18 inspectors general from federal agencies last Friday, including the departments of defence, energy and state, has been widely criticized. Hannibal “Mike” Ware, the inspector general for the Small Business Administration until he was dismissed without warning, told MSNBC that the firings are anti-democratic because they violate a law requiring the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice and the rationale for dismissal.

What are the concerns for their replacements? The roles are meant to be independent and non-political, but there are fears that Trump will appoint “political lackeys”, said former interior department inspector general Mark Greenblatt.

Trump ends DEI in US military and reinstates unvaccinated troops

Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Monday that remove diversity, equity and inclusion policies from the US military, and reinstate thousands of troops who were removed for refusing Covid vaccines.

One of the orders, which says it aims to eliminate “gender radicalism in the military”, appeared to be aimed at transgender soldiers. In his first term Trump froze the recruitment of trans troops, while allowing serving personnel to remain in post; the move was reversed under Joe Biden.

The developments came on Pete Hegseth’s first full day as defense secretary, after he narrowly secured enough Senate votes to be confirmed in the post. During his remarks to reporters as he entered the Pentagon, Hegseth referred to the names of Confederate generals that were once used for two key military bases.

When were unvaccinated troops dismissed? Thousands were fired from the military after the Pentagon made the Covid vaccine mandatory in 2021.

In other news …

There are fears for the security of Jews worldwide after Elon Musk told a German far-right party that their country should not focus on its Nazi past, a leading US Jewish advocate has said.

US public health officials have been told to immediately cease working with the World Health Organization (WHO), with experts saying the sudden stoppage following Donald Trump’s executive order came as a surprise.

Police last week charged a 66-year-old man at a nursing home in Utah with the murder of a girl he attended high school with in Hawaii 48 years ago, after he was implicated by modern DNA technology.

New Zealand has relaxed its visa rules to lure remote workers as it tries to boost tourism and its economy.

Stat of the day: Extreme temperatures ‘could kill 50% more Europeans by 2100’

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more people in Europe by the end of the century, a study has found, with deaths from hotter summers projected to outnumber lives saved by milder winters. In the most optimistic scenario for cutting emissions to curb global heating, researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would still die each year. Under the hottest conditions considered plausible, this rose to 80,000 people annually.

Don’t miss this: Monica came to the US after fleeing political persecution. Now she fears her baby will be stateless

Monica is one of thousands of expecting parents across the US who were winded by Trump’s executive order that ended the constitutionally recognized right of birthright citizenship last week. Monica, who came to the US after fleeing political persecution in Venezuela in 2019, discovered she was pregnant two weeks before Trump’s executive order. If the order stands, her baby will be born stateless – so she’s taking legal action.

Climate check: UK gave £12.5bn from energy bills to fossil fuel industry in past decade

A UK government scheme gave more than £12.5bn from consumers’ energy bills to fossil fuel power plants in the past decade, according to new analysis. In a scheme to to create a backup reserve of generators on standby, 60% of contracts worth £20bn were awarded to fossil fuel power plants.

Last Thing: Why are people spitting like a cobra on TikTok?

There’s a new craze in town (OK, TikTok). Gleeking. What’s that, you ask? I regret to inform you that “it involves people projecting saliva from salivary glands under their tongue, like a spitting cobra”. Sorry.

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