The artificial intelligence boom has benefited chatbot makers, computer scientists and Nvidia investors. It's also providing an unusual windfall for Anguilla, a tiny island in the Caribbean.

ChatGPT's debut nearly two years ago heralded the dawn of the AI age and kicked off a digital gold rush as companies scrambled to stake their own claims by acquiring websites that end in .ai.

That's where Anguilla comes in. The British territory was allotted control of the .ai internet address in the 1990s.

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It was one of hundreds of obscure top-level domains assigned to individual countries and territories based on their names. While the domains are supposed to indicate a website has a link to a particular region or language, it's not always a requirement.

Google uses google.ai to showcase its artificial intelligence services while Elon Musk uses x.ai as the homepage for his Grok AI chatbot. Startups like AI search engine Perplexity have also snapped up .ai web addresses, redirecting users from the .com version.

Anguilla's earnings from web domain registration fees quadrupled last year to $US32 million ($48.8 million), fuelled by the surging interest in AI. The income now accounts for about 20 per cent of Anguilla's total government revenue. Before the AI boom, it hovered at around 5 per cent.

Anguilla's government, which uses the gov.ai home page, collects a fee every time a .ai web address is renewed, Identity Digital Chief Strategy Officer Ram Mohan said the fee — $140 for two years — won't change. It also gets paid when new addresses are registered and expired ones are sold off. Some sites have fetched tens of thousands of dollars.

The money directly boosts the economy of Anguilla, which is just 91 square kilometres and has a population of about 16,000.

Blessed with coral reefs, clear waters and palm-fringed white sand beaches, the island is a haven for uber-wealthy tourists. Still, many residents are underprivileged and tourism has been battered by the pandemic and, before that, a powerful hurricane.

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Anguilla doesn't have its own AI industry though Premier Ellis Webster hopes that one day it will become an hub for the technology. He said it was just luck that it was Anguilla, and not nearby Antigua, that was assigned the .ai domain in 1995 because both places had those letters in their names.

Webster said the money takes the pressure off government finances and helps fund key projects, but cautioned that "we can't rely on it solely".

"You can't predict how long this is going to last," Webster said in an interview with the AP.

"And so I don't want to have our economy and our country and all our programs just based on this.

"And then all of a sudden there's a new fad comes up in the next year or two, and then we are left now having to make significant expenditure cuts, removing programs."

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To help keep up with the explosive growth in domain registrations, Anguilla said Tuesday it's signing a deal with a US-based domain management company, Identity Digital, to help manage the effort. They said the agreement will mean more revenue for the government while improving the resilience and security of the web addresses.

Identity Digital, which also manages Australia's .au domain, expects to migrate all .ai domain services to its systems by the start of next year, Mohan said in an interview.

A local software entrepreneur had previously helped Anguilla set up its registry system decades earlier.

There are now more than 533,000 .ai web domains, an increase of more than 10-fold since 2018. The International Monetary Fund said in a May report that the earnings will help diversify the economy, "thus making it more resilient to external shocks.

Webster expects domain-related revenues to rise further, and could even double this year from last year's $US32 million.

He said the money will finance the airport's expansion, free medical care for senior citizens and completion of a vocational technology training centre at Anguilla's high school.

The income also provides "budget support" for other projects the government is eyeing, such as a national development fund it could quickly tap for hurricane recovery efforts. The island normally relies on assistance from its administrative power, Britain, which comes with conditions, Webster said.

Mohan said working with Identity Digital will also defend against cyber crooks trying to take advantage of the hype around artificial intelligence.

He cited the example of Tokelau, an island in the Pacific Ocean, whose .tk addresses became notoriously associated with spam and phishing after outsourcing its registry services.

"We worry about bad actors taking something, sticking a .ai to it, and then making it sound like they are much bigger or much better than what they really are," Mohan said, adding that the company's technology will quickly take down shady sites.

Another benefit is .ai websites will no longer need to connect to the government's digital infrastructure through a single internet cable to the island, which leaves them vulnerable to digital bottlenecks or physical disruptions.

Now they'll use the company's servers distributed globally, which means it will be faster to access them because they'll be closer to users.

"It goes from milliseconds to microseconds," Mohan said.

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The Biden administration has sent a letter to the Israeli government demanding it act to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within the next 30 days or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance, suggesting US military aid could be in jeopardy.

The Sunday letter, jointly written by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, is addressed to Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer.

It marks a significant new step by the US to try to compel Israel to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

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They write that the US has deep concerns about the situation and ask for "urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory".

Since this spring, the amount of aid delivered to Gaza has dropped more than 50 per cent and the quantity delivered in September "was the lowest of any month during the past year", they added.

The deadline falls after the US presidential election on November 5.

Despite the stern warning, however, the US has continued to provide military assistance to Israel, including an advanced air defense system and US troops which began to arrive in the country on Monday.

Future US aid could be at risk, however. The letter, dated October 13, notes that the US State and Defense departments, under US law, "must continually assess" Israel's adherence to its assurances made earlier this year that it would not restrict aid flows into the enclave.

The US' list of demands is extensive. Israel must allow at least 350 trucks a day to enter Gaza through all four major crossings, the letter says, in addition to opening a fifth crossing.

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Israel must also over the next month implement humanitarian pauses across Gaza as necessary to enable humanitarian activities, including vaccinations and aid distribution for at least the next four months.

The US is also demanding that Israel allow people in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone inside Gaza to move inland before winter and enhance security for humanitarian convoys and movements.

Israel must also take action to ensure that the Jordan Armed forces corridors are functioning at "full and continuous capacity".

The letter closes by calling for a new channel between the US and Israeli governments to "raise and discuss civilian harm incidents", with the first meeting to be held at the end of the month.

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Israel's military operations in northern Gaza have intensified in recent weeks, and the Israeli military has called on civilians there to evacuate to the south, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are already sheltering.

The UN World Food Programme warned last weekend that Israeli military operations are having a "disastrous impact" on food security for Palestinian families.

Blinken and Austin wrote that the Israeli government's actions appear to be contributing to the worsening humanitarian situation.

"We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government – including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding nearly 90 per cent of humanitarian movements between northern and southern Gaza in September, continuing burdensome and excessive dual-use restrictions, and instituting new vetting and onerous liability and customs requirements for humanitarian staff and shipments – together with increased lawlessness and looting – are contributing to an accelerated deterioration in the conditions in Gaza," they said.

Israel appears to already be responding to the letter, at least indirectly. Just one day after the letter was sent, COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages policy for the Palestinian territories and the flow of aid into the strip, tweeted photos of aid going into Gaza.

"30 trucks entered northern Gaza through the Erez Crossing earlier today. Israel is not preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, with an emphasis on food, into Gaza," COGAT said in a post on X.

"Israel will continue to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, while simultaneously destroying Hamas' military and governance infrastructures."

Israel assures US it won't strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites, US officials say

The Biden administration believes it has won assurances from Israel that it will not hit Iranian nuclear or oil sites as it looks to strike back following Iran's missile barrage earlier this month, two US officials said on Tuesday (early Wednesday AEDT).

The administration also believes that sending a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it has eased some of Israel's concerns about possible Iranian retaliation and general security issues.

The Pentagon on Sunday announced the THAAD deployment to help bolster Israel's air defences following Iran's ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October, saying it was authorised at the direction of US President Joe Biden.

However, the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic discussions, cautioned that the assurance is not iron-clad and that circumstances could change. The officials also noted that Israel's track record on fulfilling assurances in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington's expectations.

The most recent example of that was last month when US officials were told by their Israeli counterparts that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would welcome a US- and French-led temporary ceasefire initiative for Lebanon only to see Israel launch a massive airstrike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah two days later.

Netanyahu's office said in a statement that "we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests".

The Middle East has been bracing for an expected response from Israel after Iran launched roughly 180 ballistic missiles on October 1, which the US helped to fend off.

The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war.

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Police are on the hunt for dognappers who broke into a dog shelter on the Gold Coast over the weekend and stole a beloved canine.

Workers at the Animal Welfare League have scrambled to repair damaged kennels after Blaze the husky was stolen.

"Blaze had been taken from his kennel… it seems as though somebody or a group of people have broken into the premises (and have) destroyed padlocks, have destroyed kennel fencing," Caroline Esera from the Animal Welfare League said.

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The dognappers appeared to have gained access to the shelter through bushland at the back, scaling a fence and breaking multiple padlocks, leaving other dogs – including Blaze's good friend Maggie – distraught.

"The other dogs were really frantic," Esera said. 

"Maggie was really, really upset. 

"We can't separate the two dogs because they're such close friends so she would have been really traumatised by the event."

Fortunately, Blaze was found safe and sound on Sunday at Harbour Town, thanks to a member of the public who identified him by the tag on his neck, and has since been reunited with Maggie.

Police are still on the hunt for those involved.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.

Research shows stress can negatively impact our mood, relationships and overall wellbeing. So when it comes to our working lives, it might be time to consider a switch to a low-stress role.

Exclusive: A Perth great-grandmother being treated for kidney failure in Western Australia's biggest public hospital has been left traumatised, claiming her bed collapsed and trapped her.

Confronting images showed Anne Hibbert bruised from head to toe after she said she was trapped in the railing of a bed at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital for hours.

She said she pressed the call button repeatedly but nobody came.

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"The nurse said to me, 'Look, there's nothing we can do. You'll just have to sit here and wait for the day shift to come on'," Ms Hibbert said.

The 78-year-old was rushed to Joondalup Hospital last month with failing kidneys.

Doctors said if she didn't transfer for dialysis, she'd be dead within days.

It was supposed to be her last night at Sir Charles Gairdner when she woke to the sound of a deflating bed.

"All of a sudden, I was stuck and this arm was right next to the railing," she said.

After four painful hours, orderlies finally came to her aid.

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Tony Hibbert is demanding answers to what happened to his wife.

"She's left with this dreadful pain, she cries at night in bed," he said.

" … You know, it's heartbreaking."

Ms Hibbert said she'd been scared of beds ever since, even her own.

The Hibberts lodged a complaint with the hospital – and were told a clinical nurse was investigating. Ten days on they had heard nothing more.

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"Our nurses are very much under pressure," Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Romina Raschilla said.

"They're short-staffed. They are just running back and forth during their shifts."

The North Metropolitan Health Service issued a statement to 9News.

"We take all complaints seriously," it said.

"We are still investigating the matter."

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The only Tesla Cybertruck in the country is heading to South Australia's Bay to Birdwood car rally this Sunday.

9News was granted access as the stainless steel showstopper was unveiled on the streets of Adelaide for the first time.

Its ultra-modern design stands in stark contrast to the vintage vehicles that typically grace the Bay to Birdwood. 

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"People have got a chance to be on the side of the road to see the very latest and the very oldest and see a great parade of cars in between," rally organiser John Hancock said.

Only 300 South Australians managed to reserve a Cybertruck back in 2020, including Adelaide's Kane Ellis, who test-drove the vehicle in Los Angeles earlier this year.

"Obviously the armour, stainless steel plating, it's super heavy, it gets super hot in the sun," he said.

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"It's like a driving refrigerator."

While the exact release date and price for the Cybertruck in Australia remains uncertain, the model currently in Adelaide sells for about AU$120,000 in the United States.

Ellis says it would be a cool experience for Australians to see them on the road, but there could be a long wait.

"No one knows, it could be a year, it could be two years, it could be five or never," Ellis said.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.

A 19-year-old woman has died in a fiery car crash in Adelaide overnight. 

Witnesses scrambled to help the two drivers caught up in the collision at Waterloo Corner, and while one of them made it out alive, 19-year-old Amy couldn't be saved.

The crash unfolded on the Port Wakefield Highway. It's believed the young woman pulled out into the path of an oncoming tipper truck shortly after midnight.

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A passing driver attempted in vain to rescue Amy from her burning Lexus.

The truck driver, who was taken to hospital with injuries following the accident, is assisting police with their investigation.

Amy's life is the 69th lost on South Australian roads this year, and the fifth in just five days.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.

Mysterious ball-shaped debris has washed up on Sydney's popular Coogee Beach, forcing its closure until they are removed and tested.

Lifeguards came across small black spheres scattered along the length of the shore this afternoon.

Randwick City Council has collected samples to investigate their materials and origin.

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In the meantime, the beach has been closed until further notice. 

"At this stage it is unknown what the material is, however, they may be 'tar balls' which are formed when oil comes in to contact with debris and water, typically the result of oil spills or seepage," the council said.

"Council is currently arranging for the material to be safely removed from the beach and is inspecting other nearby beaches.

"At this stage, only Coogee Beach is known to be affected."

Beachgoers are advised to steer clear of the beach and not to touch the debris. 

The matter has been reported to the Environmental Protection Authority and Beachwatch NSW.

This article, written by 60 Minutes Executive Producer Kirsty Thomson, was first published in 2018 to mark 40 years of the show. We have republished it today after George Negus, one of the founding presenters, died at the age of 82.

'Hey George, where ya been?'

When he got a rare break from his globe-trotting job George Negus would have hoped that he might be afforded some quiet anonymity in his Sydney home suburb of Balmain.

No such luck. There was no escaping the noisy bunch of local kids happy and excited to see their idol in the flesh.

HONOURING GEORGE: You can leave your tributes to George Negus here so we can share them with our readers

In fact, after interrupting his shopping trip to ask which remote part of the world he had just returned from, this group of smart-arsed teenagers would follow George up the street noisily imitating the ticking clock that signified the start of every episode of the program in which he starred – 60 Minutes.

I was one of those kids who used to ‘tick, tick, tick’ behind George. In the 1980s, long before the internet, he and Ian, Ray and Jana were my window to the world.

They were incredibly brave reporters who, every Sunday night, took my family and I from our living room to somewhere we had never been to tell us something we had never heard before.

On the school bus on Monday morning the latest 60 Minutes stories were excitedly discussed and dissected.

The program sowed the seeds of adventure on our young minds and the hope we would one day visit the incredible places these trailblazing journalists travelled to.

Back then I never would have imagined that one day I would work at the program that had such a profound impact on me as a young person.

60 Minutes has a special place in the life of all Australians.

Maybe it’s because there aren’t many television programs that have been around for 40 years – by last count, less than six.

It is no exaggeration to say that 60 Minutes is an institution, one that the Australians have turned to and continue to turn to week after week, year after year for one simple reason – the stories.

For 40 years the hardworking reporters, producers, camera crews and editing teams who work at 60 Minutes have devoted themselves to travelling the world telling stories that don’t just entertain, but challenge, move and hopefully make our audience feel something.

In its 40th year, 60 Minutes has continued the incredible work of those who started the clock ticking.

This year alone, the program has produced stories that have had huge impact and led to real change.

From Allison Langdon’s investigation into hazing rituals in Australian University colleges to Tom Steinfort’s interview with a key witness to a 40-year-old murder mystery which led to a breakthrough arrest.

Liz Hayes' investigation into the founder of the Hillsong Church and the subsequent confirmation of a police investigation into allegations of a Church child abuse cover up.

Liam Bartlett’s expose of the Live Sheep Export trade which led to the main exporter losing his license; and Tara Brown’s award-winning story about the dreadful murder of Queensland schoolgirl Tialeigh Palmer.

Of course there would be no ticking clock every Sunday night were it not for the incredible people who have worked on the show since 1978.

They are the lifeblood of the program, the story tellers who for the last 40 years have given their all, week in and week out to ensure we continue to inform, entertain and inspire for years to come.

Israelis were holding vigils and somber ceremonies on Monday to mark a year since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, the deadliest in the country's history, which sparked the war in Gaza and scarred Israelis indelibly.

The surprise cross-border attack, which caught Israel unprepared on a major Jewish holiday, shattered Israelis' sense of security and shook their faith in their leaders and their military.

Its aftershocks still ripple one year later. The war in Gaza rages on and Israel is fighting a new war against Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel on October 8. There is also an escalating conflict with Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups — that threatens to drag the region into a far more dangerous conflagration.

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And on Monday, Hamas showed that it was still putting up a fight. It launched rockets that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv, as well as closer to the Gaza border.

In Gaza, which is still buckling under the weight of the ongoing war, no formal commemorative event is planned. The massive destruction and displacement are a constant reminder of the retaliatory Israeli assault on the territory, which has no end in sight.

Israelis were flocking to ceremonies, cemeteries and memorial sites around the country, remembering the hundreds of victims, the dozens of hostages still in captivity and the soldiers wounded or killed trying to save them.

At 6.29am — the exact minute Hamas launched its attack — the families of those killed at the Nova music festival, joined by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, gathered at the site where almost 400 revellers were gunned down and from where many others were taken hostage.

After briefly playing the same trance music that was blared during the festival, hundreds of family members and friends of the victims stood for a moment of silence. One woman's piercing wail broke the silence as booms echoed from the fighting in Gaza, just a few kilometres away.

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"When we are here, we are near our loved ones. This is the time they danced and fled," said Sigal Bar-On, whose niece, Yuval Bar-On, 25, and her fiance Moshe Shuva, 34, were supposed to get married in December 2023.

At 6.31am, four projectiles were launched from Gaza toward the very Israeli communities that came under fierce assault last year, the Israeli military said. The ceremony was not disrupted.

Marking the moment Hamas' attack began a year ago, the families of hostages still held in Gaza — about 100, a third of whom are said to be dead — gathered near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Jerusalem residence and stood during a two-minute siren, replicating a custom from the the most solemn dates on the Israeli calendar, Holocaust Remembrance and Memorial Day.

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"We are here to remind [the hostages] that we haven't forgotten them," said Shiri Albag, whose daughter Liri is among the captives. Her message to Netanyahu: "We wont let you rest until all of them are back, every last one of them," she told the crowd, which hoisted posters bearing the faces of the hostages.

A group representing the families of hostages announced that another captive was dead. Idan Shtivi, 28, was snatched from the Nova music festival and was believed to be alive. Israeli media reported he was killed during the attack and his body was taken into Gaza.

The flags at the Israeli Knesset were lowered to half-staff and an official state ceremony focusing on acts of bravery and hope is set to be aired on Monday evening. The ceremony was prerecorded without an audience — apparently to avoid potential disruptions — in the southern city of Ofakim, where more than two dozen Israelis were killed.

But anger at the government's failure to prevent the attack and enduring frustration that it has not returned the remaining hostages prompted the families of those killed and taken captive to hold a separate event in Tel Aviv.

That event had been set to draw tens of thousands of people but was scaled back drastically over prohibitions on large gatherings due to the threat of missile attacks from Iran and Hezbollah.

Hamas' attack, which killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged some 250 into Gaza as hostages, continues to cast a shadow over daily life in Israel. For the dozens of hostages still in captivity, there is no end in sight to their struggle. Border communities have been upended and tens of thousands were displaced. Soldiers are being killed in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel faces ongoing international criticism over its wartime conduct, with two world courts examining its actions.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the territory's 2.3 million population and sparked a humanitarian crisis that has led to widespread hunger. It has also left the tiny coastal enclave ravaged beyond recognition as US-led ceasefire efforts have repeatedly sputtered.