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World Brief, Evening: October 13, 2026

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.

World Brief: October 13, 2026

Russia left Ukraine’s power plants alone overnight for the first time since President Trump’s “energy ceasefire,” but hit its cities anyway; the Houthis told civilians to clear out of Saudi oil sites; and a second ship in a week went down off Bulgaria’s coast. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, October 13.

1. Kyiv, Kharkiv and Warsaw / Ukraine and Russia. Russia hit no Ukrainian energy targets overnight into Tuesday, the first time that has happened since Trump announced his “energy ceasefire” at the weekend, while it hammered transport and logistics sites with ballistic missiles and drones, France 24 reported, citing Reuters. Four people were killed in a residential building in Kharkiv, and one missile came down just over a kilometre from a plant that heats much of Lviv. The Kremlin would only say that “contacts” were ongoing. Ukraine’s air force said it had no advance surveillance warning before Russia fired six ballistic missiles at Kyiv late Monday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called that strike “particularly vile” and said partners gave no early warning, The Guardian reported: “This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed – when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles.” That comes after U.S. officials threatened over the weekend to halt intelligence sharing, though Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said cooperation continues. Zelenskyy said Ukraine hasn’t hit a Russian refinery in two days. In Moscow, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia could supply 3.5 million tonnes of diesel a month to world markets by year’s end, Al Jazeera reported.

2. Riyadh, Dammam and Sanaa / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition told civilians to leave the Yemeni Oil Company’s al-Sabah central station in Houthi-held Sanaa ahead of a planned operation, and Al Jazeera’s team then heard explosions in the capital, Al Jazeera reported. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree hit back with his own evacuation alert, calling Saudi oil facilities “a legitimate target.” He named Aramco’s headquarters in Dammam, Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and an Aramco refinery in Riyadh, and promised a “harsh and painful” response to any strikes on Sanaa. The coalition said it shot down three drones north of Riyadh on Tuesday. France’s embassy told its citizens to stay away from the airports in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, France 24 reported. On the ground, Saudi-backed government forces say they’re pushing into Marib province, and in besieged Taiz a rights group counted five civilians killed and 17 wounded by Houthi shelling in 24 hours, Al Jazeera reported.

3. Strait of Hormuz / Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. At least 12 tankers have been attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz in the past week, going by the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) warnings, The National reported. Delayed UKMTO reports cover six ships hit on Sunday alone: five tankers and a container ship, five in the strait and one hit by a drone near Oman’s Sohar anchorage. The U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center rates the threat to shipping in the strait “severe” in its latest advisory, published by UKMTO, and says the attacks show Iran’s “intent to assert [its] presence along key transit lanes.” “The Strait of Hormuz is closed,” an adviser to the Revolutionary Guards’ commander, Mohammadreza Naqdi, was quoted as saying. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week it is open, with “almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began.”

4. Krapets and Byala / Bulgaria. Prime Minister Rumen Radev summoned Russia’s ambassador after drones hit two merchant ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast on Tuesday and one of them sank, BBC News reported. Six crew from the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity were rescued and 10 are missing after it went down 17 nautical miles east of Krapets, the defence minister said. All 15 aboard the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea-3, hit off Byala, were rescued. There’s no conclusive evidence against “either side,” Radev said, but “the logic suggests that the outcome benefits the Russian Federation.” His defence minister was blunter: “We assume the drones are Russian.” The ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, said she had no information from Russia’s defence ministry and suggested a third-party provocation. Both ships were just outside Bulgarian territorial waters. At least 45 merchant ships have been hit by drones in the Black Sea in the past year, DW reported.

5. Rome / Vatican City and Italy. Pope Leo XIV, 71, checked into Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Tuesday for an afternoon operation to remove a small nodule from his lung, The Guardian reported. The surgery is considered low risk and will show whether the growth is malignant. A thoracic team led by Prof. Stefano Margaritora is doing the operation, and the pope is expected to stay in hospital for about a week, Vatican News said. His audiences are cancelled through October 20, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will lead Wednesday’s general audience. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the news came “like a bolt out of the blue.” There was no word on how the surgery went as of this brief.

6. Budapest / Hungary. Hungary’s parliament voted on Tuesday to scrap the parts of Viktor Orbán’s 2021 child protection law that banned the “portrayal or promotion of homosexuality or transgenderism,” BBC News reported. Minutes later, the government said the EU had agreed to release €4.2bn in funds frozen in the final years of Orbán’s rule. Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Tisza party, which ousted Orbán in April, now holds the same two-thirds majority Fidesz once had. Fidesz and the Christian Democrats voted no. “We’ve been fighting this so-called child protection law for five years,” said Tamás Dombos of the Háttér Society. Activists still want same-sex marriage and adoption rights.

7. Washington and Athens / United States and Greece. “We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign,” new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said on Tuesday, adding “we wish her well,” Al Jazeera reported. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, has faced weeks of misconduct reports. The Wall Street Journal reported she asked a Trump donor to cover a $100,000 credit card bill shortly before her confirmation hearing, promising access to administration officials. Her lawyers deny wrongdoing and say the money was owed for past speaking engagements. Trump said Monday, “We’re not happy.” Top House and Senate Democrats want investigations, DW reported.

8. Ceuta / Spain and Morocco. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia began the first Spanish royal visit to Ceuta in nearly two decades on Tuesday, as the North African exclave still deals with July’s surge of about 70,000 people from Morocco, BBC News reported. Aid groups estimate at least 141 people died in the crossings. Ceuta’s president Juan Jesús Vivas puts the number still in the city at 15,000; Madrid says it has 7,400 shelter places. The royals will attend an interfaith ceremony at the cemetery where many of the dead are buried, then head to Melilla on Wednesday. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recently confirmed that Moroccan military vessels entered Spanish waters off Ceuta during the crossing but played it down. Spain votes on November 29.

9. New Delhi / India. Police detained Cockroach Janta Party leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das early on Tuesday after they climbed barricades into Jantar Mantar, Delhi’s traditional protest site, and chanted for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign, BBC News reported. A day earlier the home ministry had said Jantar Mantar would no longer be a designated protest venue. “You cannot denotify the resistance,” founder Abhijeet Dipke wrote on X. The movement and opposition parties say a revision of voter rolls that removed tens of millions of names favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party; the party and the Election Commission reject that. Congress has asked the Supreme Court to step in.

10. Puerto Iguazú / Argentina, and the Pacific. Argentina briefly shut tourist access to Iguazu Falls on Monday when the Iguazu River topped 12,000 cubic metres per second, more than six times its average flow, after heavy rain fuelled by a supersized El Niño, The Guardian reported. “It just keeps raining,” said park director José María Hervás. Officials planned to reopen on Tuesday as the flow eased. Out in the Pacific, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says weekly sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific have hit their highest level on record, weeks before the event’s expected December peak, BBC Weather reported. “We are currently witnessing an El Niño event that is unprecedented in the historical record,” said Berkeley Earth’s Zeke Hausfather.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: 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, where von der Leyen says Ukraine’s funding will be “front and centre.” October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: France 24; Reuters; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; The National; UKMTO; BBC News; DW; Vatican News; BBC Weather.

Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel Leave Five Dead in Mexico as Helicopters Pluck 32 People From a Flooded Baja California Ranch: October 13, 2026

ENSENADA, Mexico — At least five people have died in Mexico after Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel lashed the country’s Pacific coast with flooding that swept away vehicles, downed power poles and inundated homes, The Guardian and CBC News reported.

In Baja California, the bodies of four people, including two children, were recovered in Ensenada after Rachel’s floodwaters tore through the coastal city. Six people remained missing, four in Ensenada and a father and son from San Felipe who went fishing Saturday, state civil protection coordinator Ignacio Lozoya said Monday evening, according to CBC.

Mexican military helicopters rescued 32 people, 22 of them foreigners, from a ranch in Ensenada, Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said. A state security official said some were missionaries, including Germans and Americans. “We heard a loud noise that sounded like ocean waves, but really loud,” resident Johana Nuriulu said, according to CBC. About 14,000 federal and state personnel have been deployed across the state, the governor said.

Farther south, a 71-year-old man died when a wall collapsed in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, Gov. Evelyn Salgado said; Simon also damaged infrastructure in coastal towns including Acapulco, The Guardian reported. The hurricane has not made landfall. As of 5 a.m. MST Tuesday, Simon was a small Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph, about 95 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and creeping west-northwest at 3 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A hurricane warning is in effect for Las Islas Marías and a hurricane watch from north of Escuinapa to Bahía Tempehuaya.

Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it moved into Southern California, where unusually large waves tore apart a boardwalk in Long Beach, and its remnants caused weekend flooding in Las Vegas. Meteorologists say the strong El Niño is fueling more intense hurricanes in the eastern Pacific this season, The Guardian said.

Sources: The Guardian, CBC News, U.S. National Hurricane Center

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Speaker Johnson, the EU and Australia’s Prime Minister Push Back on the Pentagon’s Plan to Livestream Nidal Hasan’s Firing-Squad Execution: October 13, 2026

WASHINGTON — Opposition is mounting at home and abroad to the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the European Commission and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese all raising objections, CNA, France 24 and ABC News (Australia) reported.

“The concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson said in an interview broadcast Monday by CBS News, according to CNA. “We’ve got to think through the policy implications of all that.” Johnson said he would not watch the execution if it were aired. It would be the first U.S. military execution by firing squad since 1945, CNA said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the idea. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” he said. President Donald Trump has said a final decision on whether to broadcast the execution has yet to be made, and Vice President JD Vance has cast doubt on whether it will happen, ABC reported.

In Brussels, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said platforms operating in Europe must enforce their own rules under the Digital Services Act. “If you look at some platforms, Meta explicitly forbids the live streaming of capital punishments, and X and TikTok both forbid … shocking content, glorifying violence,” he said, according to France 24. “No comment on what they do in the US but in Europe, we have clear obligations.”

In Canberra, Albanese said Tuesday his government would do “whatever it can” to stop the stream being seen in Australia. “I find the idea of live streaming the death of anybody completely abhorrent,” he told the ABC, adding that platforms have “a social responsibility here to do the right thing.” Australia’s eSafety Commission said it lacks the power to proactively block such a stream, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Senate it would be “deeply distressing for any such vision to be live streamed.”

Sources: CNA, France 24, ABC News (Australia)

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World Brief, Evening: October 12, 2026

Riyadh took Houthi fire for a third straight night while Saudi officials try to work out how the missiles got through; Kyiv says Moscow has answered President Trump’s “energy ceasefire” with more strikes; and Britain pinned last month’s RAF Fairford scare on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Ten stories as of Monday evening, October 12.

1. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia. Explosions shook the Saudi capital again Monday night, and the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh and two more aimed at Khamis Mushait in the southwest; the Houthis said their target was King Khalid International Airport, Al Jazeera reported. The airport, closed since Saturday’s strike that killed 13, is expected to stay shut until this Saturday. Saudi authorities have opened an investigation into why the kingdom’s air defences failed; an initial inquiry found the Houthis sent drones first to clear a path for a mix of cruise and ballistic missiles that flew more than 1,000 km, two regional officials told the AP. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told an energy congress in Riyadh, “Our response must be equally serious,” and Qatar Airways suspended flights to Riyadh and Dammam, BBC News reported. Asked what he’d do, President Trump said, “The Houthis are misbehaving very badly. No good,” without signalling U.S. action; a Houthi official warned of a “swift and painful response” against U.S. interests if Washington joins in.

2. Kyiv / Ukraine and Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has hit six Ukrainian energy facilities since Trump announced the energy truce Sunday, injuring 33 people, and calls it proof Moscow is “unwilling to accept an energy ceasefire,” BBC News reported. Ukrenergo reported new power cuts in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine doesn’t deserve the “respite” a ceasefire would bring. The Kremlin’s only official word was Dmitry Peskov’s “Contacts are continuing,” while pro-Kremlin media called the truce “a one-way deal that benefits us,” BBC News reported. Trump said both sides agreed “because I said you agree.” Monday evening a Shahed drone hit a high-rise in Kyiv; Zelenskyy said two people were killed and nine hurt, after Mayor Vitali Klitschko had first reported one dead and 11 injured.

3. London / United Kingdom and Iran. Prime Minister Andy Burnham told MPs the suspected plot at RAF Fairford, the U.S.-used base in Gloucestershire, was “almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard,” and Britain sanctioned two Iranians: Ruhollah Bazghandi, head of IRGC counterespionage, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, described as a facilitator for the Zindashti criminal network, Al Jazeera reported. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned Iran’s ambassador, who said Tehran wasn’t involved and would cooperate. Seven men have been arrested and bailed over the September 27 incident and none has been charged; the UK and 28 other countries, including the U.S., issued a joint statement condemning Iranian “lethal plotting, arson, sabotage,” BBC News reported.

4. Warsaw / Poland and Germany. Two Turkish citizens have been detained in Germany over a fire last month at a Starlink station in Poland’s Masovia region, and Warsaw says they’ll face sabotage charges for acting on the orders of a foreign intelligence service, Al Jazeera reported. “We have no doubt that Russian services are behind this act of sabotage,” said Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak; Poland pays for Ukraine’s Starlink service. At the Warsaw Security Forum the same day, NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said any attack on an ally would prove “utterly futile” and NATO would hit “anything and everything” that supports an attacking force, per Al Jazeera.

5. Bangkok / Thailand, and Australia. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook, released at the Bangkok annual meetings, warns the global economy “could soon test the limits of resilience” as emergency oil stocks run low and budgets stretch thin, The Guardian reported. It nudged 2026 global growth up to 3.1% from 3.0%, left 2027 at 3.4%, and sees global inflation at 4.7% this year and 4.1% next. A downside scenario, with the war dragging through June 2027 and Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb largely shut, has oil at $130 a barrel; economists told Guardian Australia that could add about 30 cents a litre to Australian petrol.

6. Adwa / Ethiopia. Ethiopian federal troops and an allied militia entered the Tigray town of Adwa, about 40 km from the Eritrean border, on Sunday without a fight after TPLF fighters pulled out, residents said, Al Jazeera reported. It follows the capture of Adigrat and last week’s fall of Mekelle, where Ethiopian Airlines flights resumed Sunday for the first time since September 23. One resident told AFP government offices and Adwa Hospital were looted overnight. Eritrea, accused by Addis Ababa of backing the rebels, cut diplomatic ties last week.

7. Goma / DR Congo. Former President Joseph Kabila will lead a new political-military movement with the Rwanda-backed M23, which has held Goma since January 2025, the two sides announced at a joint news conference at his Goma residence, France 24 reported, citing AFP. Kabila, who ruled from 2001 to 2019, was sentenced to death in absentia a year ago for “complicity” with M23. The move lands as President Félix Tshisekedi’s camp floats constitutional changes ahead of the end of his final term in 2028.

8. Washington / United States. Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in the Washington area under a court-approved warrant as part of “an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the Justice Department said, BBC News reported. Omar called it political intimidation: “I will not be silenced.” Trump said he had “nothing to do” with it and called her “a terrible person.” Fox News reported the probe involves immigration paperwork her late father filed when she was a child. House Democratic leaders called the raid “deeply disturbing,” coming less than 30 days before the midterms, The Guardian reported.

9. Jalisco, Guerrero and Baja California / Mexico. Simon is down to 100 mph, a Category 2, about 80 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and 205 miles south of Mazatlán at 5 p.m. MST, creeping west-northwest at 3 mph and expected to turn northwest tonight, with flooding rains still hitting the coast, the National Hurricane Center said. At least two people are dead: a 71-year-old man killed by a collapsing wall near Chilpancingo, Guerrero, during Simon, and a young girl in Baja California from what was Hurricane Rachel, with 10 missing there, Al Jazeera reported. Forecasters say Simon could make landfall Thursday or Friday.

10. La Paz and Santa Cruz / Bolivia. Bolivia’s acting attorney general, José Armando Urioste, opened a preliminary investigation into former President Evo Morales and his vice president Álvaro García Linera over a 2009 police raid on a Santa Cruz hotel that killed three Europeans and left two others reporting torture, The Guardian reported. The alleged crimes include murder, torture and unlawful detention. Morales, who called the men “mercenaries” at the time, is already in hiding from two arrest warrants; neither he nor García Linera has commented.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: October 13, Pope Leo XIV checks into Rome’s Gemelli hospital for lung-nodule surgery, with audiences cancelled until October 20, Al Jazeera reported. 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 Riyadh’s King Khalid airport is expected to reopen. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: Al Jazeera; BBC News; AP; The Guardian; Guardian Australia; France 24; U.S. National Hurricane Center.

World Brief: October 12, 2026

Zelenskyy says it’s “increasingly clear” Moscow wants no part of Trump’s “energy ceasefire,” Riyadh’s main airport stays shut while the war on the ground in Yemen grinds on, and Iran says the oil shuttle out of Hormuz is now a target. Ten stories as of Monday morning, October 12.

1. Warsaw, Kyiv and Kharkiv / Ukraine and Russia. Speaking to the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had bombed six energy facilities that day, injuring 33 people, and that “it is becoming increasingly clear that Russia does not want to agree to the energy ceasefire proposed by the US,” The Guardian reported. “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond,” he said, adding of Trump’s announcement: “It’s clear that Putin does not read Truth Social.” Europe lined up behind Kyiv. “I have not noted, over the last 48 hours, any energy ceasefire coming from the Russian side,” France’s Emmanuel Macron said, per Al Jazeera, and the EU’s Kaja Kallas said the bloc welcomes the truce “when it holds.” In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office said Trump’s Russian diesel deal “will provide additional revenue for Russia and help finance its illegal, unjustifiable war,” The Globe and Mail reported, even as Carney thanked Trump for pushing the ceasefire.

2. Riyadh and Taiz / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Saudi Arabia extended the suspension of all flights at King Khalid International Airport on Monday while it verifies the airport’s safety, and its military said more missile and drone threats had been detected, The Guardian reported. Saturday’s toll is now 13 dead. Inside Yemen, Saudi jets carried out eight strikes around Taiz, the country’s third city, where as many as 60 fighters from both sides died on Sunday; the governor warned a medicine shortage means Taiz will soon run out of emergency surgical and intensive care. The UN Security Council is expected on Tuesday to debate a resolution calling the Houthis a terrorist organisation. Delta, meanwhile, pushed its new Atlanta–Riyadh nonstop back to March 2027, CNBC reported.

3. Strait of Hormuz / Iran and United Arab Emirates. Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei said Sunday night that the U.S.-assisted shuttle moving Gulf crude past Iran’s grip on Hormuz is now an explicit target, Al Jazeera reported. He claimed U.S. Central Command and the UAE military are using smaller vessels to carry oil out to bigger tankers, and that Iran has been hitting five or six of those vessels nightly for weeks. “You are smuggling, but the strait is under Iran’s control, and we manage it,” he said. Rezaei also threatened U.S.-linked cables, data centers and AI facilities in the UAE, and accused Saudi Arabia of helping move the oil, though he stopped short of threatening Riyadh directly.

4. Peshawar / Pakistan. A day after President Asif Ali Zardari imposed emergency rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government confirmed that suspended Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and some of his cabinet were taken into “preventive custody” at his house in Peshawar, minister Talal Chaudhry told Reuters, via The Guardian. Police told Dawn the assembly speaker was among eight Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders held, and hundreds of party politicians have been detained. Imran Khan’s party calls it a coup and says the emergency is meant to stop his supporters marching on Islamabad to demand his release. The government says the province failed to tackle Islamist militancy.

5. Berlin / Germany. Bärbel Bas resigned on Monday as Germany’s labor minister and as co-leader of the Social Democrats, citing the death of her stepdaughter and “open attacks” on her from inside Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition, DW reported. “I am currently unable to muster the strength to fully carry out my government and party duties,” she said. Alexander Schweitzer, the former SPD premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, takes over the labor ministry; a new party co-chair will be picked at a conference expected early next year. Merz’s conservatives had accused Bas of stalling pension and labor-law changes.

6. Aubagne and Paris / France. A 14-year-old pupil walked into Lakanal middle school in Aubagne, east of Marseille, with a shotgun in a guitar case on Monday morning and shot the head teacher and another teacher before a staff member restrained him, BBC News reported. Their injuries aren’t life-threatening, no children were hurt, and prosecutors opened an attempted-murder investigation. Separately, hackers took over refrigeration software at hundreds of Coopérative U and Intermarché supermarkets, heating some fridges and freezers to 50C overnight and spoiling food worth millions of euros; Paris prosecutors are investigating, BBC News reported. And a pre-dawn fire “totally destroyed” the Marché des Enfants Rouges, Paris’s oldest covered market, dating to 1615, The Guardian reported.

7. Washington, Brussels and Canberra / United States, European Union and Australia. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan: “I don’t see an elevated risk,” he said on Sunday, BBC News reported. Trump has signed off on the execution, but no final decision on the livestream has been made. The execution is scheduled for December 3. On Monday the European Commission warned platforms they must “enforce their own terms and conditions diligently” in Europe under the Digital Services Act, noting Meta bans livestreamed capital punishment, France 24 reported. In Australia, the Greens want eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to keep the video off Australian screens, The Guardian reported.

8. Jalisco and Islas Marías / Mexico. Hurricane Simon is crawling northwest just off Mexico’s Pacific coast. At 8 a.m. MST it had 110 mph winds and sat 55 miles west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes, moving at 3 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Mexico downgraded the mainland hurricane warnings to a watch and a tropical storm warning, but forecasters expect Simon to turn northeast and approach west-central Mexico again on Wednesday into Thursday, possibly re-strengthening first. A hurricane warning is up for the Islas Marías and a watch runs from north of Cabo Corrientes to Bahía Tempehuaya. Isolated storm totals of 30 inches of rain are possible in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, with “life-threatening flooding and mudslides.”

9. Asunción and Belmopan / Paraguay and Belize. China sanctioned Paraguay’s communications minister, Gustavo Villate, and Belize’s foreign minister, Francis Fonseca, over their countries’ ties with Taiwan, freezing any assets in China, barring them from Hong Kong and Macau, and banning Chinese dealings with them, Al Jazeera and the AP reported. Beijing accused the pair of “egregious actions and statements” damaging its core interests. Villate had marked Taiwan’s National Day on social media, and Taiwan’s foreign minister visited Belize last month. Paraguay and Belize are two of the 12 countries that still formally recognize Taiwan.

10. South Africa. Lt Gen Shadrack Sibiya, South Africa’s deputy national police commissioner, resigned on Monday, three weeks after he was charged with sexual offences, BBC News reported. His lawyer handed in the letter at his disciplinary hearing, and police said his exit counts as a dishonourable discharge. The charges involve allegations that he groomed a 16-year-old girl and raped an 18-year-old woman, plus a trafficking charge; Sibiya denies them all and has been in custody since his bail was denied. The Madlanga Commission, probing police corruption, has also heard he was given 20 impalas by an alleged crime boss in exchange for a police contract.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch and beyond: October 13, Pope Leo XIV goes into Rome’s Gemelli hospital for lung-nodule surgery, the Vatican says. 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 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: The Guardian; Al Jazeera; BBC News; DW; The Globe and Mail; CNBC; Dawn; France 24; AP; Vatican News; U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Americans Robert Hall and Michael Woodford Win the Nobel Economics Prize for Models Central Banks Use to Tame Economic Shocks: October 12, 2026

STOCKHOLM — U.S. economists Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University won the 2026 Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences on Monday for work on how monetary and fiscal policy can smooth out swings in the economy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced, Al Jazeera, CBC News and The Guardian reported.

“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” said John Hassler, chair of the prize committee. “With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.”

The academy credited the pair with “a paradigm shift in stabilisation policy.” When the oil shocks of the 1970s brought high inflation and high unemployment at the same time, the Keynesian models then in use stopped working. “This is the Keynesian recipe and it worked well — until it didn’t,” committee member Timo Boppart said, according to CBC News. Hall built models on forward-looking household behavior, and Woodford built on that work to create the New Keynesian model, now the main tool for policymakers, which was used after the 2008 financial crisis, The Guardian said.

Woodford spoke to the committee by phone from New York. “It’s a tremendous honour, it’s a surprise,” he said.

The prize, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established by Sweden’s central bank and first awarded in 1969. It is worth a combined $1.2 million and is the last of this year’s Nobel prizes. Last year’s winners were Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.

Sources: Al Jazeera, CBC News, The Guardian

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Federal Agents Search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington Home in a Criminal Investigation Three Weeks Before the Midterms: October 12, 2026

WASHINGTON — Federal agents searched the Washington home of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, The Associated Press reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The search was carried out by Homeland Security Investigations agents, the people said. The Justice Department said HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the department in the Washington, D.C., area but gave no other details. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the department said.

Fox News, citing unnamed sources, reported that agents were examining immigration paperwork that the congresswoman’s father filled out when she was a child, and posted video of what appeared to be officers in HSI jackets at the residence, according to The Guardian. Neither Omar’s office, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security nor the White House immediately responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

President Donald Trump and his allies have accused Omar of obtaining citizenship fraudulently, and Trump has openly talked about denaturalizing her. Omar has consistently denied the accusations.

Omar, 44, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, which includes Minneapolis. First elected in 2018, she and Rep. Rashida Tlaib became the first Muslim women in Congress. The search comes three weeks before the midterm elections and is likely to bring new accusations that Trump is using the government for political ends, The Guardian said.

Sources: The Associated Press, The Guardian

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World Brief, Evening: October 11, 2026

Riyadh’s main airport was hit again a day after the deadliest strike on Saudi soil in years; President Trump’s “energy ceasefire” for Ukraine had no word from Moscow and no letup in Russian drones; and Hurricane Simon, now a Category 3, is grinding up Mexico’s Pacific coast. Ten stories as of Sunday evening, October 11.

1. Riyadh and Dammam / Saudi Arabia. A projectile hit King Khalid International Airport again on Sunday afternoon, setting fire to Passenger Hall No. 4, killing one person, a Pakistani resident, and injuring 11, Saudi officials said, BBC News reported. Air defences intercepted a cruise missile near the airport. Saturday’s toll rose to 13 after the Indian embassy said an Indian man had died of his injuries. Later Sunday, Saudi authorities confirmed King Fahd International Airport in Dammam had also been attacked, The Guardian reported. The Houthis claimed “four qualitative operations” in 24 hours with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, including two Saudi Aramco facilities, DW reported, and warned that every Saudi airport except those in Mecca and Medina is a potential target. President Trump said the U.S. would “make a decision” on striking the Houthis and “move very quickly,” and the FAA told U.S. airlines to exercise caution on Saudi flights, Reuters reported. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV says Saudi jets struck Sanaa’s airport; Saudi Arabia hasn’t confirmed that.

2. Kyiv, Kharkiv and Washington / Ukraine, Russia and United States. Hours after President Trump posted that an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” was “effective immediately,” the Kremlin still hadn’t said a word, BBC News reported. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “ready not to strike at Russian energy” if Russia does the same, then said a Russian drone hit a power plant in Kyiv, causing outages, followed by strikes on energy sites in the Kharkiv region. “All of this happened after the president of the United States made his statement,” he said. Russian attacks killed six people in two Ukrainian cities, Reuters reported. Zelenskyy also told ABC News he would organise elections if Vladimir Putin agreed to a “total” 60-day ceasefire, and the Financial Times reported that Washington is threatening the weapons-procurement system that supplies Kyiv to make it stop deep strikes on Russian refineries, per The Guardian. At home, a bipartisan group of senators including Republicans Thom Tillis, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski wrote that “the Administration must immediately reverse course” on the Russian diesel deal, Al Jazeera reported.

3. Tehran / Iran and the Gulf. Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, said Washington has accepted some of Tehran’s seven conditions for a deal to end the war but called the U.S. reply “inadequate,” Al Jazeera reported; Reuters described it as Iran calling the U.S. response to its proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “insufficient.” Separately, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi phoned Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan and offered to help start talks between Riyadh and Yemen’s Houthis, saying the region’s crises have no military solution, according to Al Jazeera, citing the Saudi state news agency.

4. River Nile state / Sudan–Egypt border. Air strikes on Saturday killed at least 72 artisanal gold miners at a remote mining area near the border with Egypt, the Khartoum-based rights group Emergency Lawyers said, BBC News reported. The group accused Egypt’s air force and said the attacks “may constitute war crimes”; neither Cairo nor Sudan’s de facto authorities have commented. The site lies south of the disputed Halayeb triangle, and one survivor told AFP thousands of people were working there when it was hit, DW reported. The toll is provisional; the Associated Press put it at at least 13, and the Sudan Doctors Network expects it to rise.

5. Jalisco and Colima / Mexico. Simon weakened a notch to a Category 3 with 125 mph winds but is still a major hurricane, its center about 50 miles south of Cabo Corrientes and 110 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo at 6 p.m. CST, crawling northwest at 5 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s expected to hug the coast tonight, edge offshore Monday and turn back toward Mexico on Wednesday; isolated storm totals of 30 inches of rain are possible in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, with life-threatening flooding and mudslides. President Claudia Sheinbaum urged coastal residents of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacán to stay sheltered, and 28 municipalities are under the highest cyclone alert, Al Jazeera reported.

6. London / United Kingdom. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it is “clear” Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the first time a British prime minister has said so, BBC News reported. He told The Rest Is Politics podcast that he asked about it on arriving in Downing Street and “I’ve had the clear answer that, yes, there was,” though he gave no details. He warned that similar disinformation is aimed at Germany and France. Pro-Brexit group Britain Unbound called it a “crude attempt to undermine the legitimacy” of the vote. Russia has long denied meddling in Western elections, Al Jazeera noted.

7. Pyongyang / North Korea and South Korea. North Korea fired several ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward the sea off its east coast at about 9:20 a.m. Monday local time (5:20 p.m. Sunday Pacific), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, and Japan’s defence ministry confirmed at least one, France 24 reported. Tension has been building since September 21, when landmines wounded three South Korean soldiers in the DMZ; a joint Seoul–UN investigation concluded the North planted them, which Pyongyang denies.

8. Lower Silesia / Poland. Police arrested a Polish man suspected of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, BBC News reported, updating this morning’s report of a possible plot. “The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Tusk wrote, thanking police for “swift and decisive action.” The plan surfaced in an email forwarded to police by the State Protection Service, and officials said there was “a strong likelihood that these threats could actually be carried out,” per The Guardian.

9. São Paulo / Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led a huge red-clad rally on Paulista Avenue, pushing a bill to give workers two paid days off a week instead of one and cut the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours, RFI reported, citing AFP. The Senate is due to vote on it Wednesday. Flávio Bolsonaro, favoured in polls for the October 25 runoff, called the proposal “opportunistic.”

10. Vanikoro / Solomon Islands. All 73 passengers and crew of the drifting ferry MV Awka are safe on land. The police patrol boat Gizo reached the ferry about 11 p.m. Sunday local time and towed it, and the MV Helper 1 took everyone ashore at Vanikoro early Monday, the Temotu provincial government said, RNZ reported. “We are relieved,” Temotu Premier Stanley Tehi said.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12, the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18, 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 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: BBC News; The Guardian; DW; Al Jazeera; Reuters; Financial Times; France 24/AFP; RFI/AFP; RNZ; U.S. National Hurricane Center.

World Brief: October 11, 2026

Donald Trump announced a Russia–Ukraine “energy ceasefire” that Kyiv says it learned about from the announcement; Riyadh’s airport was hit again a day after the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in a decade; and the shipping war around Hormuz is heating back up. Ten stories as of Sunday morning, October 11.

1. Kyiv, Moscow and Washington / Ukraine, Russia and United States. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “Both parties have agreed. … Do not break it!” There was no immediate confirmation from Moscow, DW reported, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Axios: “The ceasefire announcement was news for me. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree.” Trump made a similar claim in September that turned out to be untrue, The Guardian noted. Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian drones damaged a Yandex data center in Vladimir, east of Moscow, the third strike on “Russia’s Google” this week; the company said operations there were “completely suspended,” BBC News reported. The backdrop is the week’s row over Trump’s Russian diesel deal and his call on Saturday for Ukraine to “get a new president.”

2. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition said an “unidentified projectile” struck Terminal 4 at King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, causing a fire, and that air defences intercepted a cruise missile nearby, AFP reported via The Guardian. The airport was already closed after Saturday’s strike killed 12 people, including an American, and injured 309, BBC News reported. Saudi authorities extended the closure and moved Riyadh’s schools online until Thursday, while the Houthis warned airlines, passengers and airport staff to stay away from Saudi airports and said “the worst is yet to come,” The Guardian reported. They exempted Mecca and Medina. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said Saudi Arabia struck Sanaa’s airport on Sunday afternoon, DW reported. On whether the U.S. joins in, Trump said: “We’re gonna look at it.”

3. Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz / Iran and United States. U.S. Central Command released footage of a fighter jet bombing the stern of a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman and knocking out its propulsion. CENTCOM said the crew ignored repeated warnings and tried to run the naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports. Since the blockade was reimposed in mid-July, it says, U.S. forces have disabled four commercial vessels, turned back 135 ships and destroyed 10 Iran-linked tankers, Al Jazeera reported. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said an unnamed supertanker hit a naval mine and caught fire while using an “unauthorised route,” and it warned other tankers of the same fate. UKMTO reported a projectile hitting an outbound tanker on Sunday, and the UAE coastguard rescued 22 crew from a burning tanker. Kpler data cited by CNBC put crude flows through the strait about 40% below normal last week.

4. Obock / Djibouti. At least 139 migrants died and 84 are still missing after a boat headed for Yemen capsized off Djibouti’s coast late Thursday, the UN’s International Organization for Migration said on Sunday, DW reported. That’s up from an earlier count of 109 dead, including 15 children. Reports put the number on board at 305 to 350. About 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian, and Djiboutian search operations are continuing, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported. “This is a devastating loss of life,” said Alexandre Coissac, the IOM’s Djibouti chief. The agency has counted more than 20,000 crossings from Ethiopia into Djibouti since September 10, despite the war in Yemen. More than 900 people died or went missing on the route last year.

5. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa / Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari put the north-western province under emergency rule on Sunday, effectively suspending its government, which is run by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI party, DW reported. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office cited the “provincial government’s deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism.” Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the governor will take charge with an advisory council, initially for six months. A PTI lawmaker said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and the party’s provincial president were arrested, which officials haven’t confirmed, Al Jazeera reported. It comes a week into a PTI march on Islamabad demanding Khan’s release.

6. Warsaw / Poland. Police received information about a possible plot to attack Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, and security chiefs held an emergency meeting on Sunday. “We take this matter extremely seriously,” said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the minister overseeing the intelligence services, adding that officials saw a high probability the threats would have been carried out, The Guardian reported. Radio Zet reported that the tip came to police by email, according to Al Jazeera. Poland was already on edge after three school attacks in Mazovia province in four days, and Tusk has warned of Russian hybrid attacks on NATO’s eastern flank.

7. Vatican City / Holy See. “The doctors found an early, well-localised nodule on my lung,” Pope Leo XIV told pilgrims in St Peter’s Square at Sunday’s Angelus, saying he had agreed to surgery. The Vatican press office said the operation is set for early this coming week at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, and that the 71-year-old should need about a week to recover, BBC News reported. The pope didn’t say whether the nodule is malignant, but he said it was caught “at an early stage,” The Guardian reported.

8. Colima, Jalisco and Michoacán / Mexico. The core of “extremely dangerous” Hurricane Simon was near the coast of west-central Mexico at 9 a.m. CST: a Category 4 with 145 mph winds, 65 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo, moving north-northwest at 7 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s expected to be very near the coast later today and to stay close on Monday. A hurricane warning runs from Punta San Telmo to El Roblito and the Islas Marías. Forecasters expect another 8 to 16 inches of rain, with isolated totals of up to 30 inches in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, and warn of “life-threatening flooding and mudslides.” Farther north, the remnants of Rachel are bringing heavy rain to parts of the south-western U.S., and the NHC has issued its last advisory on that storm.

9. Brasília / Brazil. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court gave Meta 48 hours to say whether it cut the reach of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign posts, and to “report, profile by profile, all the measures applied” to his official accounts, AFP reported. Lula’s campaign says Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company is trying “to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process to the benefit of Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy.” Meta’s Brazil office called the claims “simply false” and said many of the technical issues weren’t limited to Brazil or to specific accounts. Lula faces Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, in the October 25 runoff. Bolsonaro finished first in last Sunday’s first round.

10. Nikumaroro / Kiribati. A team from the U.S.-based Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University is due by Monday at Nikumaroro, a remote atoll in Kiribati, to inspect what it thinks could be Amelia Earhart’s plane, BBC News reported. The target is the “Taraia Object,” spotted on the edge of a lagoon in 2020 satellite imagery and since found in aerial photos dating back to 1938. The team is aboard a Kiribati National Shipping Line vessel for the 830-mile trip from the capital. “Finding Amelia Earhart’s Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime,” said expedition lead Richard Pettigrew. Earhart vanished in 1937 while trying to fly around the world.

Coming Up

Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12, the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18, 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 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.

Sources: BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; AFP; U.S. Central Command; U.S. National Hurricane Center.