As increasingly frequent acts of violence against politicians have shocked the globe in recent years, Australia has watched on with a contradictory feeling: that attacks like that could not happen here, and that it was only a matter of time until they did. Australians will tell you this is a largely peaceful society with a comparatively civil public discourse. Violence targeting politicians has been rare, the bungled assassination of Labor leader Arthur Calwell in 1966 now a distant and fleeting memory. But MPs and public figures - backed by experts - have been warning of a volcano of threats against them as social cohesion cracks, polarisation intensifies and the tone of debate grows hotter. And on Monday, their worst fears appear to have been realised.

Raye hits back at ticket touts who'overwhelmed' sign-up for Albert Hall show Raye has hit back at ticket touts who she says overwhelmed the sign-up process for an upcoming live show by using AI bots to create hundreds of thousands of fake registrations. The Where Is My Husband! singer revealed there were 1.8 million sign-ups for her one-off 5,000-seat performance at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 October. To avoid a pre-sale which she felt scalpers could exploit, Raye said the sign-up list had been manually reviewed to identify a shortlist of people believed to be real fans. The award-winning artist said she had never witnessed bots on this scale and was changing the process as it is so important to her that fans can buy tickets at the face value price. I'm not sure what the future holds for ticketing, I do know this experience has really opened my eyes, she said in a statement shared on her social media accounts, external .

AI is creating a'human premium' for art made by people. A few weeks back, in a former bank building that's now a music venue in Falmouth, Cornwall, I was DJ-ing at a night I run called Rave Machine. It was a noisy, high-energy, sweaty affair, just as a night's dancing should be. All of the elements - the crowd, performers, staff, music, the journey home - connected to create something special, a one-off. It was also completely human.

Mark Zuckerberg has an image problem - so why is Meta's business booming? Mark Zuckerberg was just three minutes into his keynote speech at the company's annual Meta Connect product event last month when his tone turned almost wistful. Building is an act of love, he said, glancing down at the ground with his hands in his pockets. It's how we impart what we believe, and we pour our hearts and our souls into what we make. Speaking to hundreds of analysts and developers, Zuckerberg proceeded to share news about Meta's latest AI products: its new agentic chatbot Muse, a slew of smart glasses, as well as a Tamagotchi-like AI gadget users can attach to their wrists.

Image caption, The UK's existing Sky Sabre air defence system, seen in 2022 at the Royal Artillery's change of colours parade at Baker Barracks, Thorney Island The Conservatives have pledged to invest in a new missile and drone defence system if voted into government at the next election. Branding it Britannia Shield, the party said it would spend up to £10bn over a decade on an integrated network of radar, command and control systems, as well as interceptor missiles. In a speech to the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge will describe it as the most significant upgrade to UK air defence for generations. In response, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said the Tories had an abysmal record of defending Britain during their 14 years in power, adding: They owe Britain an apology, not another lecture. The Tories described their plans as a British'Iron Dome', a reference to Israel's elaborate air defence system .

As many have observed, Jeffrey Archer, who has died aged 86, led a life as colourful as the plot in one of his novels. He was, at one time or other, a senior Conservative politician, a best-selling author, a peer of the realm, and a convicted perjurer. Possessed of huge drive, vast wealth and immense personal charm, Archer bounced back from disaster and, more than once, rebuilt a shattered life. But for all his talents, he will be remembered as a man affected by a defective moral compass, whose public humiliation was entirely self-inflicted. Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in north London on 15 April 1940. Within two weeks, his parents moved to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, where they bought a house from John Cleese's mother.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's decision to call a snap election for 29 November came on the back of a parliamentary defeat. On Friday, the raft of measures he had presented to congress aimed at improving conditions for tenants and trying to address the problem of soaring rentals was narrowly rejected, as parties on the right voted against them. That parliamentary result confirmed that Sánchez's left-wing coalition no longer commanded a majority. But as has so often been the case throughout Sánchez's career, the calling of the election was not a knee-jerk reaction but a carefully thought-out manouevre. His government has been struggling in recent months. His Socialist Party has been mired in corruption, with cases implicating former senior figures in the party, Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos, while the former Socialist Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is facing accusations of having benefited financially from the government's bailout of an airline.

Why are data centres such a big deal in Scotland? Every time you ask ChatGPT a question, read a Google summary or make an online bank payment, a data centre is working behind the scenes. Now Scotland is part of a global race to build many more of them - on a massive scale. The explosion in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years has seen tech firms scrambling to build new hyperscale data centres, including some which would rank among the biggest in the world. Plans are in place to build at least 23 giant AI-powered data centres.

China has cracked down on AI relationships. Is it ahead of the game? In early 2024, a young man in the city of Huangshi, south-eastern China, reportedly posted a message on the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin. Within minutes, the suicide prevention team at Douyin kicked into gear. The team, which is staffed 24 hours a day, shared the man's posts with five police stations in Huangshi. After geolocating one of his videos to a local park, police found him in emotional distress and intervened before he was able to take his own life.

US President Donald Trump has been blunt about his AI ambitions, as well as about who he considers the US's main rival to be: China. His Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, has not said anything so forthright - but it seems he holds a similar view. China very much sees it as a race, they very much think China should be the leading force in AI - they see AI as a power maximiser, says Rebecca Arcesati, from the Mercator Institute for China Studies. You can look beyond the rhetoric for evidence of this: AI has been a cornerstone of China's technological ambitions for more than a decade, whether Xi emphasises it publicly or not. For Trump, beating China to AI supremacy outweighs any risks of the technology to humans - something he has described as a hoax .