Pope Leo XIV will present "Magnifica Humanitas" at the Vatican on May 25, 2026 alongside Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah and theologians Anna Rowlands and Léocadie Lushombo, the Vatican said Monday. The Chicago-born pontiff signed the document on May 15, 135 years to the day after Leo XIII signed "Rerum Novarum" on the Industrial Revolution. The Vatican said the encyclical addresses "the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence" and is expected to consider AI's effects on workers' rights and warfare.
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Public backlash against AI is outpacing the industry's growth, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing "booed commencement speakers, blocked data centers, plummeting poll numbers." Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt drew boos at the University of Arizona on Friday after telling graduates AI "will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory." It was the third such commencement reaction this month, after speeches at the University of Central Florida and Middle Tennessee State University, SiliconANGLE reported. Semafor cited polling showing 70% of Americans think AI is moving too fast and 18% of young people feel hopeful about it, with Gen Z workers more than three times as likely as older workers to say AI's risks outweigh its benefits. Schmidt's family office Hillspire has invested in more than a dozen AI startups between 2019 and 2025, including Anthropic.
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A nine-member federal jury in Oakland on Monday rejected Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Microsoft after under two hours of deliberation, finding the claims were barred by the three-year statute of limitations. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the advisory verdict and dismissed the case. OpenAI lawyer William Savitt told reporters jurors viewed the lawsuit as an "after-the-fact contrivance" by Musk to sabotage a competitor, AP reported. Musk's attorneys signaled they are weighing appeal, and Musk wrote on X that the verdict creates "a precedent to loot charities," Axios reported. The dismissal removes a major legal obstacle to OpenAI's for-profit conversion as the company, currently valued at about $852 billion, moves toward a potential public offering at roughly $1 trillion.
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On Thursday, Senators Mark Warner and Mike Rounds will deliver opening remarks at an AI Policy Network-convened panel on the national security implications of artificial general intelligence. The panel will feature AI futurist Ray Kurzweil, AI Policy Network president Mark Beall, and Tarun Chhabra, Anthropic's head of national security policy and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. The session will cover recent AI technical milestones including Project Mythos and pathways to AGI, emerging national security capabilities from cyberwarfare to the battlefield, and a flexible policy response framework to prepare the U.S. government for AGI risks while pressing American competitive advantage in AI development.
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Anduril vice president of mission systems Quay Barnett said on the record that the company is testing Google Gemini, Meta Llama and Anthropic Claude in defense prototypes, MIT Technology Review reported in a profile published Monday. The disclosure surfaces Anthropic's Claude in active Pentagon adjacent testing even as Anthropic remains under its federal supply chain risk designation. The profile details Anduril and Meta's prototyping of AR glasses for military helmets under the Army's $159 million Soldier Borne Mission Command (SBMC) prototype contract, with Anduril's self-funded EagleEye helmet/headset combo announced in October running on a parallel track. The Army is not expected to move SBMC into production until 2028.
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NextEra Energy announced Monday it will acquire Dominion Energy in an all-stock transaction valued at about $67 billion, combining two major utilities that will serve roughly 10 million customers across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, WSJ reported. Dominion shareholders will receive a fixed 0.8138 NextEra shares per Dominion share plus a one-time $360 million cash payment at closing, while NextEra stockholders will own 74.5% of the combined business, AP reported. The deal is expected to close in 12 to 18 months and requires approval from both companies' shareholders, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and federal and state regulators. NextEra and Dominion said they would offer Dominion customers in Virginia and the Carolinas a total of $2.25 billion in bill credits over two years, CBS News reported, though Clean Virginia warned the headline figure is a one-time payout rather than ongoing relief. Dominion powers hundreds of data centers across Virginia, and the combined company will operate dual headquarters in Juno Beach, Florida and Richmond.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday he believes China's market will reopen to U.S. AI chip suppliers, telling Bloomberg Television in an interview at a Dell event that "my sense is that over time, the market will open," Investing.com reported. Huang accompanied President Trump on the May 14-15 Beijing trip with Xi Jinping, which produced no immediate breakthrough for Nvidia to sell H200 chips. Nvidia has received U.S. government licenses to sell its H200 chip to China but lacks Chinese approval, with Beijing backing domestic chip suppliers. The Trump administration excluded the more advanced Blackwell and Rubin chips from January's limited H200 export approval. Huang has previously described the China market as a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia.
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