The prospect of a potentially record-breaking hurricane has triggered panic buying across parts of the United States.

Hurricane watches were issued on Wednesday for areas of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Forecasters said Tropical Storm Isaias was expected to reach the US coast on Friday as a Category 2 hurricane.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said hurricane warnings were also in effect for offshore waters along the US Gulf Coast. Forecasts called for winds of up to 104mph and waves reaching 36 feet on Friday.

Isaias was expected to move toward the northern Gulf Coast on Friday, with landfall possible that evening or early Saturday. The storm could strike between Biloxi, Mississippi, and Panama City, Florida, placing millions of Americans at risk.

Concern over a potentially devastating hurricane has emptied shelves in towns and cities along the Gulf Coast, as residents stock up on essentials including toilet paper, bottled water and canned food.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed lengthy queues at gas stations and supermarket shelves stripped of supplies.

Mike Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC), said on Wednesday that the northern Gulf Coast could face “multiple dangerous, life-threatening impacts” on Friday.

Isaias was expected to become the first hurricane of the 2026 season, making it the latest first Atlantic hurricane to develop in more than a century.

The NHC said Isaias was moving east-northeastward off the coast of Mexico.

Hurricane specialists at the center said Isaias could produce winds exceeding 100 mph by Friday as it nears the US coastline.

The storm was forecast to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane by 8pm ET Thursday, then reach Category 2 status before coming ashore near the Mississippi-Alabama border at around 11pm ET Friday.

Brennan said the greatest threat from storm surge was expected to extend from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to Indian Pass.

“This is where we could see 5 to 7 feet of inundation above ground level somewhere in this area, likely near and to the right of where Isaias crosses the coast,” Brennan said.

The NWS urged people in the storm’s projected path to “act now” and finish preparing, a warning that many residents appeared to be following.

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Florida resident Stephen Page wrote on Facebook: “Stores are already run over, and shelves are empty at many places.

“Lines at gas stations are long, and people are in full prep mode. So again, I say, if you haven’t started, now is the time!”

Another Floridian, Stephanie Michelle, said she experienced panic buying at the grocery store. 

‘The store was full, the parking lot was full, shelves were empty, and the carts were all full! People were everywhere, and traffic was a nightmare,’ she added.

Andrienne Olivia from Florida posted: ‘The panic buying starts now.’ 

Storm surge could reach four to seven feet above ground in vulnerable coastal areas of southern Jackson County, Mississippi, and Florida’s Walton, Bay and Gulf counties. Southern Harrison County, including Gulfport and Biloxi, could see three to five feet.

The surge forecasts identify Friday morning through Saturday morning as the main period of concern.

A few tornadoes are also possible in the Mississippi coastal areas covered by the alerts. 

The Atlantic has yet to produce a hurricane in 2026, putting the season within reach of a record set in 1905 for the latest first hurricane.

If forecast models are correct and Isaias develops into a hurricane, it would be deemed a record-breaking storm.

Meteorologist Matt Devitt said on X: ‘Isaias will likely be one of the most significant storms of the 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season with a landfall in the US.’

A California woman who endured severe burns across more than 30% of her body after allegedly being set on fire at a homeless encampment has died. Her grieving family is now seeking answers as the people they believe were responsible remain at large.

Frances Lopez, 33, of Oildale in Kern County, spent months hospitalized with second- and third-degree burns. She said she was doused with gasoline and ignited at a homeless encampment on July 11.

After undergoing several surgeries, Lopez returned to her home near Bakersfield in September and began what was expected to be a long and difficult recovery.

On Oct. 2, however, her family’s hopes for her recovery were shattered.

According to relatives, Lopez’s husband, Steven, briefly stepped away from the house. When he came back, he found her unresponsive. The family called 911, but she could not be saved.

Lopez leaves behind two children. Her loved ones are now mourning her death while pressing authorities for answers about why no arrests have been made in connection with the alleged attack.

“She’s my everything… she was… still my everything. Now I’m just… lost without her,” Steven told KBAK 23.

Lopez’s grandparents, Michael and Claudia Gezzer, said her death has left the family devastated. They are appealing to the public for information that could help identify those responsible.

“Please, please, please help us to find them. They killed her,” Claudia said.

Lopez had previously described the July fire, saying she was inside a friend’s tent when three people arrived and began confronting them over money.

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“And then the guy goes out again and grabs a gas can and is like, ‘f–k it, let’s just light them on fire then,’ and threw the gasoline on us,” Lopez said in an earlier interview with ABC News.

“When I tried to leave, he pushed me back, and I fell on my friend’s bed. And that’s when the girl lit the flame… and we went up in flames.”

Lopez said she escaped by using the “stop, drop, and roll” method before running to a nearby trailer park to seek help.

“I was so cold, but I was hot. I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” she previously recalled.

She was flown to a specialized burn center in Fresno. During transport and her initial treatment, doctors reportedly had to resuscitate her twice.

The flames caused extensive injuries to her back, legs, arms and face.

Because Bakersfield has no dedicated burn unit, Lopez and her family made frequent 107-mile trips to Fresno for ongoing medical care.

“It’s up to my family to do my care, and it’s a lot of stuff, like really a lot,” Lopez said previously.

The Kern County Sheriff’s Office has not announced Lopez’s cause of death. Her family said they were informed that a complete autopsy could take several weeks.

It remains unclear whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the July attack.

The California Post reached out to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office for comment.

Glenn Corn, a former CIA officer, told News Media that Russia’s long record of deception makes the Kremlin’s explanation difficult to accept as authorities investigate a possible disease outbreak after a 28-year-old researcher died at a facility holding dangerous pathogens.

Darya Shipilova worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. She fell ill toward the end of September.

Unverified claims that Shipilova had died from pneumonic plague spread rapidly across social media. Russian officials rejected those reports, saying she died on Oct. 2 from “pneumonia of unknown etiology.” Authorities also said testing found no evidence that she had contracted a pathogen from the research facility.

Even so, Russia’s handling of previous national crises has left Corn and other observers skeptical of the official account.

“That is the challenge, because Russia has the history of the ‘boy who cried wolf’ syndrome,” said Corn, a professor at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington, D.C. “They have this history of being deceitful. It’s very hard to believe what they’re saying.”

Corn, who speaks fluent Russian and spent more than two decades overseas during his intelligence career, cited several cases involving alleged Russian coverups. Among them was the 1979 anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, now known as Yekaterinburg, which killed at least 64 people.

For years, Soviet authorities said the victims had contracted intestinal anthrax from contaminated meat, according to PBS’ “Frontline.” The explanation remained in place until 1992, when President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged that the illnesses had been caused by military activity at a nearby biological weapons facility.

Corn said that pattern of concealment has continued under President Vladimir Putin’s government.

He also cited the Kremlin’s former denials of any connection to the Wagner mercenary group. The group’s ambiguous relationship with the Russian state enabled its fighters to pursue Moscow’s interests abroad while officials retained plausible deniability. Putin later conceded that Wagner had been financed entirely by the Russian government.

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“This goes to the strategic culture of leadership in Russia … and their fear of the rest of the world, and their belief that they have to deceive everybody because everybody is deceiving them,” Corn said.

Corn said similar efforts to control the narrative can be seen in China, which remains governed by the Communist Party. Modern Russia, he added, inherited many institutions and governing habits from the communist Soviet Union.

China, for instance, faced intense criticism during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic over allegations that it withheld or delayed crucial information about the emerging virus. The pandemic has since been linked to more than 7 million deaths worldwide.

“In both systems, people are disincentivized to tell the truth when there’s a bad story,” Corn said. “Nobody wants to actually say that we have a real problem and we need to deal with it because they’re afraid that it will cost them their jobs, their lives, their freedom.”

Given that history, Corn said U.S. officials should not rely solely on Moscow’s statements about Shipilova’s death. Instead, they should independently assess the claims and watch closely for evidence of a broader outbreak.

There is currently no indication that Shipilova’s illness has spread. Russia’s health watchdog said Tuesday that 60% of the approximately 200 people quarantined after possible contact with her had been released. The agency also said no cases of plague had been identified.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that the incident posed a “very low” risk beyond Russia, The Associated Press reported.

That same day, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media that the global health agency is in contact with Russian health authorities and has requested more information “to clarify the cause of the severe pneumonia” that killed Shipilova.

President Donald Trump also told reporters on Tuesday that he has a call scheduled with Putin about the case “very soon,” adding that the U.S. is already in “very deep discussions” with Russia.

The image remains etched in the public memory: Noa Argamani perched on the back of a motorcycle as she was driven toward Gaza, her arms reaching outward while she cried, “Don’t kill me.”

Published on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, the photograph and video quickly became symbols of the October 7 attack around the world.

Nearby, Argamani’s boyfriend, Avinatan Or, then 33, was being forced through the fields by Gaza gunmen, powerless to intervene.

The footage lasted just seconds, yet it became one of the defining records of an assault that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 hostages dragged into Gaza—the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Now, on the third anniversary of the attack, Or has spoken publicly for the first time about how he and Argamani, who had been together for more than a year, escaped the Nova music festival before being separated for more than two years.

He has also described surviving years in isolation beneath Gaza, including a desperate attempt to dig a tunnel to freedom that ended when his captors discovered him and subjected him to brutal torture.

Or recounts his captivity and failed escape in his newly published memoir, Through the Earth, which quickly became Israel’s number one bestseller and is due to be translated into English.

“We drove out from the festival area and tried to reach the main road,” Or told us.

“They began shooting at us, so we turned around and drove into the field. We found a place and hid in a ditch,” he said.

For about two hours, the couple stayed hidden, barely making a sound.

“Actually, we didn’t speak,” Or recalled. “In the car, I remember thinking—I don’t know—I was proud of her because she handled it very, very well. She didn’t panic. She stayed completely calm.

“I told her, ‘Nice job. I’m very proud of you.’ But while we were hiding, we remained silent, communicating only with our eyes.”

At about 10.30am, the silence was broken by approaching footsteps and voices speaking Arabic.

“I heard a man coming toward us,” Or said. “I heard the footsteps, and then we knew we were going to be found. When he saw us, he shouted, ‘There are Jews here.’”

Or said Argamani screamed when the men discovered them. He turned back and tried to help her flee, but they were quickly surrounded.

“Suddenly, I heard Noa scream. I turned around and tried to reach her—I tried to help her escape,” he said. “There were many of them around us. They began taking us toward Gaza.”

The pair were marched for roughly 15 minutes. As they approached the border, Or repeatedly scanned the sky for an aircraft and searched the ground for any indication that Israeli forces might come to their rescue.

But he didn’t see anything.

Then, when they were perhaps 100 or 200 metres from the border, a motorcycle arrived and Argamani was taken away.

It is here that the footage seen around the world begins: Argamani is driven away screaming on the motorcycle, reaching for Or. 

Just metres away, Or is restrained by a large group of men, his hands bound behind his back.

‘In that situation, I know that there’s nothing I can do because I’m surrounded by maybe 25 people,’ he said. ‘In the video, you can see four or five of them.’

He understood that fighting back would probably mean his death.

‘We were surrounded, and I understood that screaming and starting to fight was not an option because it would be the end.’

Watching Argamani being taken away left him with a crushing sense of helplessness.

‘It was my job to protect her,’ he remembered thinking, ‘and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.’

Then the motorcycle disappeared.

What happened to Or immediately afterwards was never captured by the infamous video.

‘And just after they took her, they started to lynch me. There were maybe 10 or 15 people who started to lynch me.’

He described being struck from behind with a large wooden plank.

‘As I walked, one of them came behind me with a plank, a big wooden plank, and smashed it into my head. And I started to bleed, all over my shirt and over my face. And then they all started to punch me and kick me.’

Eventually, Or said, an armed Hamas terrorist fired into the air, scattering the group around him. 

He was put on another motorcycle and taken across the border into Gaza. Within hours, he was underground.

Argamani was gone.

‘The next time I saw her,’ Or said, ‘I was in the hospital 738 days later.’

For much of those 738 days, he had been given false news.

‘Since the first day, I asked if they knew about Noa,’ he said. ‘I said: ‘You kidnapped my girlfriend. Can you tell me anything about her?”

Weeks into captivity, one of his captors finally answered him.

‘One of them told me: “Noa is home.”‘

Or believed him.

‘And since that day,’ he said, ‘for me, she was released.’

But Hamas had lied to him. She wasn’t actually freed until 245 days into the war, when special forces entered Gaza in a daring operation that left elite soldier Arnon Zmora dead.

Or would spend 738 days underground, most of it in total isolation, without sunlight, fresh air or a proper bathroom. At 6ft 4in, he could not even stand upright in the low tunnels and his spine curved for all that time.

‘I couldn’t stretch my body. I tried to work out inside the tunnel. Even though I was very hungry and very tired’ — he was given a small amount of food every four days, which he had to ration himself— ‘and desperate, I knew this was a good thing I should do. I kept going, and slowly it helped me in the long term.’

His battle was not only to keep his body alive, but to stop his captors taking control of his mind.

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‘They took everything from me. But I struggled to keep my mind clear. Even though they took my physical freedom, I struggled so that they would not take my mental freedom.

‘From the first day I entered the tunnel, I started to count everything I could. The days, the time, the distances, the dimensions of the tunnels. The first time they took me inside the tunnel, I counted how many steps I was doing.’

He taught himself Arabic by listening to his captors and devised his own methods of keeping track of time. Even without a clock or natural light, he watched for tiny changes in light beyond a blanket in the tunnel and attempted to calculate when each new day began.

He also understood that his survival depended on the men guarding him.

‘Most of the time there were two guards with me, and I succeeded in building some kind of relationship with them. This was one of my main missions.

‘But one commander, he really hated me. Not just me — he really hated every Israeli. It didn’t matter who you were. And he really wanted to make my life as hard as he could, to push me to the edge and make my conditions worse.’

After about four months underground, Or decided he could no longer simply wait for somebody else to determine whether he lived or died.

‘I know that I have to do something. I could not just sit,’ he said.

Studying his cell for weaknesses, he noticed a tiny current of air behind a wall of sandbags and realised there might be another passage beyond it. 

With no proper tools, he secretly began digging with scraps of plastic and other small objects he had collected. 

Later on, he managed to steal a small pickaxe to help with the digging.

Whenever exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, he forced himself to continue.

‘The human body, our limit is much beyond what we think. So you can do it, just keep going.’

After days of digging, he finally broke through the sandbags and entered the pitch-black space beyond.

‘You can taste the darkness, then smell the darkness,’ he recalled.

Drawing on his electrical-engineering and construction experience, he rigged wires to carry light farther into the tunnel and spent roughly three months digging towards the surface. 

Eventually, he reached the ruins of a collapsed house and could see the sky and hear people nearby.

Freedom appeared agonisingly close. 

But back in the tunnel, there had been a change in the schedule, and just when Or was deep into his manmade tunnel, one of his captors arrived with his bi-weekly bag of food. 

He was discovered, reprimanded, and then tortured.

‘They tied my hands behind my back and hung me from the ceiling. My wrists were so swollen and I have nerve damage in my hands. They tied me to a plastic chair so I’d be sleep deprived.’

Or believes the skills and experiences he had accumulated throughout his life had given him the tools to keep surviving.

‘Every step in my life prepared me for this,’ a nod to the elite desert commando unit he served in during his national service.

There was another moment during captivity that Or would come to see as nothing short of a miracle.

On his 79th day underground, after seven years of not speaking to God, he suddenly felt compelled to pray. 

Bombs were shaking the tunnel and he feared ‘the next bomb’ would bring the concrete down on his head.

‘I had a strong feeling that I needed to talk,’ he recalled.

For the first time in seven years, he turned to God. He prayed about the biblical commandment to honour his father and mother, telling God he had done his part — and now it was God’s turn.

Hours later, a bomb smashed into the tunnel. As Or tried to escape through the wreckage, the tunnel collapsed around him, killing the terrorist directly behind him. 

Trapped in the rubble, he believed he was about to be buried alive until two terrorists ahead of him reached back and pulled him free with their hands. 

Seconds later, the section he had just escaped from collapsed.

He had survived by seconds.

When asked whether he believed God had answered him, his response was simple: ‘Absolutely.’

After 738 days, the final hostage release agreement procured his freedom. But even in his last moments underground, Or says one of his captors left him with a chilling warning.

Just before his release, a Hamas commander called Salim told him to return home, greet his parents — and then leave Israel.

‘Move to Europe, move to the US, whatever you want — just leave Israel,’ he recalled being told.

When Or asked why, Salim told him that as long as Israel existed, Hamas would carry out October 7 ‘over and over again’.

Freedom also meant confronting how much life had changed during the 738 days he had been gone. His relationship with Argamani, which had become known around the world because of those haunting images from October 7, ultimately did not survive their ordeal.

‘People change because of different things after two years,’ he explained.

But despite the extraordinary public interest in the couple, Or says there are parts of their story they have chosen to keep to themselves.

‘There are some things that we just want to stay between us,’ he said.

The terrorist seen driving Argamani away on the motorcycle on October 7 was later eliminated by the IDF — news that was announced the day before our interview.

Or watched back the video, now three years since the day he was kidnapped into Gaza.

‘We Jewish people do not celebrate the death of people, but I am glad there’s one less terrorist left in the world.’

A Southern California real estate agent accused of conducting surveillance for China on behalf of a prominent Taiwanese family allegedly had access to $190,000 in a hidden Chinese cryptocurrency account. At a court hearing Wednesday, prosecutors also raised questions about her family life and suggested she could be an “unfit mother.”

Wanying Zhang appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom in a white jumpsuit and shackles, accompanied by her newly retained attorney, Craig Harbaugh. He requested that she be placed under home confinement, but federal prosecutors strongly opposed the proposal, arguing that Zhang posed a serious flight risk.

Prosecutors claimed Zhang still had access to a secret Chinese crypto account containing about $190,000 and alleged that she continued to receive profits from it. They also cited what they described as her brother’s connections to the Chinese government.

The government further referred to a video recovered from Zhang’s iCloud account, saying it could demonstrate that she was “a danger to society.” Prosecutors also questioned whether her relationships with her family were as strong as they appeared, while her husband, Edric Ding, watched from the courtroom.

“You should have produced this video and I could say she’s an unfit mother,” Judge Steve Kim said after learning that Zhang has “young children.”

Prosecutors also cited roughly a dozen one-way journeys Zhang allegedly made to destinations including China, Paris and Japan. Harbaugh countered that one-way airfare had been the more affordable option.

Judge Kim ultimately determined that Zhang presented a flight risk. US Marshals then took her into custody, and she was denied bail.

Zhang is scheduled to return to court on October 19.

Her first court appearance on Monday was unexpectedly delayed after public defender Chad Pennington requested a private discussion with the judge just seconds after the hearing began. The request resulted in a 20-minute recess.

When the proceedings resumed, the judge asked Zhang whether she understood the accusations against her. She answered, “yes.”

The 34-year-old real estate agent was arrested Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport, where authorities allege she was attempting to board a flight to Shanghai. Zhang, who is also known as “Heather,” is accused of spying for China.

Footage recorded soon after her arrest appeared to show multiple FBI agents escorting Zhang, who was handcuffed, through an airport terminal.

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Zhang, an Irvine resident, is accused of working with agents for the People’s Republic of China to monitor the son of Taiwan President Ching-te Lai.

According to the allegations, Zhang and her husband worked for the same real estate company. Prosecutors say she traveled to Seattle in September 2025 to surveil Ting-Yu Lai, an engineer in his 30s who lives and works in the United States.

Images from surveillance cameras allegedly show Zhang inside a vehicle with another person as they photographed Lai’s home and members of his immediate family.

Before her detention by federal authorities, Zhang appeared to lead a highly mobile, international lifestyle.

Her social media posts documented trips to Paris, along with gatherings and outings with friends throughout California and the broader West Coast.

The online profiles also suggested that Zhang attended the University of Southern California, where annual attendance costs can exceed $75,000.

Posts from Ding’s social media accounts feature visits to Korean barbecue restaurants, as well as appearances at anime and sword-art conventions.

The couple has also appeared in photos posing with what seems to be their child.

Zhang’s arrest comes amid several other high-profile California cases involving allegations of covert Chinese government activity or influence. 

Disgraced former Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang entered a plea in federal court following the bombshell admission she was a spy for China in March. 

Former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell confessed to a prescription drug-fueled sex romp with a suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang, also known as “Fang Fang,” according to newly released FBI files in August.

“We have a problem with Beijing using Chinese Americans for their own purposes in California,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said. “They are using them for their own foreign affairs because they are playing the long game to get a competitive advantage over us.”