Hurricane Milton quickly intensified Sunday and is on track to become a major hurricane with the Tampa Bay area in its sights, putting Florida on edge and triggering evacuation orders along a coast still reeling from Helene’s devastation.

While forecast models vary widely, the most likely path suggests Milton could make landfall Wednesday in the Tampa Bay area and remain a hurricane as it moves across central Florida into the Atlantic Ocean, forecasters said. That would largely spare other southeastern states ravaged by Hurricane Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian Mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 130 people.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that while it remains to be seen just where Milton will strike, it’s clear that Florida is going to be hit hard — “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point.”

Hurricane Milton was centered about 815 miles (1,310 kilometers) west-southwest of Tampa on Sunday afternoon, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kmh), the National Hurricane Center said.

“You have time to prepare — all day today, all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” the governor said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”

Haitians leave homes after gang attack

Nearly 6,300 people have fled their homes in the aftermath of an attack in central Haiti by heavily armed gang members that killed at least 70 people, according to the U.N.’s migration agency.

Nearly 90% of the displaced are staying with relatives in host families, while 12% have found refuge in other sites including a school, the International Organization for Migration said in a report last week.

The attack in Pont-Sondé happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, and many left in the middle of the night.

Gang members “came in shooting and breaking into the houses to steal and burn. I just had time to grab my children and run in the dark,” said 60-year-old Sonise Mirano on Sunday, who was camping with hundreds of people in a park in the nearby coastal city of Saint-Marc.

Bodies lay strewn on the streets of Pont-Sondé following the attack in the Artibonite region, many of them killed by a shot to the head, Bertide Harace, spokeswoman for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation and Awareness to Save the Artibonite, told Magik 9 radio station on Friday.

Rescue teams arrive in Bosnia after floods

Rescue teams from Bosnia’s neighbors and European Union countries on Sunday were joining efforts to clear the rubble and find people still missing from floods and landslides that devastated parts of the Balkan country.

Bosnia sought EU help after a heavy rainstorm overnight on Friday left entire areas under water and debris destroyed roads and bridges, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens.

“Our hearts and thoughts are with the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, hit by devastating floods,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X. “We have activated our EU Civil Protection Mechanism and are sending rescue teams on the ground. This is EU solidarity in action.”

Officials said that at least 10 people are still unaccounted for, many of them in the village of Donja Jablanica, in southern Bosnia, which was almost completely buried in rocks and rubble from a quarry on a hill above.

Russia strikes Ukraine with drones, missiles

Russian forces attacked Ukraine overnight with 87 Shahed drones and four different types of missiles, officials said Sunday.

A 49-year-old man was killed in the Kharkiv region after his car was hit by a drone, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. A gas pipeline was also damaged and a warehouse set alight in the city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials reported.

Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that air defenses had destroyed 56 of the 87 drones and two missiles over 14 Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Kyiv.

Another 25 drones disappeared from radar “presumably as a result of anti-aircraft missile defense,” it said.

The barrage comes a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he will present his “victory plan” at the Oct. 12 meeting of the Ramstein group of nations that supplies arms to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy presented his plan to U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington last week. Its contents have not been made public but it is known that the plan includes Ukrainian membership in NATO and the provision of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.

Officer shoots and kills man during knife attack

A Southern California officer shot and killed a man who stabbed him with a knife outside a city police headquarters in what authorities called an “unprovoked attack.”

A man in his 30s approached the male officer outside the front doors of the Santa Monica Police Department around 5:20 p.m. Saturday, officials said. The man was told he would need to wait while the officer finished speaking to a resident.

“Without warning, the individual attacked the officer while pulling a knife from his clothing. The suspect slashed and stabbed the officer,” the department said in a statement posted on the social media site X.

The officer pulled out his gun and retreated around the corner of the building as the man continued the attack, according to the police statement. The officer then shot the man, the department said.

After being treated for “very serious” wounds, the officer was released from the hospital and will recover at home, police said Sunday on X.

Santa Monica police and the LA County District Attorney’s Office will investigate, the department said.

Authorities investigating after plane lands in fire

Federal authorities said Sunday that they are investigating the emergency landing of a Frontier Airlines plane in Las Vegas.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Frontier Flight 1326 from San Diego with 190 passengers aboard was in the process of landing Saturday afternoon at Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport when the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and declared an emergency.

In a statement, the FAA said airport emergency crews extinguished a fire on the plane’s right engine after it landed.

Frontier officials said there were no reported injuries and all of the passengers plus seven crew members exited the plane using the stairs and were transported to the terminal.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced Sunday that it was launching an investigation into the incident along with the FAA.

Bear, 3 cubs attacks Colorado man in home

A black bear with three cubs attacked a man in his Colorado home after they crashed in through a sliding glass door and he was unable to get them to leave.

State wildlife managers killed all four bears after the attack Thursday night in Lake City, a southwestern Colorado town of 400 people. The man’s injuries were significant, but he didn’t need to go to a hospital, Colorado Parks & Wildlife said in a statement Saturday.

The 74-year-old man tried to shoo the adult female bear out with a kitchen chair, but it knocked him into a wall and clawed at him, the wildlife agency said.

The bear injured the man’s head, neck, arms, shoulder, abdomen and calf before he and his wife escaped to a bedroom.

A sheriff’s deputy chased the bears out, and medical responders treated the man at his house. His identity wasn’t released.

Pope names 21 new cardinals

Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, significantly increasing the size of the College of Cardinals and further cementing his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.

They include a man who will be the oldest cardinal — Monsignor Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat who was once held hostage for six weeks in Colombia by leftist guerrillas — and the youngest — the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, Bishop Mykola Bychok, named in a nod to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The new cardinals will get their red hats at a ceremony, known as a consistory, on Dec. 8, an important feast day on its own that officially kicks off the Christmas season in Rome. It will be Francis’ 10th consistory to create new princes of the church and the biggest infusion of voting-age cardinals into the college in Francis’ 11-year pontificate. Acerbi is the only one of the new intake who is over 80 and hence too old to vote for new pope.

Usually the college has a limit of 120 on voting-age cardinals but popes often exceed the cap temporarily to keep the body robust as existing cardinals age out. As of Sept. 28, there were 122 cardinal-electors; that means the new infusion brings their numbers up to 142.

Kazakhstan faces legacy in vote on nuclear power

Polls are open in Kazakhstan Sunday for a landmark referendum on building the country’s first nuclear power plant, confronting the country’s painful legacy as a testing ground for Soviet nuclear weapons.

The proposal is backed by the government and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who hopes to boost the country’s energy security.

The plant, which is slated to be built close to Lake Balkhash in southeastern Kazakhstan, would take pressure off the coal-powered power stations on which the country heavily relies.

Although the use of renewable energy is growing, supporters believe Kazakhstan’s position as one of the world’s largest uranium producers makes nuclear energy a logical choice.

However, the use of nuclear materials remains a controversial and often sensitive topic in Kazakhstan, which was used as a testing ground for the Soviet Union’s nuclear program.

The weapon tests made large swaths of land in the northeastern Semei region uninhabitable, devastating the local environment and affecting the health of nearby residents. In total, 456 tests were carried out between 1949 and 1989 at the Semipalatinsk test site. It was officially closed in August 1991.

Critics have also drawn attention to the project’s high costs: The Kazakh government estimates that the nuclear power plant could cost up to $12 billion.

— From news services