Sometimes it helps me to write by thinking about how a radio broadcaster or television presenter would deliver the information, so I'm your host, Blake Montgomery. Today in tech news: questions hover over the automation of labor in the worker-strapped US healthcare system; and drones proliferate in a new conflict: India v Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, in contrast to a thoughtful and robust conversation, the US is taking the opposite tack. Legend has it that Alexander the Great was presented with a knot in a rope tying a cart to a stake. So complex were its twistings that no man had been able to untie it of the hundreds who had tried. Alexander silently drew his sword and sliced the knot in two.

Islamabad, Pakistan – On Wednesday evening, as Pakistan grappled with the aftermath of a wave of missile strikes from India that hit at least six cities, killing 31 people, the country's military spokesperson took to a microphone with a chilling warning. "When Pakistan strikes India, it will come at a time and place of its own choosing," Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a media briefing. "The whole world will come to know, and its reverberation will be heard everywhere." Two days later, India and Pakistan have moved even closer to the brink of war. On Thursday, May 8, Pakistan accused India of flooding its airspace with kamikaze drones that were brought down over major cities, including Lahore and Karachi.

The world's first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbours has erupted in South Asia. On Thursday, India accused Pakistan of launching waves of drones and missiles at three military bases in Indian territory and Indian-administered Kashmir - an allegation Islamabad swiftly denied. Pakistan claimed it had shot down 25 Indian drones in recent hours. Experts say the tit-for-tat attacks mark a dangerous new phase in the decades-old rivalry, as both sides exchange not just artillery but unmanned weapons across a volatile border. As Washington and other global powers urge restraint, the region is teetering on the edge of escalation, with drones - silent, remote and deniable - opening a new chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict.

Pakistan's military said on Thursday morning that the country's air defence system had brought down 25 Indian drones overnight over some of the country's chief cities, including Lahore and Karachi. At least one civilian has died, and five people were wounded, it said. India's Defence Ministry confirmed hours later that it had targeted Pakistan's air defence radars and claimed that it was able to "neutralize" one defence system in Lahore. It said Pakistan had attempted to attack India and Indian-administered Kashmir with drones and missiles overnight, but that these had been shot down. The drone attacks represent the latest escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours, a day after India launched deadly missile strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing at least 31 people, according to Islamabad.

Fox News senior foreign affairs correspondent Greg Palkot has the latest on the crisis on'Special Report.' India launched multiple Israeli-made Harop drones targeting Pakistan overnight and into Thursday, wounding at least four soldiers, Pakistan army officials said. Pakistani forces downed 25 of the drones, Pakistan army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif told The Associated Press. Debris from a downed drone that fell into the Sindh province killed one civilian and injured another. A drone damaged a military site near the city of Lahore, injuring four soldiers, and another went down in Rawalpindi, which is near the capital, Sharif said.

China and India are likely to attempt to interfere in upcoming elections, Canada's intelligence agency has warned, adding that Russia and Pakistan also pose a potential threat. The deputy director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) said on Tuesday that the agency is braced for efforts to meddle in the April 28 vote. Ottawa's relations with China and India in particular have been strained. Vanessa Lloyd told a media conference that such countries are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to interfere in elections around the globe. China is "highly likely to use AI-enabled tools to attempt to interfere with Canada's democratic process in this current election," she said. India has the "intent and capability" to do likewise, she continued, adding that Russia and Pakistan could also potentially seek to interfere.

India and Pakistan have fought four wars in the past few decades, but when India faced an oxygen shortage in its hospitals during its recent COVID-19 surge, Pakistan offered to help. Finding these positive tweets, however, was not as easy as simply browsing the supportive hashtags or looking at the most popular posts. And Twitter's algorithm isn't tuned to surface the most positive tweets during a crisis. Ashique KhudaBukhsh of Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute led a team of researchers who used machine learning to identify supportive tweets from Pakistan during India's COVID crisis. In the throes of a public health crisis, words of hope can be welcome medicine.