Journal Of Occurrences

World News

Daily Occurrences both Foreign and Domestic
You are here: Home / Archives for United States

United States

Ukraine Knocks Out a Third Yandex Data Center in a Week Despite Trump’s Warning, as Zelensky Offers a Reciprocal Halt to Energy Strikes: October 11, 2026

KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian drone strike forced Russian tech giant Yandex to shut down a data center in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, on Sunday, the third attack on the company’s facilities this week, hours after President Donald Trump said Ukraine should “damn well stop” hitting Russian oil refineries, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported.

“Operations at the data centre have been completely suspended,” Yandex said in a service alert on Telegram, warning that “the remaining resource configuration is considered unstable” and advising users to activate disaster-recovery plans. No one was injured, but several of its services were unavailable, the company said. Ukrainian strikes shut down Yandex’s hub in Sasovo, southeast of Moscow, on Thursday — where two of the three supercomputers used to develop its AI model are housed — and partly knocked out its center in the Kaluga region on Friday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said later on Sunday that “Ukraine will be ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia stops striking our energy infrastructure,” adding that “any de-escalation steps must be reciprocal and backed by real guarantees,” the BBC reported. Trump said Saturday it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president” after Zelensky condemned a U.S.-Russian deal to release Russian diesel onto world markets.

Kyiv says it is targeting businesses that feed Moscow’s war revenues. “We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Zelensky said after the Sasovo strike, adding: “You all know, they have been hitting and continue to hit our data centres. We are responding,” according to Al Jazeera. Russia has struck several Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications sites over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv.

Russian attacks continued through the weekend. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said six people were injured overnight in four districts of the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, and Zelensky said search and rescue work in Zaporizhzhia ended Sunday morning with the death toll from Saturday’s glide-bomb strikes at 23, including four children.

Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera

—

Trump Strikes Deal With Putin to Release Russian Diesel, Drawing Zelensky’s Fury as Ukraine Talks Continue in Miami: October 10, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to release Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets, a sharp reversal of years of Western pressure on Moscow that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned as a gift to the Kremlin, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

In a Truth Social post after a call with Putin, Trump said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, 1 million tons after that and a further 3 million tons “within a short period,” depending on the condition of Russian refineries that Ukraine has attacked. “Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” he wrote. The U.S. Treasury issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel onto world markets through April 2027, DW reported.

The Kremlin said Putin had confirmed Russia’s “willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US market and global markets at large,” and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said additional volumes could begin flowing in October. Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev said “Russia-US co-operation on diesel and energy will benefit the world.”

Zelensky called the deal “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged” and said Russia would repay it with “further terror and perfidy.” He told Axios it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin,” according to The Guardian. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and two other Democratic senators said “this is what failure looks like,” and Republican Rep. Don Bacon wrote that “propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong.” Britain said it would maintain “the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UK.”

Trump has spent months grappling with soaring fuel prices driven by the war with Iran, which began in February; the average U.S. diesel price is $6.28 a gallon, down from a record $6.53 at the end of September, according to AAA figures cited by the BBC. Analysts questioned the impact: the first tranche equals about 2.25 million barrels, against U.S. consumption of around 3.8 million barrels a day, Tim Armitage of Quilter Cheviot told the BBC. The announcement came as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Ukrainian and European officials in Miami for talks on ending the war, which Witkoff described as “constructive,” DW said.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, DW, NPR

—

Isaias Slams the Florida Panhandle as a Category 2 Hurricane, Knocking Out Power to Hundreds of Thousands Before Weakening Over Alabama: October 10, 2026

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin on the western Florida Panhandle on Friday night with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph, then weakened to a post-tropical cyclone over southern Alabama early Saturday, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power across the Southeast, the National Hurricane Center and news reports said.

At 4 a.m. CDT Saturday, the center of Isaias was about 25 miles south-southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, moving north at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds near 35 mph, the hurricane center said in its 15th advisory. All storm surge and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued, and Isaias is forecast to move across Alabama into the Tennessee Valley and dissipate on Sunday.

Forecasters warned that the flood threat was not over. The center expects 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend, and southwest Georgia through the weekend, with local totals up to 15 inches, and said considerable flash flooding and landslides are possible in the Southern Appalachians. A tornado risk persisted Saturday across parts of the eastern Florida Panhandle, Georgia and the Carolinas.

More than 400,000 customers were without power in Florida, just over 300,000 in Alabama and more than 100,000 in Georgia on Saturday morning, according to PowerOutage.us figures cited by BBC News. Roads flooded in Destin, police in Pensacola warned residents to stay off debris-strewn streets, and Florida’s National Guard deployed about 5,000 soldiers and airmen, Al Jazeera reported. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state had received no requests for search and rescue, calling that “cautiously, a good sign,” and said no fatalities had been reported so far, according to The Guardian.

Isaias peaked as a Category 3 storm before landfall. It is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season and, according to the BBC, the first time in more than 30 years that no hurricane formed before October. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said emergency declarations had been approved for Florida and Alabama. On the Pacific side, Hurricane Simon strengthened into a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds as it headed for Mexico’s coast, and Tropical Storm Rachel brought high tides and street flooding to Southern California, Al Jazeera and the BBC reported.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, BBC News, Al Jazeera, The Guardian

—

U.S. Prosecutors Add Torture Charges Against Venezuela’s Ousted Leader Nicolás Maduro and His Wife: October 9, 2026

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with conspiracy to commit torture, in a superseding indictment unsealed Thursday that accuses them of presiding over a system of repression that targeted opponents and U.S. citizens, BBC News and the Associated Press reported.

The indictment alleges torture including “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture,” the BBC said. According to the AP, it claims Maduro signed off on torture methods, received updates on specific victims, watched a video of a forced confession and personally threatened to kill a prisoner’s child. Three of the victims described are U.S. citizens. Flores, prosecutors allege, helped build the system and ordered that some people be tortured to protect family members’ illegal activities.

The indictment “alleges conduct that is truly unthinkable,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said outside the courthouse. “This is the epitome of corruption,” he said, according to NPR. Maduro’s attorney, Barry Pollack, said his client denies the charges and looks forward to his day in court. Prosecutors also added Flores to an existing narco-terrorism charge, and U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Thursday denied her request to be released to house arrest.

Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have been held in a Brooklyn detention center since U.S. forces seized them in a raid on Caracas in January. They have pleaded not guilty to the earlier drug-trafficking and weapons charges, and their trial is set to begin in June 2027, the BBC said. Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, now leads Venezuela as interim president; the prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal says more than 300 political prisoners remain behind bars.

Sources: BBC News, Associated Press (via NPR), The Guardian

—

Pentagon Says the Firing-Squad Execution of Fort Hood Gunman Nidal Hasan Will Be Livestreamed: October 9, 2026

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s planned firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, will be livestreamed, a Defense Department official said, in what would be the first public execution in the United States in almost a century, BBC News reported.

The execution is scheduled for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, Texas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Hasan would get “a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” DW reported. “People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” he said. Hegseth also said that holding the execution at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m. — the approximate time, day of the week and place of the shooting — was a “no brainer,” RNZ reported. The Pentagon official gave no further details.

It would be the first execution carried out by the U.S. military since 1961 and the first by firing squad since World War II. A Pentagon spokesperson said this week that President Donald Trump had approved Hegseth’s recommendation. Hasan, who also wounded 32 people, was sentenced to death by a military court in 2013; at his trial he said he had acted to protect Taliban members in Afghanistan from U.S. troops.

The U.N. human rights office told AFP that livestreaming would be “tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture.” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called the plan “disgusting,” and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said public executions were what “oppressive dictators” did. John Mills, a lawyer who works with death-row inmates, said Hasan’s appeals were not exhausted and that he would be surprised if the execution went ahead. Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army sergeant shot seven times in the attack, told the BBC that he supports the firing squad but that the livestream is “not something you should view for entertainment purposes.”

Sources: BBC News, DW, RNZ

—

Isaias Strengthens Into a Major Category 3 Hurricane as It Bears Down on the Northern Gulf Coast: October 9, 2026

MIAMI — Hurricane Isaias strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane early Friday as it closed in on the northern Gulf Coast, where it is expected to make landfall between Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle on Friday night or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft showed maximum sustained winds had climbed to 120 mph, with a minimum central pressure of 959 millibars, the center said in a 7:20 a.m. CDT update. Isaias was about 240 miles south of Pensacola, Florida, and 170 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, moving north-northeast at 15 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds up to 185 miles.

A hurricane warning remains in effect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, and a storm surge warning runs from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River. The center warned of 6 to 9 feet of surge from the Alabama-Florida border to Grayton Beach, Florida, and 4 to 8 inches of rain across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend and southwest Georgia, with local totals up to 15 inches. Forecasters expect increasing wind shear to cause some weakening before landfall, with a high-end Category 2 storm their best forecast, but their forecast discussion cautioned that “it would only take about a 6h delay in the onset of the shear to bring a stronger hurricane than expected onshore.”

Governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama have declared states of emergency, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s declaration covers 25 counties, BBC News reported. About 63 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico — nearly 1.3 million barrels a day — had been temporarily shut in as platforms were evacuated, DW reported. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said its incident management teams were deploying to Alabama and Florida and that it was prepositioning supplies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, The Guardian reported, as experts warned the storm could be the agency’s biggest test since the Trump administration’s staffing cuts.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, BBC Weather, DW, The Guardian

—

U.S. Accuses Prominent Fiji Businessman Zhao Fugang of Bribery to Advance China’s Interests: October 8, 2026

SUVA, Fiji — The United States on Wednesday designated Zhao Fugang, a prominent businessman in Fiji, for “significant corruption” on behalf of Chinese government, business and criminal interests, barring him and his immediate family from entering the U.S., RNZ Pacific and AFP reported.

“Zhao abused his public position by paying bribes to Fijian citizens to advance China-based government, business, and criminal interests,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, according to AFP. “His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected US interests in Fiji.” Zhao is director of the Overseas Chinese Service Center in Suva and owns the Yue Lai Hotel, where the center is located.

Zhao denied the allegations. “They are unsubstantiated,” he said in a statement from his lawyers, according to AFP. “I have not been questioned by any Fijian authority about these matters, and no charge has been laid against me.” He said he had written to U.S. officials asking for details of the allegations. The U.S. Embassy in Suva said his actions had left Fiji open to “malign foreign influence” by Chinese government, business and criminal actors.

A 2024 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project alleged that Zhao was a key point man for Beijing’s interests in Fiji and that Australian law enforcement suspected him of being a top player in a syndicate linked to human trafficking, money laundering and drug smuggling, AFP said. His lawyer called those claims “false and misleading.” China’s embassy in Suva did not respond to AFP. The U.S. also issued corruption designations this year against Palauan politicians Hokkons Baules and Anderson Jibas, RNZ reported.

Sources: RNZ Pacific, AFP

—

Isaias Becomes the Atlantic Season’s First Hurricane as Warnings Go Up From Mississippi to Florida: October 8, 2026

MIAMI — Isaias strengthened into the first hurricane of the Atlantic season late Wednesday and kept intensifying over the Gulf on Thursday, with a hurricane warning now in effect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in the Florida Panhandle, the National Hurricane Center said.

Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft found that Isaias had become a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph at 10:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday, the center said. By 7 a.m. CDT Thursday, its winds had reached 80 mph, and it was centered about 175 miles north-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and 385 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River, moving east-northeast at 9 mph. Forecasters expect additional strengthening through early Friday and landfall within the warning area late Friday or early Saturday.

A storm surge warning covers the coast from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Steinhatchee River in Florida. The hurricane center warned of 5 to 7 feet of surge from Ocean Springs to Indian Pass, Florida, including Mobile Bay, and urged residents to follow evacuation orders. “Residents in these areas should prepare for the possibility of long-duration power outages,” its forecast discussion said, adding that Isaias was forecast to come close to major-hurricane strength within 24 hours. Rainfall of 3 to 7 inches, locally up to 10, is expected from far southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, along with isolated tornadoes.

Coastal communities were stocking up on supplies, boarding up windows and gathering sandbags, NPR reported. The storm also pushed up oil prices: Shell and Chevron said they were shutting down production in the Gulf of Mexico as Isaias approached, The Guardian reported, and Brent crude rose 5 percent to $105.30 a barrel on Thursday.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, NPR, The Guardian

—

U.S. Official Says Iran-Linked Plot Aimed to Kill American Troops at England’s RAF Fairford: October 7, 2026

LONDON — A U.S.-run air base in western England faced Iranian-related threats, and the Trump administration believed the aim was to kill as many American troops and destroy as many U.S. planes as possible, a U.S. official told the Associated Press, after the Pentagon pulled all of its bombers from the base.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not describe the nature of the potential attack. RAF Fairford, about 100 miles west of London, has been used by American B-1 and B-52 bombers to strike Iran during this year’s war. The U.S. moved its B-1s out on Sunday, and the Pentagon said all American bombers there had returned to their home bases in the United States.

“We had a threat, and if we’re going to be threatened, we would just move them, and that sort of alleviates that,” President Donald Trump told reporters Monday, saying those behind the threat “would be linked to Iran.” British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said there were “strong indications” Iran played a part in a Sept. 27 incident near the base, when police were alerted to three “suspicious vehicles,” BBC News reported. Tehran has strongly denied involvement.

On Tuesday, Counter Terrorism Policing arrested a 22-year-old British man in the Westminster area of London on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts, AP reported. It is the seventh arrest in the suspected plot; six other men have been released on bail. Whitehall officials told the BBC that “there is an ongoing high tempo of threat from Iran to the UK.”

Sources: Associated Press, BBC News

—

U.S. Man Charged With Helping Plan Canada’s Tumbler Ridge School Shooting: October 7, 2026

SEATTLE — A 30-year-old Washington state resident has been arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country over February’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

Federal prosecutors allege James Bryant was in daily contact with the 18-year-old shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, on the Discord app for six months before the attack, offering “technical advice,” sending money and agreeing to livestream the killings. Bryant had the “information and ability to alert law enforcement, and even discussed that possibility with the suspect, but chose not to,” acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd told a joint news conference with Canadian police.

Eight people were killed in the February attack: five children and an educator at the school, along with the shooter’s mother and 11-year-old stepbrother, making it one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history. Van Rootselaar died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities said that after the killings at the family home, the shooter could not start the car and Bryant gave advice on turning on the engine, allowing the shooter to reach the school.

“Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don’t ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime,” said W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle office. The stream was online for only about 20 seconds and was viewed by one account, according to court documents cited by the BBC. Investigators said Bryant at times tried to talk the shooter out of the attack but told Van Rootselaar he would not “snitch” to police.

Bryant faces up to life in prison if convicted. Authorities said there is no indication the two ever met in person. The case had already drawn scrutiny because the shooter used ChatGPT before the attack; British Columbia and some victims’ families have sued OpenAI for failing to alert police.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

—