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Edinburgh to Dubai flight turned back over Egypt due to airport drone attack

BBC News

Hundreds of passengers flying to Dubai spent 11 hours on a flight to nowhere after their plane was turned back over Egypt. The Emirates flight EK24 set off from Edinburgh at 21:26 on Sunday and was due to land in Dubai at 06:49 on Monday. However, as the plane flew over Egypt, flights at Dubai International Airport were suspended following a fire caused by an Iranian drone hitting a fuel tank. The plane was forced to return to Edinburgh. Travel journalist Simon Calder told the BBC's Radio Scotland Breakfast programme that although Dubai was on the UK Foreign Office's No go list, many people were still taking the risk of flying there. No injuries were reported following the drone strike but officials said they had taken all necessary measures to ensure public safety.


Why the US is using a cheap Iranian drone against the country itself

New Scientist

The US and Iran are trading blows in the Gulf with a simple drone that costs as little as $50,000 to make. But why is a slow, cheap and relatively primitive drone seeing use in 2026 alongside hypersonic missiles and stealth jets? Iran invented the relatively simple Shahed 136 attack drone, but is now fending off US copies launched against it in combat. Why, when the US military has expensive, cutting-edge and hi-tech weapons, is it making flimsy drones powered by a motorbike engine? Iranian company Shahed Aviation Industries originally designed the 136.


First drone passengers may be combat casualties and criminals

New Scientist

Drones aren't yet licensed to carry passengers, but some may already be airlifting wounded personnel off the battlefield and could be employed for smuggling people Still from a promotional video for Skysurfer, a US company that sells "ultralight aircraft" for personal, recreational use The first passenger-carrying drones may already be in use. These aren't sophisticated urban air taxis, but crudely modified cargo drones transporting combat casualties and criminals. Heavy-lift drones are essentially scaled-up versions of the familiar quadcopters. Hair-raising videos of hobbyists carried by home-made drones show that the basic technology is simple enough. But meeting aircraft safety requirements for passenger transport takes years, and drone-makers, including Volocopter, EHang and Eve Air Mobility, are all aiming to get vehicles certified this year or next.





Zero-Shot Transfer with Deictic Object-Oriented Representation in Reinforcement Learning

Ofir Marom, Benjamin Rosman

Neural Information Processing Systems

Object-oriented representations in reinforcement learning have shown promise in transfer learning, with previous research introducing a propositional objectoriented framework that has provably efficient learning bounds with respect to samplecomplexity.


0f3d014eead934bbdbacb62a01dc4831-Supplemental.pdf

Neural Information Processing Systems

Inreinforcement learning, option models (Sutton, Precup & Singh, 1999; Precup, 2000) provide the framework for this kind of temporally abstract prediction and reasoning. Natural intelligent agents are also able to focus their attention on courses of action that are relevant or feasible in agiven situation, sometimes termed affordable actions.



Driverless taxis set to launch in UK as soon as September

BBC News

Waymo, the US driverless car firm, said it hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London as soon as September this year. The UK government has said it plans to change regulations in the second half of 2026 to enable driverless taxis to operate in the city but has not given a specific date. Waymo said a pilot service will launch in April and Local Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said: We're supporting Waymo and other operators through our passenger pilots, and pro-innovation regulations to make self-driving cars a reality on British roads. The firm, which is owned by Google-parent Alphabet, showed off a fleet of cars it bought to the UK at London's Transport Museum on Wednesday. Waymo's vehicles are currently being operated by a safety driver, mapping the streets.