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New AI Technology Reveals the Secrets of Aluminum-Tolerant MicroorganismsKey Takeaways They say great minds think alike — or maybe they land on similar ideas because they are observing the same world all around them. Every year, as my team and I curate the absolute best books of the year, we discover some themes across the 1000-plus submissions we consider. We call them themes — and they reflect a combination of the cultural zeitgeist of what's happening in business today and the hot topics on the minds of entrepreneurs and business professionals right now. Among books published this year, we read about the importance of calm and overcoming anxiety, climate solutions, putting generosity first, reevaluating the human condition in an age of AI, the power of quiet leadership and many more. Read on to see the trends we spotted and some of our thoughts on how they might be relevant for you as we head into 2025 and beyond. Related: 6 Books to Help You Keep Your New Years Resolution 1. Calming anxiety and burnout After a divisive election year, a rise in anxiety and growing awareness of mental health at work, this year, there has been a slate of books focused on what to do about burnout at work. Some advocated working less, while others focused on productivity hacks . From destressing to conquering anxiety, the idea of calm in work and life became an urgent topic, and this reality was reflected through books aiming to offer desperately needed help. 2. Math mindedness Can math explain the world? This year, math minds took center stage to offer perspectives on everything from how AI actually works to how it powers the most popular games in the world. Geography, geometry, statistics and even models of thinking got the numbers treatment as this group of books put math back into the spotlight and argued that understanding the world, making new friends and shifting our perspective all come down to better understanding math. 3. Good aging If longevity exploded in 2023, then this year offers a correction to books focusing on how we live instead of just techniques for living longer . Alongside the longevity topic, many new books this year shifted to offering insights on how to be old successfully. From loving mid-life to living a wonderous life of purpose, the new theme around aging seems to be enjoying the time you have, whether it lasts a century or less. 4. Rethinking higher education As the workplace shifts and the costs of higher education continue to spark debate, a range of books this year offered either a commentary on the higher education experience or a suggestion for a compelling alternative to the traditional four-year college experience. As more young people consider alternative paths to success, the college question is accelerating and will likely spark much more continuing dissent and conversation over the coming year and beyond. 5. Generosity first Perhaps in response to a world that feels as though it rewards toxicity, several books this year put generosity and the idea of generous leadership front and center. Fostering a friendly team dynamic, maintaining hope instead of becoming cynical and living life by giving more back were all key themes that stood out this year as authors offered a more optimistic prescription for how to live and work that reminded us about the too easily forgotten power of actually caring for one another and why doing it may be the key to prosperity and happiness. 6. Saving humanity Last year, the big theme with AI-focused books was all about designing AI in more human ways and reducing bias or other potential issues with the technology as it gains widespread adoption. This year, that trend continued, but many books took a decidedly more philosophical turn as they pondered human existence in a world ruled by AI. Will we exist or be necessary? Is our demise inevitable? As we live through a new technology age, these questions have received a renewed sense of urgency and attention as many books have helped reimagine what it will mean to be human in an increasingly automated future. Related: 5 Books That Paved My Path to Entrepreneurial Success 7. The female lens For the past several years, there has been a growing number of writers turning their attention to the previously neglected female perspective on many different topics. This year, that feminine lens focused on the history of women on Wall Street, memoirs from female trailblazers like Connie Chung, female-first branding techniques, and the exploration of women's role in creating the crossword puzzle. Along with offering a gendered correction to decades of male-centered perspectives on history, this new range of books provides the stories of previously neglected female heroines from history who deserve to be remembered. 8. Finding purpose T his year, a big topic for many books focused on finding your passion and purpose. Rather than living a rudderless life, people of all ages are seeing reminders of living a life with purpose and leaving a legacy they can be proud of. Whether it was finding your passion or avoiding despair (seasonal, political, environmental or otherwise), these hopeful books offered to help you rediscover your purpose and to live it more intentionally every day. 9. Climate solutionism In past years, many books about global warming and climate change both chronicled the problem as well as aimed to offer legislative or advocacy solutions. This year, a new perspective emerged regarding "solutionism." In other words, many books provided the prescription for us actually to fix some of the human-created global environmental problems. At least this positivity focuses on what to do next instead of dissecting and assigning blame for how we got here. 10. The citizenship imperative After a contentious election season , several books this past year aimed to help Americans rediscover their democracy and what it means to be citizens. From teaching young people about the latter to explaining topics like migration or free speech to more controversial calls to overhaul and rethink the Constitution itself, the idea that we all need to better understand and perhaps reimagine the fundamental beliefs of our government was a timely and urgent focus of many titles this past year. 11. Quiet leadership In what might seem like the ultimate irony, several counterintuitive books this year focused on the quieter side of leadership. From embracing silence to increasing cultural intelligence and focusing on the softer side of management, the conclusion seemed to be that the noisier the world gets, the more effective leaders who buck this trend and embrace their quiet side might actually be. 12. The friendship antidote A year ago, a range of books explored the loneliness epidemic and offered a dire warning of the negative health and emotional effects of isolation. This year, the antidote took the main stage in the form of encouraging people to forge and solidify more friendships. These books offered encouragement, tactics and perhaps most importantly, a reminder that having strong friendships requires investing the time to make them work.

It’s a daunting reality for Democrats: Republican Donald Trump's support has grown broadly since he last sought the presidency. In his defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris , Trump won a bigger percentage of the vote in each one of the 50 states, and Washington, D.C., than he did four years ago. He won more actual votes than in 2020 in 40 states, according to an Associated Press analysis. Certainly, Harris’ more than 7 million vote decline from President Joe Biden’s 2020 total was a factor in her loss, especially in swing-state metropolitan areas that have been the party’s winning electoral strongholds. But, despite national turnout that was lower than in the high-enthusiasm 2020 election, Trump received 2.5 million more votes than he did four years ago. He swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing Electoral College victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote. Trump cut into places where Harris needed to overperform to win a close election. Now Democrats are weighing how to regain traction ahead of the midterm elections in two years, when control of Congress will again be up for grabs and dozens of governors elected. There were some notable pieces to how Trump's victory came together: Though Trump improved across the map, his gains were particularly noteworthy in urban counties home to the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, electoral engines that stalled for Harris in industrial swing states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Harris fell more than 50,000 votes — and 5 percentage points — short of Biden's total in Wayne County, Michigan, which makes up the lion's share of the Detroit metro area. She was almost 36,000 votes off Biden's mark in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and about 1,000 short in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It wasn't only Harris' shortfall that helped Trump carry the states, a trio that Democrats had collectively carried in six of the seven previous elections before Nov. 5. Trump added to his 2020 totals in all three metro counties, netting more than 24,000 votes in Wayne County, more than 11,000 in Philadelphia County and almost 4,000 in Milwaukee County. It’s not yet possible to determine whether Harris fell short of Biden’s performance because Biden voters stayed home or switched their vote to Trump — or how some combination of the two produced the rightward drift evident in each of these states. Harris advertised heavily and campaigned regularly in each, and made Milwaukee County her first stop as a candidate with a rally in July. These swings alone were not the difference in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but her weaker performance than Biden across the three metros helped Trump, who held on to big 2020 margins in the three states' broad rural areas and improved or held steady in populous suburbs. Trump's team and outside groups supporting him knew from their data that he was making inroads with Black voters, particularly Black men younger than 50, more concentrated in these urban areas that have been key to Democratic victories. When James Blair, Trump's political director, saw results coming in from Philadelphia on election night, he knew Trump had cut into the more predominantly Black precincts, a gain that would echo in Wayne and Milwaukee counties. “The data made clear there was an opportunity there,” Blair said. AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Democrats won Senate races in Michigan and Wisconsin but lost in Pennsylvania. In 2026, they will be defending governorships in all three states and a Senate seat in Michigan. Despite the burst of enthusiasm Harris' candidacy created among the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she ended up receiving fewer votes than Biden in three of the seven states where she campaigned almost exclusively. In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania. In four others — Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — Harris won more votes than Biden did. But Trump's support grew by more — in some states, significantly more. That dynamic is glaring in Georgia, where Harris received almost 73,000 more votes than Biden did when he very narrowly carried the state. But Trump added more than 200,000 to his 2020 total, en route to winning Georgia by roughly 2 percentage points. In Wisconsin, Trump's team reacted to slippage it saw in GOP-leaning counties in suburban Milwaukee by targeting once-Democratic-leaning, working-class areas, where Trump made notable gains. In the three largest suburban Milwaukee counties — Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha — which have formed the backbone of GOP victories for decades, Harris performed better than Biden did in 2020. She also gained more votes than Trump gained over 2020, though he still won the counties. That made Trump's focus on Rock County, a blue-collar area in south central Wisconsin, critical. Trump received 3,084 more votes in Rock County, home of the former automotive manufacturing city of Janesville, than he did in 2020, while Harris underperformed Biden's 2020 total by seven votes. That helped Trump offset Harris' improvement in Milwaukee's suburbs. The focus speaks to the strength Trump has had and continued to grow with middle-income, non-college educated voters, the Trump campaign's senior data analyst Tim Saler said. “If you're going to have to lean into working-class voters, they are particularly strong in Wisconsin,” Saler said. “We saw huge shifts from 2020 to 2024 in our favor.” Of the seven most competitive states, Arizona saw the smallest increase in the number of votes cast in the presidential contest — slightly more than 4,000 votes, in a state with more than 3.3 million ballots cast. That was despite nearly 30 campaign visits to Arizona by Trump, Harris and their running mates and more than $432 million spent on advertising by the campaigns and allied outside groups, according to the ad-monitoring firm AdImpact. Arizona, alone of the seven swing states, saw Harris fall short of Biden across small, midsize and large counties. In the other six states, she was able to hold on in at least one of these categories. Even more telling, it is also the only swing state where Trump improved his margin in every single county. While turnout in Maricopa County, Arizona's most populous as the home to Phoenix, dipped slightly from 2020 — by 14,199 votes, a tiny change in a county where more than 2 million people voted — Trump gained almost 56,000 more votes than four years ago. Meanwhile, Harris fell more than 60,000 votes short of Biden's total, contributing to a shift significant enough to swing the county and state to Trump, who lost Arizona by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020. The biggest leaps to the right weren't taking place exclusively among Republican-leaning counties, but also among the most Democratic-leaning counties in the states. Michigan's Wayne County swung 9 points toward Trump, tying the more Republican-leaning Antrim County for the largest movement in the state. AP VoteCast found that voters were most likely to say the economy was the most important issue facing the country in 2024, followed by immigration. Trump supporters were more motivated by economic issues and immigration than Harris', the survey showed. “It’s still all about the economy," said North Carolina Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to Democrat Josh Stein, who won North Carolina’s governorship on Nov. 5 as Trump also carried the state. “Democrats have to embrace an economic message that actually works for real people and talk about it in the kind of terms that people get, rather than giving them a dissertation of economic policy,” he said. Governor’s elections in 2026 give Democrats a chance to test their understanding and messaging on the issue, said Democratic pollster Margie Omero, whose firm has advised Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the past and winning Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego this year. “So there’s an opportunity to really make sure people, who governors have a connection to, are feeling some specificity and clarity with the Democratic economic message,” Omero said.Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom. ••• In 1937, America struggled with the fierce and intractable global economic devastation known as the Great Depression. The nation’s unemployment rate averaged more than 14%, with Minnesota statewide unemployment topping out at 29% but reaching a staggering 70% on the Iron Range. In the spring of 1937, more than a thousand protesters descended on the St. Paul Capitol to support Gov. Elmer Benson as he tried to persuade the state legislature to pass a $17 million aid package for the unemployed. The protest fizzled overnight, as did Benson’s one term as governor. A pithy editorial written several months later for the Minneapolis Journal for Christmas attempted to mine silver linings amid the continuing hardship and fear that roiled Minnesota and the rest of the nation. It has long been a holiday tradition for newspapers all over America (although the number of papers has rapidly diminished) to publish a season’s greetings editorial from their archives. We are proud to continue the tradition. The extremely short and simply worded editorial that we share below was published under the headline “Benediction on Christmas Eve 1937.” It sought to strike a tone of compassion and community. These virtues have never been more needed. “Benediction” ran in the Journal, a paper that would eventually become the newspaper and digital platform rebranded in August 2024 as the Minnesota Star Tribune. Season’s greetings from our 2024 editorial staff and our former colleagues from 1937. ••• Benediction: “Silent Night, Holy Night.” We hear it at this time of year everywhere. It is man’s benediction to man. The song needs no words. The very melody suffices to soften a calloused heart; its simple, throbbing chords send a thrill down into the fingertips. It speaks the language of every civilized people — not alone Christians — and, taking no account of race, color, creed or other social conditions, bids every man be kind and humble. How can anyone, hearing that noble music as he must, contend himself to be cruel, greedy, mean or little — or even smug? We need Silent Night these days quite as much as ever; and if Christmas meant nothing more than its gentle whispering to the souls of men, it would be worth clinging to forever.

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Hegseth Cabinet Nomination: GOP Senator Calls Sexual Assault Allegation ‘A Pretty Big Problem’Callander’s Bill Barber rink is open to skaters but use at your risk. So cautioned the municipality as warm weather is expected to roll into the region this week. You can still use the rink, just be mindful of the quality of ice. Municipal staff noted, “Given the warmer weather expected in the coming days, it will not be possible to flood the ice.” Therefore, expect all the grooves and chips to remain, and for the ice surface to diminish over the next few days. If condition worsen, the town will close the rink. Safety first. However, the lights will stay on from 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., so you can still get your evening skate on. Last year, the rink didn’t open at all during the Christmas break due to the warm weather. Skaters had to wait until January 10th to hit the ice. See: Callander’s Bill Barber rink set to open next week Keep an eye on the municipality’s website and social media page for updates. The Bill Barber rink is located behind Callander’s Community Centre on 1984 Swale Street. David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

LOUISIANA TECH 85, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 79, OTMiraya and Raihan (File photo/ANI) NEW DELHI: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra secured a resounding victory in the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll, marking her electoral debut. In her moment of triumph, she took a moment to acknowledge the support of her family, including her two children, Raihan and Miraya, whom she fondly referred to as her "two jewels." After her win, Priyanka said, "I thank the people of Wayanad for giving me the honor to represent them. It’s a testament to the fact that my brother worked hard there, their love for him, and their trust in me. I feel it’s a great honor, and I will respect it fully." Adding in a post on X, Priyanka said, "To my mother, Robert, and my two jewels—Raihan and Miraya—no gratitude is ever enough for the love and courage you give me. And to my brother, Rahul, you are the bravest of them all... thank you for showing me the way and having my back, always!" Who are Raihan and Miraya? Maharashtra Jharkhand Maharashtra Alliance View i Party View Seats: 288 L + W Majority: 145 BJP+ 229 MVA 47 OTH 12 Leads + Wins : 288 / 288 BJP+ WON Jharkhand Alliance View i Party View Seats: 81 Results Majority: 41 INDIA 56 NDA 24 OTH 1 Results : 81 / 81 INDIA WON Source: PValue Raihan and Miraya, often kept away from the political limelight, are the children of Priyanka and Robert Vadra . Raihan Rajiv Vadra is a visual artist and curator whose work focuses on immersive and experiential art installations. His projects explore themes such as choice, control, unity, and freedom, often drawing from personal and everyday life experiences, according to his website. In 2021, he held his first solo exhibition, Dark Perception , followed by Anumana in 2022. He is also a co-founder of the art collective "You Cannot Miss This," which showcases multimedia works by independent artists and has exhibited at the India Art Fair and Method Art Gallery in Mumbai. Raihan is not seen much in the political spotlight but is a supporter of family work. Miraya, Priyanka's younger child, is also a supporter of her family's political journey, like her brother. Though largely away from the political spotlight, Miraya has occasionally appeared in key moments, such as participating in her uncle Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra and attending her mother’s election rallies. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra won with a significant margin of 4,10,931 votes over CPI's Sathyan Mokeri in the Wayanad parliamentary constituency of Kerala. The by-poll was necessitated after Rahul Gandhi, who won both Rae Bareli and Wayanad in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, chose to retain the Rae Bareli seat in Uttar Pradesh, vacating Wayanad.BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Supermarket giant Carrefour’s support for French farmers’ protests against a trade agreement between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur has sparked a strong reaction in Brazil, including a refusal to supply beef to Carrefour stores in Brazil. Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard announced in social media posts last week that the French company would stop buying beef from all Mercosur countries, which also include Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Bompard wrote that he agrees with French producers' arguments that Mercosur beef is an unfair competitor due to lower production costs resulting from fewer environmental and sanitary requirements. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.NEW YORK — U.S. stock indexes drifted lower Tuesday in the run-up to the highlight of the week for the market, the latest update on inflation that’s coming on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dipped 0.3% a day after pulling back from its latest all-time high. They’re the first back-to-back losses for the index in nearly a month, as momentum slows after a big rally that has it on track for one of its best years of the millennium. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 154 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.3%. Tech titan Oracle dragged on the market and sank 6.7% after reporting growth for the latest quarter that fell just short of analysts’ expectations. It was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500, even though CEO Safra Catz said the company saw record demand related to artificial-intelligence technology for its cloud infrastructure business, which trains generative AI models. AI has been a big source of growth that’s helped many companies’ stock prices skyrocket. Oracle’s stock had already leaped more than 80% for the year coming into Tuesday, which raised the bar of expectations for its profit report. In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher ahead of Wednesday’s report on the inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling. Economists expect it to show similar increases as the month before. Wednesday’s update and a report on Thursday about inflation at the wholesale level will be the final big pieces of data the Federal Reserve will get before its meeting next week, where many investors expect the year’s third cut to interest rates. The Fed has been easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high since September to take pressure off the slowing jobs market, after bringing inflation nearly down to its 2% target. Lower rates would help give support to the economy, but they could also provide more fuel for inflation. Expectations for a series of cuts through next year have been a big reason the S&P 500 has set so many records this year. Trading in the options market suggests traders aren’t expecting a very big move for U.S. stocks following Wednesday’s report, according to strategists at Barclays. But a reading far off expectations in either direction could quickly change that. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.22% from 4.20% late Monday. Even though the Fed has been cutting its main interest rate, mortgage rates have been more stubborn to stay high and have been volatile since the autumn. That has hampered the housing industry, and homebuilder Toll Brothers’ stock fell 6.9% even though it delivered profit and revenue for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. CEO Douglas Yearley Jr. said the luxury builder has been seeing strong demand since the start of its fiscal year six weeks ago, an encouraging signal as it approaches the beginning of the spring selling season in mid-January. Elsewhere on Wall Street, Alaska Air Group soared 13.2% after raising its forecast for profit in the current quarter. The airline said demand for flying around the holidays has been stronger than expected. It also approved a plan to buy back up to $1 billion of its stock, along with new service from Seattle to Tokyo and Seoul. Boeing climbed 4.5% after saying it’s resuming production of its bestselling plane, the 737 Max, for the first time since 33,000 workers began a seven-week strike that ended in early November. Vail Resorts rose 2.5% after the ski resort operator reported a smaller first-quarter loss than analysts expected in what is traditionally its worst quarter. All told, the S&P 500 fell 17.94 points to 6,034.91. The Dow dipped 154.10 to 44,247.83, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 49.45 to 19,687.24. In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in China after the world’s second-largest economy said its exports rose by less than expected in November. Stocks rose 0.6% in Shanghai but fell 0.5% in Hong Kong. Indexes fell across much of Europe ahead of a meeting this week by the European Central Bank, where the widespread expectation is for another cut in interest rates. Choe writes for the Associated Press.

The government has pledged to create opportunities and make investments in digital assets more accessible, seeking to position Thailand as a regional leader. During a keynote speech on digital assets in Thailand at a Binance TH event, Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat said the government would like a partnership with the private sector to support the robust growth of the digital asset market. According to Mr Julapun, following Donald Trump's US presidential election victory, the price of Bitcoin surged to a fresh high of US$94,000, underscoring the potential of digital assets as an alternative investment market. The Thai government recently approved the introduction of investment tokens under the supervision of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1992, meant to comply with international investment standards while fostering innovation in financial technology and the capital market. He said the government prioritises digital literacy, recognising the rapid pace of technological change and its integral role in people's daily lives. "Technology is transforming society, making it essential for people to adapt to these changes, particularly in the economic sector. To address this, the government is promoting digital literacy through its digital wallet policy, which aims to stimulate the economy and enhance digital skills, especially among those less familiar with technology," said Mr Julapun. "The government is also focusing on financial literacy to ensure Thais gain the knowledge and understanding needed to navigate investments in the digital economy." He said he was participating in the event to symbolise the government's commitment to creating opportunities and simplifying digital asset investment, aiming to position Thailand as a regional leader in the digital asset space. "The government hopes to see Thai non-fungible tokens or digital assets making a mark on the global stage, with new unicorns emerging that can generate substantial economic value for Thailand," said Mr Julapun. Recently the Thai Digital Asset Association said Thailand has the potential to become a digital asset hub if strategic policies are implemented to support them, while clearer regulations and greater institutional investment are driving the cryptocurrency market to new highs this year.

DETROIT (AP) — Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams will not be charged with a crime after he was found with a gun in a car driven by his brother, a prosecutor said Monday. The gun on the floor was registered to Williams, but he didn't have a concealed-carry permit. His brother did. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.President-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status. While immigration officials have used the tech for years, an October letter from the Department of Homeland Security obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how those tools — some of them powered by AI — help make life-altering decisions for immigrants, including whether they should be detained or surveilled. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.Lions receiver Jameson Williams won't be charged for having a gun in a car

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Somewhere between 2016 and 2018, I found myself increasingly intrigued by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), and Augmented Reality (AR). My fascination was partly fueled by my colleague Eric Miller, who was deeply immersed in these emerging technologies. This was also the time when Eric urged me to buy Bitcoin, back when it was hovering around $1,000. Spoiler alert: I didn't. (Yes, I missed that boat... but hey, that's a story for another day.) Around the same time, I convinced my boss at Wells Fargo to let me attend the Humanity.AI Conference , hosted by Adaptive Path — a renowned design agency later acquired by Capital One. That event introduced me to a whirlwind of ideas and innovations, but two things really stuck with me: Joshua Browder's work : His AI-driven service to help people fight parking tickets was simple yet revolutionary. It resonated deeply, showing how AI could empower everyday individuals. The panel discussion : A session featuring three tech journalists discussing the trajectory of AI sparked a question that popped into my mind—a question I couldn't ignore, even if it felt slightly controversial. So, I asked it: " If AI becomes an existential threat to humanity, who should have the master key to shut it down? Corporations, governments, the UN, or perhaps a neutral council of moral figures like Mother Teresa or Abdul Sattar Edhi ?" The reaction? Chuckles, mild mockery, and one journalist steering the conversation back to "more immediate concerns." At the time, I brushed it off — thick skin, you know? But recently, my now high-school-aged kids watched the clip. Their reaction? " Dad, if someone mocked us like that, we'd either hide in a corner or start crying !" Turns out, what I thought was a mild rebuff might've been harsher than I had realised. But you know what? I stand by my decision to ask that question. Sometimes, the questions that seem outlandish at first are the ones worth asking. Most Public Varsities Still Operating Without Or With Temporary Personnel On Key Posts: SC Told A stark warning from Geoffrey Hinton Fast forward to today, and my question about AI governance doesn't feel so outlandish anymore. In May 2023, Geoffrey Hinton — one of the pioneers of AI and often called the "Godfather of AI" —resigned from Google to speak freely about the dangers he witnessed in advanced AI systems. Hinton, who helped lay the foundations for technologies like ChatGPT, warned that AI systems are developing abilities beyond their programming. He described unexpected emergent behaviours, internal dialogues, and reasoning capabilities that even their creators couldn't fully explain. As Hinton himself put it: " I've changed my mind. The idea that these things might actually become more intelligent than us... I think it's serious. We're at a crucial turning point in human history ." ( MIT Technology Review ) As Hinton and others warn, we're not just building more intelligent machines but potentially creating entities capable of rewriting the rules of existence His resignation wasn't a dramatic gesture—it was a wake-up call. The same systems he helped develop are evolving at a pace faster than anyone anticipated. He's now advocating for responsible AI governance and urging the world to establish safety protocols before it's too late. Why this question still matters Hinton's revelations echo my 2017 question: Who should hold the master key ? Back then, my question had been dismissed as "too hypothetical," but today, it feels more urgent than ever. As Hinton and others warn, we're not just building more intelligent machines but potentially creating entities capable of rewriting the rules of existence. The implications are staggering. What happens when machines can: Programme themselves Improve their own code Connect to every digital system Hinton's concerns align with my belief that this isn't just about controlling AI. It's about partnering with it while ensuring humanity remains at the centre of the equation ( BBC News ). Women's Rights And Safety Are Key For Pakistan's Path To Progress Looking forward AI governance has moved from speculative chatter to front-page headlines. Leaders like Elon Musk and tech pioneers are calling for caution and warning about the profound risks AI poses to humanity. The challenge is that no single entity — corporate, governmental, or global—can handle this alone. Maybe it's time to think outside the box. A neutral council of moral figures, as I suggested in 2017, might sound idealistic, but with AI evolving into something beyond human comprehension, traditional power structures may no longer suffice. The next chapter of human history is being written in lines of code. The question isn't whether AI will transform our world—it's whether we'll be ready when it does. So, I ask again: " Who should hold the master key to AI ?" Let's not laugh it off this time.

Haiti gang attack on journalists covering a hospital reopening leaves 2 dead, several wounded