Chipmaker Nvidia became the first public company to top $4 trillion in value after a two-year investor frenzy driven by the artificial intelligence boom. Nvidia shares rose 2.5%, in early trading Wednesday, topping $164 each. At the beginning of 2023, Nvidia shares were around $14 each. The company's rise has been meteoric. The Santa Clara, California, company was founded in 1993. In just over a decade, it was worth $2 trillion. In June 2024, it reached $3 trillion.
The company's invention of the graphics processor unit, or GPU, in 1999 helped spark the growth of the PC gaming market and redefined computer graphics. Now Nvidia's specialised chips are key components that help power different forms of artificial intelligence, including the latest generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The company sees AI as "the next industrial revolution," and Nvidia's GPUs are designed to perform artificial intelligence tasks faster and more efficiently than general-purpose chips like CPUs.
In a landmark speech during his official state visit to the United Kingdom, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a powerful and unexpected call for the UK to formally recognise the State of Palestine. Speaking directly to members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, Macron's address marked a bold diplomatic intervention - and placed pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer's new government to shift the UK's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Macron drew on France's recent announcement of its intent to recognise Palestinian statehood, and framed the move as a moral obligation and a necessary step toward long-term peace in the Middle East. His speech linked the UK's historical role in the region - from the Balfour Declaration to its post-colonial responsibilities - with its present-day capacity to champion a just and peaceful solution. The three-day visit is the first by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union political leader since Brexit.
Flash floods in Texas killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions. Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sits along the Guadalupe River, has confirmed that 27 campers and counselors died in the extreme flash floods.
Massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes. In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths as of Monday afternoon (July 8) to at least 104. Survivors described the floods as a "pitch black wall of death" and said they received no emergency warnings.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two of the Taliban's top leaders, accusing them of persecuting women and girls in Afghanistan. The Hague-based court said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani had committed a crime against humanity in their treatment of women and girls since seizing power in 2021. In that time, they have implemented a series of restrictions, including on girls over the age of 12 accessing an education, and barring women from many jobs.
There have also been restrictions on how far a woman can travel without a male chaperone, and decrees on them raising their voices in public. In a statement, the ICC said that "while the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms". The United Nations has previously described the restrictions as being tantamount to "gender apartheid".
