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International

WEF 2025: AI CEO Says Facial Recognition Will Replace Digital IDs in Smart Cities

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“…you won’t need a digital identity” because “you have the facial recognition and other things built into your smart cities.”

One of the panels during last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting – “Empowering People with Digital Public Infrastructure” – saw the participation of Avathon CEO Pervinder Johar, who provided a vision of a gloomy future of “optimized” and omnipresent surveillance.

Johar, of course, would not put it quite that way. Avathon, which produces AI tech, including the surveillance kind – believes that in the next five to ten years there will be no need for digital ID since facial recognition “and other things” will be built into “smart cities.”

The panel was dedicated to digital public infrastructure (DPI) – a buzzword used by digital ID proponents like the UN, the EU, the WEF, and Bill Gates – and Johar said the financial and identity portions of digital ID will “converge” to produce the result he predicted.

This suggests that the population will be under constant surveillance and identified at all times. Johar had more “good news” – Avathon makes what it calls an industrial AI platform, a surveillance system that the CEO shared has been deployed in Round Rock High School in Texas – “for children’s safety.”

It “utilizes a school’s existing camera infrastructure to proactively detect everything from a weapon to an open door, unauthorized access, or even a fire.”

Another panelist, Hoda Al Khzaimi, Associate Vice Provost for Research Translation and Entrepreneurship at New York University Abu Dhabi Hoda Al Khzaimi, also spoke about the connection between the DPI and “smart cities.”

“Digital public infrastructures came into manifestation because governments want to make sure that they provide seamless services in the rise of smart cities,” said Al Khzaimi, at the same time effectively suggesting that “the optimal application of DPI” is pushing digital ID on citizens.

Al Khzaimi also addressed the issue of DPI data. “What’s positive is that if this data provided by the DPI infrastructure are open and in many kinds of scenarios, you have open marketplaces for these data, users themselves can nudge governments and can nudge providers of these services and to tell them what do you want, and what do you not want and control the trends of how to deploy and build for solutions,” she said.

Al Khzaimi also praised the public-private partnership on the DPI. And while acknowledging the potential for abuse (“you don’t want to subject the citizens to mass analytics if they don’t want to have this mass analytics infrastructure”) she quickly contradicted herself by saying there are cases when this should be done – such as to “analyze population data for health pandemic outbreaks.”

Kapital Co-Founder and CEO Rene Saul spoke about Mexico’s digital passport (which utilizes biometric ID verification at the borders – something Saul did not mention), which he is a holder of, as a positive example of digital ID.

After all, it saved him 35 minutes.

“I arrived to Europe for the first time, and I saw the sign with other three countries that had electronic passport. So, I saved 35 minutes just to enter Europe when it took me one hour. So, that’s one of good examples, and that, and another good example of this technology is, it opened our borders,” said Saul.

Know Your Customer (KYC) was also mentioned as helpful in developing digital services such as those used by banks. KYC itself is an invasive form of digital ID verification that incorporates document scans and biometric ID verification.

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Crime

Bryan Kohberger avoids death penalty in brutal killing of four Idaho students

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Quick Hit:

Bryan Kohberger will plead guilty to murdering four Idaho college students, avoiding a death sentence but leaving victims’ families without answers. The plea deal means he’ll spend life in prison without ever explaining why he committed the brutal 2022 killings.

Key Details:

  • Kohberger will plead guilty at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. local time.
  • The plea deal removes the possibility of death by firing squad but ensures life in prison without parole.
  • Victims’ families say the state “failed” them by agreeing to a deal that denies them an explanation for the murders.

Diving Deeper:

Bryan Kohberger, a former PhD criminology student at Washington State University, is expected to plead guilty to the November 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, sparing himself the death penalty but also avoiding any explanation for his motive. Idaho defense attorney Edwina Elcox told the New York Post that under the plea, Kohberger will have to admit to the killings but won’t have to provide a reason for his actions. “There is no requirement that he says why for a plea,” Elcox explained.

Prosecutors reached the plea deal just weeks before the scheduled trial, which many believed would have revealed the full details and motives behind the shocking quadruple homicide. Kohberger is accused of murdering Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Ethan Chapin, 20; and Xana Kernodle, 20, with a military-style Ka-Bar knife as they slept in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. His DNA was allegedly found on a knife sheath left at the scene.

The Goncalves family blasted the state for the deal, saying, “They have failed us.” They had hoped a trial would uncover why Kohberger targeted their daughter and her friends. Prosecutors, however, argued that the plea ensures a guaranteed conviction and prevents the years of appeals that typically follow a death sentence, providing a sense of finality and keeping Kohberger out of the community forever.

Sentencing will not take place for several weeks following Wednesday’s hearing, which is expected to last about an hour as the judge confirms the plea agreement is executed properly. While the families may find some closure in knowing Kohberger will never be free again, they are left without the one thing a trial could have provided: answers.

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, Pool)

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International

CBS settles with Trump over doctored 60 Minutes Harris interview

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CBS will pay Donald Trump more than $30 million to settle a lawsuit over a 2024 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The deal also includes a new rule requiring unedited transcripts of future candidate interviews.

Key Details:

  • Trump will receive $16 million immediately to cover legal costs, with remaining funds earmarked for pro-conservative messaging and future causes, including his presidential library.
  • CBS agreed to release full, unedited transcripts of all future presidential candidate interviews—a policy insiders are calling the “Trump Rule.”
  • Trump’s lawsuit accused CBS of deceptively editing a 60 Minutes interview with Harris in 2024 to protect her ahead of the election; the FCC later obtained the full transcript after a complaint was filed.

Diving Deeper:

CBS and Paramount Global have agreed to pay President Donald Trump more than $30 million to settle a lawsuit over a 2024 60 Minutes interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday. Trump accused the network of election interference, saying CBS selectively edited Harris to shield her from backlash in the final stretch of the campaign.

The settlement includes a $16 million upfront payment to cover legal expenses and other discretionary uses, including funding for Trump’s future presidential library. Additional funds—expected to push the total package well above $30 million—will support conservative-aligned messaging such as advertisements and public service announcements.

As part of the deal, CBS also agreed to a new editorial policy mandating the public release of full, unedited transcripts of any future interviews with presidential candidates. The internal nickname for the new rule is reportedly the “Trump Rule.”

Trump initially sought $20 billion in damages, citing a Face the Nation preview that aired Harris’s rambling response to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That portion of the interview was widely mocked. A more polished answer was aired separately during a primetime 60 Minutes special, prompting allegations that CBS intentionally split Harris’s answer to minimize political fallout.

The FCC later ordered CBS to release the full transcript and raw footage after a complaint was filed. The materials confirmed that both versions came from the same response—cut in half across different broadcasts.

CBS denied wrongdoing but the fallout rocked the network. 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned in April after losing control over editorial decisions. CBS News President Wendy McMahon also stepped down in May, saying the company’s direction no longer aligned with her own.

Several CBS veterans strongly opposed any settlement. “The unanimous view at 60 Minutes is that there should be no settlement, and no money paid, because the lawsuit is complete bulls***,” one producer told Fox News Digital. Correspondent Scott Pelley had warned that settling would be “very damaging” to the network’s reputation.

The final agreement includes no admission of guilt and no direct personal payment to Trump—but it locks in a substantial cash payout and forces a new standard for transparency in how networks handle presidential interviews.

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