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China's new chatbot, Trump's big freezes and a Hegseth quandary

 
Today's TECH story

Chinese AI chatbot's rise slams US tech stocks

What happened
The soaring popularity of a new AI chatbot from Chinese startup DeepSeek, plus the company's low-cost and high-performance advances in AI development, sent U.S. tech stocks tumbling yesterday. Chipmaker Nvidia's shares slumped 17%, wiping out $600 billion in market value, the biggest one-day loss ever for a public company. The Nasdaq lost 3%, or roughly $1 trillion.

Who said what
DeepSeek's AI assistant, released Jan. 10, became the top free app on U.S. iPhones yesterday. Based on the company's V3 model, it is the first Chinese AI chatbot that impressed Silicon Valley, performing on par or better than OpenAI's ChatGPT. What roiled Wall Street was that "DeepSeek said it trained its AI model using about 2,000 of Nvidia's H800 chips," The Washington Post said, far fewer than the 16,000 more-advanced H100 chips typically used by the top AI companies.

Analysts noted that DeepSeek's founder amassed thousands of Nvidia's flagship H100 chips before the Biden administration blocked their export to China, and many were skeptical of the V3 model's purported $5.6 million development cost. But "the upshot is that the AI models of the future might not require as many high-end Nvidia chips as investors have been counting on" or the giant data centers companies have been promising, The Wall Street Journal said. The "big moment for DeepSeek" arrived last week when it released its R1 model, which "dazzled" experts with an "ability to reason tough problems in ways that rivaled — and some say, surpassed — OpenAI's capabilities," for a fraction of the cost. "DeepSeek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment," venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted Sunday.

What next?
DeepSeek's success threatens to "upset the technology world order," toppling America's AI dominance, Reuters said. But Wall Street's panicked selloff "seems overblown," Bernstein Research analyst Stacy Rasgon said yesterday.

 
 
Today's NATIONAL story

Trump sparks chaos with spending, aid freezes

What happened
The White House budget office yesterday ordered all federal agencies to halt the disbursement of grants and loans, a sweeping but confusing directive that challenged the separation of powers and added to the upheaval in Washington after President Donald Trump's first week in office. The State Department paused most foreign aid on Friday. Federal health officials were told yesterday to immediately stop all cooperation with the World Health Organization.

Who said what
The scope and legal future of the spending freeze is unclear, Politico said, but it "could affect billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments while causing disruptions to programs that benefit many households."

The unexpected "sudden stoppage" of WHO cooperation could hinder work to stop the spread of viral diseases in Africa and bird flu outbreaks worldwide, The Associated Press said. Doctors and aid workers were told to halt treating people with HIV/AIDS in Africa. The U.S. is "no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people," State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told NPR.

What next?
The funding pause, scheduled to begin this evening, will purportedly last until a review determines if the programs aligned with Trump's policies. But "no one should believe" this is "only temporary," or legal, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law."

 
 
Today's POLITICS Story

GOP senator reneged on voting against Hegseth

What happened
Most of President Donald Trump's successful Cabinet nominees so far — including, as of yesterday evening, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — were confirmed by comfortable margins. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth squeaked by 51 to 50, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the second-ever tie-breaking vote for a Cabinet secretary. Sen. Thom Tillis (pictured above, right) cast the deciding vote Friday night after telling Hegseth's former sister-in-law he would oppose the nomination, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

Who said what
Tillis (R-N.C.) "personally assured Danielle Hegseth" that if she signed a sworn statement "testifying that she believed her former brother-in-law" has "an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes," his and those of Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the Journal said, citing two other witnesses to the reported conversation.

Danielle Hegseth relayed her allegations in a sworn affidavit, saying she was doing so only because she had been "assured" the public statement would "ensure that certain senators who are still on the fence will vote against Hegseth's confirmation." Murkowski, Collins and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted no. Tillis told the Journal her testimony "did carry weight," but after "days doing my due diligence" and speaking with Pete Hegseth, he was "not able to speak with anyone who provided firsthand corroboration."

What next?
Hegseth had his first full day at the Pentagon yesterday, previewing a series of executive orders Trump issued last night, including the precursors to a ban on transgender troops and a space-based missile defense system.

 
 

It's not all bad

The nonprofit Teto Verde Favela is working to transform Rio de Janeiro's Parque Arará slum from a heat island into a green paradise. Volunteers show residents how to turn their home's traditional roof into a cooling green roof, using bundles of Spanish moss and other tropical plants rolled in bidim, a geotextile fabric made of recycled drink bottles. Green roofs, which absorb less heat and reduce stormwater runoff, are now popping up around the favela on homes, businesses and bus stops.

 
 
Under the radar

Megaberg A23a might be on the verge of running into South Georgia Island and surrounding islets in the South Atlantic. The result could spell trouble for wildlife on those islands, and A23a's movement is a sign of more similar occurrences as climate change worsens.

The iceberg is about 1,500 square miles — roughly the size of Rhode Island — and located about 173 miles from the islands. If it runs aground and wedges in the waters close to the islands, it "stands to endanger millions of penguins, seals and rare marine species not found anywhere else on Earth," said Science Alert. Specifically, the iceberg would block the animals' abilities to feed themselves and their young, leading to mass deaths.

Along with a risk to the island fauna, the iceberg can have a significant impact on the ocean ecosystem. As the iceberg moves, it melts slowly and surely. "Past research has shown a boost in iron from melting glaciers can increase phytoplankton levels, for example, trapping a portion of CO2 from the atmosphere," said Science Alert. 

Though the region, known as Iceberg Alley, is no stranger to icebergs, that doesn't mean there's no cause for concern. This massive moving iceberg is a "natural phenomenon," but it "really does represent an increase in the ice loss of Antarctic ice shelves," said Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, to Yahoo News. "Since 2020, the ice shelves have lost 6 trillion tons of ice," and "that's due to climate change."

 
 
On this day

January 28, 1986

The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its voyage, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Among the dead was Christa McAuliffe, set to be the first teacher in space. The Challenger disaster led to a reckoning over safety at NASA and the grounding of the space shuttle program for 32 months.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, "death camp survivors return," The Wall Street Journal says on Tuesday's front page. "On Auschwitz anniversary, 'great sorrow' for rising nationalism," The New York Times says, and a "warning of the path that led to death camps." In the U.S., "DOJ fires officials tied to probes of Trump" and begins "internal inquiry of Jan. 6 cases," The Washington Post says. "Immigrant purge could imperil nursing home care," The Boston Globe says. TV personality Dr. Phil "says he joined immigration raids in Chicago for sake of 'transparency,'" the Chicago Tribune says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Fake friends with benefits

Could cardboard friends comfort lonely captive animals? The Kaikyokan Aquarium in Japan tested that theory when it shut for renovations and its ocean sunfish suddenly lost its appetite and began rubbing up against the tank. A staff member suggested the fish might be lonely, so the team created a fake audience using photos of human faces and uniforms on hangers. The fish soon returned to "good health," the aquarium said, and is "waving its fins" again.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Greg Baker / AFP via Getty Images; Joe Raedle / Getty Images; Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images; UK MOD Crown Copyright via Getty Images