Pope in Paris, Xi in DC, AI at a Crossroads

It’s been a week of walkouts, power plays and diplomatic theatre — from a battle over press freedom in Washington, to a United Nations General Assembly marked by protests and departures, as leaders clashed over Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. There was also a rare red-carpet meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, as the US and China extended their trade truce and turned their attention to the race for dominance in artificial intelligence. And from the geopolitical to the spiritual, Pope Leo brought his call for restraint and regulation of AI to France, as he sought to position the Vatican as a moral voice in a rapidly changing world.