At least 139 migrants, including 15 children, have died and 84 remain missing after a boat carrying more than 300 people capsized off Djibouti en route to Yemen. The disaster highlights the dangers of the Eastern Route, where more than 900 people died or went missing in 2025.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
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Who doesn’t love a Hollywood ending — or a beginning?
The only guide you need for fall entertainment.
As summer gives way to the inevitable grunts of awards-season jockeying, how wonderful it is to crawl back into the head of our favorite portal John Malkovich, returning with his most complex work in years in “Wild Horse Nine” (hitting theaters Nov. 6). Meanwhile, Jordan Firstman made his name with viciously funny online “Impressions” and a spotlight-stealing turn on HBO’s “I Love LA,” but did you know he was Trojan-horsing in a triple threat? “Club Kid” (out Nov. 6) marks the arrival of a serious screenwriter, director and star making a feature debut of rare wisdom.
Read on for features about those two movies, and if you’d like more options, here are 17 fall titles worth getting excited about in the coming months.
Austin Abrams in “Resident Evil,” directed by Zach Cregger.
(Sony Pictures Releasing)
Milla Jovovich brought stony-faced supermodel moxie to 2002’s underrated first film and her subsequent franchise was a mixed bag. But there’s a whole global fandom of obsessives who feel that none of these movies truly got the crux of what made Capcom’s original games such an all-night fixation. One of those people turns out to be filmmaker Zach Cregger, who, between “Barbarian” and his Oscar-winning “Weapons,” can now write his own ticket. As unlikely as it seems, this reboot is a project he has spent a considerable amount of his newfound Hollywood capital pursuing and you have to love him for it. Apocalyptic Raccoon City and a viral zombie outbreak are sure to figure, but also, given the Cregger of it all, spooky subterranean passages and confident performances, this time from Austin Abrams and Paul Walter Hauser. — Joshua Rothkopf
Tom Cruise in the movie “Digger.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Tom Cruise has been busy these last 15 years, starring in five “Mission Impossible” movies, reboots of “The Mummy” and “Top Gun” and a handful of other would-be blockbusters best forgotten. In nearly all of them, he plays a version of the unstoppable Cruise persona. And that’s a performance for sure. But we haven’t seen him play a real character in a long time, which makes his new movie my most-anticipated of the fall, even if the trailer makes it look like it could be a tonal train wreck. Billed as a “comedy of catastrophic proportions,” “Digger” has Cruise playing a Texas oil man charged with saving the world from an environmental disaster that he appears to have caused. The writer-director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, is a five-time Oscar winner, but not a filmmaker known for his humor. That makes the trailer’s absurdist tone and visual style intriguing (and also concerning). Iñárritu clearly loves “Dr. Strangelove,” as do we all. Fingers crossed. — Glenn Whipp
Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve in the movie “Fjord.”
(Neon)
Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — the second for writer-director Cristian Mungiu and an astonishing seventh in a row for distributor Neon — this is a gripping morality tale specifically designed to make viewers question their instinctive reactions no matter where they sit on the political spectrum. A conservative religious couple (Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, both giving quietly riveting performances) relocate from Romania to a small village in Norway and soon find that the outwardly progressive locals are less than welcoming. The Gheorghius’ five children are taken into protective custody amid allegations of abuse and soon enough, it seems that their beliefs and values are being put on trial. Fans of “Anatomy of a Fall” (another Neon title) will appreciate the detailed glimpse inside another international legal system, as the courtroom scenes are full of tension, emotion and surprise. — Mark Olsen
Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg in the movie “The Social Reckoning.”
(Leah Gallo / Columbia Pictures)
It’s been 16 years — an eon in internet time — since David Fincher made gripping drama out of coding, depositions and bruised male egos in “The Social Network.” Facebook’s story has since then taken a far darker turn: Russian troll farms, growing concerns about worsening teenage mental health and election misinformation. Aaron Sorkin, who scripted the first film, both writes and directs the follow-up, drawing on internal Facebook documents that whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) leaked to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) for the paper’s “Facebook Files” investigation. In a particularly inspired bit of casting, Jeremy Strong succeeds Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg. After playing Kendall Roy, a would-be mogul desperate to seize power in HBO’s “Succession,” and Roy Cohn, a fixer who wielded it ruthlessly in the Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” Strong may have been preparing for Zuck all along. That alone might be reason enough to log back onto Facebook. — Josh Rottenberg
Daisy Edgar-Jones, left, and Esmé Creed-Miles in the movie “Sense and Sensibility.”
(Focus Features)
You come to “Sense and Sensibility” for sisterly love, for Edward and Elinor, for wit and cleverness, for nosy neighbors, for passionate longing, brooding, Byronic suitors and happily-ever-afters. The 1995 film adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, directed by Ang Lee with Emma Thompson starring and writing the screenplay, was damn near perfect, setting a high bar for any and all comers. So it’s with pleasure (and relief) that I can report that the latest version, directed by talented British filmmaker Georgia Oakley, will delight Janeites and anyone else who appreciates a smart, charming costume drama. The film faithfully adheres to the text, foregrounding the relationship between the Dashwood sisters, the passionate Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) and the pragmatic Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones). It’s fresh without needing to lunge for all the compulsively shocking aesthetics that undid Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” earlier this year. Oakley crisply delivers everything you want, everything you need. — G.W.
Austin Abrams in the movie “Whalefall.”
(20th Century Studios)
If you’re a sucker for that “Pinocchio” sequence in which Geppetto gets swallowed by a whale, you’ll dig Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Daniel Kraus’ “Whalefall,” a drama about a Californian scuba diver stuck in the stomach of a 60-ton behemoth. That’s bad enough. Worse, the kid’s oxygen tank is running low. One part survival quest, one part ghost story, the narrative centers on the young man hallucinating his abusive dead father, who advises him on how to escape. I devoured the book in one weekend, but couldn’t imagine how this claustrophobic nightmare could possibly translate to film. Director Brian Duffield (“Spontaneous,” “No One Will Save You”) has braved the challenge. Austin Abrams plays the trapped swimmer; Josh Brolin is his seafaring dad. It’s a reunion for two of the leads in last year’s “Weapons.” Steel yourself for slimy bile, sticky emotions and wet tears. — Amy Nicholson
Tom Rhys Harries in the movie “Clayface.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Even comic-book obsessives will mention a dozen other DC villains before digging out Clayface, the nom de gloop of a disfigured actor transformed into human Play-Doh. But after the animated series “Harley Quinn” stretched the character into a squishy, vulnerable showboat, I’m curious to see what he looks like in the hands of James Watkins, director of the mischievous 2024 thriller “Speak No Evil.” Watkins has a vicious sense of humor and the casting of Welsh theater actor Tom Rhys Harries in the title role is a signal that the film might be a performance showcase in the vein of Tom Hardy’s roiling split-personality turn in “Venom.” Early glimpses of footage at CinemaCon hint that the script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini is most hyped to mix the superhero genre with icky body horror. Apparently, there are images in which Clayface doesn’t even have a face. — A.N.
Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler in the movie “Fatherland.”
(Agata Grzybowska / Mubi)
Paweł Pawlikowski has made a specialty of looking at European history from close range: the aftermath of the Holocaust in the Oscar-winning “Ida” and the Iron Curtain era in “Cold War.” Eight years after the latter, Pawlikowski returns with this spare black-and-white drama, for which he left Cannes with a directing honor. Hanns Zischler plays author Thomas Mann, the Nobelist and critic of Hitler, returning to Germany in 1949 after 16 years in exile, with his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) behind the wheel. Their journey takes them through a ruined country eager to reclaim one of its greatest writers without dwelling too much on why he fled. After the moral minefields of “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest,” Hüller seems ideally cast as Erika, a writer and committed anti-Nazi unlikely to let her father, or the country around him, off the hook. — J. Rottenberg
Jenna Ortega in the movie “Klara and the Sun.”
(Sony Pictures)
When novelist Kazuo Ishiguro published “Klara and the Sun” in 2021, a book narrated by an artificial intelligence still felt safely like science fiction. Five years and one AI boom later, the future has arrived early. Jenna Ortega plays Klara, a solar-powered “artificial friend” purchased as a companion for an ailing teenager (Mia Tharia) whose mother is played by Amy Adams. Klara observes the humans around her with extraordinary attentiveness but only a partial understanding of their behavior, gradually forming her own ideas about love, loneliness and what makes one person irreplaceable to another. Taika Waititi, whose movies have ranged from the antic Nazi satire “Jojo Rabbit” to the candy-colored superhero spectacle of the “Thor” films, is an unexpected match for Ishiguro’s quiet, melancholy story. But with people already turning to chatbots for companionship, the film’s central question no longer feels quite so theoretical: What happens when the machine stops feeling like a machine? — J. Rottenberg
Alexander Skarsgård and Olivia Colman in the movie “Wicker.”
(Kristof Galgoczi Nemeth / Black Bear Pictures)
Most of the questions you have following the recent trailer that sent the internet into a tizzy are in fact answered by seeing the movie itself. Set in an indistinct Mitteleuropean village of an uncertain era, the story follows an unmarried fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) who asks her friend, a master basketweaver (Peter Dinklage), to make her a husband. And does he ever, sending over a mass of reeds fashioned into Alexander Skarsgård. Their little community goes berserk, full of curiosity and more than a hint of jealousy at their loving and compatible albeit unconventional union. Adapted from an Ursula Wills-Jones short story by the husband-and-wife writer-director team of Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the film never overlooks how absurd its premise is, but also finds tender emotional notes within it as well. “Wicker” is a wise, warm allegory examining community and relationships — and why we need the things we do. — M.O.
A scene from the movie “Godzilla Minus Zero.”
(2026 TOHO)
Three years ago, the post-World War II period thriller “Godzilla Minus One” was a monster smash, earning the 72-year-old franchise its first Oscar win and biggest box office haul to date. (What, you thought the radioactive lizard wouldn’t come back?) Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel — the 39th Godzilla movie, if you’re counting — takes place in 1949 Tokyo after disgraced kamikaze pilot Kōichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has begun to rebuild his life with new wife Noriko (Minami Hamabe). In still-traumatized Japan, simply having hope for tomorrow is brave and foolhardy with an angry kaiju sulking in the Pacific. Yes, Godzilla exploded in the last film. Since when has that mattered? “Godzilla Minus Zero” has giant shoes to fill, but personally, I couldn’t care less if the green guy wins another Academy Award as long as the multiplex enjoys a shivery blast of his atomic breath. — A.N.
Adam Driver in the movie “Paper Tiger.”
(Neon)
A favorite of international festival programmers and film critics for decades now, James Gray has never quite had his breakthrough with mainstream audiences. That may finally change with his latest, which finds him again exploring the rich, complicated bonds of family amid the betrayals and uncertainties of New York’s outer-borough criminal underworld in a way that feels totally fresh and new. Miles Teller is a family man drawn into a business scheme by his ex-cop brother (Adam Driver) that puts them both afoul of the Russian mob in a story set in Queens in the 1980s. Scarlett Johansson plays Teller’s wife. All three give what are easily among their career-best performances as Gray steadily ratchets up the tension with a master’s hand, melding the crime thriller with domestic drama in a distinctive way. With a tremendous payoff in its devastating climactic sequence, this feels like the film Gray has been building toward his entire career. — M.O.
Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson in the movie “Elsinore.”
(Anthony Dickenson / Focus Features)
The Scottish actor Ian Charleson would forever be an Olympic runner on the beaches of “Chariots of Fire,” head tipped back in a kind of spiritual ecstasy. The role brought him international acclaim, but there weren’t enough of them, and a secret battle with HIV and AIDS took its toll. But what Charleson didn’t know was that, near the end, he would embark on the run of his life, performing a legendary Hamlet onstage in a race with death. Andrew Scott carries the whole of this exhilarating biopic on his knitted brow, diving deeply into the metaphysical darkness of Shakespeare’s text, into the rituals and camaraderie of actors and, ultimately, into the defiance of an artist who only wants to disappear once more into his art. Inexplicably overlooked for “All of Us Strangers” and “Blue Moon,” Scott is just now arriving at a kind of effortless humility, dazzling yet approachable, that puts him in the company of the all-time greats. — J. Rothkopf
Mason Reeves in the movie “Josephine.”
(Sumerian)
If we are to have things like a “Sundance Film Festival” or “independent cinema,” it should be to support and nourish movies like Beth de Araújo’s powerful San Francisco-set thriller, about a violent sex crime witnessed by an 8-year-old, who is altered by the experience but then called upon to be a courtroom voice in the world of adults. Everyone who has come together to make this tricky but meaningful project seems to be operating on a higher plane: For Channing Tatum, playing a dad increasingly out of his depths, it’s an opening door to the kind of complex roles he has earned from being a dependable goof. For Gemma Chan, as a parent dealing with the unthinkable, the film is a promise fulfilled. But for young Mason Reeves, imbuing the title character with an evolving mystery that suggests a prodigy, “Josephine” is a revelation. — J. Rothkopf
A scene from the movie “Minotaur.”
(Mubi)
The whispers were fierce at a recent Academy Museum screening of Adrian Lyne’s windy erotic thriller “Unfaithful” as plugged-in attendees looked for points of similarity with Andrey Zvyagintsev’s sleek domestic drama, one that dominated this year’s Cannes conversation. Both movies are remakes of Claude Chabrol’s 1969 “The Unfaithful Wife,” but Zvyagintsev kicks the concept up to expert level, turning an affair and its brutal repercussions into a referendum on Russia’s new-money detachment: eating, lying and screwing with the Ukraine war out of mind. Was Zvyagintsev able to shoot in Russia itself? Of course not — he needed to film in look-alike Latvia. That’s how dependably infuriating he is to the authorities. But it’s a miracle he’s shooting anywhere at all: A case of long COVID, a coma and a yearlong hospital stay almost snuffed out one of the boldest filmmakers on the planet. His return to action is a grand piece of fortune. — J. Rothkopf
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from 2019’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”
(Andrew Cooper / Sony Pictures Releasing)
Three years ago, Quentin Tarantino teased that his 10th and final film would be “The Movie Critic,” centered on a film reviewer for a 1970s porno rag, but he scrapped it and pivoted to a sequel featuring Brad Pitt’s stuntman from “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” Tarantino didn’t want to direct it, though, preferring to challenge himself with something more ambitious for his sign-off. So he handed the screenplay — an “unwieldy thing,” he calls it — to David Fincher, tasking him to shrink it down. And that’s how we’ve arrived at a collaboration between two defining American filmmakers who came to prominence in the ’90s and share an interest in dark impulses that often turn violent. How Fincher will meld his clinical precision to Tarantino’s yo-gabba-gabba gonzo spirit is the movie question of the season. — G.W.
Tao Okamoto, left, and Virginie Efira in the movie “All of a Sudden.”
(Neon)
It still feels like a magic trick, the way Japan’s Ryusuke Hamaguchi turned “Drive My Car,” a three-hour movie about grief and chauffeuring (among other subjects), into a 2022 Oscar juggernaut. The director is back to remind you of everything you loved about that one, plus he’s got even more in the trunk. Many filmmakers are indulged with long running times; few of them make them as worthy and unnoticeable as Hamaguchi. He’s also in a class with Richard Linklater and virtually no one else when it comes to the lingering, evolving conversation, the kind that drifts into flirtation, debate and something soul-revising. Here it’s between two women (Tao Okamoto and the emotionally reverberant Virginie Efira) who, over the course of a walk along the Seine as dusk turns to night, find themselves bonded by something unexpected. “All of a Sudden” has death on its mind, but also how we live and care for each other en route to that destination. It’s a conversation we all need to have. — J. Rothkopf
The claim marks the first time a UK prime minister has publicly acknowledged Russia’s interference in the vote to leave the EU.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said it is “clear” that Russia interfered in the country’s 2016 Brexit vote, warning French and German voters of the same threat.
“I asked the question coming to Downing Street: Was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? And I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was,” Burnham said in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast released on Sunday.
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Burnham’s comments mark the first time a UK prime minister has publicly acknowledged that Russia interfered in the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Burnham did not provide evidence for or details on the claim.
He said that “these things are important now to put clearly on the record, and, I believe, help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely Russia.”
Burnham said he spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz about possible links between Russia and the far-right Alternative for Germany party when the two leaders met last week in Berlin.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Burnham also condemned Russia’s attempt to interfere in the UK’s 2019 general election.
According to a 2020 report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the UK government had failed to ask for a deep assessment of Russia’s interference in the 2016 referendum. The report did confirm that Russia had meddled in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, however.
Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in Western democracies or interfering in another country’s elections or referendums, casting the UK as being gripped by “anti-Russian hysteria”.
Last month, Burnham argued that the UK should reconsider options for a future relationship with the EU, including rejoining the bloc, reigniting the decisive debate more than a decade after the historic vote.
He said that the UK’s departure from the bloc had failed to fulfil Brexit supporters’ pledge of “taking back control”, and instead has made the UK weaker economically and on immigration.
Sunday’s strike on King Khalid International airport kills a Pakistani national.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
A projectile has struck Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid International airport, killing one person and injuring 11, according to the country’s civil aviation authority.
The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) identified the deceased in Sunday’s attack as a Pakistani resident and said the injured were transferred to several hospitals for medical care.
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The strike on terminals 3 and 4, which serve domestic flights, occurred a day after a Houthi missile hit the airport, killing 12 people and wounding more than 300, according to the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
India’s embassy in Saudi Arabia said one of its citizens died on Sunday of injuries sustained in Saturday’s attack, which would bring the toll to 13.
Following Sunday’s attack, GACA said damage assessments and safety inspections of the airport were under way.
A witness on board a taxiing aircraft at the airport told the Reuters news agency that a projectile struck the tarmac next to several parked planes at about 8:30pm (17:30 GMT) on Sunday, causing a fire.
The witness said the aircraft returned to the gate, where the passengers disembarked and were told to leave.
The Riyadh airport has been struck four times in the past five days. Houthi attacks on King Khalid airport on Thursday killed at least three Saudi citizens, including a pilot, according to GACA.
The airport has been closed since Saturday’s attack, which was the deadliest in the country since the US-Israel war on Iran began in late February.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the strikes before Sunday’s.
The airport attacks have escalated the war in Yemen and threaten to draw in the US military. US President Donald Trump says he is weighing whether to join the fight against the Houthis.
The escalation puts further pressure on global oil supplies and prices, as well as on commercial shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait off the Yemeni coast, a crucial alternative waterway to the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump had said he intends to speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is seeking help against the Houthis, but there were no signs on Sunday that the US president had followed up on his claim.
There are fears that US intervention could prompt the Houthis to halt shipping through Bab al-Mandeb, further restricting the flow of oil out of the Gulf.
The rebels seized key areas along the strait last month. The Saudi-led coalition, backing forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government, has been trying to seize them back.
SYDNEY Sweeney has brushed off criticism of her controversial sports betting campaign by sharing another previously unseen clip from the advert.
Despite the backlash, the actress is sticking to her guns with another racy glimpse of the shoot.
The 29-year-old took to Instagram to share the footage with the caption: “No BS. Just sports.”
“There are grown men making spreadsheets betting on what colour underwear I’m wearing,” she says, looking doe-eyed into the camera.
She adds: “I mean, I’m flattered?”
Holding two American footballs over her breasts, Sydney finishes with the tagline: “Novig is just sports.”
The Euphoria actress sparked backlash earlier this month after posing naked in the campaign promoting the sports betting app.
Female athletes were among those who criticised the racy images, accusing the campaign of sexualising women’s sports.
The advert features Sydney in a series of revealing poses, using sports equipment to cover parts of her body.
Some images show The Housemaid star straddling a basketball hoop, while others feature her in a locker room wearing nothing but shoulder pads or holding footballs over her breasts.
Team GB sprinter Amy Hunt slammed the campaign during a post-race interview, saying it painted a misleading picture of women’s sports.
Australian Olympic water polo star Tilly Kearns also voiced her disapproval on Instagram.
British sprinter Hannah Williams made her feelings known on social media, arguing that female athletes already have to fight to be taken seriously.
Flash floods along Nepal’s Budhi Gandaki River swept away homes and bridges, forcing residents to flee to higher ground. Five people are missing, and six have been rescued, authorities said.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
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Castelion has released what appears to be the first image of its relatively ‘cheap’ Blackbeard hypersonic missile being fired from a ground launcher, providing a new look at the containerized launch architecture now under development for the U.S. Army.
The photograph, posted by Castelion on X, shows a Blackbeard missile leaving a launcher mounted on a high-mobility truck chassis. While the missile itself is by now a familiar sight, the new image offers a first public glimpse of how Castelion intends to package and operate the ground-launched version of Blackbeard, known as Blackbeard GL.
The Army’s previously disclosed plans for the program call for an initial Blackbeard ground-launch demonstration using a modified Multiple Launch Rocket System Family of Munitions, or MFOM, pod, followed by the development of Blackbeard GL prototypes and a dedicated launcher pod. Ultimately, the service intends to conduct an MVP flight test using the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System’s (HIMARS) fire-control system.
The Army’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget documentation indicates that this effort is moving toward increasingly representative hardware. Among the milestones listed for FY2027 is a live-fire launch of a “production representative” Blackbeard GL and launcher pod.
Castelion has already released extensive imagery of Blackbeard test vehicles, and the company formally unveiled the weapon’s current external configuration earlier this year. Those images showed a two-stage arrangement with a booster and an upper vehicle that has characteristics consistent with a hypersonic glide or maneuvering payload. Compared to the air-launched version, seen below, the ground-launch model lacks the cruciform tailfins at the rear of the lower stage, but otherwise appears similar.
The precise propulsion system and flight profile of the production weapon remain undisclosed. Little is known about its performance parameters, either. Castelion has previously hinted that the missile could strike targets at ranges of just under 500 miles, although its range would likely be reduced when launched from the ground, without the altitude and speed provided by an aircraft launch platform.
The launcher appears to use a relatively compact enclosed container, consistent with the Army’s stated interest in leveraging the existing MFOM ecosystem and, eventually, HIMARS. The photograph doesn’t establish how many Blackbeards could be carried by a single launcher, although, based on the dimensions, at least two and perhaps as many as four missiles appears a feasible load.
Exactly how closely the pictured launcher corresponds to the eventual production Blackbeard GL pod is also not yet clear. Castelion has previously stressed that its test hardware is deliberately designed to support rapid development cycles and should not necessarily be interpreted as representative of the final weapon system.
Castelion had previously shown Blackbeard-related test articles alongside palletized launch equipment, including launch hardware mounted on an Oshkosh MKR18 Logistics Vehicle System Replacement truck. The company has also said it was converting such a vehicle into a launcher for flight testing. That appears to be the vehicle shown in the new image, too.
The Army’s interest in Blackbeard GL is rooted in cost as much as performance.
The service has described the weapon as an affordable, mass-produced hypersonic precision-fire capability intended to engage time-sensitive moving and hardened targets. The stated objective has been to obtain roughly 80 percent of the capability of the Army’s planned Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 4 while achieving a substantially lower cost per round.
Existing U.S. hypersonic weapons such as the Army’s Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon use large, highly specialized launch equipment. Blackbeard is instead being developed around the idea that a hypersonic weapon can be sufficiently compact, inexpensive, and manufacturable to be treated more like a conventional tactical munition.
A containerized launcher compatible with an existing mobile fires ecosystem would reinforce that concept. It could allow the Army to introduce a new hypersonic effect without creating an entirely separate launcher, crew, transport, and reload architecture.
The ground-launched version is only one part of Castelion’s broader Blackbeard effort.
The company is also working with the Navy to integrate the weapon onto the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. In April, Castelion received a $105 million Navy contract supporting integration and the transition toward an early operational capability, while a subsequent $23.4 million order covered 50 early-operational-capability pre-production missiles and associated storage and shipping containers.
The Navy has since moved into additional procurement, underscoring Castelion’s effort to establish Blackbeard as a weapon that can be produced in the quantities required. Blackbeard could also find its way onto Navy ships and submarines, as well as ground-based launchers, as we have discussed in the past.
As for the Army, the next major milestone will be the planned production-representative Blackbeard GL and launcher-pod live-fire testing.
“Once Castelion achieves testing and validation, the Department will award a two-year multi-year procurement contract for a minimum of 500 Blackbeard missiles annually, with options to extend for up to five years,” the Pentagon announced in May of this year. “To further encourage Castelion’s self-funded facility expansion, the Department is actively seeking the necessary authorizations and appropriations to purchase over 12,000 Blackbeard missiles over five years.”
This reflects a broader and accelerating U.S. military push for lower-cost precision weapons that can be manufactured relatively simply and at scale, increasingly with help from non-traditional defense contractors. The goal is to build large stockpiles affordably before a major contingency, particularly a potential large-scale conflict with China in the Pacific, while ensuring production can keep pace with demand during a prolonged war.
For now, Castelion has demonstrated what the Army’s Blackbeard launch system actually looks like when it fires, at least in its initial form.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
As we head into fall television season, you might notice some familiar titles, not just because a few shows are returning for new seasons, but because they’re prequels, continuations or adaptations of well-known books or films — sometimes both.
The only guide you need for fall entertainment.
Hollywood has leaned into established IP this season, but if you’re seeking an original story, don’t fret, several of those are coming too. Viewers will have plenty to cozy up to, with a slew of series dropping around holidays — a perfect time to binge your new favorite watch.
Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden in Netflix’s “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.”
(Netflix)
Described as a “darkly comic spin on a Victorian-era murder,” the fourth installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology chronicles the story of Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden, who in 1893 was the prime suspect in the still unsolved ax murders of her father and stepmother inside their Fall River, Mass., home. The 32-year-old “spinster” was tried by an all-male jury who found her innocent of the gruesome crime. Their quaint view of women as meek, docile and powerless clearly worked in her favor. Ella Beatty plays the rage-filled, blood-spattered Borden in this eight-episode series. Charlie Hunnam, who appeared in the third installment of “Monster,” portrays her wealthy but ultimately unfortunate father Andrew Borden, and Rebecca Hall plays his second wife, Abby Borden. The drama reportedly includes the music of modern artists such as Kate Bush, while the trailer simply leans into the haunting Victorian-era nursery rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe …” — Lorraine Ali
Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in Apple TV’s “Brothers.”
(Ryan Green / Apple TV)
Twelve years ago, after their chemistry lit up Season 1 of “True Detective,” stars Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey became Hollywood’s most beloved bromance. When Harrelson later told a tale in which McConaughey’s mother revealed she had known Harrelson’s father around the time McConaughey was conceived, it made a lot of hot-rumor sense. Also, apparently, a fine pitch for a series, with the two men playing fictionalized versions of themselves. After a family crisis, Harrelson flees with his wife and daughters to McConaughey’s Texas ranch where he hears a similar “I knew your father” story from Ma Mac (Holland Taylor). As he decides what to do, McConaughey decides to run for governor of Texas. The personal eccentricities of the two leads, along with their odd-couple vibe, provide most of the show’s humor, but the best reason to watch is Taylor, who shows both stars how it’s done, by stealing the show from under their feet. — Mary McNamara
Jon Hamm as Fred Heckman in MGM+’s “American Hostage.”
(Steve Ackerman / MGM+ / Sony Pictures Television)
Set in the 1970s, this anthology series based on a scripted podcast of the same name tells the true story of Fred Heckman, a respected radio journalist played by Jon Hamm, who also executive produces. Heckman, the news director of WIBC-AM in Indianapolis, is placed at the center of a story when hostage-taker Tony Kiritsis (Giovanni Ribisi) requests to be interviewed by the newsman as police attempt to negotiate the release of his hostage, mortgage broker Dick Hall (Kristoffer Polaha). The series contemplates topics like shady lending practices by financial institutions — something that will resonate deeply with today’s economy — and the ethics of placing oneself in a news story. Shawn Ryan (“The Shield,” “The Night Agent”) and Eileen Myers (“Big Love”) serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. — Maira Garcia
Mike Faist as Charles Trask, Christopher Abbott as Adam Trask and Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in Netflix’s “East of Eden.”
(Netflix)
Zoe Kazan has established herself in the past several years as a versatile artist who impressed critics and audiences with her lead role in “Ruby Sparks” and her Emmy-nominated performance in HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge.” The spotlight is likely to get brighter with Netflix’s “East of Eden,” the latest adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel. A previous version of the novel was directed by Kazan’s grandfather Elia Kazan, and is best known as one of three films starring James Dean. Zoe Kazan is the writer and co-showrunner of the Netflix project, which stars Florence Pugh as anti-heroine Cathy Ames — a character sidelined in the 1955 film. Christopher Abbott (“Girls”) and Mike Faist (“Challengers”) co-star. — Greg Braxton
Josh Hartnett as Calvin and Mackenzie Davis as Fonda in Netflix’s “Below.”
(Netflix)
Summer is over, but that doesn’t mean there can’t still be stories about killer creatures under the sea. Netflix’s “Below” joins the watery spectrum already inhabited by “Jaws,” “The Meg,” “47 Meters Down” and numerous other entries as it unveils its premise about a seaside town targeted by a mysterious monster. Josh Hartnett (“Trap”) stars as a fisherman and single father living in a small Newfoundland town who must find a way to protect his family and the community when an unidentified creature starts wreaking havoc. He joins forces with a marine researcher (Mackenzie Davis of “Station Eleven”) who informs him of the town’s mysterious history and buried secrets. — G.B.
Rachel Keller as Olivia Siffre, Ella Stiller as Christy Palladino and Mike Colter as Michael Price in CBS’ “Cupertino.”
(Elizabeth Fisher / CBS)
Robert and Michelle King return to the network and territory of their acclaimed series “The Good Wife” with this Silicon Valley-based legal dramedy, replicating that show’s mix of quirk, current events and courtroom nail-biters. To continue the David vs. Goliath comparison the network has put out, it launches its stones at the brow of the tech industry, with Mike Colter and Rachel Keller as lawyers fired with bad cause who team up to defend the little guys from the big jerks. Ella Stiller is their ingenuous aide-de-camp, Busy Philipps a flamboyant investor and Renée Elise Goldsberry as an opposing counsel who has history with Colter. — Robert Lloyd
Saheli Khan as Pavi, Dee Bradley Baker as Geet/Ruhi and Aishwarya “Aishu” Devan as Nisha in “Avatar: Seven Havens” on Paramount+.
(Paramount+)
When “Avatar: The Last Airbender” premiered over 20 years ago, it introduced audiences to a world inspired by Asian and Indigenous cultures, where certain people can manipulate elements through a martial arts-infused ability known as bending. It also helped show that an animated kids series can tackle weighty themes such as war, genocide, imperialism, sexism, propaganda and political corruption in a serialized story and be a hit. In the world of “Avatar,” there is one special bender who is the master of all four elements — water, earth, fire and air — and is tasked with maintaining balance in the world. Set after the events of “The Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra,” “Avatar: Seven Havens” follows the current incarnation of the Avatar, Pavi. Young Pavi and her twin sister, Nisha, live in a world that no longer sees the Avatar as humanity’s savior after it was devastated by a calamity. Pavi and her allies still have to figure out a way to save the world, though. Every Avatar seems to have to deal with problems caused or left unresolved by their predecessors. As a Korra fan, I’m curious to see what sort of legacy she ended up leaving behind. — Tracy Brown
Paul Bettany in Marvel’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+.
(Marvel)
When we last saw Vision (Paul Bettany), the reconstructed synthezoid and former Avenger had just regained his memories — thanks to an assist from his magically created double — before flying off into the unknown at the end of “WandaVision.” Much has changed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since then, but I’m ready to dive back into this corner of the multiverse occupied by “WandaVision,” “Agatha All Along” and the upcoming “VisionQuest.” Capping off the TV trilogy, the new series will see Vision navigating life after “WandaVision” along with existential questions about his personhood and identity with the help of some friends in the form of other Marvel AI and robots, including Ultron (James Spader). Both “WandaVision” and “Agatha” were meditations on grief, trauma and motherhood, by way of sitcoms and magical escape rooms, respectively. I’m interested to see how this final installment will explore the patrilineal connection between Ultron, Vision and Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica), one of Wanda and Vision’s long lost twins who were magically created in “WandaVision.” Could the series tee up a full Maximoff family reunion? I hope so. — T.B.
Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees in Peacock’s “Crystal Lake.”
(Peacock)
Drew Barrymore made a fatal mistake in the opening scene of the 1996 horror film “Scream” when the creepy murderer on the telephone quizzed her about the name of the killer in the original “Friday the 13th.” When Barrymore answered “Jason Voorhees,” she was reminded that the original killer was actually Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother. Pamela is center stage in “Crystal Lake,” Peacock’s prequel to the bloody franchise launched in 1980. Linda Cardellini (“DTF St. Louis”) plays the grief-stricken mother who seeks revenge after her son drowns at a summer camp. There will be blood. — G.B.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler and Allison Janney as Grace Penn in Season 4 of “The Diplomat.”
(Netflix)
For those of us who stay ready for the Kate Wyler 2028 campaign, it’s time to lock in. The highly competent, intensely impulsive, deeply flawed and incredibly relatable political power player with unapologetically messy hair is back to clean up more backroom deals and betrayals, volatile international crises and unstable government leadership — all while managing a topsy-turvy marriage tangled up in it. The fourth season picks up directly after the Season 3 finale cliffhanger, where Kate (Keri Russell) learned that her husband, Vice President Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), and President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) secretly conspired to steal a Russian nuclear weapon. The new season will explore the fallout and tension in domestic and international relationships, and the marital strife in between. Somehow, political chaos feels good in a show like this. — Yvonne Villarreal
Stephen Graham and Liev Schreiber in Apple TV’s “Nocturne.”
(Dennis P. Mong Jr / Apple TV)
Stephen Graham plays the diabolically cunning serial killer Jurek Walter in “Nocturne,” a chilling psychological thriller that promises “Hannibal”-level creepiness (as in the film). The 10-episode drama stars Liev Schreiber as Jonah Lynn, a former soldier turned homicide detective who moves to a small town in western Pennsylvania after working the tough streets of Philadelphia. But the peace and quiet he hoped for is shattered when his family is targeted by Jurek. Lynn’s surrogate daughter, FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Zazie Beetz), steps in the fray, upping the stakes. Based on Lars Kepler’s crime novels “Lazarus” and “The Sandman,” the series also stars Bill Camp, Rory Culkin, Poorna Jagannathan, Chrissy Metz and Gary Carr. The cast alone should make “Nocturne” a killer thriller, but we’ll have to wait until October to see if it slays. — L.A.
Sophie Thatcher as teen Natalie in the finale of Season 3 of “Yellowjackets.”
(Paramount+ with Showtime)
At the end of Season 3, “Yellowjackets” gave us an on-the-nose cliffhanger: We see young Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) reach a cliff, satellite phone in hand, as Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge” plays. She screams into the receiver, “Can anyone hear me?” Response: “I can hear you.” Over the past three seasons, the Yellowjackets, the New Jersey girls soccer team lost in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, have been trying to survive harsh weather, a lack of food and medical care — and one another. It appears we’ll finally get to see them rescued, based on the recent trailer for the new season, as well as the aftermath. The series, created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, was originally pitched as a five-season arc, but they announced last year that Season 4 would be the last. The dual timelines in the show, where we see the survivors as teenagers and adults, have felt disconnected at times, but let’s hope this season finally offers clarity. — M.G.
Hugh Laurie as Neville and Amy Poehler as Elise in Peacock’s “Dig.”
(Colleen Hayes / Peacock)
A new comedy series starring Amy Poehler that she co-created with “Parks & Recreation” executive producer Michael Schur? Sign me up! The workplace at the center of “Dig” is an excavation site in Greece, where Poehler’s Elise is among a team of archaeologists that unearths a rare artifact. According to the logline, this discovery kicks off an “adventure of a lifetime” — and I’m curious what that might mean for people whose careers presumably involve carefully sifting through old dirt all day. The show also stars Hugh Laurie as Neville, a British archaeology professor, as well as Geraldine Viswanathan, Antonia Thomas and Fina Strazza. The series is based on Kate Myers’ novel “Excavations,” and in the book, the four central women have their own issues and hang-ups and don’t really get along, at least initially. If there’s anyone I trust to mine comedy gold with that setup, it’s Poehler and Schur, who is co-showrunning with J.J. Philbin. — T.B.
Hunter Schafer as Cora in Prime Video’s “Blade Runner 2099.”
(Clay Enos / Prime)
Having slept on the franchise’s previous sequel, “Blade Runner 2049,” I find myself quite excited by the prospect of this tale of biological and synthetic life forms in a smoggy, next-millennium Los Angeles, not least (and likely most) because Michelle Yeoh stars in it. Yeoh plays an aging replicant detective in search of rogue replicants — here, in a “Planet of the Apes” style twist, the world has turned upside down, with the artificial life forms in power and the people powerless. Hunter Schafer plays Yeoh’s partner, a human masquerading as a replicant. (As to L.A., you will not recognize the old place, which in any case was created in Prague and Barcelona.) — R.L.
Malin Akerman as Margo, left, and Brittany Snow as Sophie in Season 2 of “The Hunting Wives.”
(Netflix)
For those who are watching the show for the plot, get ready to yeehaw about all the melodrama that’s about to hit your screen. Following its massive breakout success on Netflix, the series about East Texas socialites is back for a twisty and steamy eight-episode second season that will no doubt launch a heavy helping of memes, GIFs and explicit fanfics. For the uninitiated, the series based on May Cobb’s bestselling novel follows Sophie (Brittany Snow), a married East Coast liberal who moves to a wealthy Texas town and immediately becomes infatuated with Margo (Malin Akerman), the local queen bee of a clique of conservative women who have a knack for behaving badly. Their toxic, lusty friendship and the show’s crime mystery subplots had viewers hooked. After the chaotic events of the Season 1 finale, the new episodes pick up with Sophie and Margo on the outs but pulled back into another dangerous game of cat and mouse that will make their situationship all the more complicated and angsty. But fear not, Margo’s wig remains a comforting presence through it all. — Y.V.
Ron (Alastair Stout), Harry (Dominic McLaughlin) and Hermione (Arabella Stanton) in HBO’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”
(Aidan Monaghan / HBO)
In the U.K., Christmas Day telly is a much bigger deal than it is in the U.S., which may be why HBO decided to launch its new “Harry Potter” series, beginning with the U.K.-titled eight-episode “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” on Dec. 25. “Highly anticipated” doesn’t even begin to cover it; a quarter century since the film versions began lighting up the box office, the story of “the boy who lived” continues to entrance fans old and new. Starring newcomers Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Alastair Stout as Ronald Weasley and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, the series promises a richer, more detailed adaptation of the books, along with a more contemporary feel. With John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Nick Frost as Hagrid and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, the cast is just as formidable and star-studded as the films. And with a reported $58-million price tag, the production values should burn just as brightly, especially at Christmas. — M.M.
Anna Lambe as Siaja in Season 2 of “North of North” on Netflix.
(Netflix)
No news regarding the coming fall season has made me happier than the return of this sunny, aspirational Indigenous comedy, set in a small town among the Inuit people in Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost territory. A luminous Anna Lambe plays Siaja, who in the first season went a long way toward finding herself in a life bounded by a narcissist husband (estranged, but always around), a once-difficult mother, a rambunctious child, a new love interest, a surprising father, a capricious yet not uncaring boss (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and a mythological sea spirit — in other words, lots to go on in a second season. (For even more Canadian content: “Kids in the Hall” alum Bruce McCulloch joins the cast as a first-aid instructor.) — R.L.
Lizzie (Emma Corrin), Jane (Freya Mavor), Mrs. Bennet (Olivia Colman), Lydia (Rhea Norwood), Mary (Hopey Parish) and Kitty (Hollie Avery) in Netflix’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
(Ludovic Robert / Netflix)
Every generation gets its own Mr. Darcy. Experiencing Jane Austen’s most famous work — whether on the page or on the screen — is a cultural rite of passage for many young women. The 1995 BBC miniseries starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, and the 2005 film starring Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen, are the two definitive, most popular screen adaptations of the classic novel, often drawing fierce debate from enthusiasts about which is better. (Sorry, but that misty sunrise walk by MacFadyen’s Mr. Darcy changed lives — namely, mine — and will always give the 2005 version a slight edge in my eyes.) Now, the classic novel is getting its streaming-era adaptation. Written by bestselling author Dolly Alderton (“Good Material”), the six-part limited series promises to be a faithful adaptation. Emma Corrin (“The Crown”) and Jack Lowden (“Slow Horses”) take the mantel as the original and ultimate enemies-to-lovers couple, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Will it live up to its predecessors? Will it capture Austen’s witty text and unforgettable scenes of yearning? I don’t know. But I’m going to watch it anyway because — I mean, come on — it’s “Pride and Prejudice” and I’m just a girl who’s always on the lookout for slow-burn tension and hand-flex close-ups. I’m preparing myself now for the hours of sleep I’ll lose getting sucked into the TikTok discourse about it. — Y.V.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
Residents across the southeastern United States have begun cleanup efforts after Hurricane Isaias, the first Atlantic tropical cyclone of the 2026 season, slammed ashore near Destin, Florida, on Friday.
As of midafternoon Sunday, roughly 356,000 customers remain without power in southern Alabama and the northwestern region of Florida, according to data from PowerOutage.com, an independent tracking website.
At its peak, the storm knocked out power to nearly 800,000 homes and businesses across the Gulf Coast.
Sarah Gatewood, a spokesperson for the utility company Florida Power and Light (FPL), announced that workers from across Florida and more than two dozen other states had mobilised to restore power.
At least four deaths have been linked to Isais after it made landfall as a Category 2 storm on the five-tier Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
The tempest churned northward into Alabama on Saturday with fierce tropical-storm-force winds before weakening into a post-tropical cyclone and tracking further north towards the Appalachians.
Though its power is waning, the storm continues to endanger the mid-Atlantic region with the potential for flash flooding.
According to the National Weather Service (NWS), surface observations indicate that Isaias now has maximum sustained winds of 160 km/h (100 mph) and an estimated minimum central pressure of 28.88 inches, or 978 millibars.
Across Florida and Alabama, residents have reported damage from the storm’s high-velocity winds.
A Rest and Relax Inn in the resort city of Pensacola, Florida, saw its roof sheared off during the hurricane, and a boathouse was flattened in Destin.
The immediate struggle for basic necessities was most stark in Pensacola, the westernmost part of the Florida Panhandle, where the storm downed power grids and caused widespread structural damage.
Hundreds of cars lined the block around a United Cajun Navy distribution site, a volunteer disaster relief organisation, on Saturday morning.
Pensacola’s Mayor DC Reeves warned of critical drinking water shortages following the storm, which affected drinking wells and water infrastructure. Residents, he said, remain under an advisory to boil tap water before use.
“We are winding down day three of storm response and recovery operations, and we remain focused on public safety, clearing debris, and restoring critical infrastructure and services,” Reeves said on social media.
Isaias also forced the indefinite closure of Pensacola International airport, Florida’s 10th-largest airfield, due to severe damage.
Fallen trees and power lines continue to make travel hazardous in Houston County, Alabama, which remains under an emergency flash flood warning, according to state emergency officials.
“Due to the impacts of Hurricane Isaias, all Houston County roads are closed until further notice,” the agency posted on X.
Iran says US has accepted some of its peace terms but calls the response ‘inadequate’, as one person is killed in a new attack on Riyadh airport.
Published On 12 Oct 202612 Oct 2026
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Despite a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon in June, Israeli attacks continue.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
Two men have been killed in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district while taking part in an annual olive harvest, according to Lebanese state media and local authorities, as attacks by Israel continue.
One of the men died Sunday in the village of Froun from a munition left behind by recent fighting and the other in Yater as a result of Israeli shelling that “targeted the outskirts of the town while he was inspecting his land and olive harvest”, according to the official National News Agency (NNA).
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The Lebanese army blamed Israeli tank fire and called the ongoing attacks “a flagrant breach of existing agreements”.
Afterwards, the Yater municipality urged residents “to avoid the outskirts of the town and refrain from crossing the earthen barrier separating some unsafe neighbourhoods” for fear of Israeli attacks.
In Froun, the NNA reported that “a foreign object” left over from previous Israeli operations exploded and killed the man, who was an engineer, as he and others tended their trees.
The engineer had come down from Beirut, where he lives, for the harvest, Froun mayor Hassan Bazzi told AFP.
The incident prompted local residents to call off the harvest and wait for “the Lebanese army to complete the decontamination of the village”, Bazzi said.
Since an agreement between Lebanon and Israel was struck in June, violence in the south has lessened, but not stopped.
Lebanon was pulled into conflict on March 2, when Hezbollah struck Israel in support of Tehran during the US-Israel war on Iran. Subsequently, Israel launched a bombing campaign and a ground invasion that authorities say have killed more than 4,300.
In August, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam accused Israel of intentionally targeting homes and civilian infrastructure across the country. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded nearly 350,000 internally displaced people in late August, a sign of the worsening displacement crisis.
Volunteers from the nearby town of Jebchit and locals came to help their southern neighbours with the harvest in an act of solidarity.
“From north to south, one people and one land,” said organiser Ahmad Chahhal.
Saudi authorities say a Pakistani national was killed and several people injured in a second strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. Sunday’s strike followed an attack on Saturday that killed 12 people and injured more than 300. Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina reports.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
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CHRISTINA Aguilera proves she can still look naughty in her forties with an eye-catching outfit for a charity gig.
The 45-year-old singer, who had her first hit with Genie in the Bottle in 1999, stole the show at Hollywood’s National PrEP Day bash.
The star-studded event brings together some of LA’s biggest stars to raise funds for life-saving HIV medication.
Reality star Kim Kardashian and Timber hitmaker Kesha, also attended, along with Brit Charli xcx — who sang a medley from her 2024 album, Brat.
Christina has undergone a huge transformation in recent years, with her losing almost three stone in weight – and in April this year – The Sun reported on how she stepped out to flaunt her incredible figure.
Attending the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony in Santa Monica, Christina posed on the red carpet while rocking a dress held up by luck alone.
Looking years younger than she is, and almost the same as she did at the height of her career in the noughties, Christina smiled and pouted for the camera.
Rocking a choppy bob resting on her jawline, complete with a blunt fringe, the singer looked youthful and fresh-faced.
She wore a black skintight body contouring dress which hugged every inch of her slender frame.
The dress was made from a leather material on the bodice, while the skirt was crafted from sheer chiffon.
With her hands resting on her hip bones, Christina looked incredible as she blew kisses to onlookers.
She kept her makeup simple with a muted eye look, a nude pink lip and light brows.
CCTV footage released by Al Arabiya shows the moment of a Houthi strike on Riyadh’s international airport on Saturday. The attack killed at least 12 people and injured more than 300. A warning this video contains distressing images.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
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Zack Polanski calls for internal rule reforms to give party leaders greater control over policy after Zionism vote.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
Zack Polanski, the leader of the United Kingdom’s Green Party, has proposed a potential overhaul of his party’s democratic mechanisms, calling for the leader to have larger control over strategic direction.
The appeal came in an article published in The Guardian on Sunday after party members passed a motion declaring that Zionism is racism at their annual conference on October 4 in a divisive vote.
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Polanski also failed to grab a parliamentary seat in the wake of the row with Israel in a by-election.
The Labour Party won the election for the parliamentary seat vacated by former leader Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras on Friday, fending off a strong challenge from the left-wing Green Party in a boost for British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
“Our party democracy must now evolve to meet that – creating wider engagement for members, giving leaders more responsibility to set the party’s strategic direction, and making our processes as robust and accessible as possible,” he wrote.
“Above all, that unity must be deployed in the service of changing this country for the better,” the Green Party leader added.
Polanski also replied to the criticisms of him for not participating in the vote on the motion on Zionism.
“I have been asked why I was not present for the vote. The answer is that my priority was fighting a hugely consequential by-election for our party,” he said, adding that he put all his “energy into the race in Holborn and St Pancras”.
He admitted that some members feel “let down” by his decision not to make an appearance there.
The Green Party’s motion, which called for “Palestinian liberation, the right of return, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and a full arms embargo against Israel” was criticised by Jewish groups, other parties and most Green Party MPs.
After conceding defeat in the fiercely contested by-election, Polanski answered his critics, saying he would stay on as leader.
He was barred from entering Israel after his party backed a motion to define Zionism as racism.
It seems Chet Hanks, son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, is still in his feels over Eric André’s recollection of his zany and “dangerous” appearance on “The Eric Andre Show.”
Hanks, who became an internet personality in recent years for boasting his Jamaican accent at the 2020 Golden Globes red carpet and unironically coining the phrase “White Boy Summer,” seemingly reignited his feud with André when he confronted the Emmy winner during ComplexCon in Los Angeles over the weekend. On Tuesday, Hanks posted video of himself approaching André and his security team at the event and exchanging some words with the comedian.
It’s unclear what the two men say to each other but Hanks appears to bring up an issue to André who seemingly shrugs it off at first. The conversation seems to turn tense when Hanks speaks face-to-face with André and security personnel block the view. The video concludes with André and his securtiy walking away from Hanks and his posse. In the caption to his video, Hanks said André “had NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of trashing me to the media after I outshined him on his own show!!”
Representatives for André did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment.
The tension between Hanks and André could be traced to a March 2023 interview with Rolling Stone in which the comedian called Hanks “emotionally disturbed” and shared details about his guest spot on “The Eric André Show.”
“He stole a motorcycle and rode it around. He almost knocked a bunch of grips and gaffers off their ladders,” André recalled in 2023. “It was very dangerous. He tried to prank us back, but we edited out all his b—! He’s not well. How did Colin Hanks come out so good and Chet Hanks come out so bad?”
Shortly after the interview, Chet Hanks responded to André by claiming he was just attempting to “match [the] energy” of the “weird, outlandish” series. “The Eric André Show” began in 2012 and is the origin for a number of viral memes and sketches and unhinged celebrity moments. Of course, “The Eric André Show,” a parody of late-night talk series, always begins with its eponymous host wrecking his set in the most chaotic manner.
In 2023, Hanks called André a “straight b—.” The comedian swiftly fired back, calling Hanks a “f— liar” and dared Hanks to take a “DNA test and prove that Tom Hanks is his f— father.”
After the weekend confrontation, Hanks said that André ultimately “admitted” the feud began “because he had a problem with me ‘mocking Caribbean culture’ when I did my Jamaican accent all those years ago.” Hanks, who is white and was born in Los Angeles, resurfaced to public consciousness in 2020 when he — unprompted — introduced himself at the Golden Globes red carpet with his impression of Jamaican Patois. His father, the prolific actor beloved for roles in “Saving Private Ryan,” “Forrest Gump” and “Toy Story,” received the Globes’ Cecil B. Demille award later that evening.
“WHO KNEW that in addition to the brain rot and poop joke humor he is known for, Eric is also such a passionate cultural activist!!! Great running into you Eric!!!!,” Hanks, who has repeatedly used and defended the N-word on social media, sarcastically ended his caption.
André, who is Black, has long been a vocal social and cultural activist. The “Street Fighter” actor over the years has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza and has used his platform to address racism and police brutality.
This summer André, alongside fellow comedian Clayton English, settled a racial profiling suit against Clayton County police in Georgia. The comics were both allegedly racially profiled and subject to “unconstitutional” stops by Clayton County police at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in 2021. The stops were part of a police program intended to combat drug trafficking. The Associated Press reported that the settlement “does not include an admission of fault or liability on the county’s part but says the county has ended the program at issue and has no intention of reactivating it.”
Waves crash into homes as excavators try to protect California properties
Construction crews were seen trying to block waves entering homes along California’s coast, after Tropical Storm Rachel brought flooding and power outages to the region.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
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The UH-60 Black Hawk has been the rugged workhorse of U.S. Army aviation for nearly 50 years, with around 4,000 examples currently in service with 36 nations worldwide. Many of these helicopters, and new aircraft coming off the line, are set to fly as far out as 2070, and Sikorsky is curating a suite of upgrades to keep them valuable assets for the future fight. A new “digital backbone” is designed to underpin swift technological insertions such as launched effects, with related initiatives including the provision of more power to lug greater payloads, and the fully-autonomous U-Hawk cargo drone variant.
“As part of an overall “Black Hawk 2070” modernization effort we’re developing a number of complementary capabilities, including our U-Hawk uncrewed cargo variant, which we plan to fly later this year,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, told TWZ at the company’s Stratford plant in Connecticut.
“A new digital backbone for the Black Hawk is at an advanced design phase in our labs and it’s designed to provide interfaces throughout the aircraft that will provide power, data, a network, cooling and most importantly, open architecture interfaces that enable the easy integration of new equipment, such as sensors. We see this as a core building block for the next generation of Black Hawk, along with new engines and other airframe improvements designed to futureproof the platform.”
The new digital backbone is designed to work in concert with a modern, software-driven strategy that meets the Army’s Modular Open Systems Approach and the desire to add technologies cheaper, faster, and more easily. Wrigley says that as customers identify new capabilities and needs for their Black Hawks, the digital backbone will be sufficiently efficient to permit customization even on a mission-by-mission basis. Sikorsky is also introducing a new modular nose to the H-60, which is reconfigurable with sufficient volume to support even more sensors and electronics.
“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” says Wrigley. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”
The new modular nose will give the Black Hawk more than twice the internal volume of the original nose section and it’s designed to provide space for internal electronics and an integrated mount for external sensor pods. It is designed to provide sufficient space to accommodate electronics that enable roles such as search and rescue, drone control, and flying in degraded environments, and it will also house some of the equipment required as the Black Hawk’s autonomous capabilities expand.
Joshua Powers spent 22 years as an Army Aviation officer flying the Black Hawk, and he’s well qualified for his new role with Sikorsky handling business development for rapid capabilities insertions. “Army units know the Black Hawk inside out; how to fly it, maintain it, and use it to maximum effect. The upgrades we are developing will bring new capabilities faster, without time-consuming and complex changes to sustainment, training, and operations, plus we are adding more range, more payload, and more power to meet the demands of the Indo-Pacific region.”
“I find it amazing to pair new technology with a rugged platform like the Black Hawk. These new innovations are needed to meet the needs of the new complex battlefield. The fight I fought in Iraq is very different from the current operating environment and what future warriors are going to go up against, and what we’re asking them to do is very different from what came before.”
Autonomy is a central pillar of Sikorsky’s strategy for the future Black Hawk. The company’s MATRIX autonomy software is now being matured on a UH-60M variant, and while it’s not necessarily designed to completely replace pilots, MATRIX will assume some of their workload, making flying safer and simpler as mission sets grow increasingly complex and dangerous. “Pilots that are controlling collaborative drones, for example, need to be able to focus on the drone mission, and autonomy will help lighten their cognitive load,” explains Wrigley.
“The standard Black Hawk crew operates with two pilots. Adding our MATRIX autonomy system gives the operator options – a single pilot could fly without an unbearable workload and still fulfil a mission commander role, for example. The Army could then operate the Black Hawk with no pilots at all when that’s the appropriate option.”
Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy has been developed on the company’s UH-60A fly-by-wire Optionally Piloted Black Hawk, which has been tested by Sikorsky and Army aviators. MATRIX has accumulated more than 1,000 flight hours across 500 tests and demonstrations. It has already been integrated on over 20 different platforms, including on the Black Hawk for testing by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army in multiple exercises.
“We delivered the first UH-60MX to the Army earlier this year,” says Wrigley. The delivery marked the first full authority fly-by-wire and optionally-piloted UH-60 in the Army fleet. “They are using it for testing and soldier feedback to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the autonomous Black Hawk. We have since received a contract to deliver three more MX aircraft to the Army.”
MATRIX autonomy kits have now been installed on all three U.S. Army Black Hawk models; the UH-60A, UH-60L and UH-60M. Sikorsky plans to incorporate autonomy options into all Black Hawks as they are built, plus the MATRIX system will be able to be retrofitted to existing examples.
Powers is well aware of the benefits autonomy will provide from complex combat operations to more mundane day-to-day missions. “Flying at night and seeing the tracer fire coming up at you, things like that, I honestly feel that’s not the big threat. It’s when you’re going to land and there’s just a big dust cloud. When you’re tired, you aren’t as focused. Having MATRIX, whether that’s with one, two, or no pilots, it’s about that reduced workload on the mission. Pilots won’t be as fatigued, plus they have the safety net of a fully autonomous aircraft that can, if needed, land in all of those difficult environments. It will give commanders more operational flexibility and the ability to mitigate risk in less-than-ideal conditions dictated by the enemy or weather.”
“The Black Hawk operation isn’t just about pilots, it’s also that integrated four-person crew. As a pilot, you’re relying on your senses and also on the guys in the back to watch out and tell you where you’re going. MATRIX is just going to help that team effort and put you in a better position to bring the crew back safely. It integrates all the systems and sensors and uses altitude, airspeed, radar altimeter, drift indications, and puts the fly-by-wire technology to where it can make rapid adjustments and changes based on what it’s seeing with the sensors.”
The volume of testing, the maturity, and the confidence in MATRIX helped Sikorsky to develop the S-70UAS, or U-Hawk, which was unveiled in 2025. The U-Hawk project essentially removes the cockpit and its associated equipment from a Black Hawk and replaces the front end with cargo doors to provide a huge internal space as a supply drone.
“We acquired a used UH-60L Black Hawk as the template for our initial U-Hawk. We added the clamshell doors and that was the actual aircraft that we showed at AUSA last year,” says Wrigley. “Since then we’ve been adding the fly-by-wire and integrating the MATRIX autonomy. It’s currently in our innovations hangar in Bridgeport, Connecticut, getting the final work done and it will make its first flight as a U-Hawk later this year.”
Sikorsky sees the U-Hawk as a natural evolution for the Black Hawk in contested logistics missions, when cargo needs to be moved but the threat is sufficiently high that it drives a need for uncrewed platforms to tackle the mission.
“We’re spending a lot of time on the U-Hawk and its roles. As well as being an uncrewed cargo helicopter, it can also be a truck that can carry a large volume of launched effects,” explains Wrigley. “There are Black Hawk models on the market right now that are being divested, and we see those as being an ideal option for conversion to U-Hawk configuration to affordably introduce this capability to the market.”
The integration of small drones dubbed ‘launched effects’ into rotary-wing operations is a major initiative from the Army as a new means to collect intelligence for commanders on the battlefield, relay communications, jam and distract enemy emitters, and act as loitering munitions. These mini air-launched drones can be carried and fired from stub-wing-mounted launchers, with other concepts seeing larger volumes of them carried inside the cabin as a “mega-pack,” with Sikorsky seeing both as being highly-applicable to both the Black Hawk and the U-Hawk.
This is exactly the kind of capability that the digital backbone in the Black Hawk is intended to open the door to; installing plug-and-play drone command kits, which could enable the Black Hawk to act as a “drone mothership” to launch, task, and command swarms of multi-mission launched effects.
The Army tested its latest operational concepts for launched effects during the Project Convergence Capstone 6 demonstration event this summer. This annual exercise is designed to develop concepts and tactics as well as gather soldier feedback, as it works to transition new systems into service. The latest exercise built on previous launched effects testing on the Black Hawk, when a UH-60M deployed Anduril’s Altius-700 launched effects that then operated as an autonomous hunter-killer team to locate targets, share data on those targets, and then strike them, without the need for the Black Hawk to expose itself to threats.
“As a young Black Hawk pilot, the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior was the primary scout platform, but it was limited by range and its ability to be detected,” explains Joshua Powers. “Today, we launch small drones that can remain unseen and they can give us real-time feedback. Launched effects make our lift assets more capable.”
“We see the Black Hawk as the aircraft capable of carrying, deploying and then acting as an airborne mission command node for launched effects,” adds Jason Wrigley. “In the operational environment of the future, it’s really about the mass of those launched effects. This isn’t about carrying one or two of them, this is about carrying and controlling a large number of them.”
“We’ve tested them on the stub-wings, but we are also exploring what we call “quiver” – that large number of launched effects inside the cabin in that “mega-pack.” This creates additional opportunities for mass that we think is going to be really critical. We’ve done a lot of operational analysis in concert with the Army on what the right mix of launched effects might be to extend the standoff range of the aircraft to improve survivability – which is of course what it’s all about – but the right mix will ultimately come down to the mission. We have seen a lot of testing over the past few years, so we do believe this is a capability that can be introduced operationally soon on the Black Hawk.”
To support the increased lift that might be needed for a missionized Black Hawk lugging large payloads, including an arsenal of launched effects, Sikorsky is well along in development of a new engine that is designed to create over 1,000 pounds of increased payload capacity and increased range for the Black Hawk. The T901 Improved Turbine Engine (ITE) from GE Aerospace provides 50 percent more horsepower over the existing T700 engines in the UH-60M.
“One of the key building blocks of the future of the Black Hawk are the twin ITEs as we look to expand the mission capability and the utility of this aircraft for decades to come,” explains Wrigley. Sikorsky began initial testing of the first UH-60M with ITE in January 2025. “We are actively in the test program right now at our test facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. The twin ITEs in each Black Hawk and that additional power translates into some pretty significant operational opportunities. Since our first flight with ITE in May 2025 we’ve flown the aircraft with the new engine for over 50 hours and up to 17,000 ft above sea level.”
Sikorsky is accompanying the addition of the new engines with a significant expansion of the fuel tank to increase capacity and range. This is being done without impinging on cabin volume and thus retaining the important ability to transport 11 combat troops, while increasing range by around 100 nautical miles. “The T901 also improves fuel efficiency and eases maintenance – so overall we are really improving the payload capacity of the aircraft. We’ll be getting to the milestone C production decision on ITE within the next couple of years, and at that point it will become a core element of the Black Hawk program going forward,” Wrigley explains.
Inside Sikorsky’s “Black Hawk 2070” Plan With Drones, Autonomy, And The Pilotless U-Hawk.
Touring the Black Hawk production line in Stratford, Connecticut, it’s a hive of activity. Many of the major components for each helicopter are manufactured here. The long final assembly line sees teams of workers busily constructing UH-60M and HH-60M medevac Black Hawks for both domestic and foreign military sales customers, along with new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopters for the U.S. Air Force and MH-60R Seahawks.
“We’re designing all of these upgrades with the intent that they will all be available off the production line in new build aircraft, as well as in kit form for upgrades to existing assets in the field,” notes Wrigley. “Here in Stratford in what we call the “back shop” we build all the rotor blades, gearboxes, and many other components that go into each aircraft. We are already thinking ahead and we’ve invested significantly into additive manufacturing, with 11 parts on the Black Hawk today that are additively manufactured. It’s a great place to start, but there’s a long way to go and we’re working on qualifying more challenging components and load-bearing parts.”
Cohesively, the digital backbone, larger fuel tank, new engines, and the new modular nose will all be introduced on the production floor in the coming years to pave the way for that increased payload capacity to carry fully-equipped combat troops, supplies, and all the new kit needed for the future fight and the Black Hawk’s role as a multi-mission forward battlefield node. The autonomous U-Hawk and the optionally piloted flexibility afforded by MATRIX – all of these pieces of the future Black Hawk are presently coming together under an overarching effort.
“The future Black Hawk will be that complement to the future long-range MV-75 Cheyenne II,” says Powers. “These won’t be a one-for-one replacement for every Black Hawk currently in the fleet – the MV-75 has a specific purpose and function that the Black Hawk isn’t designed to do. What the Black Hawk can do with these new upgrades is shape the battlefield and with its autonomy be out there flying missions into contested environments.”
“Those homeland missions are equally necessary. I recall talking about this in flight school when choosing an aircraft to fly, how it’s one thing to be deployed on combat missions, but it’s also about being back in the homeland on disaster relief when you need the Black Hawk to go out and save lives, those kinds of missions the Army National Guard does – it really underlines the importance and versatility of the Black Hawk.”
Over the past 50 years and looking ahead to the next 50, continuing the proven legacy of the Black Hawk will mean constant evolution to meet new missions and needs. Sikorsky’s task is for all of these new elements to meld into a future Black Hawk that’s ready to roll off this production line soon, that still also provides the same dependable, rugged capability for the Army at home or overseas, well into the future.
N-DUBZ rapper Dappy filmed himself driving in his car with his daughter, despite pals claiming he does not have a licence.
The star, 39 — real name Costadinos Contostavlos — has filmed himself behind the wheel of a Mercedes and posted a number of clips online.
In one video seen by The Sun, Dappy is driving and swearing at the camera with his 11-year-old with him in the passenger seat.
Insiders said the footage, posted on his Instagram account, had been passed to Herts Police.
Drivers face six points and a £200 fine if they hold or use a phone while driving.
A source said: “Dappy won’t be getting points on his licence as he doesn’t have one. He never passed his test.
“He thinks he’s above the law and can do what he likes but driving without a license and filming himself is putting innocent members of the public at risk.
“He needs to be stopped if not for himself but for others.”
The Sun have contacted Dappy’s representatives for comment.
Dappy became a household name after he and his cousins Tulisa and Faser formed hip-hop group N Dubz in 2000.
They got their big break in 2008 with debut album Uncle B.
Since then they have landed four UK Top Ten singles and four UK Top Ten albums.
Saudi Arabia’s health minister Fahad Aljalajel has paid a visit to survivors of Saturday’s deadly attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, which killed at least 12 people and left 300 others injured.
Published On 11 Oct 202611 Oct 2026
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Shield AI says it is on track to roll out the first prototypes of its X-BAT jet-powered stealth ‘fighter’ drone by the end of this month. Flight testing of this uncrewed aircraft, which is designed to take off and land vertically from a tail-sitting position, is still scheduled to kick off before the end of the year. X-BAT’s core concept was already highly ambitious, but an extremely aggressive timeline to reach some degree of operational capability through the U.S. Navy’s Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike (RIMES) program has now been disclosed.
TWZ got an update on X-BAT, which we were first to report on in-depth last year, in an interview yesterday with Shield AI’s Armor Harris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s aircraft division. This came ahead of today’s announcement that the company has received an additional $150 million in funding from the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment through its Defense Exportability Features program via the Navy. This is on top of the $50 million investment the Navy, in cooperation with the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, made in X-BAT’s development earlier this year as part of the RIMES effort. Shield AI has committed an equivalent amount of internal funding, for a combined total of $400 million.
“In broad strokes, the last year has been a bunch of collaborative risk reduction with the Navy. So, wind tunnel testing, engine testing, thermal testing, all kinds of stuff to basically take the major risks in the program, [and] burn them down, so we can move confidently into the production design,” Shield AI’s Harris told us. “The last culmination of the risk reduction is the flight testing of the two full-scale prototypes. The first one of those will be done at the end of October.”
“That’s a full-scale vehicle,” he continued. “It’s got the outer mold line, it’s got the F110 engine, the full propulsion path, everything in it.”
To date, Shield AI has only shown models of the X-BAT publicly. A new one displayed at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition in April revealed major changes to the core design. This included a complete reworking of the planform from a ‘cranked kite’ type arrangement to one with a distinctly different arrowhead-shaped profile featuring a straight leading edge with a more dramatic sweep.
The video below includes clips showing the original X-BAT design and the current one.
X-BAT is on the way.
The aforementioned “propulsion path,” testing of which has already been conducted on the ground, primarily consists of the General Electric F110 paired with an Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle (AVEN). The nozzle was originally developed in the 1990s for an experimental thrust-vectoring F-16 fighter. Shield AI is using the original AVEN, which had been in storage for decades, to support development of X-BAT. The nozzle will provide pitch and yaw control, with roll control for the drone coming from bleed air routed through thrusters in the drone’s wings.
No runway, no problem.
Shield AI and @GE_Aerospace just cleared a critical path to vertical flight, completing engine light-off testing of the Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle (AVEN) for X-BAT.
Engineers from both companies integrated the AVEN into GE Aerospace’s… pic.twitter.com/OxV3y3sRKB
— Shield AI (@shieldaitech) July 20, 2026
Shield AI has previously said that the roughly fighter-sized X-BAT will have a maximum range of 2,000 nautical miles and a service ceiling of around 50,000 feet. The company has also said in the past it is targeting an effective combat radius roughly twice that of the F-35, or around 1,340 nautical miles, but also that it could be closer to 1,000 nautical miles. Space has been made within the X-BAT design for a potential in-flight refueling capability, but there is no active work yet to integrate that feature.
In terms of payload, X-BAT’s design includes internal weapons bays roughly the same size as those on the F-35, as well as two external hardpoints under the wings. Those hardpoints are plumbed, meaning that range-extending drop tanks, or even buddy refueling stores to allow the drone to act as a tanker, could be carried. Baked-in modularity and open-architecture mission systems are intended to make it easier to fit various sensors, data links, and other capabilities down the line.
“X-BAT’s really designed to be a multi-role capability, and, if you look out at the 10-20 year time horizon, it’s hard to predict what the future fight is going to look like,” Shield AI’s Harris noted. “We fundamentally believe that multi-role capabilities are critically important. And, so, X-BAT, the reason why it’s sized to where it is is [sic] to be able to carry serious strike weapons internally and externally, in addition to being able to do air-to-air [combat], electronic warfare, and other mission sets.
“You could think of it as like X-35 versus F-35,” he also said yesterday when asked about any expectations now for further changes between the initial pair of prototypes and the final production design.
Lockheed Martin’s X-35 demonstrators are, in very broad strokes, similar to, but distinct from any of the resulting variants of the Joint Strike Fighter. Shield AI has notably already talked in the past about integrating more low-observable (stealthy) attributes to the exhaust end of the design down the line.
“Then we’ll get into flight testing around the end of this year,” Harris added. “We’ll be doing vertical takeoff and landing testing with that [the initial prototypes] to actually prove out and develop the VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] technology for X-BAT.”
Shield AI’s X-Forge 2 facility at the Newton City-County Airport in Kansas is set to be the main flight testing hub for X-BAT, as well as the focal point for sustainment of the drones. A production facility, X-Forge 3, is also being built in Des Moines, Washington. The company’s original site, X-Forge 1, is in Frisco, Texas.
In terms of the actual flight test campaign, “you remember the X-BAT system has the air vehicle and the launch and recovery vehicle, which is the trailer that it launches and lands from,” Harris said. “Basically, the way the testing works is, we start with the vehicle horizontal, sitting on that launch and recovery vehicle, running the engine. Then we bring it up vertical, run the engine vertically, run the vehicle vertically.”
“Then we have one of the biggest cranes in the world that’s getting set up at our test site in Kansas right now, and we hang the vehicle suspended from that crane and do a bunch of testing while it’s hanging from the crane in free flight,” he continued. “Then we take the crane away, and then we do the actual untethered flights.”
Shield AI’s goal is to fly a fully missionized X-BAT in 2028 and start series production the following year.
On top of that, “the way that the [RIMES] program has been structured is getting to an early operational capability in 2029 is the end goal,” Shield AI’s Harris said.
When asked if this meant that RIMES is aiming “to eventually arrive at not just a demonstration of capability, but a real operationalized capability,” he said that was “correct.”
We will come back to this more later on, but suffice it to say up front, the prospect of X-BAT reaching an operational level of maturity within three years is extraordinarily ambitious, to say the least.
In the meantime, Shield AI has already been testing the mechanisms to “latch and unlatch” X-BAT to the launch and recovery system using an unpowered “battleship” test article, according to Harris. The design of the launch and recovery system has also evolved, and it is now self-propelled, at least to a degree, rather than just being a towed trailer.
“The launch and recovery vehicle is actually critical to the operation of the X-BAT weapon system because it enables survivability on the ground. So when you’re operating in a land-based environment, it enables basically shoot-and-scoot tactics,” Harris also noted. “Enemy transporter-erector-launchers [for missiles] are like pretty hard to find because they’re constantly moving around. Just like X-BAT, when it’s mated onto the launch and recovery vehicle, [it] is always moving around, makes it hard to track, hard to find, hard to destroy.”
The plan now is to “build the one-to-one launch and recovery vehicles to air vehicles. So the air vehicle is always on the trailer. It never comes off of it,” he continued. “Even maintenance to the air vehicle is done while it’s sitting on that launch and recovery vehicle.”
“In fact, we’re actually planning on building more than one-to-one of the launch and recovery vehicles, so that way you can preposition them around different islands, different places in the theater, and have multiple places the aircraft can lily pad from,” he added. “But you’re never putting multiple aircraft onto one launcher and launching them or something like that.”
“When you typically operate a jet, there’s a whole bunch of ground carts and stuff that you bring, like the ground power cart, the ground cooling cart, the air start cart, etc,” Harris further elaborated. “So we’ve moved a lot of those systems onto [the] launch and recovery vehicles, so you don’t have all these separate carts, which is pretty critical when you’re trying to do expeditionary operations.”
“The model for land-based operations is kind of a hub-and-spoke type model. So the squadrons are based at air bases. All the fuel and the weapons are generally based at the air bases, as well. But then you can distribute the aircraft all over the airfield,” he continued. “So, you think about what the enemy’s doing, they’re targeting the runways, they’re targeting the tarmacs, but you can disperse the aircraft around the perimeter of the airfield. You can launch them from the golf course. You can launch them from empty space in the taxiway, etc.”
Harris said that another “spoke” could be X-BATs operating from forward arming and refueling points (FARP). All of this is part of larger concepts of operations for the drone that Shield has been envisioning, and that are not at all limited to deployments at locations on land. Harris noted during the interview that the self-propelled nature of the current launch and recovery system would also help with moving the drones around on virtually any ship with sufficient deck space. This is where the RIMES program, which is separate and distinct from the U.S. Navy’s carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone ambitions, really comes in.
“I’ll say the fundamental value proposition of RIMES is that if you have a carrier-based CCA, you’re fundamentally constrained by the square footage of the deck of the aircraft carrier,” Harris explained. “So if you are taking an F-18 or an F-35 off, you better be replacing it with better capability per square foot of deck space than the thing that you’re taking off.”
“So, F/A-XX [the Navy’s sixth-generation carrier-based fighter, now to be built by Boeing] is a huge leap in capability, right? Which is why that program makes a lot of sense,” he continued. “The challenge with CCA is: Does it really make sense to take a manned aircraft off of an aircraft carrier and replace it with an unmanned aircraft?”
Shield AI’s argument here is that X-BAT disrupts this core equation by opening the door to a CCA-like capability, or even something more capable, that can be employed in a ship-based mode without sacrificing any crewed aircraft capacity on an aircraft carrier. Shield AI envisions dozens of X-BATs being employed from amphibious assault ships, as well as other kinds of amphibious warfare ships, including expeditionary sea base type vessels, as seen at the top of this story.
“So when you think about the number of carrier air wings that the Navy has to deploy, deploying X-BAT across all these other ships basically significantly increases the number of carrier air wings,” Harris said.
As already mentioned, the current structure of the RIMES includes a target for an early operational capability in 2029, according to Harris. “We have a program defined to get there, and there’s basically milestone-based payments along the way, so as Shield performs and hits milestones, then the Navy kicks in additional funding,” he added.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the Navy, and give you a specific number, but like hundreds to low thousands,” he also said when asked if there was even a very rough planning figure for the eventual size of the RIMES drone fleet.
Many questions remain about X-BAT, which still has to demonstrate the viability of its vertical takeoff and landing capability, which underpins everything else. As we noted in our original in-depth report on this design, the core concept here is not new, and there have been many unsuccessful attempts to operationalize it in the past. There has been skepticism that Shield AI’s effort will succeed where others have failed. The company is of the view that groundwork has now been more firmly laid, including through its own work with its much smaller internal combustion-engine-powered V-BAT tail-sitting VTOL drone, to truly realize a design of this kind.
V-BAT: Deep Recce-Strike for GPS and Comms Denied Battlefields
The performance and capabilities that Shield AI expects from X-BAT once it is flying at all are also ambitious. A high degree of autonomy is also part of the full planned package, which will leverage the company’s already extensive work in this domain with its Hivemind software.
Shield AI flies Hivemind AI Pilot on 6th Aircraft
There are also questions about the Navy’s exact plans for RIMES, as well as its broader future drone fleets. Just this year, the service has issued several contracting notices pointing to rapidly evolving views about future carrier-based strike drones and other uncrewed aircraft. New requirements that Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) released in August ostensibly for future CCA-type drones notably pointed more toward something that sounded very much like an advanced uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV), as you can read more about here.
Whether the 2029 operational timeframe the Navy is said to be aiming for under RIMES is firm, or even realistic in any way, remains to be seen. The actual definition of what constitutes an “early operational capability” could be very flexible, as well. It is also worth noting here that Shield AI is not the only company currently conducting work under RIMES. Whether the Navy might be planning to acquire more than one design through this program is unclear. We have reached out to the service for more information.
Other services could be interested in any operational capability produced through the RIMES effort, too. TWZ regularly highlights how runway-independent drones would be particularly well-suited to the U.S. Marine Corps’ new expeditionary and distributed concepts of operations. That service is already in the process of acquiring MQ-58B Valkyrie drones from Kratos that will be able to operate from conventional runways. They will also be capable of runway-independent launches, though they will still have to land conventionally. The baseline Valkyrie design lands via parachute.
Aviation Week has reported separately today that Shield AI is looking to pitch the X-BAT to the U.S. Army as a successor to that service’s fleet of MQ-1C Gray Eagle armed drones.
In general, runway independence is of growing interest elsewhere across the U.S. military as threats to large, established bases continue to expand in scale and scope. The proliferation of various tiers of weaponized drones is a particularly significant factor in this, as TWZ just examined in detail this week in the context of the recent withdrawal of B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom. Ever more capable cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles are also part of the full threat picture.
The conflict with Iran has also underscored the limits of what can be gained survivability-wise by dispersing traditional fixed-wing aircraft, especially within an existing airbase. As highlighted earlier, X-BAT could be dispersed very differently to nearly anywhere within a facility that can handle the thrust from the F110 engine in hover.
As it stands now, we are set to get our first view of a full-sized X-BAT prototype within the next few weeks as Shield AI continues to gear up for the start of actual flight testing before the end of the year.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
