When most of us think of AI, we imagine slick, intuitive designs, underpinned by quick, efficient systems all handed to you on a personalised plate. What many of us dont necessarily think of is hard, cold numbers. Odd really when data is the key foundation underpinning AI. Artificial intelligence is all about data or numbers, input into systems that are then analysed and summarised to provide a game-changing customer experience across all industries but particularly in finance.

Outside of blockchain, artificial intelligence has long been considered the holy grail for financial services. As an industry steeped in data, the pairing is already perfect, and the benefits are unmistakeable. Whether finance brands want to provide a top-level customer service chatbot or, on a more granular level, deliver financial services in line with ever increasing regulatory guidance, there isnt much that AI cant do to progress the finance industry.

Making AI a Success in Financial Services

Paradoxically, the financial services sector as a whole is being left behind with consumer-centric industries across the globe pulling ahead to expose a chasm between what customers want and the experience that they receive. At a time when the customer experience is heralded as the sacred vessel through which all things are possible for businesses, making a success of AI in finance is considered crucial.

The modern financial brands that are doing well today have one main thing in common they are dominated by technology. Challenger banks and contemporary financial businesses are disrupting the industrys standards and setting the pace for AI and data analytics. However, in their swift route to entry and with consistent software upgrades, there are still some nuanced implementations to bear in mind.

Near the top of that list is having an accurate understanding and knowledge of the data being used. There are many potential downfalls when inputting data and we have all heard of the horror stories around biometric profiling and the biases that can become apparent when digitising personal data. The same goes for consumer finances, so scrupulously computerising numbers will be fundamental to testing and training software to learn the value from data and unlock its true prophetic potential.

With that said, before we get to understand the data we must first get the infrastructure right. The lack of architecture designed from the ground up for AI-driven operations means that financial services may struggle to incorporate AI into their operationsat all. Legacy systems are notoriously difficult and expensive to upgrade. At a strategic level, banks are deciding whether to deploy a rip and replace or using an integrated approach to connect siloed systems. Nonetheless ultimately, at the core of any successful AI adoption are the right set of technology skills, well-defined data management and high-performance IT infrastructures.

The Logistics of Legacy

Perhaps the biggest challenge for financial services is that AI is anarchitectural innovationas well as a component innovation which is to say, its requirements extend beyond new technology and ideas, to include joining up old technology and ideas in a different way. Competent AI requires massive amounts of data: this is how it learns how things work, and how it predicts the way those things will behave in the future. For many businesses, introducing the systems to manage this data will mean implementing entirely new computing capacity, alongside innovations like internet of things monitoring, to gather the information required.

However, in financial services where information has always been the heart of business, there is the more complex problem of transforming existing systems to communicate effectively with AI. Legacy systems in finance have been developed over the course of decades and changing existing systems which are currently delivering value is a bigger, riskier job in a highly risk-averse industry than starting from scratch.

The Change is Coming

One option for operating with legacy systems in a digitalised, intelligent context is to develop an intelligent mesh, or Data Fabric, to bring together the richness of historical data to the user-friendly interface found in modern systems. The smart data layer can provide a bridge between existing and new infrastructure which has been designed to deliver the speed-to-value which todays financial services provider needs.

Essentially, significant architecture changes will expand the possibilities for this sector. The move to cloud computing, with its elastic response to demand that can handle the intensive computation that AI training requires without the capital expense involved in building that capacity in-house, is a key part of this. While in many ways financial services is a sector already at the leading edge of AI, the availability of architecture which is designed from the ground up for AI-driven operations means that much more change is on the horizon.

There arent many out there who can predict AIs true potential but what we do know, is that its ability to enhance productivity and efficiency through automation are currently unmatched but only if we can get the data fabric right.

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The Artificial Intelligence opportunity in the global Financial Services sector - Finextra

It's a red-letter, if sad, day on the hypocrisy beat when after three years a Republican-majority Senate Intelligence Committee comes out with a 1,000-page report finding there was a whole lot of direct contact between the Trump 2016 campaign with Russian intelligence operators.

You know, the opposite of what Donald Trump has argued forcefully over and over again is a hoax.

Even Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the new committee chairman, says while it does not represent "collusion" a conclusion that prompted Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) to say Rubio was not reading the same report he did he did acknowledge a whole lot of interaction between Team Trump and Team Russia.

Of course, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III also would not put the "collusion" label on myriad interactions with Russians, for different reasons, to avoid a political conclusion. That allowed Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and supporters of the president, including the convicted Roger Stone and former campaign chair Paul Manafort, to repeat that lack of labeling as a launch point to investigate the investigators.

But the Intelligence Committee did "painted a stark portrait of a Trump campaigneager to accept help from a foreign power in 2016, and a candidate closely involved in the effort," said NBC News.

Here'sa link to the report itself, which highlightedsome previously unreported evidence, including three allegations of potentially compromising material relating to Trump's private trips to Russia that were unconnected to the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, at which Rubio took aim once again.

The committee found that Trump's team knew ahead of time that emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by Russian intelligence agents would appear in Wikileaks, and worked with Wikileaks to produce an "October surprise" toward winning that election.

Trump repeatedly has denied this, and has denied discussing the emails with Stone, who worked with Wikileaks. He lied to Mueller and to us, and has whined about it for four years. Now, Trump says he wants to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin again before November and we worry that not enough has been done to forestall new election interference.

The findings

Specifically, thecommittee said it found evidence that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort may have been connected to the Russian operation to steal and leak Democratic emails. If that had been proven in court, it would have constituted "collusion," by any definition, but no such charge ever was brought. Manafort was convicted of fraud and tax charges unrelated to Russia.

Still, the report insisted that the Trump transition exposed itself to Russian influence, naming names and labeling the operatives as intelligence agents. "Russian and other countries took advantage of the Transition Team's inexperience, transparent opposition to Obama administration policies and Trump's desire to deepen ties with Russia"

After three years of investigation, the committee"laid outan extensive web of contactsbetween Trump campaign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country's intelligence services," said The New York Times.

According to the report, among other things, Russian spies worked to blame it all on Ukrainian officials and spies, identifyingManafort business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence officer.

The report says, "Despite Trump's recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with (Roger) Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions."

Now what?

We've had the Mueller report. We've had the Trump efforts to undo the Mueller report. We even have a Barr-assigned criminal investigation about to pop on some of those involved in the investigation itself. We've learned about missteps at the FBI. We've been subjected to an onslaught of Trump declarations that he was victimized during this process.

Just Monday, Trump inanely said he deserves a third term, in violation of the Constitution, to makeup for poor treatment at the hands of the "deep state" under Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Trump repeatedly denies that he favors Russia, just as he denied that he or his team had anything to do with seeking to lean on Ukrainians to throw shade on Biden.

Now we have two Republican-majority committees in the Senate teeing up to continue undercutting the FBI and U.S. investigatory efforts looking at Team Trump behavior. Remember, the Justice Department's own independent inspector generalhas foundthat the FBI had sufficient basis to open the Russia investigation and acted without political bias, though made some mistakes.

This report affirms much of the Mueller effort that there weredozens of contacts between Trump associates and Russian operatives, that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia's attempts to sabotage the election and "expected it would benefit electorally" from the hacking and dumping of Democratic emails.

Trump as victim? Hardly.

How does this Make America Great?

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Four years later, Republican senators admit, "yes, Trump conspired with the Russians" - Salon

Over $1.6 million in grant funding has been awarded to a project started by researchers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the University of Missouri.

Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Mozilla, the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS) project seeks to ensure a healthy future for open source software.

Open source software is built on source code that anyone can observe and modify, allowing developers to alter the function of a given program or application to better suit the needs of users and programmers. Examples include Linux, the Apache HTTP Server and the Firefox web browser.

Much of the technology people use everyday is built on open source software. Communities of dedicated open source developers ensure the usability, security and sustainability of open source software. The health of these development communities is, therefore, a concern for businesses, governments, schools, nonprofits and individual tech usersin other words, almost everyone.

Worst case scenario, without open source software, say goodbye to the internet, said Sean Goggins, a professor at the University of Missouri. Goggins co-founded the CHAOSS project with Professor Matt Germonprez of the UNO College of Information Science and Technology.

The ubiquity and necessity of open source software is difficult to understate, according to the projects founders.

If youre a tech company, youre using open source software, said Germonprez. So many companies rely on open source software in their products and services. These organizations need to understand the health of the software they use.

According to a 2018 study by the Linux Foundation, 72 percent of companies use open source software for non-commercial or internal reasons. And 65 percent of companies surveyed in the Future of Open Source Study are contributors to open source projects.

Given the near-universal nature of the projects they support, open source developer communities face unique challenges. Attracting new talent, ensuring consistent code quality and recognizing key contributors are three chief concerns, Germonprez said.

The CHAOSS project establishes metrics to gauge the health of an open source software development community, such as diversity, evolution, risk and value. These metrics make evaluation of an open source software communitys health more transparent. As a result, threats to a communitys sustainability can be more immediately identified, and stakeholders can manage open source projects more effectively.

We wanted to make it so that (open source software) community health failures are actionable, Germonprez said. Establishing consistent language and metrics for evaluating OSS project health provides tools which people can use to reflect on their own OSS community health.

As part of CHAOSS, an open source tool called Augur has been developed to centralize key metrics. Augur helps open source project communities compare their health to the health of other communities and establish common standards.

The CHAOSS project is hosted at the Linux Foundation, a supporter of open source ecosystems. To learn more, visit the projects website.

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Researchers at UNO and the University of Missouri create CHAOSS for open source communities (in a good way) - Silicon Prairie News

Barry Silbert, the CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCC), has predicted that there will be publicly-traded cryptocurrency companies in 2020. He said that special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have been approaching him with merger pitches in a recent tweet.

SPACs are shell companies that raise money from IPO investors to invest in operating businesses later. While going through the usual IPO can take months, going public through a SPAC IPO is possible within just a few weeks.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse had made a similar prediction at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. He claimed that there would be IPOs in the blockchain space and Ripple would lead that trend.

In the next 12 months, youll see IPOs in the crypto/blockchain space. Were not going to be the first and were not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side its a natural evolution for our company.

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2020 will have publicly-traded cryptocurrency firms Barry Silbert - FXStreet

#MachineLearning and #AI ArtificialIntelligence for #LifelongLearning -RM Results launches RM Studio to accelerate #EdTech innovation as part of a wider drive to transform the education landscape

RM Results, the digital assessment solutions business that works with leading exam boards and educational institutions across the globe, has launched its own in-house innovation lab. RM Studio is driving the continuous development of new and existing products and services, harnessing the latest technologies including machine learning and artificial intelligence to create and improve education and assessment solutions for lifelong learning.

The overarching aim of RM Studio is to design and develop solutions that make education and assessment a more positive experience for all those involved, from learners to assessors, awarding organisations to educational institutions.

RM Studio uses tried-and-tested start-up methods to accelerate projects. When a need or opportunity to add value has been identified, either within RM Results or through their discussions with students, educators, and awarding bodies, solutions are proposed until the most viable is settled on. After this, various innovation tools and methods are utilised, and the team are coached on how to best manage and progress their innovations. A minimum viable product is designed, and feedback is used to develop it further.

The new initiative is spearheaded by Roberto Hortal, who has been building the RM Studio innovation team leading a design-thinking approach across the business, since his appointment to the newly-created Head of Innovation role in January 2019. RM Studio works closely with customers including Cambridge Assessment, the International Baccalaureate and SQA to understand and anticipate the needs of the assessment sector now and in the future.

Prior to joining RM in 2019, Roberto gained over two decades of experience in implementing innovation programmes, having previously been responsible for significant first ever digital milestones at Nokia, easyJet, MORE TH>N, EDF Energy and Co-Op Group. This increased investment from RM Results in innovation marks the companys commitment to a more direct, mature approach to innovation, and is part of its continuing efforts to drive the global modernisation of assessment.

A key aspect of RM Studio is creating a culture of innovation to further the individual empowerment of employees, offering them opportunities to pursue their own ideas and, potentially, see them developed and added to the RM product suite.

Roberto Hortal, Head of Innovation at RM Results, says:

The landscape of education looks nothing like it did twenty years ago. Education and technology are now inextricably linked, and increasingly we are seeing people engaging with education throughout their lives, rather than just their school and university years. As the world of education diversifies, we want to be providing cutting edge solutions for markets as they emerge and grow. We firmly believe that, by focusing our innovative efforts through a structured, supportive pipeline, RM Studio is precisely what will allow us to achieve this.

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He adds:

Education and technology are intersecting in all sorts of ways, from wearable devices, to remote teaching, to artificial intelligence. New opportunities are constantly presenting themselves, and educators are always on the lookout for solutions that offer flexibility and make their jobs and lives easier. We want to enable the best lifelong learning opportunities for everyone.

Richard Little, Product Development Director at RM Results, commented:

The addition of a Head of Innovation to our team, and subsequent launch of RM Studio, has allowed us to push forward with a new wave of initiatives, and is perfectly timed as we prepare to launch new products. At RM Results, everyone is encouraged to innovate, it is a celebrated part of our culture. Robertos expertise and experience in successfully bringing innovation to various industries means he is the perfect figurehead to lead our ambitious plans.

While RM Studio operates in-house, RM Results is keen to explore opportunities for partnerships and open innovation, and in doing so bring the collaborative approach of RM Studio to their relationships with others.

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Harnessing the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to create and improve education and assessment solutions for lifelong...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be expelled from Ecuadors London embassy within hours to days, according to a WikiLeaks tweet.

The Australian will be immediately arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police under an agreement secretly struck between officials from the South American country and the UK, the post claimed late on Thursday night.

Mr Assangehas been living at the embassy for seven years since seeking refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faced sexual assault allegations.

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Although those accusations have since been dropped, the 47-year-old has remained living in the Knightsbridge building for fears of being extradited to the US, where he faces charges over the release of sensitive government files.

The new WikiLeaks tweet said: A high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told @WikiLeaks that Julian Assange will be expelled within hours to days using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext--and that it already has an agreement with the UK for his arrest.

Security agents and police officers hold back migrants during the evacuation of a makeshift camp at Porte de la Chapelle, in the north of Paris. More than 300 migrants and refugees were evacuated on early April 4 from a makeshift camp to accomodation structures

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An Alexandra township resident gestures and they part is clashes with the Johannesburg Metro Police, South Africa during a total shutdown of the township due to protest against the lack of service delivery or basic necessities such as access to water and electricity, housing difficulties and lack of public road maintenance.

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Children eat next to the debris of damaged homes at Purainiya village in Nepal's southern Bara district near Birgunj, following a rare spring storm. The freak storm tore down houses and overturned cars and trucks as it swept across southern Nepal killing at least 27 people and leaving more than 600 injured

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A forensic expert works next to the remains of a small plane that crashed near Erzhausen, Germany. Natalia Fileva, chairwoman and co-owner of Russia's second largest airline S7, died when a private jet she was in crashed near Frankfurt on Sunday, the company said

Reuters

Ukrainian comic actor and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine

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Catalan pro-independence protesters throw rocks during a counter-demonstration against a protest called by Spanish far-right party Vox against the Catalan independence push in Barcelona. Polls suggest Vox, which campaigns against illegal immigration and "radical" feminism, will become the first far-right party to win seats in the Spanish parliament since the late 70s and could emerge as a kingmaker in Spain's increasingly fragmented political landscape

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Protests against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika continue in Algeria despite the announcement on 11 March that he will not run for a fifth Presidential term and postponement of presidential elections previously scheduled for 18 April 2019 until further notice

EPA

Firefighters on ladders work to extinguish a blaze in an office building in Dhaka after a huge fire tore through it, killing at least five people with many others feared trapped in the latest major fire to hit the Bangladesh capital

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A Palestinian protester moves a burning tire during clashes with Israeli troops near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

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Palestinians sisters girls look at a destroyed Hamas site close their family's destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. According to reports, Israel continued to launch air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after a rocket allegedly fired hit a house near Tel Aviv in central Israel injuring at least seven people

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US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold up a proclamation recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights as Netanyahu exits the White House

Reuters

Abounded vessel Hagland Captain in anchor in the same area as the cruise ship Viking Sky, which had problems on March 23 during the storm over the west coast of Norway at Hustadvika near Romsdal

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Chris Pratt gets slimed while accepting the Best Butt-Kicker award for "Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom" at the Kids Choice Awards

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An aerial view shows damaged buildings after an explosion at a chemical plant in Yancheng in China's eastern Jiangsu province. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered local governments to prevent any more industrial disasters after a chemical plant blast left 47 people dead, injured hundreds and flattened an industrial park in the latest such catastrophe to hit the country

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A child is transported on a fridge during floods after Cyclone Idai, in Buzi, outside Beira, Mozambique

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Indian Hindu devotees are sprayed with coloured water as they celebrate the Holi festival at the Kalupur Swaminarayan Temple, in Ahmedabad. Holi, the popular Hindu spring festival of colours is observed in India at the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the lunar month

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Shards of ice pile up on Lake Michigan along the South Haven Pier

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Emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht where a shooting took place. Several people were wounded on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, with local media reporting counter-terrorism police at the scene. "Shooting incident... Several injured people reported. Assistance started," the Utrecht police Twitter account said. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help."

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Coffins of victims of the crashed accident of Ethiopian Airlines are gathered during the mass funeral at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The crash of Flight ET 302 minutes into its flight to Nairobi on March 10 killed 157 people onboard and caused the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft model involved in the disaster

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Brenton Tarrant, the man charged in relation to the Christchurch massacre, makes a sign to the camera during his appearance in the Christchurch District Court. A right-wing extremist who filmed himself rampaging through two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch killing 49 worshippers appeared in court on a murder charge. Australian-born 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant appeared in the dock wearing handcuffs and a white prison shirt, sitting impassively as the judge read a single murder charge against him. A raft of further charges are expected

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An injured person is loaded into an ambulance following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in New Zealand. At least 49 people have been killed and dozens more are seriously injured after shootings took place at two mosques in Christchurch. Police have arrested an Australian citizen a 28-year-old man and another three people, following the second shooting

Reuters

Relatives of crash victims mourn and grieve at the scene where the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff on Sunday killing all 157 on board, south-east of Addis Ababa. The French air accident investigation authority said that it will handle the analysis of the black boxes retrieved from the crash site and they have already arrived in France but gave no time frame on how long the analysis could take

AP

Men carry a child who was rescued at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Lagos, Nigeria

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A crab stuck in plastic in Verde Island Passage, Philippines. According to data from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Filipinos dispose 163 million pieces of single-use plastic sachets daily. An underwater exploration conducted by Greenpeace in Batangas, found single-use plastic sachets between, beneath, and on the corals and seabed of Verde Island Passage, the epicenter of marine biodiversity in the world

EPA

Representatives of bereaved families from the affected prefecture offer flowers at an altar for victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster during the 8th national memorial service in Tokyo on. On March 11, 2011 a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake struck under the Pacific Ocean and the resulting tsunami caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.

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South Sudanese Catholic faithful believers attend a church service in Udier town

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Activists of Ukrainian nationalist parties scuffle with police officers during a rally to demand an investigation into the corruption of Ukraine's armed forces officials, in Kiev

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Algerian protesters demonstrate against their ailing president's bid for a fifth term in power, in Algiers

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French gendarmes arrive for evacuation as prison guards block the entrance to the penitentiary center of Alencon, in Conde-sur-Sarthe, northwestern France, two days after a prison inmate seriously wounded two guards in a knife attack before being detained in a police raid. - The prison of Alencon / Conde-sur-Sarthe, where two guards were seriously stabbed on March 5 by a radicalized detainee, was blocked again on March 7 by about a hundred prison guards.

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Hindu devotees participate in a traditional activity known locally as "Perang Api" or fire war one day ahead of Nyepi in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. Devotees in Indonesia will celebrate Nyepi day or the "Day of Silence" on March 7, the first day of the Saka Lunar calendar

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Time exposure photo shows a series of lightning strikes over Santa Barbara seen from Stearns Wharf in the city's harbor. The storm soaked California and could trigger mudslides in wildfire burn areas where thousands of residents are under evacuation orders, authorities warned

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Members of Unidos da Tijuca samba school perform during the first night of Rio's Carnival at the Sambadrome

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The SpaceX team in Hawthorne watches as the SpaceX Crew Dragon docks with the International Space Station's Harmony module. SpaceX's new crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, acing its second milestone in just over a day

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US Senator Bernie Sanders (centre) waves to supporters at a rally to kick off his 2020 US presidential campaign, in the Brooklyn borough of New York

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Destroyed and deserted buildings are seen at the scene of ongoing fighting between Somali soldiers and al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu, Somalia. Somali security forces have been exchanging gunfire with gunmen holed up in a building since previous night when a suicide car bomb exploded nearby

EPA

Activists of Al-Badr Mujahideen burn an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian national flag during an anti-India protest in Peshawar on. Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked Indians to "stand as a wall" with anger boiling over Pakistan's capture of a pilot as a crisis escalates between the nuclear-armed rivals. In his first remarks since India and Pakistan both claimed to have shot down each other's fighter planes near the disputed border of Kashmir, the prime minister urged his countrymen to unite "as the enemy seeks to destabilise India

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US President Donald Trump (left) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi

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An Indian paramilitary solider fires tear gas shell towards Kashmiri protesters in Srinagar. They were protesting against raids on key separatist leaders by Indian intelligence officers

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US President Donald Trump speaks at the 2019 White House Business Session with Our Nation's Governors in the State Dining Room. Trump spoke about the Chinese trade deal, the proposed border wall, and his upcoming summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un

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Rami Malek (left) winner of Best Actor in a Leading Role award for 'Bohemian Rhapsody, Olivia Colman (second left) winner of Best Actress for 'The Favourite,' Mahershala Ali (right) winner of Best Supporting Actor for 'Green Book,' and Regina King (second right) winner of Best Supporting Actress for 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' pose during the 91st Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood

EPA

Supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido gather to take part in a rally in Caracas, Venezuela braced for a showdown between the military and regime opponents at the Colombian border on Saturday, when self-declared acting president Juan Guaido has vowed humanitarian aid would enter his country despite a blockade

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A worker walks amongst piles of rubbish at a garbage dump in Blang Bintang, near Banda Aceh

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Firefighters at the scene of a fire in Dhaka. At least 69 people have died in a huge blaze that tore through apartment buildings also used as chemical warehouses in an old part of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, fire officials said

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Children ride in the back of a truck that is part of a convoy evacuating hundreds out of the last territory held by Islamic State militants, in Baghouz, eastern Syria. The evacuation signals the end of a week long standoff and opens the way to US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces recapture of the territory

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Bangladeshi Muslim devotees leave by train after taking part in the Akheri Munajat, or final prayers, at the Biswa Ijtema in Tongi. Several million Muslim devotees from around the world join the four-day long event that ends with a special prayer on the final day

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Flames and smoke billows from a residential building where militants are suspected to have taken refuge during a gun battle in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. Tensions continued to rise in the aftermath of a suicide attack in disputed Kashmir, with seven people killed Monday in a gunbattle that broke out as Indian soldiers scoured the area for militants.

AP

People walk down the Champs-Elysees avenue on February protest, called by the yellow vest (gilets jaunes) movement, against French President's policies and top-down style of governing, high cost of living, government tax reforms and for more "social and economic justice."

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Julian Assange: WikiLeaks says founder to be expelled from ...