A nationwide state of alert runs from midnight to 23:59 on 11 November: schools at every level and non-essential public services close, outdoor events are suspended. IPMA has raised eight districts to a red wind warning, with gusts of 120 to 140 km/h.

By Marta Carneiro

Image: Alvesgaspar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

A New York indictment unsealed on 10 November says three vans carrying fuel barrels and fake company decals headed for the US-used British airbase on 26 September. The same three men are tied to around 18 attacks across Europe.

Three vans, barrels of fuel, and decals made to look like a fuel delivery firm's. That is how federal prosecutors in Manhattan describe the plot against RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire airbase the US Air Force flies from. The superseding indictment announced on 10 November by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York charges three men and says they acted for the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

IPMA has put Lisbon, Setúbal, Leiria, Santarém, Beja and Faro on orange wind warnings from noon to 9pm on Wednesday 11 November, with gusts of 100 to 120 km/h. Heavy rain hits the inland centre and south early on Tuesday, and Madeira goes orange from Tuesday night.

Storm Bruna has barely loosened its grip and the next one is lined up. Portugal's weather service, IPMA, has named it Charles and already placed six mainland districts on orange wind warnings for Wednesday 11 November: Lisbon, Setúbal, Leiria, Santarém, Beja and Faro, from noon to 9pm, with gusts of around 100 to 120 km/h. Orange is the middle of three levels. It means dangerous weather, the kind that brings down trees, scaffolding and loose roofing. For…

A wooden pirogue capsized between Dakar and Saint-Louis on its way to Spain's Canary Islands. One person was pulled out alive and nobody yet knows how many are missing. At the other end of the route, El Hierro has declared a social emergency after more than 8,000 arrivals in five weeks.

At least 34 people have died after a wooden pirogue heading for the Canary Islands capsized off Senegal, somewhere between Dakar and the northern city of Saint-Louis. The toll, given by Senegalese officials and reported by France 24, may still rise. One person was rescued alive, according to the interior ministry. How many were on board is still unclear. The search goes on.

A Nature Health study published on 4 November, led by The George Institute, modelled replacing regular salt with potassium-enriched salt across 193 countries: 2.96 million fewer deaths a year from cardiovascular and kidney disease, and 10.17 million fewer new cases. People with advanced kidney disease, or on drugs that make the body hold on to potassium, are the exception.

If all the salt we eat were replaced with potassium-enriched salt, around 2.96 million fewer people would die each year worldwide. That is the central estimate in a study published on 4 November in Nature Health, by a team led by Australia's George Institute for Global Health. The model covers 193 countries and deals with cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes) and chronic kidney disease. On top of the deaths, it puts the number of new cases…

Shortly after 3pm local time on Saturday a man drove into Rynek Główny, the central square of Poland's second city, and opened fire. Authorities say six people died, four women and two men, and 15 were wounded, including two officers, one critically. Police shot and detained the gunman, a Polish citizen, who was taken to hospital.

A man drove into the Main Square in Kraków, Poland, shortly after 3pm on Saturday (2pm in Lisbon) and fired on the people there. Polish authorities put the toll at six dead, four women and two men, and 15 wounded, according to the official count reported by Al Jazeera. Early in the afternoon police had spoken of five dead and around a dozen injured. Officers shot the gunman at the scene, detained him and took him to hospital. Two police officers are among…

Education minister Fernando Alexandre told parliament on 4 November that all upper-secondary students will share a common core with maths in Years 10 to 12, in every course, from the 2028/2029 school year. The new curriculum framework goes to public consultation first.

Every upper-secondary student in Portugal will study maths in Years 10, 11 and 12, whatever course they take. Education minister Fernando Alexandre announced it on Wednesday 4 November, opening the parliamentary hearing on the 2027 education budget, and Diário de Notícias laid out the new curriculum plan: a common core with maths all the way through, then more freedom to choose. It applies from the 2028/2029 school year.

On Thursday 5 November an anonymous email to Milan Malpensa named flight FR8953 from Porto. It landed safely and nothing was found. Across Europe more than two dozen flights were targeted, fighter jets escorted an Aer Lingus jet to a French air base and some of the messages were signed by a Russian ultranationalist group.

For the second time this week, a plane that took off from Portugal turned up on the list in a wave of hoax bomb threats across Europe. On Thursday 5 November it was Ryanair flight FR8953, from Porto's Francisco Sá Carneiro airport to Milan. It landed safely at Malpensa. The aircraft was searched and nothing was found. According to Italy's ANSA news agency, as relayed by the Portuguese press, the threat arrived as an anonymous email to Malpensa airport. It…

IPMA forecasts rain, wind and rough seas on the mainland from Sunday until 13 November, with more than 200 mm possible in the mountains, gusts up to 70 km/h and waves of 4 to 5 metres on the west coast from Monday. Eight districts go on yellow alert from 3pm on Friday.

Put the flip-flops away. From Sunday, mainland Portugal is in for a full week of rain, wind and heavy seas from a low-pressure system north of the Azores that has been named Bruna. Portugal's weather service, IPMA, expects it to last until at least Friday 13 November, which puts São Martinho, the chestnut-roasting feast on Wednesday the 11th, right in the middle of it. Viana do Castelo, Braga, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Leiria, Lisbon and Setúbal go under a…

The drugs arrived on flights from South America and the cell's job was to get them out of Humberto Delgado airport. All four suspects have been remanded in custody. It is the second network broken up at the airport in under two months.

Portugal's criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária (PJ), have arrested four people suspected of running a cell that moved cocaine out of Lisbon airport, and seized around 117 kilos of the drug, according to the police statement reported by Lusa on Wednesday. Officers also took three vehicles and about 40,000 euros in cash. The cocaine came in on flights from South America. The group's role, the PJ says, was the next step along: getting the drugs out of…

Civil Protection's A Terra Treme drill asks schools, workplaces and households to drop, cover and hold on for one minute on 5 November. Of 782,288 participants in 2025, 68% came through schools.

At 11:05 on Thursday, 5 November, Portugal's Civil Protection authority wants the country to stop for one minute and act as though the ground is shaking. The drill is called A Terra Treme ("the earth shakes"), the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) runs it every year, and it comes down to three moves: drop, cover, hold on. Why one minute? Because, the organisers say, that is roughly how long an earthquake lasts.

On 3 November the European Commission presented non-binding population preparedness guidelines: self-sufficiency for the first 72 hours of a crisis, preparedness in early-years and primary curricula, disability-inclusive measures and better risk communication. It also proposes an EU Preparedness Day every 23 October from 2027.

The European Commission wants emergency preparedness in the classroom, from nursery through to the end of primary school. It is one of four strands in the population preparedness guidelines that Commissioner Hadja Lahbib presented on Tuesday 3 November at the European Civil Protection Forum. None of it is binding. The guidelines are recommendations to member states, backed by four guidance documents full of good-practice examples, and the Commission says…

Lawmakers in Nuuk approved the deal signed in September by Trump, Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, with seven abstentions. It updates the 1951 framework, expands Pituffik and adds defence areas at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig. The Danish parliament's final debate is on 19 November.

Greenland's parliament, the Inatsisartut, approved the security agreement with the United States and Denmark on Tuesday, the AP reported. Sixteen members voted for it, none against, and seven abstained, after months in which Donald Trump refused to rule out force to take the island. The text was signed in New York in September, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, by Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's Prime Minister…

A Lisbon–Rome Ryanair flight was searched at Fiumicino after an anonymous email. Planes made emergency landings in Murcia and Warsaw and one airport shut for two hours. No explosives were found anywhere.

At least six passenger planes were the target of bomb threats across Europe on Tuesday morning, 3 November. One was a Ryanair flight that had taken off from Lisbon for Rome. Every aircraft landed safely, and bomb-disposal teams found nothing on any of them. The plane from Lisbon touched down at Fiumicino at around 9:40 Rome time (8:40 in Lisbon), with a second Ryanair jet from Dublin landing about an hour later. Investigators quoted by the Italian news…

US officials, speaking anonymously, say Monday's strikes were limited and defensive, a response to an Iranian missile fired at a US aircraft. Iranian state TV reported explosions on Qeshm and in Bandar Lengeh. The Revolutionary Guards say they shot down US drones, which Washington denies.

The United States struck targets on Iran's Qeshm Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, on Monday. That account comes from US officials who spoke anonymously to several news organisations, ABC News among them. The Pentagon has announced nothing, and US Central Command has not commented. According to those officials, the strikes were limited and "defensive", a response to an Iranian missile fired at a US fighter jet. They also say US forces intercepted another…