Pope Leo XIV left the operating room with a lung-cancer diagnosis; Houthi fire reached an Aramco building in Dhahran after the Saudis hit a fuel depot in Sanaa; and Kyiv says it again got no allied warning before a ballistic missile slammed into the capital. Ten stories as of Tuesday evening, October 13.
1. Rome / Vatican City and Italy. Pope Leo XIV, 71, has been diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma after a successful 90-minute operation at Rome’s Gemelli hospital that removed the whole lower lobe of his right lung, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin, BBC News reported. “The operation was successful and there were no complications,” the Holy See said; he awoke normally and returned to his room after a brief observation. Doctors first spotted the nodule in routine checks; Leo himself told the Angelus crowd on Sunday it was “contained” and found “at a very early stage.” He is expected to stay in hospital about a week, with audiences cancelled through October 20, and further tests are checking whether the cancer has spread, a Vatican source told AFP, per DW.
2. Riyadh, Dhahran and Sanaa / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. After the Saudi-led coalition struck the Yemen Petroleum Company’s al-Sabaha fuel facility near Houthi-held Sanaa on Tuesday, the Houthis answered with missiles and drones aimed at the kingdom; the coalition said it intercepted projectiles over Riyadh and other cities including Dammam, BBC News reported. Saudi Energy Ministry said an Aramco administration building in Dhahran took a hit that sparked a “limited fire,” with no casualties; a company source told Reuters a ballistic missile struck upper floors. Civil defence said debris from two intercepted missiles in Riyadh injured four people — two women, a man and a child — and damaged 15 homes, DW reported. The Saudi cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said the Iran-backed Houthis would “bear the consequences” of recent deadly airport strikes that killed 14 over the weekend.
3. Kyiv / Ukraine, and London / United Kingdom. A Russian ballistic missile hit Kyiv’s CHPP-4 power plant Tuesday evening with “once again, no early warning from our partners,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding a residential building was damaged and rescuers were fighting a fire; France 24, citing Reuters, put the toll at at least two dead and about 20 wounded. Zelenskyy later told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney it was the second time this week Ukraine got no ballistic warning. On Wednesday he meets Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street, where the UK will accelerate delivery of Lightweight Multirole Missiles — more than 5,000 already committed, worth £1.6bn over four years — and push further Russia sanctions, including a maritime-services ban on Russian LNG that Chancellor John Healey is pressing at the IMF meetings, BBC News reported. Burnham: “We are with you for as long as it takes.”
4. Hamburg / Germany. Four years after the Baltic Sea blasts that wrecked three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, Ukrainian national Serhii K goes on trial Wednesday in Hamburg as the first suspect in the case, BBC News reported. German prosecutors say he plotted with other Ukrainian military personnel to cut Russia’s gas revenue and allege the saboteurs acted “by order of Ukrainian state agencies”; he denies the charges, as does a second suspect fighting extradition from Croatia. Investigators focused on divers who rented the yacht Andromeda in Rostock, where traces of subsea explosives were later found. Zelenskyy has long said Ukraine had “nothing to do” with the attacks. The trial is delicate for Berlin, one of Kyiv’s closest European backers.
5. Peshawar and Bara / Pakistan. Pakistan has put Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — the stronghold of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI party — under emergency rule and suspended the provincial government, citing a terror threat, BBC News reported. Schools closed and internet service was partly cut, then largely restored by Tuesday; PTI leaders have gone into hiding, and supporters clashed with police in Bara, Khyber district, with tear gas reported. Information Minister Attah Tarrar claimed the PTI provincial government was “hand in glove with the terrorists” without producing evidence on the day. Opponents say the crackdown risks more instability ahead of any path back for Khan.
6. Kingston / Jamaica. Jamaica took its first flight of third-country deportees from the United States on Tuesday: 22 people landed at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and were bused to an undisclosed location, Al Jazeera reported, citing the AP. Jamaica signed a June memorandum to receive such transfers — part of a Trump administration network that advocacy group Third Country Deportation Watch puts at about 35 countries — and says it will not take deportees with criminal records, moving people on to their home countries with International Organization for Migration support. Opposition figures have asked why the deal was not made public; the National Security and Foreign Affairs ministries called it a “transit arrangement.”
7. Bogotá / Colombia. Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace charged 10 former FARC members on Tuesday with war crimes and crimes against humanity against five Indigenous groups in the southeast between 1996 and 2016, including torture, murder and forced displacement, Al Jazeera reported. Magistrate Catalina Diaz said FARC commanders ordered landmines on Indigenous land and wrecked ecosystems the communities needed to survive: “Today we are delivering justice to the most forgotten peoples of a segregated Colombia.” The Truth Commission previously counted 450,664 conflict deaths from 1985 to 2018.
8. Cabo Corrientes, Ensenada and Acapulco / Mexico. Hurricane Simon re-strengthened Tuesday evening to about 110 mph — nearly a major hurricane again — roughly 120 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and drifting west at 2 mph, the National Hurricane Center said at 6:50 p.m. MST. Farther south, newborn Tropical Storm Trudy was at 40 mph about 490 miles south-southeast of Acapulco and forecast to become a major hurricane by Friday, the NHC said. The death toll from Simon and the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel rose to six, the AP reported: one in Guerrero from Simon, and five in Ensenada, Baja California, from Rachel’s floods — among them a 13-year-old girl, two women, a 4-year-old boy and an unidentified person — with five still missing and a helicopter rescue of 32 people, including 13 minors, from an orphan camp near Ensenada.
9. San Francisco / United States. Federal prosecutors charged OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national, with planting a covert recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco offices, BBC News reported. The encrypted gadget was found wrapped in toilet paper in a TV USB port; OpenAI said it used its own AI models to identify the employee, who has been fired, and that it has no indication source code, model weights or customer data were taken. FBI Director Kash Patel said the alleged aim was to capture information about the company’s AI products. Alfozan had worked at OpenAI since July 2025; the device was discovered September 30, two days after prosecutors say it was installed.
10. Port Moresby / Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea police seized a cache of high-powered semi-automatic rifles, parts, magazines and 3D-printing gear at a Gerehu residence after intelligence from international partners, Commissioner David Manning said, RNZ reported. An adult male remains in custody pending charges; Manning called him a key coordinator who hid dismantled parts in ostensibly legitimate imports moved by courier. “These guns fuel violence, undermine community safety, and pose a grave national security risk,” he said.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: Through October 18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels. October 17, the earliest King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh is expected to reopen. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote. Pope Leo’s audiences remain cancelled through October 20 while he recovers at Gemelli.
Sources: BBC News; Vatican / DW; Al Jazeera; AP; Reuters (via DW/France 24); U.S. National Hurricane Center; RNZ; DOJ/FBI statements via BBC.
