Trump names Clayton, Ferguson, Michael and Kupor to lead AI task force - Yahoo! Finance Canada

US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a White House task force to coordinate the administration's response to artificial intelligence (AI). The group will be led by director of national intelligence Jay Clayton, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon chief technology officer Emil Michael and director of the Office of Personnel Management Scott Kupor.

The possible selection comes amid increasing calls for the government to intervene on the rapidly developing technology. United States President Donald Trump is expected to select spy chief Jay Clayton to oversee development of the nation’s artificial intelligence industry, according to multiple news reports. CNN, CBS and Axios reported Trump is set to name the director of national intelligence (DNI) as his pick for so-called “AI tsar”. The decision could be announced as early as Friday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3US regulator launches probe into AI companieslist 2 of 3OpenAI ‘reviewing’ report of failed hacking attempt against Canada’s gov’tlist 3 of 3How AI is reshaping everyday life in Chinaend of listAmid increasing calls for the government to intervene in the rapidly developing technology, Trump last month announced on social media that he would be naming a new AI tsar. “Only High I. Q. individuals need apply!” he wrote. Trump already had one AI tsar, venture capitalist David Sacks. He resigned earlier this year and became an external adviser to the president.

Here’s your NYT Strands hint for today, plus the spangram and all of today’s Strands answers for puzzle No. 959 on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. Today’s Strands theme was tricky. It helps to be a runner. Read on for all the answers.

A supply-chain attack involving ConnectWise’s cloud services has exposed Microsoft 365 customers to unauthorized application access, with researchers reporting successful sign-ins across 173 partner and customer tenants. The incident centres on credentials associated with ConnectWise Cloud Backup, formerly SkyKick, and raises concerns about attackers exploiting permissions already entrusted to business software. ConnectWise has confirmed unauthorized access to application identities within its Cloud Backup environment. In an October 17 update on its service-status page, the company said it was shutting off application access, interrupting customer backups while investigation and remediation continued.

You once played Basil Fawlty in an amateur student production of Fawlty Towers at Queen’s College in Melbourne. How amateur was your Basil Fawlty moustache? It was terrible. It was real but it was definitely coloured in – I still have holes in my beard. I’d also shaved my head, so if you look at the early promo posters, you can clearly see I’m wearing a wig. Our theatre was closed so we had to perform in a circus tent in the middle of winter, on an oval in the university grounds, which was all very Fawlty Towers. I’ve always loved comedy. I didn’t really do anything serious until drama school. I always thought there might be a good spin-off with Sauron and Celebrimbor as an odd-couple situation. You play Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Tolkien wrote that Sauron “represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible”. What do you consider wholly evil? A complete disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people, to put it simply. It’s the intention, I think. I have horrible flashbacks to playing Aussie rules when I was about 17. I thought people were being quite evil to me at the time.