Trump's AI meeting, Lindsay Clancy, Cornell (Updated)

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal, in Wanganui, New Zealand. And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. It's Tuesday, September 29th, today. President Trump meets with AI leaders at the White House. Prosecutors reopen an investigation into sexual assault allegations at a Cornell University fraternity house. Lindsay Clancy is back in court. And Democrats eye investigations into lucrative Trump family deals after the midterms. This is Royce's World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. This kind of innovation in government is just a preview of what is possible with superintelligence or SI, and that's the official name in the United States. I'll be signing a very powerful executive order. I spoke to President Xi. He loves it. President Donald Trump announcing the launch of America.gov. The new site is billed as an AI-powered tool providing simple answers from official government sources. After the announcement, Trump met with top tech CEOs to discuss artificial intelligence, trying to find a balance between innovation and oversight. The White House gathering included MetaCEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Anthropics, Dario Amodi, and Invidia's Jensen Huang. The latter two have expressed concerns about rogue AI agents that have acted outside of developers' instructions and broken into other companies or even government networks. Trump has called fears of AI's threat to humanity, a hoax, stressing America's competitive edge over China. "And we see it, and we can't strive for it, and we're leading by a lot." The meeting comes as new Reuters reporting shows that AI giant Anthropic is both anticipating the technology to revolutionize the world, but also threaten humanity's very existence. Reuters was able to view the company's IPO prospectus, which shows it's betting that AI will transform the global economy more profoundly than electricity, the internet, or even industrialization. It's also warning potential investors that advanced AI could pose, quote, "catastrophic" or "existential risks" to humanity, even as it works to profit from the very same technology. Its plans are also costly. It anticipates spending half a trillion dollars on infrastructure in the years ahead. The IPO likely won't happen until after the November midterm elections in the US, that's according to sources. And AI safety concerns continue elsewhere as well. Open AI has shelved the release of its next-generation model. The company is saying it doesn't meet its safety standards. GPT 6.1 Astra had been planned for a October launch. The Wall Street Journal reports that the newest model shows higher levels of deception than its predecessor and did not always accurately disclose what actions it had taken. If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. Former US special counsel, Jack Smith, had a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. Smith faces Republican accusations of abuse of power during his investigations into Trump under the Biden administration. Smith oversaw two criminal cases against Trump, one over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 elections, and another over alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first turn. Smith says his investigations followed Justice Department policy and were not influenced by politics. Lindsay Clancy is back in court following her mistrial earlier this month. Clancy's lawyer is asking for the case to be dismissed, arguing that the prosecution's case was "based" on speculation. Prosecutors are still considering whether to retry her for killing her three young children back in 2023. Clancy admits that she killed her three children, but argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. Several jurors have said that with the exception of one holdout, they were prepared to find her not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge says the decision to dismiss or retry the case will be determined at an November 2 hearing. A civil lawsuit has brought fresh scrutiny to the handling of gang rape allegations at a Cornell University fraternity house back in 2024. New York prosecutors have now reopened the case and planned to present evidence against seven alleged perpetrators to a grand jury which will decide whether to indict. The lawsuit alleges the woman was unable to consent after being given alcohol and drugs and that fraternity members used a Snapchat group chat to encourage others to join in. Royce's Joseph Axe has more. The district attorney released a rather lengthy statement that was aimed at least in part on explaining why he had decided to reopen the case, but also why his office did not pursue criminal charges two years ago. One of the explanations that he gave was that the alleged victim's statement to police at the time, a few weeks after the incident in 2024, didn't specifically alleg that there was anything non-concentral and did not alleg that she had been involuntarily applied with any drugs or alcohol. That's not really what the lawsuit says and is a bit of a dispute between the district attorney and the lawyer who represents the alleged victim in this case. He says that the 24 statement to the police and the lawsuit are pretty similar and so he's faulting the district attorney's office for not fully investigating this back when it happened in 2024. The members of the fraternity in question haven't made public statements about this. One defender for one of them did say that the lawsuit was meritless and that his client did not participate in any illegal act. Cornell University, for its part, has denied any allegation that it went easy on these fraternity members. It conducted its own investigation in 2024 that resulted in what it described as a range of punishments from expulsions to suspensions. Speaking 2000s on his last day in France, Pope Leo urged negotiators to make compromises to end the war in Ukraine. "He necessary to go away from a dialogue." That after dramatic images from Kiev show people being forced to escape out of windows at the Academy of Sciences after a Russian strike on the building set it on fire, killing at least two. Elsewhere on the Capitol, shaken residents watched as black plumes of smoke escaped from a medical center also struck by Russian attacks. "Solomiya Bachinsky says she can't believe that things aren't better by now." Speaking in his evening address, President Vladimir Zelensky said more than 120 drones had been launched in the assault and more than 80 people were injured. "Russia has started using a new type of jet-powered drone against Kiev in recent weeks. That Zelensky says is harder to accept." Back in the US, Democrats say if they win control of either the House or the Senate in the midterms, they'll be taking a closer look at business deals tied to President Donald Trump and his family. That could include Trump-linked crypto ventures. Jared Kushner's business interests and Donald Trump Jr.'s venture capital firm. Reporter Alexandra Olmes says the result could be a major political and legal fight in the second half of Trump's term. "We spoke to about a dozen lawyers and several crisis communication specialists and they all basically said that they haven't seen companies this worried in the wild and they're coming through their records, seeing where any potential liability lines, they're hiring big firms, a big law firms, they're hiring specialists to try to, you know, create a narrative for public opinion. And they're doing risk audits to see where they're exposed. There's an expectation that this is going to move quickly. What does that mean exactly? It means we could see subpoenas as early as February. Alexandra says some companies are going to find themselves in a tough spot. Many of them don't want to defy Congress. But on the other hand, they don't want to run a foul of the White House either. And they're going to be under significant pressure from Congress to turn over certain documents that the White House probably doesn't want out there. So we're going to see a really difficult decision for these companies. And, you know, potential lawsuits from Congress if companies don't comply. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Reuters.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. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters 7 days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.