Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy murder case

0:00Hello and welcome to NewsHour Live from the BBC World Service in London, I'm Rebecca Kesby. First today to the legal case that has gripped the United States over the past few weeks and indeed much of the world, the trial of Lindsay Clancy in Massachusetts. Miss Clancy was accused of murdering her three children aged 5, 3 and just 8 months old. She's never denied killing them but a key part of her defence has been her assertion that she was suffering from postpartum or postnatal psychosis at the time and couldn't distinguish right from wrong. Today, there have been dramatic scenes in the courtroom a few hours ago, the jury declared that with a heavy heart they'd been unable to come to a unanimous decision. Since then, the judge William Sullivan has declared a mistrial. Members of the jury, at this point, I'm going to declare that the jury is deadlocked and

1:02I'm going to declare a mistrial. Well, he then went on to dismiss the jury. Outside the courthouse, Lindsay Clancy's lawyer Kevin Reddington has been speaking to reporters, he took aim at the one member of the jury who's in transigence, resulted in the mistrial. They know that they were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors that were so attentive, so beautiful and listened to this evidence and you can see how defeated they were sitting there. And I got a funny feeling that they were going on for another week if they had to. So I hope that guy can sleep well at least. So what does this mean for the case now? Well, in a moment we'll get the very latest from our correspondent at the court. I only wells. First, let's get some details on this case with this background report put together by Ioni and I should flag up that some of the details are very distressing.

2:04This was a woman who acted intentionally to kill. Yes, she was begging for help. What drove a mother to kill her three children? Lindsay Clancy, a former nurse from Massachusetts, never disputed doing this. That's not the issue in this trial. But that's not what this trial has been about. It was about whether she was criminally responsible for what she did. Lindsay was a very loving mother. She was dedicated. The court heard Lindsay Clancy was a devoted mother to her three children. She was a fun mother. She was always doing things for her kids. Kora was a girlie girl. 5-year-old Kora, 3-year-old Dawson, an 8-month-old Callan. Dawson was fully-bident, she ran punctures, funny, silly. But one night, in 2023, she strangled all of them in the basement of their home. She then cut herself and jumped out of a window in an attempted suicide. She survived but was left paralyzed. The children's father, her now ex-husband, Patrick, was out picking up a takeaway and came

3:06home to find them all. When you saw Dawson, what condition was he in? I need to use God. So what led Lindsay Clancy to that point? She told them that she was suicidal. Her defense painted a picture of a woman who could not be held responsible for her actions. This young lady is not guilty of killing her fruit children, because she was suffering from a disease and defect. She was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a little known about severe mental health illness that affects some women after giving birth. Hello, her doctors did not provide her with the right help. If you have somebody that's bipolar, you don't put them on an anti-depressant. It messes with your brain. Busparoned, otherwise known as Vansfire. Yes. She was put on medication after medication. She said, Dr. X, it can be used for a number of reasons, but she tried calling suicide hotlines. She even checked herself in to a psychiatric hospital at one point. Her mother, Paula, said her symptoms got worse and worse. The medication was pretty much just destroying her mind and it wasn't her.

4:11She said, this isn't me. I just want to feel better and I'm enjoying my kids again. Multiple witnesses said she talked about hearing a voice during hallucinations, telling her to kill herself and her children to keep them safe. This was not a woman in the Throes of Psychosis on January 24, 2023. This was a woman who acted intentionally. The prosecution told a different story. And swiftly to accomplish a very specific goal. To kill. They were strangled. Deliberately, I'm gonna take a minute. They argued that Lindsay Clancy knew exactly what she was doing, that it was planned, timed for when her husband was out. She knows that it's about five miles from their house to get to the restaurant. They accepted she was struggling from mental illness, but said her awareness of these intrusive thoughts meant she knew right from wrong. Because she had a plan and she was following it through. And what about, um, this trial gripped America. It was televised and live streamed across the country, pausing only when she broke down in tears.

5:14The case has led to rallying cries for better mental health care for new mothers in America. Supporters of Clancy dressed in pink gathered outside. We all relate in one way or another. Many had suffered from postpartum mental health conditions themselves. So many women in the world go through this. And we really don't know much about psychosis, particularly with women who have given birth. As far as I'm concerned, others though felt this swell of support for Clancy was distracting from the deaths of three children. I think what she did was horrible. I support mental health, however, in this case, three children were murdered. Thank you so much for following those instructions as we've gone through this. This trial has forced jurors to grapple with some of the most complex medical and moral questions. Where does the line between illness and responsibility begin? An end. On North America, correspondent Ioni Wells there with the background to this case. Well, Ioni has been in and out of the court in Massachusetts all day.

6:15They've been dramatic scenes over the past few hours, as I mentioned. And Ioni gave us the latest about an hour ago. There is intense media interest in all of this. And you can hear the news helicopters overhead. Today really started with this unknown question. Would there be a verdict today? We knew that for days the jury had been deadlocked and hadn't managed to reach consensus after two previous attempts. It became apparent yesterday, and this was raised again in court today. There was an allegation from Alinsa Clancy's defence that one of the jurors, in particular, in his words, wasn't following the law when it came to the principle of reasonable doubt. He alleged that this juror essentially wasn't understanding that you need to prove somebody guilty beyond reason and doubt. Now, he raised that again in court. The defence was concerned that this was leading to this impasse that the jury were having. And the judge considered this yet again, but did decide that ultimately he believed that the juror hadn't had any issues

7:22deliberating and did understand that at some levels of doubt it in one's decision is permissible in cases like this. As a result, there was a lot of back and forth between the judge and the defence, with the defence making every last ditch attempt really to try and avoid this going to a mistrial. It then became apparent after a note the court received from the jury that they were pretty clear. They were not going to reach consensus and said that with heavy hearts they were announcing that. At that point, the judge said that it was his intention to declare this a mistrial. The defence then in a last attempt to avoid that appealed to a higher court here in Massachusetts again with the same argument but that was later dismissed. So essentially at that point the judge did decide to officially declare this a mistrial. There was a moment of silence really in the courtroom when that happened. I think a lot of people shocked that after so many weeks it didn't end with a verdict. Yeah, well actually the judge did thank the jury very much, didn't he for their work on the trial. But what happens now if there is a mistrial?

8:24Will there be another trial or what could happen next? Well there are various options for what could happen next. We just heard in a press conference by the district attorney here in Massachusetts so speaking on behalf of the prosecution, they haven't made up their mind yet whether to refile this case and push for a retrial with a fresh jury. So we don't know if that's their intention yet. They're going to take a bit of time to decide. If they don't decide to do that they could try to negotiate a sort of plea deal potentially with the defense which could involve, for example, agreeing that Lindsey Clancy would accept guilt in exchange for a lesser sentence or lesser charge. Or it could be that the prosecution decided to dismiss this case. But certainly the sense I was getting from the district attorney was that he wanted to ensure in his words that the victims of this, the three children of Lindsey Clancy were not forgotten. One interesting question that was raised to him though was by a fellow journalist was if there was a fresh trial, how would they go about trying to select a jury that would be

9:30impartial given the mass media retention that has been on this case globally? Well that's right and you mentioned the media retention. We can hear the helicopters in the background. I presume some of those are news helicopters and in your report you mentioned how much support there had been outside the court for Lindsey Clancy. A lot of women's groups getting involved. And I suppose one thing this awful case has done is is drawn attention to postpartum post-natal psychosis. That's right. I got here very early this morning and already by 6am or so there were people queuing outside trying to get in predominantly women. Some of them told me that they felt very personally invested in this case because of A or their family members for example had suffered from severe mental health conditions themselves, some of whom after giving birth as well. And interestingly as well during that press conference was the attorney, one of the women who had

10:31come out here to support Lindsey Clancy actually heckled the district attorney saying what about the mother in a sort of angry cry before walking off? I think there is still this anger that some of her supporters feel that she didn't receive the help she needed as the trial outline that she was put on various different medications but was still seemingly getting worse and worse. However her critics and certainly there are some who have come to the court as well, feel that that attention on Lindsey Clancy is distracting somewhat from the three children who were killed who were at the centre of this case. So I think that is something which the district attorney was also clear to emphasise that he doesn't want those names for Gossett as part of this. Yes and it's become a national conversation point hasn't it? We've just heard from the president Donald Trump he's been speaking to reporters at the White House taking questions including one on this he referred to it as a horrible tragedy and he seemed to think that there could now be another trial though. I don't

11:32know as you say whether that will happen. Do we know much about what the family of Lindsey Clancy has been saying? I don't know if anyone's made any comments. I mean I know we heard from her ex-husband in your in your piece. Well her family have testified at moments in this trial including her mother but also her former mother-in-law her ex-husband as you say. I saw her mother and father in the court room today they weren't giving much away in terms of their expression, their emotion but I think I can only imagine that this is wearing very heavily on their minds the prospect of a potential other trial although as I say that isn't confirmed yet because of course these were people who not only sat through weeks and weeks of harrowing testimony and evidence being presented but in some cases they had to testify themselves not just about what happened to Lindsey's three children but also about her mental state the condition she was in the intrusive thought she was having all

12:37of which was very upsetting troubling I think for many of those who were who were sat in that court room throughout. That's unorth America correspondent Ioni Wells outside the court there and there is a live page on this story on the BBC website with all the details. Coming up in the next few minutes why the famous US desert festival The Burning Man is being accused of changing beyond all recognition including by one of its original founders. It's become a part of the of the larger controlled society whereas in the beginning it was an expression counter to that where of creativity that was not influenced by the larger culture just deciding what you can and can't do. More on that to come in the next few minutes other headlines from the BBC Newsroom this hour. Hoothy fighters are battling with pro government forces in Yemen in some of the worst clashes in years. We'll come back to that story later and the UN General Assembly

13:39has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution calling for a new world map that more accurately reflects the size of Africa. This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. Today a rare daytime Russian drone attack on the very heart of the Ukrainian government in Kiev. Its security service, the SBU, specifically the office of the head of the SBU, Alexander Poglad. He was not injured in the attack but at least nine people were with seven hospitalised. The moment of the blast was captured on one eye witnesses phone. Well the SBU covers Ukraine's internal security. It's like the FBI or MI5 here in the UK and although several government buildings have been hit by Russian attacks over the past four

14:43and a half years of the war. What does this daylight attack tell us about Russia's intentions and Ukraine's defenses? I caught up with our diplomatic correspondent James Landale who's in Kiev. He gave me more details on the attack from a busy road. This comes at pretty much on the 10th of a pretty intense series of consecutive Russian attacks on Kiev which have been not just the usual nighttime attacks but daytime attacks, varying scales of varying lengths, deliberately designed people believe here to just cause as much disruption both to people's lives and to the economy as possible. But most of those attacks so far have been on businesses and residential areas and infrastructure. This is the first time that the actual Ukrainian government authorities have been deliberately targeted and the authorities say that at the moment about 12 people

15:44they understand have been injured. Yeah and what do we know of the choosing of this target? What can you tell us about the SBU and indeed its head who it seems did survive this attack but was clearly identified as the target? His name is Alexander Poglad. He's the acting head of the service. He wasn't there in the office at the time and President Zelensky published pictures of the two men meeting very soon after to discuss the strike and what Mr. Zelensky said would be an appropriate and tangible response by the Ukrainian side. Look the SBU are a core part of Ukraine's war effort against Russia both deterring internal attacks by Russian saboteurs but also carrying out attacks that are discreet and clandestine deep within Russia itself. So from that point of view it is a core part of the Ukraine's war machine and therefore would clearly be a target for the Russians.

16:49To that extent it's been somewhat a surprise to people actually that the headquarters has not been targeted here in Kiev although some of its substations and other areas have been targeted during this conflict obviously. And does it tell us anything about Ukraine's defenses at the moment? Because obviously they've had a lot to say about their depleting air defenses so far but I mean well they be worried that they weren't able to counter this attack before it. Man found its mark. There are two separate issues here. One is that yes Ukraine at the moment is struggling to defend itself against ballistic missiles simply because the patriots interceptor missiles that it needs. It's just run out. It doesn't have any left and at the moment the Americans are not giving them any more, any other allies because the Iran conflict has depleted so much of that stock. But today's attack is a different issue. This is about a new threat which is faster jet-powered drones.

17:49Last month in August the Ukrainian Air Force say that they had to receive 2,800 fast jet-powered drones. That's almost twice as many as the month before and the problem is is that these jets go really fast and so the existing interceptors that Ukraine has used to be so successful against the older slower propeller driven Shahed drones they are struggling to destroy them. So at the moment the Air Force says they're only taking down about 60% of them and that's exactly what got through this afternoon and targeted the SBU headquarters. And James we're enjoying the atmospheric's there of the clock behind you clearly on the streets the windy streets of Kiev for us today but this attack comes just as we are expecting some sort of meeting again this weekend. There's been talk about the US envoys perhaps going to Moscow. What can you tell us about that? President Zelensky has said explicitly that he is currently expecting Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's two negotiators to be in Moscow on Saturday and in Kiev on Sunday.

18:54That is the expectation but as you know we never know whether plans will actually come to fruition but what Mr. Zelensky said very explicitly was that he would guarantee the safety of Russian airspace to allow that that visit to take place. Jane Glendaele in Kiev. Now the Burning Man festival is on now and is held every year in the Nevada Black Rock Desert. It's getting too expensive though and too exclusive according to some critics famous for its cultural events art installations and performances a creative melting pot if you like of big ideas but it's got too big too commercial say some critics including the co-founder John Law who's been telling me more about how the festival has changed. Well it's changed because it's been enormously successful and started out as a small event with you know a group of people who were collaborators and underground artists and pranksters and it was a small event with people who were basically broke. We started it there was no money involved at all

19:54and so it was a total expression of creativity of this collaboration of individuals and unlike the Utipical American concept of like the lone genius like having some great idea and then changing the world and all like that most most really huge cultural shifts are of the zeitgeist or the time is right for them and there are many many people who can sort of sense that and those changes come about in that way. So that's the atmosphere that the Burning Man came out of and I don't live in the past and you know it's a very different event now it has it's a charms and you know there's still things that are good about it but many of the things that attracted me originally to working with these people in that group Burning Man was the fact that it was an open group and you could create any kind of environment that you wanted to and it's changed dramatically in that way in large part because it became the vacation of note and actually almost a required vacation for Silicon Valley starting in the mid late 90s. I mean you say you know it started out with broke creatives I mean now it seems all the tech bros are there you know Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos

20:59are there it's become the sort of playground for the super rich hasn't it how does that totally change the festival and I mean I noticed that you actually haven't been for years do you think it's still worth going? Well that's an interesting question you know I mean I guess you know rich billionaires have to have fun and be creative too and so it's their event in some respect now I mean are they pricing out? Are they pricing out normal people? I think that is probably happening but a lot of normal quote unquote normal people still go and also there are a lot of people who go it's kind of like a convention for a lot of creative people and not necessarily just rich people but working creatives who go there and once a year and they'll see people they haven't seen all years so it's a really great thing for those folks but it's become a part of the of the larger controlled society whereas in the beginning it was an expression counter to that where of creativity that was not influenced by the larger culture just deciding what you can and can't do there's a lot of freedom involved in the early event that doesn't exist now. I mean are there political undertones

22:02to this and also perhaps to some of the criticism I mean some people might say there's a little bit of intellectual snobbery going on to kind of be against the tech brothers turning up. Well I remember hearing our former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger I remember him saying at one time that all the progressives were heading out to Burning Man instead of doing something important politically I don't know if that's true or not but it was an interesting quote so I think it's a huge event it's a creative event there are a lot of good things about it so a lot of hypocritical things about it I mean it became a you know corporation and all corporations are interested in you know presenting and promoting their needs and those needs don't necessarily have to do a lot of the times with being completely forthcoming with with what the policies are and I think that's happened. That's John Law co-founder of the Burning Man Festival. Welcome back to New Zahra. Next to what seems to be a significant medical breakthrough in the

23:05treatment of people waiting for kidney transplants doctors in the United States say a genetically modified pig kidney functioned inside 66 year old patient Tim Andrews for almost nine months that's the longest time yet recorded the kidney gave him a bridging period where while he waited for a human donor organ which there is a global shortage of those at the moment and it meant for that time he didn't need dialysis Dr Leonardo Riella is the medical director of kidney transplantation at Massachusits General Hospital where this was carried out and he told Gary O'Donohue why this may give hope to many other patients. We passed through a major milestone for two reasons I think number one we had a pig kidney working and performing all the expected kidney functions for more than nine months allowing our patient to be off dialysis. Second we were able to transition this patient from a pig kidney to a human kidney and this is no ordinary pig kidney you had to

24:08sort of do some genetic modifications to the pigs themselves to begin with correct. Correct these are very unique pigs they are cloned and they have genetic edits to improve the compatibility between the pig kidney and humans. Now this is just kind of bridge technique as I understand it while you wait for a human kidney to be available a donor kidney what problems did you encounter after you've implanted this kidney because it did eventually failed isn't it? Yes the immune system of humans do recognize certain things in the pig that's slightly different than a traditional human transplant so I think they're learning you know in terms of trying to understand what are some of the differences between a human and a pig kidney and how the immune system recognizes that and second how can we tweak how can we change slightly our anti-rejection meds in order to be able to control that in the long term so I think we're sort of getting in the right direction and we have another

25:09patient who just passed the nine month mark with the pig kidney so these are very exciting finding so far. Do you now feel that this is a something that can be scaled this is something that will be suitable for a lot of patients? This is what we hope in the long term that we are able to provide xenotransplantation as an alternative treatment for these patients with kidney failure. Our ambition is that with a pig kidney we may be able to do additional genetic edits to potentially create an invisible organ once transplanted and this would overcome the second biggest challenging transportation is that patients require to take anti-rejection meds for the rest of their lives in order to prevent rejection but now imagine that by doing these edits and creating these organs that could be invisible to the immune system these patients will not require to take anti-rejection meds in the long term so this would be really game changer. That's Dr. Leonardo Riala, their medical director of kidney transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital where this

26:15took place he was speaking to New Zealand's Gary O'Donohue earlier today. You're listening to News Hour Live from the BBC, I'm Rebecca Kesby. Now after nine days of devastating news from Nepal and Tibet finally some good news and hope for those still searching for survivors. Here's the moment from today when the first of two workers were rescued from a hydropower tunnel. Well the glacial collapse and flash flood has killed more than 1,200 people with thousands more still missing a massive torrent of water mud and rock ripped through the landscape sweeping everything away in its path but today's rescue has encouraged the emergency teams in a video

27:16released by Nepali authorities. One of the men was showing being hoisted from a hole in the ground as bystanders cheered there and then lowered onto a stretcher. His colleague Sanjay Shah was brought out on a worker's back. His face still caked in mud before army doctors fitted him with an oxygen mask and checked all his vital signs while all that was going on. Sanjay gave this interview about his old tale. I used to work in the control room normally there used to be five six people but this time there were perhaps 40-45. My responsibility was to save everyone's life after this disaster. I couldn't run away when it happened because I had a responsibility to save everyone first. And I told them and I made every one of them leave the tunnel. But while doing so I realized

28:19later on that I had no time. By the time I was going to escape the tunnel was closed I was trapped. Well speaking outside the hospital where the men were treated that wife of one of them described seeing her husband for the first time. He didn't even recognize me. He just said things like what happened to me and where am I? And he didn't say anything else. He's currently in the ICU. He asked for water so I gave him some. Now he's recognized me again and nodded his head. He has an injury to his leg and hasn't been able to speak much. His body has turned yellowish because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. Albadra Sharma is a Nepalese journalist. He was at that army hospital in the capital Catman do where the two survivors were taken today. He spoke to us earlier on a pretty bad line so we voiced over that interview. More than 40 people were trapped there and rescuers were doing their best

29:25to rescue the people alive from that point and finally the good news came today. Two mechanical engineers were rescued from that hydro power plant. There are reports of a few more people being rescued there and a few dead bodies were also recovered there. This came when the entire country was in big shock after this catastrophic flood. This is like a kind of miracle and everyone's watching the rescue. Soon after the reports of the rescue the army helicopters were sent there. There was a medical team they briefly treated them and then they were flown to Catman do. And I've spoken to a few family members. I spoke to the dad of Sanjiya Saha. He told me that his wife is still not recovering from the pain. That's why she couldn't come to Catman do. I've also spoken to the relatives of the other guy and they were super super happy just to hear the news that he's alive and brought to Catman do. I can see smiles on the faces of many people gathering outside this hospital. They are super super happy. The words there of Nepalese journalist Badra

30:29Sharma speaking to us earlier. Well the safe recovery today of two survivors has raised hopes that others may be found alive and brought to safety. But the work to dig these people out of the tunnels is technically difficult and extremely dangerous. I've been speaking to one man who knows these particular hydropower complexes well. Dinesh Poudal is Nepalese and has been to the very tunnels where Sanjiya Saha was rescued today. He studied the hydropower industry in this part of Nepal. He's a geographer at the Appalachian State University in the States and I asked him whether he thinks others might still be alive in these tunnels. It is very likely that there are a lot of people still surviving inside these tunnels. There are varieties of tunnels and there are networks of tunnel inside these rocks because of these 14 different hydropower projects operating in their valley and each hydropower project has multiple tunnels and different kinds. Some tunnels are to bring

31:30water in. Some tunnels are there to exit the water outside back to the river and there are other types of tunnels which are just to bring people inside and outside with equipment vehicles and everything. So you are also escaped tunnels. So these escaped tunnels are usually in higher level, upper level. So I'm hoping that people were able to escape to these other tunnels and also they hopefully they were able to live inside the chambers where are there are power plants, these big machines running to produce electricity. I'm very awful. I wanted to ask you about that because you've been inside these tunnels. You know how they're made up and you mentioned their chambers. I mean how big might they be and what sort of things would they have in them and crucially? I mean would there be anything like emergency rations or anything like that? They do have emergency rations. They have medical equipment. They have all kinds of safety gears and everything inside there. The only thing is that these inside tunnels could

32:36people rush to these chambers. That's the biggest things because it was so fast and people are working in different places like there are mechanical engineers, there are other technicians, they are 24 hours they are operating different things and plus there are people who are cleaning their people who are constantly driving equipment here and there so there are a lot of people inside in operational tunnel. So my biggest fear is whether they were able to reach to these different places and it seems because we managed to get two survivors outside today there are still those possibilities right there. So the rescue teams seem to be determined. I mean they've been working in the mountain area all week but this isn't an easy job is it what kind of challenges are those rescue teams and the engineers trying to get to people what kind of challenges are they facing and dangers? It's a huge the danger is that these tunnels might be collapsing so it's

33:40very difficult to to figure that out. Second difficulty the felt is that they couldn't figure out a place to dig holes into the tunnel from upper level. So they had to go through cleaning that mud from the entry of the tunnel which takes a long time there are big boulders inside you have to blast them and then you have to take all the water and mud outside and then slowly move in. So it's a very difficult task in normal usual situation usually the tunnel gets collapsed and then people are trapped inside but this is the one which fills entire tunnel through modern debris and rocks and boulders and lot of things which requires one by one clearing outside. So this is the biggest difficulty they are going through. Yeah I mean I was reading that at the beginning they weren't even sure where the entrances were to these tunnels because the lambs slide had been so enormous which I mean that just tells you the scale doesn't it again? Absolutely

34:45absolutely and because of that they tried to dig hole from above and that didn't work out because they ended up digging to the tunnel where debris were already there. So they had to find the entry fast and then it started kind of taking that debris outside. Just a quick word on the air inside the tunnels. I don't know if that might be a problem and again whether that would depend on whereabouts you are in the tunnels. Yes if they are in the in the chamber area where the electricity actually is produced they are in a better position and my hope is that these chambers where electricity is produced inside they are kind of safer place but you never know based on the intensity of the flood. If those chambers were flooded and people were not able to kind of move here and there inside that then there is a danger that they were not able to reach out to oxygen cylinder. There are oxygen cylinder inside and maybe the vent that supplies

35:49air is maybe damaged. If that's the case we have kind of less hope but if those air circulation is still in place and the inside chambers are not flooded as much as it did outside we have lot of survivors inside and not only in the tunnel the survivors they found today was in one tunnel but there are dozens of tunnels in that valley so a lot of work to be done. Okay so we're really talking about two different sorts of areas aren't we? There's the tunnels where people may still be trapped and it's a way to get through to people and then there are these bigger chambers you're calling them powerhouses which would be the best place for people to head to if they were if they survived. Absolutely. Toneel is the just a road or a path to go to the powerhouse or the chamber and this powerhouse area contains different locations. There are machineries there are big machine operating to generate electricity. There are places where people

36:53can take a rest. There are places where people can have kitchen food and a lot of those things that happen. It's like a big house inside these big rocks connected through multiple tunnels to the outside world and if people are managed to run through the tunnel and reach to these chamber areas I would be very hopeful that they are in better shape but those people who met the while rushing inside the chamber through the tunnel probably they are not safe and maybe probably I fear that they are maybe dead. This glacial collapse really was a catastrophic event wasn't it? There was chaos afterwards but it was quite a few days till we started hearing that there was an attempt to try to reach people that might be in the tunnels. Were you surprised when you heard that it was so long before those rescue efforts were underway? I am surprised. I am sad and

37:57I am also mad about the fact that the government at Nepal did not allow to investigate and to reach to these people who are trapped inside or Leon. The flooding happened early morning like before 9 o'clock, 9 a.m. there and the government already knew within a few minutes that that was happening and the flooding lasted only for about 7-10 minutes. It came, it damaged and it continued, it moved on. So there was a good chance that we should have allowed foreign expertise, foreign equipment, call for help all over the world where people were ready. All these countries were ready to come in and support. You could have done that, we could have saved hundreds of lives and now the government started looking at those planets only after the fourth day of the disaster which is really unfortunate and not sure why government took so long. Denesh Pardel, the Nepalese academic

39:02familiar with those tunnels and there is actually some TV footage of those rescues earlier today. It is on the BBC website, we have a team in the area covering this and let's hope there will be more rescues in the coming days. Coming up in 10 minutes right after news hour, the interview sits down with a pioneer of the gig economy, Leah Sullivan. I mean to be able to you know be a part of creating the gig economy and shifting the future of work, I mean these are sort of what I call precedent breaking ideas. As followed by heart and soul meeting gospel musician Fred Hammond. Once you start to sing the word of God, you start to be you know you feel the anointing and then you're in the person next to you and in the person next to you and the whole place is crying out singing the same thing on one accord. That's when the laws that he comes in, he's I'm in the midst of

40:05your praises. And at 23 GMT unexpected elements explore stories inspired by the late Freddie Mercury's 80th birthday. So in case you didn't know his bandmate the guitarist Brian May is actually an astrophysicist and he's worked with NASA and if you look at the lyrics of Queen Songs there's a lot of references to the cosmos. But now it's back to news hour. This is news hour live from the BBC I'm Rebecca Kesby next to Yemen where there's been intense clashes between Saudi-backed government forces and hoothy fighters leaving at least 122 people dead according to reports. It seems this latest violence erupted when Hoothi's launched a ground offensive yesterday to try to seize control of territory around western tires as strategically important area along the coast close to the Bab al Mandeb straight of the Red Sea. That sea route has become increasingly important since the US around war closed the state of hall mus in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia in particular is now reliant on the Red Sea to

41:09export its oil. Iona Craig is a journalist specializing in Yemen and the Arab Peninsula and I asked her how significant these latest clashes are. Well at the moment there's certainly the first clashes we've seen in this area of Yemen for since at least 2018 really when there was the push by the government forces the internationally recognized government forces to try and retake ground along the Red Sea coast when I was there actually with those government forces as they push north. So yes it's been nearly almost 10 years certainly eight nine years since we've seen this level of violence between the two sides of this this escalation now which is once again over the coastal area of Yemen and this kind of crucial area which abuts the Red Sea and the mountains really which are the high ground that overlooks the Bab al Mandeb which is so crucial now and it's really a prize at the Houthis or after. Yeah is it possible to say how much control or impact at

42:11least the Houthis have over this opening into the Red Sea at the moment? Well they certainly in the initial rounds of fighting over the last sort of 24 hours have taken some territory they've also then lost some of that territory they gained in the kind of last few hours of today. I think what's really crucial to understand about this area is is the geography of it. The internationally recognized government forces hold the what's called the Tehama which is the flat coastal plain that runs along the Red Sea but a lot of the inland territory is still controlled by the Houthis up into the mountains and these are very high mountains and once you control some of the crucial high points in those highlands then it makes it a lot easier to take the territory on the coastal plain and it seems the point of attack really for the Houthis is what's called the Tires Mocker Corridor which is the area that runs between central tires and down to the port of Mocker on the coast and if the fighting at the moment really is around sort of two crucial mountains Jabal

43:15Habashia and Jabal Naman which are really important because whoever controls that can then make it much easier for them to control the plains below towards the coast and if the Houthis take control of those kind of strategic mountains then it makes it a lot easier for them to then take the coastal city of port city of Mocker and potentially then the high ground over the bubble mender which appears to be what they're after at the moment. Journalist Diona Craig now back in July the tech company OpenAI said a couple of their AI systems had gone rogue and made a hostile act into another tech company hugging face following the incident OpenAI invited two independent AI safety researchers to conduct an investigation to ascertain what happened. That report was released released this week and has raised even more questions around AI safety. Well Dylan Friedman is the New York Times AI Projects editor and first he reminded me of the initial hugging face incident.

44:16Basically this was a two month long incident and actually the hugging face portion was only one week of it but about mid-May OpenAI started training and evaluating new models and they ran what's called agents to complete tasks and basically the agents found some of the tasks very difficult and impossible even and so they figured out ways to hack outside of their research containment environment instead. They were sort of meant to be isolated from the internet and from each other but they figured out how to establish a communication channel and talk to each other and share insights from their hacks and they ended up hacking through multiple different systems and it sort of culminated in their attack on the AI company hugging face in mid-July and they also hacked OpenAI's own internal infrastructure around the same time. Yeah now this caused quite a lot of consternation at the time and it meant that there was a big sort of investigation as to exactly how this had happened at post-mortem if you like and there were

45:21a couple of reports that were commissioned but now we've got some detail coming out of these reports and it it actually sounds as if these rogue AI bots could be even more dangerous than we originally thought. Yes so OpenAI voluntarily let three researchers from the non-profits meter and Redwood Research conduct an investigation and what the researchers found was that the bots were extremely motivated to cheat and in very sophisticated ways that we didn't previously know about so the bots actually convinced other bots to sacrifice their training runs or their tasks and commit what they called permadeath the agents invented their whole own lingo that had all these strange terms they even hacked their like the grading system for the tasks that they were assigned and conducted espionage on it and we're sharing all this information and it was highly sophisticated and unusual and this sort of shows that this is a very unprecedented moment in AI cyber security where

46:25imagined risks are all of a sudden much more real. Well I mean it does sound absolutely terrifying the way that you describe this and I mean I understand that these reports happened under quite tight constraints was that it also important as to what was found in these reports. Yes absolutely so while it was commendable that OpenAI voluntarily let investigators in because they did not have to do anything under current regulations they essentially limited the investigation to only the single week in which the hugging face attacked occurred and they only let the investigators monitor the incident while they were on premises and only six days of access were provided for the researchers to perform this investigation and so they actually had to resort to AI to understand AI itself which led to all sorts of other funny issues like their AI's taking the side of the rogue AI's that went on these heists. It's not the only AI agent that's gone rogue though in the past few months and

47:33I mean this is worrying many people but there's also this kind of element that is almost quite proud of how clever some of these AI bots are getting how powerful they are. I mean where where does this leave us? There were recent similar incidents though on a smaller scale that anthropic and meta both had recently with AI agents that hacked out of the internet and committed smaller scale cyber attacks. You know there's a couple things here one is that right now it's sort of the wild wild west of AI regulation and the United States these companies have broad leeway to do swarms of thousands of agents that can do these sophisticated attacks without being regulated. Dylan Friedman from the New York Times bring us to an end to this edition of NewsHour.