World leaders to meet at UN amid wars, global crises. World leaders gather at the United Nations for the annual high-level meeting amid wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, alongside climate, terrorism, hunger and AI concerns. India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will address the General Assembly on Saturday Published Date - 21 September 2026, 11:11 AM United Nations: This week 140 world leaders and representatives of another 53 countries will be meeting here this week under the shadow of intractable wars and conflicts for the annual high-level meeting. When the meeting starts on Tuesday with the traditional first national address by Brazil's President Lula da Silva, followed by US President Donald Trump, the Gulf Conflict, the Ukraine War, the Gaza situation, and the Sudan civil war of genocidal proportions will hang heavy over the General Assembly chamber. The perils of a runaway artificial intelligence will be added this year to the climate crisis, terrorism, and global hunger and poverty as top areas of concern. The high falutin speeches in the General Assembly chamber, threaded with boasts and recriminations, but also genuine insights into global problems, may be the face of the high-level meeting, but the real action is in the meetings in missions, hotels and temporary cubicles erected in the UN hallways. And even in informal encounters in the halls of the UN. Cynics will say nothing substantial to find solutions to the crises will emerge from the lectures, but results can emerge from these meetings on the sidelines of the official high-level meeting. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking to reporters, said about the utility of the high-level week, "I think we must take profit of this week to allow for a large number of meetings between those leaders that are relevant in the context of the crisis that we are facing". "I would remind you that last year, there was a very important meeting of the United States with a number of Muslim countries that led to the peace plan for Gaza", he said. Even Trump, a constant critic of the UN, agreed with him on this point about the session's utility, telling reporters that the formation of the Board of Peace for Gaza flowed from that meeting last year. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, who was elected General Assembly president for the current session, will preside over the meeting from the high rostrum, above the speaker's lectern. "Restoring trust, managing transformation: A UN that delivers for all", is the theme this year. As presidents, kings, prime ministers and ministers take their turn at the dark marble lectern with a gold UN insignia, three major leaders will not be there: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will deliver India's address to the General Assembly on Saturday. Xi's absence from the UN this week will be striking because he will be coming to the US to meet Trump in Washington on Thursday. But a notable presence will be Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, who will be speaking a day after Trump of the US, his nation's adversary in the conflict now in its seventh month. Ukraine's President Volodymyr, whose country is now facing the fifth year of Russia's invasion, will be there. While Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be taking the podium on Thursday to justify his country's widely condemned actions in Gaza, the US shut out Palestine's President Mahmoud Abbas by denying him a visa. Discover more Property Listings Service Digital Newspaper Access Sport News Coverage * Follow Us: Discover more Local News Aggregator NRI Community Forum

The best AI courses and bootcamps in 2026: an honest comparison. Key takeaways * No AI program is right for everyone. The right one depends on your goal: exploring (online, free), building skills for your current role (cohort program), or career change (bootcamp). * Free and self-paced programs have completion rates under 15%. If you're serious about developing AI skill rather than AI familiarity, the format you choose matters more than the curriculum. * In-person programs cost more and take more time, but produce consistently higher skill transfer. The data on structured vs. unstructured learning is unambiguous on this. * The most important question before choosing any program: what do I want to be able to do differently in 90 days? That question determines which format is right - not the reputation of the provider. The AI education market is enormous, confusing, and full of programs that use similar language to describe very different things. This comparison is an attempt to make it useful: organized by format rather than provider, honest about what each category does and doesn't deliver, and clear about who each is actually right for. There are no affiliate links here and no paid placements - MakerSquare is included because MakerSquare LLC run a program, and MakerSquare LLC has tried to describe it with the same objectivity MakerSquare LLC'd apply to the others. Free and self-paced programs are the right starting point if you're not yet sure whether AI is relevant to your work, or if you have high self-direction and a specific conceptual gap you want to fill. DeepLearning.AI's specializations are genuinely well-constructed. fast.ai's practical deep learning course is among the best freely available technical resources. Coursera's AI and machine learning tracks from Stanford and Google are thorough. The honest limitation: completion rates run under 15% for self-paced online courses, and most learners who do finish still struggle to apply what they learned to real work. If you've already tried a self-paced course and found yourself with a half-finished certificate and no changed workflow, that's not a motivation problem - it's a format problem. The curriculum was fine; the structure wasn't right for skill transfer. Online cohort programs add structure that self-paced courses don't have: a defined timeline, peer accountability, and a cohort of people going through the same material. Reforge runs cohort-based programs for product and growth professionals that have a strong reputation for rigor. Maven offers a wider range of cohort programs across topics including AI. The limitation of online cohorts compared to in-person: the accountability is real but softer. You're held to a schedule, but you're not in a room with people who can see whether you're actually building something. For professionals with strong self-direction, online cohorts are a meaningful step up from self-paced. For professionals who know they need more external structure to follow through, they often produce the same stall point as self-paced courses. Many of the established coding bootcamps - General Assembly, Flatiron, Hack Reactor, App Academy - have added AI tracks to their existing programs. These vary widely in quality. The best ones integrate AI tools into a software development curriculum that was already strong. The weaker ones are traditional coding bootcamps with AI buzzwords added to the marketing without meaningful curriculum change. The audience fit issue: traditional bootcamps are designed for career changers who want to become software engineers. The AI tracks within them are usually designed with the same audience in mind. If the goal is to become a developer, this is the right category. If the goal is to add AI capability to an existing professional career - as a lawyer, operator, marketer, or founder - the curriculum is generally not designed for you. In-person AI intensives are the newest category and the smallest. MakerSquare is the program MakerSquare LLC know best and the one MakerSquare LLC'd describe as the in-person option for professionals and operators rather than aspiring engineers. Two weeks, in person in Austin, $3,999, with no coding background required and a project shipped by the end. What in-person programs deliver that online options don't: the research is consistent on this. BCG found that structured training programs produce 67% higher ROI than unstructured ones. MIT and Harvard research on online course completion found sub-6% completion rates at scale. The format difference - accountability, compression, peer learning, a room of people held to the same timeline - produces different skill transfer than online alternatives. The tradeoff is cost and time commitment. How to choose based on your actual goal. If you want to explore AI before committing time or money: start with DeepLearning.AI's free Introduction to Machine Learning or any of Coursera's free audit options. Spend two weeks, see if the material is relevant to your work, and reassess. If you want to build skills for your current role and have strong self-direction: an online cohort (Maven, Reforge) is worth the investment. You get structure without requiring travel or time away from work. If you want to build with AI and need external accountability to follow through: in-person is the right format. The research supports it and the personal experience of most professionals who've tried both confirms it. MakerSquare is two weeks and built for this specific scenario. If you want to become a software engineer or AI researcher: a traditional bootcamp with a strong technical track is the right category - not this list. Frequently asked questions What is the best AI bootcamp in 2026? Depends on the goal. For career changers wanting to become developers: traditional bootcamps with strong technical AI tracks (Hack Reactor, App Academy). For professionals wanting to add AI to an existing career: MakerSquare's two-week in-person program. For learners with strong self-direction: DeepLearning.AI or Maven cohorts. The right program is the one matched to your specific goal and learning style. How much do AI courses and bootcamps cost in 2026? Self-paced online courses: free to $500. Online cohort programs: $500-$3,000 depending on provider and topic. Traditional coding bootcamps with AI tracks: $10,000-$20,000. In-person AI intensives like MakerSquare: $3,999 for two weeks. Is an AI bootcamp worth the money? For most professionals who have already tried self-paced options without success, yes. The format - in-person, structured, with a project shipped by the end - produces measurably higher skill transfer than self-paced alternatives. The relevant comparison is not bootcamp cost vs. online course cost. It's bootcamp cost vs. the cost of another year of attempting to develop AI skills without structure. Can I learn AI skills for free? You can learn about AI for free. DeepLearning.AI, fast.ai, and Coursera offer genuinely good content at no cost. The research on completion rates and skill transfer suggests that most learners who try this approach develop familiarity rather than capability. If the goal is capability - changed workflow, built tools, reliable applied skill - the free self-paced format rarely gets there. MakerSquare is the in-person option for professionals who want to build with AI rather than study it. Two weeks, in Austin, $3,999, with a project shipped by the end. The curriculum is available to review - it's the most transparent description of what you'll actually do, day by day. Ho, A. et al. · MIT & Harvard · 2014 BCG · June 2026 Pearson · 2026 Jordan, K. · IRRODL · 2015

University of South Carolina to put state government data to use. South Carolina lawmakers have set aside money to establish an institute at USC that will analyze data collected across state agencies to inform decision-making about education and the workforce. August 05, 2026 - Zak Koeske, The State, S.C. (TNS) - South Carolina state agencies are awash in data, but the valuable information they collect about education, employment and the economy too often remains siloed and unexamined. Lawmakers are hoping to change that. The General Assembly has set aside money in this year's budget to create a public policy institute that will be tasked with integrating and analyzing government data collected across several state agencies to support informed decision-making by state and local policymakers. The institute, which will be housed at the University of South Carolina, will focus on education and workforce issues to start, but over time could branch out into areas such as public health, economic development, public safety and infrastructure. "It's a really interesting concept," said state Sen. Sean Bennett, R-Dorchester, a major proponent of the initiative. "It has a lot of potential to help policymakers make better decisions - data-based decisions instead of emotionally based decisions - and I see it working in conjunction with many of our agencies." The senator said the institute would be modeled after the Helios Education Foundation, an Arizona nonprofit that uses data to help improve educational outcomes for low-income and historically underrepresented students in Arizona and Florida. Bennett first visited Helios several years ago as part of an education fellowship program for state political leaders. Impressed by what he saw, he got to thinking about replicating their work in the Palmetto State. Last fall, the senator took a group of state agency officials to tour the organization's Phoenix campus and said he was encouraged to learn that South Carolina was "way ahead" of many states with respect to interagency data sharing. "We're just trying to take that ball and run with it," said Bennett, who envisions a future where South Carolina lawmakers can request data analyses in real time as they wrestle with complex policy and budgetary decisions. "There's really all kinds of uses if we've got good data and a good way to visualize that data and understand it," he said. The General Assembly appropriated $1.8 million for the center in this year's budget, which could be approved as soon as next week, and is expected to pitch in a comparable amount for the next several years to help get it off the ground. Bennett said he wants to get the institute up-and-running quickly, but acknowledged it would likely be multiple years before it's fully operational. "This is a big undertaking, and it's an important undertaking," the Dorchester Republican said. "We want to make sure we get it right." Usc's role. Lawmakers opted to locate the public policy institute at USC, rather than within state government, to keep it nimble and efficient. The decision did not sit well with state Sen. Wes Climer, R-York, who said he supported the concept, but objected to USC's involvement with the project. Climer, who is running to succeed U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman in the 5th Congressional District, argued that USC had "every one of the vices on steroids that are within government" and questioned the university's ability to objectively process and present data. "It would be a mistake to locate this institute at the University of South Carolina or any institution of higher education," he said during a budget hearing in April. "As a general matter, institutions of higher ed today, in the current climate, lack adequate culture for undertaking the significant responsibility proposed in this proviso." While Bennett said he was sympathetic to Climer's concerns and would have preferred to house the center at a nonprofit like Helios, nothing comparable exists in South Carolina. "There is no third-party independent nonprofit to do it, the government isn't an area to do it, where else can it go?" he said during the budget discussion. "A research university tends to make sense to me. They've got the bandwidth, they've got the resources, they've got the technical ability, as well as the data knowledge." The senator said Thomas Hodges, dean of USC's College of Education, would head up the effort. Hodges, who traveled to Phoenix last year with Bennett and state agency leaders, directed questions about the institute to the university's public information office. USC spokesman Jeff Stensland confirmed the flagship institution's involvement in the project and said it aligned with the university's mission to serve the people of South Carolina, but declined to provide any additional details about its plans for the center at this time. (C) 2026 The State. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.