Hurricane Milton crashed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, pounding the coast with ferocious winds of over 100 mph (160 kph), heavy rain and producing a series of tornadoes around the state. Tampa avoided a direct hit. The cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 120 mph (205 kph) as it roared ashore 8:30 p.m. near Siesta Key, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. Siesta Key is a prosperous strip of white-sand beaches that's home to 5,500 people about 70 miles south of Tampa.

The Tampa Bay area has not taken a direct hit from a major hurricane in more than a century, but the storm was still bringing a potentially deadly storm surge to much of Florida's Gulf Coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers. The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg, where over 16 inches of rain has fallen so far.

Syria's foreign ministry condemned a suspected Israeli air strike on an apartment building in Damascus that, it says, killed seven civilians. The ministry said women and children were among the dead from Tuesday evening's attack on the Mezzeh neighbourhood, which houses the Iranian embassy and other diplomatic facilities. Israel's military has not commented.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 13, including nine civilians and two members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is a key ally of Iran and Syria's government. The UK-based monitoring group said the strike targeted an apartment frequented by leaders of Iran's "Axis of Resistance". Syria's state news agency, Sana, cited a military source as saying that the building was hit by three missiles launched by Israeli aircraft from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights. Photographs from the scene showed emergency services personnel inspecting significant damage to apartments on the first, second and third floors.

The UK has sanctioned Russian soldiers it says have used chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. Russia's Radiological Chemical and Biological Defence troops, and their commander Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, will be subject to an assets freeze and travel ban. Two of the Russian defence ministry's scientific laboratories have also been designated. Kirillov is also a "significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation", the Foreign Office said.

The US has previously accused Russian forces of using hazardous chemicals in Ukraine, including "riot control agents" such as tear gas and the toxic choking agent chloropicrin - first deployed in battle during World War One. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK would not sit "idly by whilst Putin and his mafia state ride roughshod over international law, including the Chemical Weapons Convention". Announcing the sanctions, defence Secretary John Healey said: "Our message to Putin and his regime is clear: you cannot break international law without facing the consequences."

Human activity is continuing to drive what conservation charity the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) calls a "catastrophic" loss of species. From elephants in tropical forests to hawksbill turtles off the Great Barrier Reef, populations are plummeting, according to a stocktake of the world's wildlife. The Living Planet Report, a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural world, reveals global wildlife populations have shrunk by an average of 73% in the past 50 years.

The loss of wild spaces was "putting many ecosystems on the brink", WWF UK head Tanya Steele said, and many habitats, from the Amazon to coral reefs, were "on the edge of very dangerous tipping points". The report is based on the Living Planet Index of more than 5,000 bird, mammal, amphibian, reptile and fish population counts over five decades. Among many snapshots of human-induced wildlife loss, it reveals 60% of the world's Amazon pink river dolphins have been wiped out by pollution and other threats, including mining and civil unrest.