This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jan Nut Jalil and at 13 hours GMT on Wednesday the 9th of October,

these are our main stories.

More than 5 million people in the US state of Florida are being urged to evacuate as a powerful hurricane approaches.

The head of the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees says at least 400,000 people are trapped in the north of Gaza by Israel's new ground

offensive there.

An Afghan man is arrested in the US by the FBI who accused him of planning a mass shooting on the day of the presidential

election. Also in this podcast a fugitive father who's been on the run for three

years with his three young children is

spotted in a remote area of New Zealand we hear from their mother. My babies deserve

better. It's beyond time that they come home.

We begin in Florida, which is bracing itself for what's being called the Storm of the Century. The United States

is used to hurricanes but the one that is set to descend on the sunshine state in the

coming hours is so huge and so powerful that it's even reduced to one veteran weather reporter to tears.

It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours.

I apologize. This is just horrific.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall around the density populated Tampa Bay area of Florida late on Wednesday and with forecasts

that it could cause storm surges of up to 4.5 meters,

more than 5 million people have been urged to evacuate.

President Joe Biden warned it was a matter of life or death. He's cancelled a trip to Germany

to oversee the response. As people flee inland, there have been long lines of traffic and

hundreds of petrol stations have run out of fuel.

...