Sunday, October 4, 2026
Ethiopian government troops have taken control of Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, following a week of intense fighting. The seizure marks a major escalation in the renewed conflict between federal forces and Tigray fighters.
Australian security agencies are investigating a flydubai co-pilot who allegedly attempted to hijack an Israel-bound flight after it emerged he spent roughly two years in Australia as a student. Passengers and crew physically intervened to stop the attack, which authorities are treating as an attempted terrorist act.
A senior safety leader at OpenAI has resigned, publicly warning that the company's internal culture is "broken." The departure adds to a growing list of high-profile exits from OpenAI's safety team and renews scrutiny of the firm's commitment to responsible AI development.
Visa has open-sourced part of its AI-powered cyber defence system following vulnerabilities exposed by Anthropic's Mythos model and an AI-agent attack on Hugging Face. The company has also quietly begun allowing select AI agents to make purchases using Visa — a first for the payments giant, confirmed by President of Technology Rajat Taneja on September 29.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned of "very substantial and intensifying" pressure on the federal budget driven by global economic instability and Middle East conflict-fuelled inflation, while insisting Australia will avoid recession. He is preparing new spending cuts ahead of the mid-year budget update, pointing to the private sector as a key driver of domestic inflation.
