A Flydubai FZ1073 flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was diverted to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after one pilot stabbed the other and "apparently tried to crash the plane," Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said. The jet, carrying at least 150 people (almost all Israeli), made a rapid 17,000ft descent before passengers — including 26-year-old Yaniv Hayun, who "pulled the controls" to level the aircraft — overpowered the attacker. The pilot was arrested and is being questioned by Saudi authorities; Israel's defence minister called it "an attempted jihadist terror attack." All passengers were confirmed safe.
Andy Burnham said there was "strong indication" Iran was involved in the weekend incident at RAF Fairford, the US air base in Gloucestershire used to launch strikes on Iran. Petrol — but no explosive devices — was found in vans searched near the base. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it "clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor." The investigation is ongoing and complex.
Russia hit Ukraine with nearly 190 drones and ballistic missiles overnight, concentrated on energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Five people, including a child, were killed and 14 injured; Kyiv and its region bore the brunt. Ukraine's air force said it downed five missiles and 155 drones. PM Sergii Koretskyi called it the largest combined energy assault since the end of last heating season.
At his Washington summit on frontier AI, Trump pushed for private-sector-led development and rapid deployment of "super intelligence," positioning the US against China while resisting heavy regulation. Critics question safety guardrails as model capabilities accelerate; the summit signals a shift toward deregulatory, competition-focused AI policy.
The execution of Christa Pike — sentenced to death in Tennessee for a 1995 murder committed as a teenager — was stayed shortly before it was scheduled to occur. The case has fuelled debate over executing offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes and over the state's death-penalty protocols.
The NSW senator won the party's first contested federal leadership ballot, defeating Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young (Shoebridge 7 votes to 4 after preferences). He replaces Larissa Waters, who resigned Monday on health grounds. In his first remarks, Shoebridge declared the Greens' goal is to "replace Labor" — "Labor has created the circumstances for One Nation, and Labor is not the answer." Steph Hodgins-May was elected deputy.
Vietnamese authorities charged an Australian man and two other people with planning "terrorist activities," but a pro-democracy group says the men were abducted from Cambodia in an act of "transnational repression." The ABC reports the case casts fresh light on the disappearance of activist Tran Hiep, missing since 18 September.
Advocates and the federal government are reviewing disability accommodation support to reduce NDIS costs, with advocates arguing it should also encourage providers to broaden the types of housing on offer — a structural reform with implications for disability providers and their suppliers.
A Euro-inspired wine bar and restaurant from sommelier couple Bridget Raffal and Harry Hunter (of Where's Nick's) has opened on Stanley Street in a stained-glass-windowed two-storey terrace. The pairing of a named sommelier duo with a big wine list is squarely RSN territory — a signal the city's premium beverage channel keeps consolidating around credentialed talent.
Broadsheet's October roundup spans new wine bars — L'Massif Cave (Surry Hills, Tokyo standing-bar style, natural drops), The Heritage Room (CBD Italian bottles with a midnight short-rib sandwich) — plus the completed revamp of Newtown's Carlisle Castle Hotel, MasterChef-alum Calamansi in Cremorne (Peranakan chicken curry) and a relaunched classic The Carlisle.
SRG Hospitality's The James is bringing modern British fine dining to The Langham, Sydney, led by head chef Sam Tuchband, whose menu is shaped by his time in London. One of the most anticipated CBD openings of the season, it targets the premium restaurant-and-hotel channel that sustains the top end of the beverage market.
The beloved neighbourhood Leichhardt Italian is launching a second location in the historic 1860s bakehouse where Rockpool began. Owners Charlie and Virginie Colosi keep their house-made pasta, pizza, bread and dessert approach — and their food-and-wine pillars — in the CBD.
After 20 years, Adelaide Festival Centre is sunsetting OzAsia — Australia's only major annual contemporary arts festival dedicated to engagement with Asia. CEO Kate Gould argues Asian voices want "year-round presence," not a single festival. But artists including Mindy Meng Wang warn the loss of dedicated, concentrated platform puts years of Asia-Pacific audience development at risk: "once that kind of cultural infrastructure disappears, it is not easy to rebuild." A sector-defining call on how multicultural arts funding is structured.
Creative Australia's flagship multi-year program for small-to-medium arts organisations is open for pre-applications (close Tuesday 27 Oct, 3pm AEDT). Awards range $100,000 to $550,000 per year over the four-year period ($2.2m max total), funding programming from 1 Jan 2029 to 31 Dec 2032. Requires two-year history, ≥$100k annual income, and a strong four-year vision.
Two NSW Create NSW rounds are closing soon. The Arts & Cultural Funding Program (professional artists/organisations, closes 15 Oct 2pm) and the 2026 Regional Arts Touring Round 2 (individuals, groups and organisations touring regional NSW, closes 13 Oct 2pm). Sydney artists can also apply for Waverley Artist Studios, the Levitate Arts Mentorship and UTS Library Creative in Residence this week.
GPT-6.1 Sol matches GPT-6 Astra on DeepSWE v1.1 at roughly 1/5 the cost ($2/$10 per M input/output vs Astra's $10/$50), eclipsing prior GPT-6 Sol's best score by 6.4 points at lower reasoning effort. Self-reported: DeepSWE 75.22% High, OSWorld 71.42% Max. A major cost-performance step that matters for anyone pricing agent workloads.
Hermes Agent tagged v2026.9.24, a patch rollup of ~460 PRs since v0.21.4 (1,610 non-merge commits, 4,828 files). Highlights include the Desktop plugin SDK wave, a Connectors page replacing the MCP tab, multi-language (French/German/Spanish) Desktop catalogs, and — notably — GPT-6 Sol/Terra/Luna and Claude Opus 5.5 in both the Nous and OpenRouter catalogs. Full notes deferred to v0.22.0.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Sep 22) is Anthropic's first model in the new 5.5 family, built for long-running agentic coding and knowledge work. Alongside OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol, it signals this autumn's push toward cheaper, faster frontier agents — directly relevant to Rowan's model-selection cost-benefit calculus.
The September wave included Claude Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, Google's latest, plus Llama and GPT-family updates — a cluster release pattern as labs compete on agentic coding and computer use. Also of note: Nous added qwen3.8-max/flash, Gemini 3.7 Flash, GLM-5.3-Flash and MiniMax M3 across its catalogs.