Fed hikes rates, Canada EU, AI leaders divided (Updated)

0:00Hi, I'm Kim Vannell in Wonganui, New Zealand. And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. It's Wednesday, September 16. Today. The Federal Reserve raises interest rates in an effort to tackle inflation, despite President Trump's demands for a cut. Leaders of the AI world split on how the industry should advance. The European Union proposes Canada as its first associate member. And as the end of a UN peacekeeping mission in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon nears, residents fear for what comes next. This is Rojah's World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. It's me, the... We don't need the jingle twice.

1:02Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Things like they decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals then. Price line. Please stop. Price line. Tushay. Price line. The US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates. The quarter percentage point increase brings the benchmark rate to the 3.75 to 4% range. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh supported the decision acknowledging the need to bring inflation under control. The move comes as President Donald Trump has since he took office promised to lower rates and pushed for interest rate cuts, though his economic and foreign policy decisions have largely had the opposite effect. A split is emerging among the most powerful players in artificial intelligence over whether

2:04the technology is moving too fast and who is ultimately responsible for keeping it safe. Appearing at a San Francisco Tech conference, fresh after pinning his essay pleading for the industry to pace its advance, and Tropic's Daria Amode reiterated his concerns. AI models get smarter and smarter, the more compute you throw into them. And so we had a prediction of just how capable these models would be. But I think what we didn't appreciate is that it would lead to these companies growing so fast. Open AI's Sam Altman echoing their sentiment. And we have to be willing to pace our development of capabilities such that capabilities always such that alignment, safety and monitoring are always ahead of capabilities. But one of the other AI giants, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, is pushing back. In a social media post, he says an industry-wide slowdown isn't needed and that it's up to the individual companies to ensure their technology is safe, adding that Meta already

3:09does so. The disagreement comes as concerns grow that AI is advancing faster than humans can keep up with, with some even warning that AI could wipe out humanity in the not too distant future. I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the European Union. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, proposing in her state of the Union address that Canada become the EU's first associate member. It would be a new category aimed at deepening ties among ally nations. We will work on energy critical minerals and batteries on AI quantum-syband economic security. This is not the partnership against anyone else, but for our common strength. The move comes as both the EU and Canada face pressure from Trump's trade policies and

4:10an assertive China. The proposal caught even EU diplomats off guard. It's unclear if member states will back the plan and trade obstacles remain, including Canada's protected telecom and dairy sectors. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada wants a unique alliance, not membership. Formal talks are set for October. The US is planning an almost $3 billion weapon sale to Israel. According to an official, the package would include tens of thousands of 2,000 pound bombs, munitions that Israel used in Gaza and Lebanon. The proposed sale has been informally communicated to members of Congress who review major arms transfers. To Saudi Arabia now, where Riyadh says it's shot down a Houthi drone near the Muslim holy city of Mecca. The Houthi's deny targeting Mecca calling it Saudi propaganda. Saudi Arabia has launched hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen this week, after Houthi fighters attacked

5:14Saudi cities and oil infrastructure along the Red Sea. The fighting threatens global energy supplies, Brent crude is hovering near $108 a barrel, and key Saudi pipelines remain offline. It's me, the price line, we don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights and rental cars. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Fine. No one deals more deals than price line. Please stop. To Shay. Price line. Price line. To the Hague, now where former Kosovo president Hashem Tachi has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for war crimes.

6:14The tribunal found him guilty of murder, torture and illegal detention during Kosovo's war with Serbia in the 90s. Tachi commanded the Kosovo Liberation Army and was convicted in the deaths of 96 people, as well as the detention and torture of hundreds more civilians or non-combatants. He's denied the charges and can appeal. The verdict sparked protests in Kosovo where Tachi is a revered figure among many Kosovo Albanians. Montana voters will decide this November whether to make their state the first in the nation to ban corporate money in elections. The U.S. has seen an explosion in this kind of outside funding since the Supreme Court's citizens united ruling. With corporate contributions going from $13 million in 2010 to $600 million this year, and what happens in Montana could set a critical precedent.

7:18Reporter Brad Brooks has been speaking with legal experts and voters. The state has a long history of fighting against corruption of politics, money in politics, the dating back more than a century. I spoke with over a dozen voters across the western half of the state and of various ideological stripes and not a single one of them said that they want corporate money in politics, they also said that they would vote in favor of banning that money from entering the state's politics. What this is trying to do is go around citizens united, not smashing to it head on. It's doing that by saying that states, through the 10th and then the U.S. Constitution, have the right to regulate corporations. They can determine what powers corporations have. Democrats are watching this closely, legal experts and others, thinking that it could set a tremendous

8:19legal precedent and could be something that will eventually go before the Supreme Court and have to be decided. In Southern Lebanon, there's a swath of land now occupied by Israel. It's where, during the war with Iran, its troops advanced to fight hisbola. Necessary Israel said to protect its border. Now, much of it is a ghost landscape. To get there, we basically just drove along this very desert road that runs parallel to the Lebanese Israeli border and buildings on both sides of the road were completely smashed to pieces. That's Bayroot bureau chief Maya Javali, who got rare access during an embed with the UN peacekeeping force, Unifilm. It almost felt like a very trippy scene because you had things kind of flipped around in ways that felt unnatural. And there was not a single thing moving inside. When we were moving along this road, it was just dust and slabs of concrete and twisted

9:23metal. But deeper into this zone, there are those who state 6,000 or so people living in a cluster of villages and who rely on Unifilm for food and fuel, basically to survive. But the forces mandate runs out at the end of this year. And it's not clear what happens next. They're discussing the possibility of a multinational force, the possibility of a European Union supported training program for the Lebanese army, and the possibility of a new UN Security Council resolution. But all of these options take time. It takes time to set up the budget for these forces and that's what has residents freaked out as the clock ticks with about three and a half months left in Unifilm's mandate. And Maya says it's not just Unifilm's humanitarian role that's at stake. So for the past 20 years, Unifilm has really been the eyes and ears of the international community. So for that to disappear, for the access that they've been able to grant, not just journalists, but war crimes, investigators, and others, and Southern Lebanon, that's another major

10:25resource that we're going to lose by the end of this year. It's me, the... We don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how price line negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the price line app. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Please stop. Price line. Tusha. Price line. Before we go, I want to flag that a new episode of RoiTi's eCon world drops today. Post-Carmel Kremens is tackling President Trump's retreat from EVs, and what that means for jobs, manufacturing, and the fierce competition with China. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis on the news shaping

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