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Hurricane Isaias barrels toward Gulf coast as category 3 storm

Isaias strengthened into a category 3 hurricane on Friday as it barreled toward the US Gulf coast, where states of emergency have been declared in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. The hurricane, the first in the Atlantic in what has turned into a very late 2026 season, is expected to cause a “life-threatening storm surge”, officials said. Isaias is forecast to make landfall on Friday night, somewhere along the western Florida Panhandle, with surging seas up to about 7ft (2.1 meters) and waves as high as 30ft (9.1 meters). “Damaging hurricane-force winds are expected over portions of the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi, where a hurricane warning is in effect. Residents in these areas should prepare for the possibility of long-duration power outages,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said. Noaa said a storm surge was expected from south-east Louisiana to Suwannee, in north-east Florida. Isaias could also dump up to 15in (380mm) of rain on coastal areas and even spawn tornadoes overnight on Friday into Saturday from Alabama to the Florida Panhandle and south-western Georgia. The hurricane is expected to quickly weaken after coming ashore. Heavy rain began falling along the coast on Friday morning and winds were picking up sharply, with tropical storm conditions expected by early afternoon. Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 115mph on early Friday evening, down from 120mph at mid-morning, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The NHC at that time said increasing wind shear was weakening the storm’s intensity. The center also said that Isaias was about 90 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, and headed north at nearly 17mph. The NHC said Dauphin Island, a barrier island off the Alabama coast, could see a 7ft (2.1-meter) storm surge, while Indian Pass, 200 miles to the east on the Florida coast, could see a 6ft surge. “Preparations should be rushed to completion as the weather will go downhill quickly today,” the NHC said. “While the storm is not expected to make landfall at peak intensity, it is likely that Isaias will still be a significant hurricane when it reaches the coast.” Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, ordered non-residents to immediately evacuate Dauphin Island, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach on Thursday, while officials encouraged voluntary evacuations for residents. Videos on social media showed traffic at a standstill on a highway leading out of Gulf Shores, where double red flags signaled that beaches were closed. Ivey has declared a state of emergency for 40 counties in Alabama, while Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has declared a state of emergency in 27 counties. Several cities and counties in south Mississippi have done the same. DeSantis said 5,000 national guard troops were expected to mobilize in Florida, where at least four school districts cancelled late-week classes. The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year because of a strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over the Atlantic. The first hurricane of the season has not formed this late since 8 October 1905, which predates the satellite era of the 1960s for tracking hurricanes. Before the storm, oil and gas producers shut down a significant share of offshore production in the Gulf, which accounts for almost 15% of crude pumped annually in the US. As of Thursday, about 63% of the oil production in the region had been temporarily halted, taking nearly 1.3m barrels a day off the market, according to the Marine Minerals Administration. It said 121 of the Gulf’s 371 crewed oil platforms had been evacuated. The storm could be the first major test of the ability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to deploy a large workforce after the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts and restructuring of the agency, emergency management experts say. The Trump administration has said it wants to eliminate, or drastically downsize, Fema, putting more burden on states. More than 4,300 employees left the agency in fiscal year 2025, about 17% of the workforce, according to a recent US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The agency’s staffing reductions were not carried out systematically to ensure Fema could still meet its statutory obligations, said Chris Currie, director of homeland security and justice at the GAO. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting

Flydubai co-pilot planned suicide attack on Israeli airport, UAE prosecutors say

The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a passenger jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week was planning to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel’s international airport, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates said on Friday. Hammam al-Hammami attacked the plane’s Indian pilot with an emergency axe, but failed to prevent his badly injured colleague from opening the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower his assailant. Passengers then tried to control the aircraft, which was safely landed in Saudi Arabia by an off-duty relief pilot who was among about 180 passengers. Dr Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, attorney-general of the UAE, said on Friday that al-Hammami, who is in Emirate custody, had admitted he had tried to execute a “premeditated terrorist plot to … launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, with the aim of causing the greatest possible loss of life”. The 29-year-old, who was hired by flydubai, a government-owned low-cost airline, began a process of radicalisation while studying in Australia when he was influenced by the hardline takfiri ideology through reading extremist literature and online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide attacks, al-Shamsi said in a statement. “[Al-Hammami] subsequently developed … ideas advocating violence and terrorism. He also drew inspiration from the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the idea of carrying out a similar operation using an aircraft became firmly established in his thinking. According to his confession, this was linked to his decision to pursue a career in aviation.” Over the weekend, Australian security agencies launched an investigation after it emerged al-Hammami spent about two years in the country as a student until 2017. He left the country without completing his engineering degree. New Zealand authorities have launched their own investigation after police confirmed al-Hammami underwent flight training there about a year after he abandoned a degree in Australia. There has been widespread concern about how al-Hammami was able to pass vetting and join a crew flying to Israel. An Omani national, he earned a distance-learning aviation management degree from Buckinghamshire New University in 2023 and was employed by Oman Air from 2020-24, joined Royal Air Maroc in early 2025 and worked there for several months before moving to flydubai in January 2026. Security officials have been keen to understand if al-Hammami was acting alone or had become involved with a group such as al-Qaida or Islamic State, which could suggest further such attacks might be planned. Emirate authorities believe this is not the case. “In the presence of his lawyer and with all legally prescribed safeguards ensured, the suspect provided a detailed confession outlining his motives and the stages of planning and execution. He admitted that he had acted alone, without the involvement of others, although investigations are continuing to verify this claim,” al-Shamsi said. Investigators have found al-Hammami had used two previous flights to Tel Aviv to “familiarise himself with the flight route ‌and the airport”, the Emirati state news agency WAM reported. The passengers on board the aircraft were overwhelmingly Israeli, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailing them and the pilot for their bravery after the foiled attack.

Pro-Kremlin Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk arrested in Montenegro

A leading pro-Kremlin Russian military blogger with reported ties to Russia’s intelligence services has been arrested in Montenegro, after warnings of attempts to destabilise the Balkan country, officials have said. Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the influential Rybar war blog, was detained on Friday alongside his wife and three other Russians by police and security agents in the Adriatic resort town of Risan, on suspicion of spreading Russian influence, local media reported. Montenegro’s prime minister, Milojko Spajić, confirmed Zvinchuk’s detention in a post on X, saying it followed warnings that the country would face attempts at destabilisation and hybrid warfare. The Montenegrin news outlet Vijesti reported later on Friday that Zvinchuk and the other detainees were to be expelled from the country on national security grounds. The Russian Telegram news channel Baza said officers detained Zvinchuk at the luxury Mövenpick hotel in Risan. It said the group was taken to Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital, for questioning and their phones and passports were confiscated. Founded in 2018 by Zvinchuk, a former press officer at Russia’s defence ministry, Rybar is one of the most popular Russian military blogs covering the war in Ukraine, with more than 1.5 million subscribers on Telegram. It forms part of a sprawling online media ecosystem that promotes Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But Rybar’s activities extend well beyond Ukraine, with the channel promoting pro-Kremlin narratives in Africa and the Middle East. More recently, it has been accused of amplifying far-right narratives surrounding the migration crisis in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in north Africa. “At the moment, the project team is in contact with Russia’s foreign ministry, which is working to resolve the situation. Since there were no violations of local legislation, we expect all detainees to be released,” the channel said on Telegram. Britain sanctioned Zvinchuk and Rybar in December 2025 over their role in spreading Kremlin propaganda and undermining support for Ukraine. The British government said Zvinchuk received funding from the Russian state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec, and worked with members of Russia’s intelligence services. The US has separately accused Zvinchuk of attempting to interfere in the 2024 presidential election, offering a reward of up to $10m for information about those involved. Days before his arrest, Zvinchuk boasted on social media that he had managed to enter Montenegro despite being subject to western sanctions and an entry ban. He mocked a border guard who, he said, had searched his belongings but failed to check his name against a database. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow was aware of Zvinchuk’s detention and would work to secure his release. Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev suggested Moscow could detain European and American citizens to use in prisoner exchanges to secure Zvinchuk’s release. “We will probably have to replenish our pool of prisoners for exchange with European and American idiots in order to get our own people back,” he wrote on social media. The arrest is likely to further strain relations between Montenegro and Russia, which have long been tense. In 2016, Montenegrin authorities accused Russian operatives of plotting with Serbian ultranationalists to stage a coup, allegations Moscow denied. Montenegro, which joined Nato in 2017 and is seeking membership of the EU, imposed sanctions on Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The country recently approved plans to end visa-free travel for Russian citizens from 1 November, closing off a popular holiday destination for Russian tourists as it brings its visa policy into line with the EU.

US imposes sanctions on ICC, hours after former judge Pillay wins Nobel peace prize – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. The Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African former UN human rights chief who chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza (11:02, 11:04, 11:06, 11:11). In her first reaction, Pillay specifically paid tribute to all people defending human rights everywhere, as she joked to her associates that “if you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump” (11:53, 12:02). Her win was widely celebrated by senior judges and human right campaigners, who offered their congratulations (11:33, 12:06, 12:17, 12:21, 13:22, 15:25), including the president of the international court of justice, of which she is a former judge (12:58). But Israel reacted angrily to the award, saying that “it’s the grotesque weaponisation of an award to legitimise anti-Israel hatred and prejudice” (13:52). US president Donald Trump also reposted a critical comment saying the Nobel committee “shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned” the prize (16:06). Just hours after the announcement, which was explicitly meant as the Nobel Committee’s backing for the international court of justice, the US has imposed sanctions on the court (16:20). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream execution puts US in dubious company

If the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, goes ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a soldier radicalised to extremist Islam who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas, his country will join a motley assembly of lesser powers and rogue actors who have conducted public executions in recent years. Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International. In April last year, the Taliban executed four men accused of murder in three different cities. All were shot dead in crowded public sports stadiums. Such events were common when the hardline Islamist militia movement was in power in the late 1990s. Then as now, the Taliban claimed a due court process had been followed. In July, two young men accused of killing police officers were hanged by Iranian authorities in the central square of Isfahan, Iran. Human rights monitors have reported about 30 public executions in Ithe country in the last five years, with an intensification in recent months after massive popular unrest earlier this year and the war with the US and Israel. Historically, many hangings have been carried out using a crane as a makeshift gallows. Saudi Arabia appears to have ended the practice after decades of beheading convicted criminals in a square in the capital, Riyadh, and sometimes publicly in provincial cities. Legal experts and historians argue that public executions perform different functions. If the rule of law is shaky or there is doubt about the efficacy of the criminal justice system, they offer authorities seeking to win support a way of convincing the community that criminals will be punished. Such public spectacles can also be a way of cowing a population through terror. Armed militant groups have frequently resorted to public executions – often in an effort to assert their authority. Islamic State, which ruled a swath of Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019, conducted thousands of executions for alleged offences ranging from homosexuality to theft. Many of the executions took place in public or were videoed. A large number were deliberately choreographed to provide a spectacle for broadcast to terrorise enemies and potential dissidents as well as to radicalise IS supporters and attract new ones. In October 2025, as Hamas sought to reassert its control over the population of Gaza, it carried out a public execution of six men apparently accused of collaborating with Israel. In 2017, the group had executed three men accused of the same crime, partly livestreaming the event on Facebook. The execution of Maj Nidal Hasan, a former army psychiatrist, at Fort Hood in Texas would be the first public execution in the US in many decades. In the US, the practice of public executions was largely stopped in the 1930s, though in 2001, some survivors and victims’ relatives were allowed to watch the execution by lethal injection of Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the 1995 bombing of a government office in Oklahoma City. Hasan’s execution has been scheduled for 3 December. Hegseth, who has the authority to decide the conduct of the killing, has said that “of course” it would take place at the same time and in the same place as Hasan’s attack 17 years ago and would use firearms, as Hasan did. Hasan can launch appeals within the civilian federal court system that could delay the execution for many years. In 2025, Amnesty International recorded 2,707 executions, the highest total globally since 1981, and an increase of two-thirds on the previous year. The sharp rise was mainly due to more than 2,100 executions by Iran, its highest number of executions in decades. Amnesty said authorities had placed the death penalty “at the centre of flawed public security and ‘tough on crime’ narratives to assert control, project state power and score political points”. “This trend was strongest in countries where the authorities have tightened their grip on power by restricting civic space, silencing dissent and displaying disregard for protections established under international human rights law and standards,” the campaign group reported.

EU ‘pulling out all stops’ with minerals projects as it tries to avert China trade war

The EU is “pulling out all the stops” to fend off an imminent potential trade crisis with China, the industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, has said, as the bloc announced its backing for a string of critical materials projects. Séjourné said on Friday that the EU would support 46 new strategic projects to accelerate supplies of critical raw materials by 2030 across the bloc. “We could face a crisis in the coming months,” he said. “We may face trade tensions that could also trigger a crisis in a number of sectors. We need to be prepared for that. And we’re getting ready right now.” The new projects include plants for supplies of lithium, gallium and rare earths needed for the auto, defence and renewable energy industries, with a funding cost of €21bn (£17.8bn). They were unveiled just as the EU works to avert a trade war with China, with the trade commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, continuing talks on Friday in Beijing aimed at reducing China’s “unsustainable” £1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc. “We’re pulling out all the stops to move as quickly as possible. The primary objective is the targets set by law, and beyond that, there’s a geopolitical challenge that could catch up with us very quickly,” said Séjourné. “Mines are opening, factories are being built, financing agreements are being signed, and a European value chain is emerging,” Séjourné added. Amid some scepticism over the EU’s ability to meet its 2030 targets to reduce dependencies on China, Séjourné cited three “emblematic” projects which have previously been identified as strategic, earmarking them for accelerated permits. These included a rare earths plant near Pau in south-western France. The Carester plant, which is expected to be up and running in late 2026, produces dysprosium and terbium, “two raw materials for which we are almost entirely dependent on China”, used in magnets for electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines. “This single project could account for about 15% of global production of these oxides. That is no small feat,” Séjourné said. He also name-checked a gallium plant in Greece which is already up and running. The third, Keliber, a lithium extraction and processing plant in Finland, is also operational after €150m support from the European Investment Bank. The 46 projects are the second batch of initiatives to receive flagship status since the Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024, which legally mandates the European Commission to reduce the bloc’s dependency on foreign countries. The EU hopes to follow in the footsteps of Japan, which has reduced dependency on China for rare earths to 60% from 90% since 2011, when Beijing prohibited exports of about 20 materials to Japan, claiming they were being used for military purposes. Although the flagship status does not bring the projects direct funds, it enables accelerated permitting, and help in mobilising funds. However, there has been criticism in industry within the EU that the scheme is not strong enough to deliver targets to mine 10%, process 40% and recycle 25% of the bloc’s needs by 2030. The French lithium refiner Viridian Lithium, which received EU strategic status in 2025, went into judicial liquidation in March this year. Earlier this year, a group of 23 of the 60 projects designated strategic in 2025 wrote to the European Commission calling for more action to “urgently unlock projects, particularly those working towards final investment decision which face acute liquidity and market pressure and immediate jeopardy”. Séjourné said member states had unlocked €1bn for six of the projects, with the European Investment Bank providing another €660m for eight projects.