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Art can become “a form of cultural and spiritual regeneration,” Pope Leo XIV said, when it “resists homogenization, slows the gaze, and compels us to pause before that which refuses to be consumed.” The Holy Father offered a reflection on the relationship between the Church and art in an address to participants in an encounter promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education entitled “The Art of Possibility: Weaving Together.” Recalling Saint Paul VI’s words to artists, Pope Leo said the Church needs artists who can collaborate in the ministry of preaching and making the world of the spi

President Trump and Big AI have fused their futures around four enormous bets. 

1. The economic bet: That trillions poured into chips, data centers and power will create a productivity engine powerful enough to fuel a new Industrial Revolution.

2. The regulation bet: That Washington can clear the runway for an AI takeoff while leaving the companies largely responsible for policing themselves.

3. The safety bet: That AI can grow vastly more powerful without becoming vastly harder to control.

Wikipedia is starting to feel the effects of the AI-driven shift in how people find information, with page views falling 8 percent in the latest year, said new Wikimedia Foundation CEO Bernadette Meehan. Wikipedia is a crucial source of information for AI models, but those same models increasingly allow people to get Wikipedia-derived information without ever visiting the site—potentially threatening the ecosystem that keeps the online encyclopedia running. While the drop wasn't unexpected, "that doesn't mean that we're sort of starry-eyed about it and not concerned about it," Meehan said.

On September 29, 2026, President Donald Trump took three significant steps shaping how the federal government will use, refer to, and oversee artificial intelligence (AI)—including a voluntary accord with six of the country's largest AI companies that signals the Administration's preference for industry self-governance over federal regulation. The three actions were:

As social media platforms have become an important part of the information environment around the world, the view that social media is harming democracy has become more common. A new 37-nation Pew Research Center survey finds that in most countries where trend data is available, the share of the public who believes social media is bad for democracy has increased significantly from 2022 or 2023 to now. Views about social media’s impact are particularly negative in the United States, where 64% of adults say it is bad for democracy.

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Many governments struggle to get a handle on a technology that has rapidly outpaced their ability to respond. A.I. is evolving so quickly that laws passed two years ago are having limited effect, proposed bills to regulate the technology are stalling without a vote and international summits to discuss what to do are being swiftly forgotten. A.I. has made the gap between policymaking and technology one of the widest ever, according to more than 20 interviews with lawmakers, technologists and policy experts. Many governments are torn between wanting to harness A.I. and fearing its risks.

Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed an executive order permanently declaring Artificial Intelligence to be called “Artificial Intelligence” in California. He also signed new first-in-the-nation legislation signed will protect people in the workplace from the impacts of artificial intelligence, automated technology, and AI-powered workplace surveillance.

A recent Innovative Systems survey of 132 rural operators found 82% have no clear or defined AI strategy and 49% have only limited or informal adoption of the technology.

President Donald Trump is determined to leave AI companies to their own devices when it comes to building safety guardrails. But tech executives and former government officials say they’re skeptical the accord will lead to tangible changes because the stipulations aren't legally binding and likely aren’t much different from what the companies are already doing. The accord underscores a simmering tension between some major AI companies and the Administration over safety guardrails: Executives such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei