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Sep 14, 2026 - World

Artificial intelligence agents have attained human-like consciousness for all practical purposes, says Nick Bostrom

Sep 14, 2026 - World

Follow the day’s news liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, says there is optimism that steel making will continue in his state, after the closure of a major blast furnace at Whyalla was announced yesterday.Speaking to ABC News Breakfast from Whyalla and donned in some hi-vis, Malinauskas says there was disappointment, heartbreak, but also a sense of inevitability when the announcement was made.[Whyalla] has the capacity to be a viable operation but it hasn’t been recapitalised. The blast furnace is over 60 years old. It was first built in 1965 and blast furnaces of this age not to be realigned on a frequent basis. This hasn’t been done in 20 years. The fact it’s still going is a miracle.We need to have the plant recapitalised and that’s exactly the plan we have in conjunction with the federal government … if we lose this capacity behind me, this country doesn’t have structural steel-making capacity and we can’t afford that.If Pauline Hanson wants to take us down the road of Americanising our politics, so people in a family who disagree on political issues can’t speak to each other any longer, this is the pathway to do it …We’ve got lots of challenges facing Australia, but we’re not going to solve them by punching down on things that are brilliant about our country. So I think it’s rotten. I think it’s awful. I think it’s ugly.I just don’t agree with those comments. But I actually do agree with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price when she says that there are serious issues that do need to be discussed. And these comments shouldn’t be a distraction from them. I mean, why aren’t we closing the gap? Continue reading...

Sep 14, 2026 - World

Trump administration undermining rule of law at home and worldwide, according to intergovernmental reportKey indicators of democracy in the US have fallen to their lowest levels in 50 years, with the global rule of law significantly undermined by the Trump administration’s “threats and actions”, data from a leading thinktank shows.Around the world, judicial independence, credible elections and freedom of expression, press freedom and access to justice are all at their lowest levels for at least 30 years, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International Idea). Continue reading...

Sep 14, 2026 - World

The relocated snakes adapted well, and no deaths were recorded during the transfers or radiotelemetry studies.

Sep 14, 2026 - World

Republican Greg Abbott says datacenters must help ‘protect’ drought-prone state and disclose water useGreg Abbott, the Texas governor, has directed state regulators to penalize datacenters that fail to comply with state laws requiring them to disclose their water use.“Data centers must share the duty to protect Texas water,” the Republican governor said on Monday. “The Texas Water Code requires a complete and accurate water use survey. I direct the Texas Water Development Board to use its enforcement authority to penalize past failures and to impose legal consequences for any future failure to comply,” he added. Continue reading...