USA - Florida has ordered 5.6 million people – a quarter of the state’s population – to evacuate, warning that those who do not leave cannot expect rescue services to reach them once Irma hits. A curfew comes into effect in Palm Beach from 3pm on Saturday. Florida governor Rick Scott warned on Friday: If you are planning to leave and do not leave tonight, you will have to ride out this extremely dangerous storm at your own risk. In Georgia, 540,000 people on the coast received mandatory evacuation orders.

JAPAN - A powerful 5.3 earthquake has hit northern Japan, just hours after a deadly tremor struck Mexico. The 5.3 tremor struck the region of Akita, in the north west of the country. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the earthquake took place 10 kilometres beneath the surface at around 10.20 pm local time. According to local media outlet NHK, there have been no reports of damages to buildings. In addition, the JMA has said: "This earthquake poses no tsunami risk.” The tremor in Japan comes just hours after a huge earthquake hit Mexico, claiming the lives of at least 32 people. The 8.2 quake struck 60 miles off the southern coast of Mexico, sparking tsunami warnings.

MIDDLE EAST - Supporters of the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) have taken to social media to celebrate Hurricane Irma, labelling it a “soldier of Allah.” With the Category 5 hurricane set to make landfall in the US early Sunday, millions of Florida residents have already been forced to flee the state ahead of the arrival of the destructive storm. Head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Brock Long, has said the storm will “devastate” parts of the US. The dire warnings have been greeted with glee by supporters of ISIS on their social media channels, according to Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist commentary online. Katz revealed on Twitter that IS users are celebrating the Irma evacuations and said they hope the hurricane brings “wind like nothing they have ever seen.”

MEXICO - Five people have been killed after Mexico was hit by an 8.4-magnitude earthquake, sparking tsunami warnings across the world while Hurricane Irma pummels neighbouring Caribbean islands as it heads towards Florida. A tsunami has been confirmed by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and is now heading north after the quake struck near Chiapas, a region in southern Mexico along the Middle America Trench, shortly after midnight. There were six aftershocks too, according to USGS, ranging in magnitude from 4.5 to 5.7. The news comes as at least 14 people have been killed by Hurricane Irma in the Gulf of Mexico.

USA - This is an interesting "Farewell to England" list of Islamic accomplishments in that country that I thought might give you a better understanding of the insidiousness of Hijrah; that's the takeover of a nation without going to war. Don't think for a moment that America is not a target or that there are no American cities where Islamic and Sharia victories and takeovers have already occurred. It's time for border control, or start planning for a very big goodbye America party!

GERMANY - ‘Capitalism is armed robbery,’ reads the graffiti on the subway wall, but here in Berlin, German capitalists are doing what capitalism does best — creating new jobs and new industries. Berlin used to be regarded as ‘poor but sexy’ (as Berlin’s former mayor Klaus Wowereit put it), but last year the German capital boasted the highest growth in the country — 2.7 per cent, 0.7 per cent above the national average. A city of squats and bombsites has become a city of high-tech start-ups, and now tech giants such as Google and Microsoft are moving in. Cheap rents and a lively nightlife attract smart millennials from across the globe. Unemployment is at its lowest since the Wall came down.

USA - Hurricane Irma poses the most significant threat to Florida in memory — and "this is the kind of storm that you read about in the history books," said Bryan Norcross, senior hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. "This has the possibility of running up the peninsula and affecting every major city in the state. It's not certain that that's what's going to happen, but it certainly is a possibility," Norcross said Wednesday. "We don't know what is going to happen exactly. But we know what the range of possibilities is — and this is a situation where the top of that range is extraordinarily extreme," he said. "This is the kind of storm that I always pictured when I read the history books about the great Florida hurricanes of the past and imagined how they would impact the modern state."

USA - Hurricane Irma will have a "truly devastating" impact when it slams into southern coastal areas of the United States, the head of the US emergency agency said on Thursday. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Brock Long said people in Florida and other states must heed evacuation orders as the Category Five hurricane surges towards the US after causing death and destruction in the Caribbean.

USA - The last time a major hurricane hit the Turkey Point nuclear power plant, it caused $90 million in damage but left the nuclear reactors along southern Biscayne Bay unscathed. In anticipation of powerful Hurricane Irma, which projections on Wednesday showed headed straight for South Florida, Florida Power & Light’s two nuclear plants were finalizing staffing plans and cleaning up the grounds. But neither Turkey Point nor the St Lucie plant farther up the coast had made the call yet to shut down the plants. Peter Robbins, spokesman for FPL, said shutting down a reactor is a gradual process, and the decision will be made “well in advance” of the storm making landfall. “If we anticipate there will be direct impacts on either facility we’ll shut down the units,” he said.

USA - “Angel Mom” Mary Ann Mendoza spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday regarding her reaction to President Trump’s actions related to DACA and immigration reform. Mendoza said Trump “is moving in the right direction on it,” adding, “But I wish he would have a stronger stance on it.” “The thought that hit me is,” she continued, addressing recent meetings on Capitol Hill, “we live in a democracy where the people vote for these representatives to be in Washington representing them and their wishes. And isn’t it ironic that we have all of these elected officials in Washington fighting for illegal aliens in our country?” She questioned how things got to the place where illegal aliens are seemingly more important than American citizens.

USA - President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, revealing to reporters that China claims to want to help reduce North Korea’s increasingly hostile actions. “President Xi would like to do something,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a speech in North Dakota. “We’ll see whether or not he can do it.” Later on Air Force One, Trump told reporters that the Chinese president was “very much in favor of the de-nuke of North Korea.” He said that the two leaders had a “very, very frank” discussion about North Korea’s increased hostility to the United States and its allies in the East.

UK - Hurricane Irma has been joined by two other massive storms off the US coast to create the most powerful weather system ever seen by meteorologists. The three-way storm systems threaten the US and Caribbean region in an unprecedented way – with some weathermen even predicting they could merge to create the most powerful winds the planet has ever seen.

USA - Tropical Storm Jose has intensified into a hurricane, according to an update Wednesday afternoon from the National Hurricane Center. The storm is moving west-northwest and maximum sustained winds have increased to near 75 miles per hour with higher gusts, according to a public advisory from the NHC. The storm is expected to strengthen further and could be close to becoming a major hurricane on Friday.

CARIBBEAN - Hurricane Irma has caused considerable damage on French island territories in the Caribbean, and casualties are expected, France's president says. The impact of Irma on St Martin and St Barts would be "hard and cruel", Emmanuel Macron added. His overseas affairs minister later confirmed at least two people dead and another two seriously injured. The category five hurricane, the highest possible level, is now passing over the northern Virgin Islands. The most powerful storm in a decade, with wind speeds of 295km/h (185mph), is also forecast by the US National Hurricane Center to pass near or just north of Puerto Rico, then near or just north of the coast of the Dominican Republic on Thursday.

CHINA - A typhoon that slammed in eastern China's coast flooded and washed out roads, knocked out power and disrupted transportation in one of the nation's most populous regions. Typhoon Haikui came ashore in Zhejiang province with winds up to 150 kilometres (90 miles) per hour. Shanghai Public Weather Service said Haikui dumped as much as 58 millimetres (2.3 inches) in one hour in the city's centre.