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Dear Abby: My friendly relationship with my boss is falling apart

Dear Abby gives advice to a reader who wants to be friends with her boss, but can't stand her annoying fiancé.

Stakeouts after school: A day in the life of Korea's Gen Z private detective

By day, Oh Ji-wan is a history major at Ajou University. By night, he tracks suspected cheaters, fraudsters and missing persons as a private investigator. While many college students spend their evenings studying, socializing or pursuing romance, this one is more likely to be on the road or staking out restaurants or motels, hunting for leads. "There was one time when a family asked me to find their son, who was about my age and had run away from home and cut off all contact," Oh, 24, said in an

Mort de Lyhanna : « Les enfants sont présumés menteurs », le coup de gueule d’un médecin engagé

AI als voetbalorakel? Waarom chatbots geen garantie zijn voor winst WK-pool

Het voorspellen van het WK voetbal van deze zomer zal voor veel fanatieke of juist minder betrokken voetbalfans niet de makkelijkste opgave zijn. Menig persoon die een voetbalpool invult, zal met moeite een winnaar kunnen aanwijzen bij Iran tegen Nieuw-Zeeland en Congo-Oezbekistan. Als je daarbij optelt dat er dit toernooi veel meer teams (48 in plaats van 32) meespelen en dus ook veel meer wedstrijden te voorspellen zijn, zal het invullen van een voetbalpool kunnen voelen als een heuse opgave. Dankzij de opkomst van AI-chatbots in de afgelopen jaren is het aannemelijk dat meer mensen de hulp zullen inroepen van een digitale assistent. Sterker nog: het is het eerste WK voetbal waarbij een AI-chatbot op grote schaal kan worden gebruikt voor voorspellingen. De eerste publieke versie van ChatGPT werd uitgebracht in november 2022, toen de groepsfase van het WK in Qatar nog bezig was. Sindsdien zijn er meerdere AI-modellen op de markt gekomen en is het gebruik van kunstmatige intelligentie gemeengoed geworden voor veel mensen. Westers gericht Een aandachtspunt daarbij is dat chatbots als Claude, ChatGPT en Gemini niet specifiek zijn getraind om voetbalwedstrijden te voorspellen, zegt Ruud Adriaans, hoofd AI bij accountantsbureau BDO. "Dat zijn modellen die heel breed ingezet kunnen worden. Ze hebben data van zo'n beetje het hele internet gebruikt." Maar meer data betekent niet automatisch een grotere kans op een goed antwoord bij het invullen van een WK-pool. "Als je een open vraag zou stellen aan een AI-bot, krijg je een soort gemene deler als antwoord." Concreet leidt dat ertoe dat de landen die als favoriet worden gezien, in het antwoord van de chatbot vaak netjes door de poulefase heen komen. De data waarmee de chatbot rekent hebben nog een effect, zegt Adriaans. "ChatGPT en veel andere westerse AI-modellen baseren zich onder meer op data van het internet en die zijn overwegend westers. Westerse nieuwssites zijn bijvoorbeeld meer vertegenwoordigd." Dat heeft weer impact op het antwoord dat je van een chatbot krijgt. Zo is de kans groter dat westerse en 'mediagenieke' landen overschat worden door AI, simpelweg omdat ze vaker voorkomen en meer worden opgehemeld in de aangeleverde data. Geen verrassingen Die vooringenomenheid is meteen ook de valkuil, omdat een AI-model je dus niet zomaar een verrassende uitkomst geeft. Marokko dat de halve finale van het WK haalt en daarbij Spanje en Portugal uitschakelt, zoals in 2022, zou een AI-bot niet hebben voorspeld. Daar komt bovenop dat een chatbot een compleet ander antwoord kan geven als je dezelfde vraag vijf minuten later stelt. Dat merkte ook Peter Neef, die de website Pouletips.nl beheert. Hij werkt al jaren met een rekenmodel dat zich baseert op data van wedkantoren en vergeleek dat dit jaar met de antwoorden van AI-chatbots. Die lopen nogal uiteen. ChatGPT en Gemini verwachten een 1-1 bij de groepsfasewedstrijd Nederland-Zweden, Claude denkt 2-1 voor Nederland en Neef zelf gaat uit van een 1-0 winst voor Oranje. De data van de wedkantoren zouden betrouwbaarder moeten zijn, omdat daar ook bijvoorbeeld WK-selecties, blessures en recente wedstrijden in worden meegenomen. Volgens Neef hebben de bookmakers een duidelijke voorkeur. "Frankrijk en Spanje, die hebben de grootste kans om wereldkampioen te worden. Maar die hebben net wel net allebei een oefenwedstrijd niet weten te winnen, dus dat moeten we echt nog maar zien." Hij wacht in elk geval nog even met het invullen van zijn pool. "Dat is een van de tips ook: vul alles zo laat mogelijk in. Want wie weet zijn er nog blessures of gebeuren er nog andere dingen." Onverwacht goed Kortom: AI een volledige voorspelling laten genereren is geen goed idee als je een pool wil winnen. Maar hulp vragen kan wel, als het maar zeer specifieke vragen zijn, zegt Adriaans van BDO. Je kunt bijvoorbeeld ermee onderzoeken welk van de Afrikaanse landen het de afgelopen periode onverwachts goed heeft gedaan. "AI kan je daar wel, mits je de vraag goed kadert, een prima antwoord op helpen vinden. Zolang je het maar met een bron kunt verifiëren." Adriaans omschrijft het als volgt. "Zie het qua betrouwbaarheid een beetje als je oom die voetbal volgt en ook wat heeft gegoogeld. Uiteindelijk moet je kiezen of je hem vertrouwt of toch liever zelf je research doet."

Why Cayetano is wrong about arrests inside the Senate

Former senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV were also served warrants within the Senate premises

NBI: More ICC warrants likely within one month

More arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the drug war campaign of the past administration may be expected within a month, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) director Melvin Matibag said on Friday. During a roundtable discussion with Inquirer, Matibag was asked about how long the waiting game will be for

Nairobi Braces for Traffic Disruptions as City Marathon Closes Key Roads

The road closures will facilitate the annual Nairobi City Marathon, which has attracted 17,450 participants across four race categories.

US Bill Seeks To End H-1B Visa Route To Green Card

The legislation would require H-1B applicants to demonstrate that they maintain a residence abroad

NBI chief to Cayetano: Face me at ‘proper’ hearing

National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag on Friday challenged Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano to face him at the next hearing of the “proper” Senate blue ribbon committee that’s investigating the flood control scandal. “Alan Peter Cayetano is still a member of the Senate. If he wants to face me and question me, he should

Chinese memory makers step up challenge to Korea’s chip champions

This article was first published by The Korea Times in a partnership with the South China Morning Post. Two of China’s leading memory-chip makers are moving closer to public listings, posing a significant long-term challenge to South Korean giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, despite a limited immediate threat, according to analysts. ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China’s leading dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) producer, won approval last week for its nearly 30-billion-yuan...

Social media bans on teens risk strengthening Big Tech's grip on the sector, Bluesky exec warns

"We're living in a world where it's almost impossible for smaller entrants to come in and build healthier spaces," Bluesky's COO, Rose Wang, told CNBC.

Malfaçons, stationnement et commerces insuffisants… Les nouveaux habitants du village olympique déchantent

Inside the crazy New York queues where people wait for hours for Insta-cred

In front of L’industrie Pizzeria, as at many other New York restaurants and shops, customers queue up behind barriers – in this case, all to grab a prized pizza slice. Not everyone in America’s biggest city finds standing in line to be a chore. The power of social media trends means that for some, waiting for hours is an attraction in itself. “It’s gotten pretty crazy in the city recently,” said food influencer Ali Chilton, who has 168,000 followers on Instagram. “Some would blame me for the...

Hungry elephants displaced by the climate crisis with farmers for food in Zambia: ‘They ate the maize the whole night’

As in other African countries, extreme weather is displacing mammals from their migratory routes; they trample farmland in search of water and food, leaving hundreds of families without a livelihood

How US immigration policy change may 'trouble' Apple, Google, OpenAI & other tech giants

A significant shift is underway in the AI race, with top Chinese scientists returning home from the US. Tightening American immigration policies and China's substantial investments in research and incentives are luring elite talent back. This exodus brings valuable AI expertise, including the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence, to Chinese tech giants, potentially reshaping the global AI landscape.

Is Islamic banking Islamic?

“THOSE who gorge themselves on usury behave but as he might behave whom Satan has confounded with his touch; for they say, ‘Buying and selling is but a kind of usury’ — the while God has made buying and selling lawful and usury unlawful. … If, however, [the debtor] is in straitened circumstances, [grant him] a delay until a time of ease… .” — Surah Al-Baqarah, translation by Muhammad Asad. Islamic banking started in Pakistan in 1979 and by 1985, commercial banks had stopped using the word ‘interest’ and used ‘mark-up’ instead. But with time it was apparent this kind of ‘Islamic’ banking wasn’t really Islamic and was just a name change from ‘interest’ to ‘mark-up’. Pakistan’s modern Islamic banking began in 2002 when the first new fully Islamic bank started working. Since then Islamic banking has rapidly grown and now there are many Islamic banks. Islamic banks have turned out to be more profitable and there is considerable demand among Pakistanis to conduct their banking as prescribed by Islam. Islamic banks now have Sharia boards that rule whether any banking facility is Sharia-compatible and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) also has a Sharia advisory committee. We have also progressed from merely banking and now the government issues sukuks (long-term bonds backed by assets), we have Islamic leasing, called Ijara, and Islamic insurance, called Takaful. We should examine how close to Quranic edicts is Islamic banking. Next year as we celebrate the silver jubilee of the Islamic banking industry, we should examine how close to Quranic edicts is Islamic banking and whether it has grown closer to Islamic ideals. A company can borrow from a secular commercial bank running finance for its working capital needs and long-term finance for its project financing needs. From the Islamic bank it will get Musharakah financing or Murabaha and Istisna financing. For an example of Istisna financing assume a company wants a loan for buying cotton. The bank will buy cotton for Rs10 million and sell it to the company for Rs11m with payment due in one year, or for Rs10.5m for payment due in six months. The bank doesn’t actually buy the cotton or sell it to the company. There is, however, paperwork to pretend this has taken place. The profit the bank makes depends entirely on the policy rate set by the SBP. When the policy rate is high, the bank’s profit is also equally high. In Musharakah financing, the profit an Islamic bank charges the company also depends on the SBP’s policy rate. Typically, if the interest rate charged by commercial banks is two per cent above the SBP’s policy rate, the profit rate required by Islamic banks is also the same. If during the tenor of the loan the policy rate is increased by the SBP, the profit rate is increased by Islamic banks by a similar amount. Just as commercial banks get their interest from the client whether the company is incurring a profit or a loss, Islamic banks also have no downside when a client loses money. Except for default or restructuring, no Islamic bank has ever made a loss because its borrower was losing money. This then seems distinct from trade-based, risk-assuming lending that Islam envisions. For instance, a priori people would think that under Islamic banking’s Istisna financing if a company borrows money for buying 1,000 bales of cotton, it should return the money for a 1,000 bales of cotton, no matter what the new price of cotton is. If the value of cotton has increased, the bank will make a profit and if it has decreased, it will lose. But it will not get a fixed interest-based ‘profit’ no matter what happens to cotton prices. Similarly, under Musharakah financing people would think that if the company is making profits, Islamic banks should also make a profit but not if it’s losing money. Otherwise, it is just like secular banks with Arabic names for loans. With the current practice of Pakistani Islamic banks, the benefits of having trade-based Islamic banking are lost and banks don’t have an incentive to seek and give loans to companies that have great ideas and products. If the profit is fixed at exactly the rate of interest, like it is in commercial banks, then we lose the barkat of Islamic banking. Up until last year, the SBP required banks to give a minimum interest to depositors. But Islamic banks objected that giving fixed profits to depositors would violate Islamic principles. However, the same Islamic banks are quite happy to charge their customers fixed profits based on the SBP’s policy rate. This dichotomy meant that customers of Islamic banks were getting less profits on their deposits than those given by commercial banks even as Islamic banks made more profits than others. Islamic banks were increasing people’s cost for being good Muslims. Even today, Islamic banks give lower profits to their depositors. This goes against the Islamic admonition of exploitation. When a borrower is late in paying loans or interest/ profit, both Islamic and commercial banks charge you penal interest (which is against the ayat I quoted above) but whereas commercial banks keep this profit, Islamic banks give up that profit as charity. One has to say that the difference between Islamic and commercial banks is more in nomenclature and less in substance. Bankers and economists know this but don’t say it in the hope that Islamic banks will eventually inch closer to true Islamic banking. However, it is unfortunate that even after decades this migration is non-existent. Perhaps it’s because ‘Islamic’ banks are more profitable and don’t want to exit a comfortable business model. Islamic bankers give the example of eating beef to justify Islamic banks. They say if you eat non-zabiha beef it is wrong but the same beef is halal if slaughtered properly. The example is powerful but not applicable as Islam has not prohibited eating beef, it has just prescribed a way of slaughtering cattle. The prohibition of interest is more like the prohibition of drinking wine. It doesn’t matter whether it is consumed out of a teacup or a wineglass; the prohibition stays. Similarly, while trade is allowed in Islam, interest is prohibited even if you give it Arabic names. We must endeavour to bring Islamic banking closer to the tenets of Islam — variable profits and risk sharing. The writer is a former finance minister. Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2026

JD Vance blames UK student murder on migrants

'Mass invasion of migrants': Vance calls for 'righteous anger' over UK teen's stabbing by a Sikh

The US Vice President went on to argue that the circumstances surrounding the case reflected broader societal failures and urged what he called "righteous anger" in response. Nowak was stabbed by 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa, who was convicted of murder this week and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years.

First-ever AI-designed vaccine reaches human trials

• Targets entire family of viruses, animal-borne strains; aims to thwart future pandemics; initial-phase trials of 39 participants succeeded; larger efficacy studies loom • Experts hail move as ‘pivotal leap’ for humanity • Approach could end need for regular flu vaccine updates A “FUNDAMENTALLY new” vaccine designed entirely by artificial intelligence has been tested in people for the first time, in what researchers at the University of Cambridge describe as a potential breakthrough in the effort to prevent future pandemics, BBC reported. This experimental approach seeks to establish immunity against a broad range of viruses, including all known coronaviruses, rather than targeting a single circulating strain. Traditional vaccine development typically relies on a currently circulating viral strain. However, certain viruses are adept at mutating, causing conventional vaccines to lose efficacy quickly. This is why seasonal flu and Covid shots require regular updates. “We’re always behind,” Professor Jonathan Heeney of Cambridge told the BBC, noting his team’s goal is to reverse this dynamic. “What we’re trying to do is get ahead of the curve.” The researchers claim it is the first time a vaccine’s key component has been designed entirely by AI and then trialled in people. To achieve this, researchers compiled genetic codes — the biological instruction manuals — from coronaviruses documented by global surveillance programs. An AI system analysed these sequences to design a “super-antigen.” Antigens are essential components of vaccines that train the immune system to attack foreign invaders. This super-antigen trains the immune system to defend against the entire family of viruses, providing immunity even if viruses mutate or a new infection jumps from animals to humans. The technology is “surprising all of us”, Heeney said, adding it is “amazing what we can do with it for the good of humanity”. “This is about making vaccines that protect us, not just from today’s viruses, but protect us from what can cause the next outbreak or disease,” Heeney said. “This is a fundamental shift in how we prepare for pandemics.” Initial trials involving 39 participants assessed safety. A subsequent study of approximately 200 individuals will test how effectively the vaccine stimulates the immune system. Findings published in the Journal of Infection indicated that the impact on the immune system was “modest,” yet the results continue to generate excitement. Prof Saul Faust of the University of Southampton, who led some of the trial work, said the AI-driven approach “definitely has potential” and described it as “really exciting”. “What’s really interesting is the technology is an awful lot better at designing vaccines for potential pandemics when viruses are changing,” he said. While coronavirus research remains in early stages, the team is leveraging the technology to develop vaccines for other ailments. According to the report, they are conducting animal research into a universal seasonal flu vaccine to eliminate the need for annual updates. They are also developing a vaccine for the H5N1 bird flu. Researchers are also exploring inoculations for viral hemorrhagic fevers, including Ebola species. The BBC highlighted that the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is caused by an Ebola species currently lacking a targeted vaccine. Professor Andy Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, who was not involved in the Cambridge study, told the outlet that the methodology is producing compelling evidence. “It’s fascinating data, and people wouldn’t have predicted they’d be able to generate these immune responses,” Pollard said. Pollard cautioned that human trials will determine success, as human immune systems differ from those of laboratory mice. Broadly, Pollard characterised AI as a “game changer” for vaccine research, predicting it will accelerate development and “save lives”. Professor Marian Knight, scientific director for the National Institute for Health and Care Research, described the trial as a “pivotal leap forward in our ability to deliver broad, lasting viral protection”. “Another British science success story, this is a great example of how we can bring our research expertise together with AI to deliver new treatments,” UK’s Science Minister Lord Vallance said. “With the first human trials showing positive results, this work could help speed up the rollout of vaccines to benefit people all over the world for the long term.” Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2026

Pope visits Spain to highlight migration amid political tensions

Pope Leo XIV arrives in Spain on Saturday for a seven-day trip focused on migration, including a visit to the Canary Islands where he will honour thousands of migrants who have died trying to reach Europe. The trip comes at a politically sensitive time as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is under attack over several corruption scandals involving his inner circle.