Follow important events shaping our world through several different news perspectives. Compare the reporting, consider the facts, and decide for yourself what may be significant in the unfolding signs of our times.
Three different newsrooms. Three different viewpoints. Follow the same developing events and compare how each source reports the story.
U.S.-based coverage of Israel, Iran, Gaza and major political, military and diplomatic developments throughout the Middle East.
Latest Fox News Middle EastRegional reporting from a major Middle Eastern news organisation, including Gaza, Israel, Iran and wider Arab-world developments.
Latest Al Jazeera Middle EastChristian news coverage with a strong emphasis on Israel, Jerusalem, biblical issues and developments throughout the Middle East.
Latest CBN Israel News(NYT) The St. Marien Church is a mid-20th-century Brutalist landmark in northern Essen, Germany, with a dark brick facade and handmade stained-glass window that lets in a soft, diffuse light. It is one of more than 20,000 churches across Germany that is expected to be abandoned in the next five to 10 years. And further thousands of churches across Western Europe are expected to become vacant in the coming years as their societies’ connection to Christianity wanes. There is no central plan for what to do with the buildings, but secular cultural organizations, artists, preservationists and city planners are looking for ways to repurpose them for the benefit of their cities and towns—whether as health care centers, bookstores or spaces for the arts.
(NYT) More than a dozen top artificial intelligence researchers warned over the last week that the technology that A.I. companies are building is becoming a risk to humanity. The problem, the researchers said, is that the companies are bad at controlling the systems—as hard as they may try. Coming on the heels of revelations that so-called A.I. agents from OpenAI escaped their testing system and hacked into the computers of another company, the new alarms from inside the A.I. research world added urgency to years long fears that companies are putting development speed and money over safety. The researchers say the problem is twofold. First, companies need to create better safeguards for the newest A.I. models as they are being tested. Right now, because the A.I. works so fast, researchers need A.I. to monitor it. But that doesn’t always work, because the A.I. monitors can appear to be more sympathetic to other A.I. systems than to the humans setting the rules. That odd combination of A.I. troublemakers and A.I. guards that look the other way points to a second and more difficult issue known as alignment—an industry term that essentially means making sure that A.I. does what is best for humans. Companies have the difficult task of enshrining within A.I. a set of humanlike values so the models make decisions that align with what should be best for people.
(NYT) The Alternative for Germany party dominated a crucial state election on Sunday, according to near-final results, but fell short of the absolute majority needed to become the first far-right party to govern part of the country since the Nazi era. If those results hold, the AfD, as the party is known by its German initials, could still assume power in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in the coming weeks, depending on the negotiations among rival parties that have vowed not to support an AfD government. Saxony-Anhalt is a relatively small state, and the heart of the AfD’s power base in eastern Germany. But the election result sent shock waves through the country’s political system, which was designed after World War II to prevent extremist parties from ever returning to power. The political establishment has treated the AfD as a pariah. Still, the party tapped into voter frustration on a wide range of economic and social issues to win about 44 percent of the vote in the state, and was set to claim 39 of the 83 seats in the Parliament.