Isaias is holding at 120 mph sustained winds and sits roughly 90 miles south of Pensacola, moving north at 17 mph, with landfall expected tonight between Dauphin Island, Alabama, and Destin, Florida. Forecasters warn of 6 to 9 feet of storm surge along the northwest Florida coast and rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches, with isolated bands up to 15 inches. More than 30 million people across five Gulf and Southeast states are in the impact zone.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he negotiated for two hours with President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to win the release of Oscar Belgal, the 28-year-old Dominican national shot in the neck by a plainclothes ICE officer in Marble Hill on Thursday. The negotiation failed, and ICE moved Belgal into an unmarked vehicle. DHS describes him as a criminal alien gang member with prior robbery and controlled-substance arrests; protests in the Bronx led to multiple arrests after demonstrators blocked federal vehicles and smashed car windows.
Republican senators are joining Democrats in objecting to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream the December 3 firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Hegseth calls the broadcast a "no-brainer" that sends a message about the price of terrorism and military treason; Vice President Vance says he won't watch it. It would be the first US military firing-squad execution since 1945, and the Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the plan Friday.
The Dow closed up 423 points, or 0.8 percent, to 51,654.95 and the S&P 500 added 0.6 percent to 7,811.54, finishing a record-setting week just shy of Wednesday's all-time high. Precious metals rallied alongside equities, with spot gold rebounding to roughly $4,183 an ounce and silver pushing more than 2 percent above $60 after a strongly bid 30-year Treasury auction cooled long-end yields and stalled the dollar.
In White House remarks, the president said the US has stopped Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, predicted gas prices will fall, and declared the months-long conflict will end soon by diplomacy or by force. Behind the scenes, the Pentagon has drawn up options for a renewed campaign centered on a short, intense three-day push against Iran's drone, missile, and energy infrastructure, though Trump has said no attack will come before the midterms. He also announced Russia will immediately release more than 300,000 tons of diesel to global markets, with another 500,000 tons in November.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Peace Prize to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, 85, for what it called her work building "a more comprehensive global legal order." Pillay served on South Africa's High Court, the Rwanda tribunal, and the International Criminal Court, and was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Speaking from the historic Nuremberg courtroom, she dedicated the award to "all of the survivors of international crimes."
The UAE attorney general said Friday that Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami intended to crash Flight 1073 into Israel's main airport terminal, in a plot he told investigators was inspired by September 11. Al-Hammami attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe, sending the jet carrying 174 people plunging 16,000 feet in 30 seconds before the injured captain opened the cockpit door and passengers and two deadheading pilots subdued him. Prosecutors say he scouted Tel Aviv at least twice beforehand and that his radicalization began in 2017; he claims he acted alone.
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm watch for today as a coronal mass ejection from a powerful solar eruption reaches Earth. Skywatchers across the northern tier of the United States have a shot at auroras tonight if clouds cooperate. G2 storms can also cause minor power-grid fluctuations and degrade high-frequency radio at higher latitudes.
Caltech researchers have fabricated ultra-low-loss optical waveguides on silicon chips that approach the efficiency of long-haul fiber and dramatically outperform existing on-chip technology at visible wavelengths. Separately, scientists reported evidence of altermagnetism in a thin, highly tunable material, a step toward electronics that use electron spin rather than charge alone. Both point toward faster, cooler, less power-hungry computing hardware.
The carrier and roughly 6,000 sailors pulled into San Diego Bay this week after a near-year deployment for the Iran war, setting a record for consecutive days at sea and landing within five days of the post-Cold War deployment-length record. The Navy told lawmakers eight sailors attempted suicide during the run, and families described supply shortages and sleepless nights. Hegseth pushed back hard on efforts to turn the Lincoln into "a symbol of dysfunction," while sailors walking down the gangway said simply, "There was a certain point when I never thought I would come off."
