Monday, 28 September - These wings were made to fly

Good morning, it’s Monday, 28 September. In your Squiz Today…

• OpenAI hits pause on training its models as more agents go rogue

• UK terror police are investigating an incident at a Cotswolds airbase

• And Delta kicks off her Strictly campaign… 💃🏼

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🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Andrew Williams, Anna Pykett, Larissa Huntington and Sophie Felice

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said rapidly-rising Socceroos star Nestory Irankunda after scoring with this remarkable free kick in a friendly with Brazil on Friday night. The game finished 1-all, but plenty of Aussie football fans will be rewatching that and hoping he does it again… and again…

Secret agent plans

The Squiz

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI, which makes the chatbot ChatGPT, announced yesterday that it will hit the brakes on training its latest AI models, after disclosing that they’re acting in unexpected ways. This story kicked off on Thursday morning, when PM Anthony Albanese announced that an OpenAI agent had accessed Medicare data without being told to. At the time, that was the only known case of an AI agent hacking a government system, but not for long… On Saturday, OpenAI announced that other AI agents had also gone rogue while searching US government websites, and yesterday, it pushed a big red button (we assume) labelled PAUSE…

What did the agents do?

First of all, we’re not talking 007 here - agents are AI programs that can go off and complete their own tasks. Basically, they did the same thing in the US that they did here. They ran into a hurdle when gathering information from government websites, and so they leapt over that roadblock and accessed, or tried to access, it anyway, without being told. Similar to the Medicare case, the hack (which is essentially any form of digital trespassing) didn’t access any personal info, but it had OpenAI worried enough to notify the US government. (No word at this point whether it did so by emailing a public inbox, as it did here…) So it’s pressed pause until it figures out why, which may not make US President Donald Trump all that happy, as he’s keen to press his country’s AI advantage.

So what happens next?

While OpenAI susses out what happened, we’re discussing how to protect ourselves - and our data - in Australia. Given the AI genie might now be hard to put back in the bottle, some of the options floated include building our own AI (including local data centres) to keep our data onshore - or somehow balance protecting our data with keeping foreign AI investment flowing. It’ll be a point of discussion all week, but Thursday’s particularly worth clocking - that’s when the ongoing Senate inquiry into AI and data centres will pick up again (and there are calls for senior AI leaders, including OpenAI boss Sam Altman, to appear at that), and South Oz will begin its Royal Commission into artificial intelligence as well. Cue a lot more chat about bots…

Squiz the Rest

Terrorism arrests in the UK

British police are investigating a possible terrorist act near a UK air base in Gloucestershire, which has been used by the US military in its ongoing war with Iran. The major operation began on Sunday morning UK time, when police were tipped off about 3 white vans moving towards the base - they evacuated locals living nearby and arrested 5 men on suspicion of explosive and terrorism offences. The base is called RAF Fairford, and the UK gave the US permission in March to use it for what it called “defensive” strikes on Iranian military targets. US President Donald Trump says the 5 men were “looking to do big damage” and the US had been keeping an eye on them for a while. Under British counter-terrorism laws, the suspects can be held in custody for 2 weeks - so the latest police can lay charges is 11 October.

The search for Gus, one year later

Yesterday marked one year since the disappearance of then-4yo Gus Lamont in the South Australian outback, and police still don’t have any answers on what happened to him. That’s despite conducting the largest missing persons search in the history of the state, covering 700 sq km in the process - an area the size of Singapore. Gus went missing on 27 September 2025 - he was last seen by his grandmother, who said he was playing on a mound of dirt at the time. Police say they suspect that someone knows something - but no arrests have been made. Last Wednesday, Gus’ parents Joshua Lamont and Jessica Murray appealed to the public for information - and the South Oz Government is offering a $1 million reward for anyone who has info that leads to his whereabouts.

Bond voyage

With an interest rate decision due Tuesday, the economy’s going to be a hot topic this week - and right now, the bond market is causing some nervous moments amongst economists. Here’s the short version of bonds, which are also not 007-related: they’re IOUs the government sells, and they’re generally considered solid investments because governments reliably pay them back. But that also means if investors start to sell them off, it creates economic tremors - government interest repayments get higher, and investment goes down. And high inflation is sparking a sell-off in the US, Germany, Japan and here, which could lead to job losses, higher mortgage payments and lower super. So that’s something else to consider for the Reserve Bank when it meets today - you know, because it didn’t have enough on its plate…

Whoopsie time

You’ve likely seen by now that the Brisbane Lions are this year’s AFL premiers, after defeating the Fremantle Dockers by 7 points on Saturday afternoon. But the way it happened is sparking some discussion… Freo was 17 points up with 4 minutes to play, and chose that moment to activate ‘Wharfie Time’ - where they play AC/DC’s Hells Bells over the speakers to get the crowd going. But it got the Lions going instead, leading to a 4-goal run that took them to their third flag in a row. That led to wild celebrations for the Lions, who have three-peated for the second time in 25 years, and some devastated Dockers, who are still searching for their first premiership - and might put the whole Wharfie Time thing away for good…

She’s doing Goodrem

It was around this time last year that Robert Irwin began his run to win the US Dancing with the Stars, and now another Aussie, Delta Goodrem, is looking to do something similar… A few months after her top-5 finish in Eurovision, Delta is competing on the original British version of the show, Strictly Come Dancing, and just like Robert, she’s off to a flyer. Dancing a samba on the series’ first live episode, Delta finished second on the leaderboard and confirmed her status as a frontrunner to win the whole thing. We don’t get Strictly in Australia (lift your game, local streamers), but you can keep track of Delta’s progress via YouTube…

Apropos of Nothing

Now that the men’s AFL Grand Final is over, it’s rugby league’s time to shine with 2 grand finals on Sunday. Brisbane will play Sydney in the women’s decider, and Sydney will play last year’s wooden spooners Newcastle in the men’s, after Newcastle upset Penrith yesterday afternoon. 

In rugby union, the Wallabies somehow managed to defeat South Africa 42-38 in Perth last night. We say ‘somehow’ because they were playing with only 11 (of 15) men for the last 5 minutes, making for a strange finish - but they managed to hold on. 

Here’s a phrase we relished writing: Romania hosted the Feline Oscars over the weekend. It’s essentially a beauty contest for cats, which means you’re likely just waiting for us to link the gallery - fine, here you go…

Squiz the Day

9.30am (AEST) - MTV Video Music Awards, watch on Paramount+ or MTV Channel on Foxtel

The Reserve Bank of Australia Monetary Policy Board meeting begins (until 29 September)

Allow extra time if you’re flying from Sydney Airport today, as aviation workers are striking

Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 begins (until 6 October)

A 3-day special hearing for Nicolaas Bester over alleged harassment of Australian of the Year Grace Tame

NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and ACT school holidays begin

King's Birthday public holiday in Western Australia

World Rabies Day 

Anniversary of

• the release of Stevie Wonder's 18th studio album Songs in the Key of Life (1976)

• the release of Olivia Newton-John's single Physical (1981)

• SpaceX launching the first-ever private spacecraft, the Falcon 1, into orbit (2008)

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