Bill Gates on Jeffrey Epstein:

The fact that in the Florida case the government failed to have a penalty and they failed to see things that were ongoing, that’s an incredible failure of the justice system.

Trump plans to host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private White House dinner Sunday, their first one-on-one meeting.

Trump personally invited Amodei after he missed last week’s state dinner because of a scheduling conflict.

Source: Axios

Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to tighten the country’s neutrality rules, with about 70% voting against it.

The initiative would have defined neutrality as “perpetual and armed,” restricted cooperation with military alliances such as NATO, and allowed sanctions against countries at war only with UN Security Council approval.

The result preserves Switzerland’s current approach, allowing it to cooperate on security and impose sanctions while remaining outside military alliances.

Ethiopia’s former enemies just... became allies.

Because they all want Abiy Ahmed gone.

Bill Gates:

AI is not just a new technology. This is truly an evolutionary event.

We have created an intelligent species that, in many respects, is already smarter than we are, and over the next several years, at kind of exponentially improving level, will be insanely smarter than we are.

Bill Gates on AI:

AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths.

Even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.

And it’s great that there’s this discussion, with the industry almost against their interest admitting these things.

The problem is that the rest of the world is either discounting this or just thinking of this as a competition.

And it’s very scary that we don’t have all of the thinkers saying, "How do we want to shape this?"

Bill Gates on AI:

The most dangerous thing we’re facing right now is people with bad intent using the AI. So somebody who wants to defraud an individual, or wants to shut down the electric network, or scramble bank accounts — they are now empowered.

Historically, countries had cyberattack teams and they could think of things like bioterror weapons. Now small groups with AI can do what only the biggest countries could do.

So it’s really the bad intent plus AI that looms as a major threat unless governments insist on various safeguards.

We will see a lot of big negative things because we’re not safeguarding.

Bill Gates on AI:

We care about things way short of the ultimate doomsday scenario, and I’m afraid that’s kind of distracting people.

There is not a current risk of these AIs getting completely out of control. The thing that’s urgent has to do with bad people using AI, not the AI going off on its own.

In a sense, I’d say it’s good that these loss-of-control incidents have gotten people focused on AI, even though that’s not the imminent risk.

Bill Gates on AI:

I wish it was easier to distinguish good intent, like, "I want to design a new drug for a disease," versus negative intent, which is, "I want to design a tool of bioterrorism," because those are so close.

We do need to monitor any sophisticated model and record exactly what’s being done.

Bill Gates on Trump-Xi AI talks:

Well, there’s nothing on the table today, so they can, you know, I hope the tea is good, I hope they smile at each other.

There’s no proposal today to take this imminent danger and to learn from each other and work together to monitor and safeguard against these dangers.

So, you know, it’s great that they’re willing to talk with each other, but there’s no substance to what can be done to have AI curbed from negative activity.

Iran's Ghalibaf:

US gaslighting bureau says Iran doesn’t control SOH, but the market prices a big premium, $35 over pre-invasion and $50 using dated/actual.

So either the market’s dumb or the US narrative-laundromat is faking it. Free-dollar vending machine in Hormuz for believers. Go grab it.

Israel is revoking the diplomatic status of Dutch diplomats in Ramallah after the Netherlands imposed a ban on imports and trade involving products from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Foreign Minister Sa’ar told the Dutch Embassy that the diplomats must return their Israeli-issued diplomatic documents within seven days, after which their immunities and related rights will expire.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić resigned, ending his second and final five-year term and paving the way for early presidential elections.

Netanyahu met UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed today after arriving in the country on a private jet and spending the day there.

Source: N12

Trump:

Trump on AI:

We're about a year, maybe a year and a half up on China. There is nobody in third place.

I spoke a little bit about it with Xi, not too much. I think if you, as they say, open it up, you sort of give up the lead.

Q: Is there any part of you that worries at all about AI going rogue?

Trump: Well, I don't worry about it. It's a huge industry. It's really the industrial revolution, maybe bigger.

And we're leading and we're building tremendous, you know, trillions of dollars worth of places. And why should we give that up?

Trump on Iran:

We're going to win this war very soon, and as soon as we win it, the oil will go down, way down to what it was before the war.

Q: What about an export ban on diesel?

Trump: We’re thinking about it very seriously.

We may do it.

Trump:

I told Zelensky, "You gotta take it easy on the refineries."

There are other things he can do.

Trump on Iran:

We're certainly winning it very big.