While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 29, 2026
SpaceX Starship Flight 14 launches from its launch pad at Boca Chica Beach in Texas, on Sept 28.
SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time despite an unexpected engine shutdown mid-flight on Sept 28 and deployed the first batch of new Starlink satellites, but the mission was cut short and ended with a controlled and fiery touchdown in the Pacific.
The uncrewed 40-story-tall vehicle, consisting of a Super Heavy booster rocket topped by the main upper-stage Starship vessel, thundered off its launch pad from SpaceX’s Starbase complex along the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville.
The mission was scheduled to last 10 hours, but was reduced to three hours after the engine problem. Launching from Texas, it was the rocket’s 14th flight since 2023, as Elon Musk’s company plans to put the vehicle into routine use starting later this year.
Gold lost 4% on Sept 28 to trade at a more than seven-week low, as rising oil prices stoked inflation concerns and bolstered bets on tighter monetary policy, while a higher dollar and Treasury yields created further headwinds for the metal.
Spot gold was down 3.8% at US$4,121.58 per ounce as of 12.02am, after falling as much as US$4,110.55, its lowest since Aug 5. US gold futures fell 3.9% to US$4,153.70.
“We’ve got crude oil prices sharply higher. And that suggests still more problematic price inflation, which suggests a tighter Federal Reserve monetary policy,” said Jim Wyckoff, a market analyst at American Gold Exchange.
US deportations of thousands of people to dozens of countries are “triggering a cascade of human rights violations”, heightening the risk of abuses like torture, slavery and trafficking, UN experts warned on Sept 28.
Since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Washington has been signing deals with developing countries to take migrants who cannot legally be sent home.
More than 20 independent UN experts, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of migrants and on protecting rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, warned such agreements were “increasing risks of torture and ill-treatment and enforced disappearance”.
Pope Leo on Sept 28 said concerns that artificial intelligence could destroy the world are not “fake news” and should be taken seriously, in an apparent rebuke of US President Donald Trump.
The first US pope, who has warned of the dangers of AI throughout his 16-month papacy, also directly criticised technology CEOs who argued there should be no guardrails on the technology.
“I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI, should be taken seriously,” the pontiff said in a press conference on his flight back to Rome after a four-day trip to France. “I don’t think that that is fake news, as some have said.”
Michael Olise’s magnificent late strike gave France a 1-0 victory in Belgium in the UEFA Nations League on Sept 28 as Zinedine Zidane made it two wins out of two since being named coach.
Bayern Munich star Olise, who was one of the outstanding players at the World Cup in which France reached the semi-finals, came off the bench late on with the game in Brussels goalless, and set off from inside his own half to score the winner in the 88th minute.
The win follows a 1-0 success away to Turkey on Sept 25 in Zidane’s first game at the helm after succeeding Didier Deschamps as coach following the World Cup.
