AUCKLAND (AP) – Around 15,000 people have been left without electricity in New Zealand’s northern city of Auckland due to large-scale outages caused by powerful cyclone Gabrielle, expected to become one of the most serious storms to hit the country this century, local energy company Vector said. “Cyclone Gabrielle has started to make itself felt with widespread power outages, particularly in exposed areas across north Auckland. Our crews are responding as quickly and safely as they can, given the current weather conditions. As of 7pm (06:00 GMT), around 15,000 customers were without power,” the company said on Sunday in a statement. The firm added that due to the expected deterioration of weather conditions, power outages would continue until Monday. The Auckland Emergency Management, in turn, urged people to prepare for the aftermath of the massive blackouts, including stocking up on food, batteries, blankets, and warm clothing, as well as listening to the news on the radio.

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BRUSSELS (AFP) – The NATO alliance confirmed Sunday that its long-serving chief would leave office in October, launching a new round of speculation about his successor. Diplomats in Brussels say there is no consensus as to who should replace former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg as the Western alliance’s top civilian official. On Sunday, shortly after Stoltenberg returned from high-level meetings in Washington, his spokeswoman confirmed that he would leave office later this year. “The mandate of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been extended three times and he has served for a total of almost nine years,” spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. “The secretary general’s term comes to an end in October of this year and he has no intention to seek another extension of his mandate.” The 63-year-old’s decision to go will shine a light on the race among senior European officials to replace him, with governments already discreetly floating candidates in news media leaks. The secretary general has always been a European, even if in practice Washington has the decisive vote on his -- or maybe, this time, on her -- nomination.

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NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cyprus went to the polls in a runoff presidential election on Sunday, pitting two career diplomats against each other in what could be a cliffhanger vote that has split the political right. Nikos Christodoulides, 49, a former foreign minister with the ruling right-wing DISY party now standing as an independent, holds a narrow lead after the first round of voting on Feb. 5 produced the surprise elimination of DISY head Averof Neophytou. In the runoff vote he faces Andreas Mavroyiannis, 66, also a professed independent, who was chief negotiator in peace talks with Turkish Cypriots and a former permanent representative of Cyprus to the United Nations. Christodoulides is backed by a smattering of center and right-of-centre parties and Mavroyiannis by the left-wing AKEL. Cyprus’s incumbent president, Nicos Anastasiades of DISY, is prevented from seeking a third term by law and has said he backs the party line. But there have been widespread reports that he wanted the party to back Christodoulides, his protégé, in the second round, triggering disagreement in party ranks.

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NORTH CAROLINA (Dispatches) – Police in North Carolina’s capital city have released video footage that shows the arrest of an unarmed Black man who died after officers forced him onto the ground and repeatedly used stun guns on him despite warnings of heart problems. Video released by Raleigh Police Department shows officers holding a black man on the ground and shocking him with a Taser as he is heard telling officers that he suffers from heart problems before going unconscious and stopping to breathe. Darryl Tyree Williams, 32, died in a Raleigh hospital in the early hours of January 17, according to a report by Police Chief Estella Patterson. The footage authorized to be released by a state judge this week shows officers approaching and searching Williams near a parked car. Police have said officers had been conducting proactive patrols of nearby businesses. The video collating officer-worn body camera footage, dash cam footage, and surveillance clips from the area show officers approaching the parked car of which Williams was occupying the driver’s seat.

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LONDON (AFP) – UK police say they have arrested 15 people including one child after fireworks were thrown and a police car set on fire at an anti-immigration demonstration outside a hotel housing asylum seekers near Liverpool. Merseyside Police said that “15 people have so far been arrested following violent disorder” in the Knowsley area in northwestern England, after initially reporting three arrests. Police said “missiles including lit fireworks were thrown at officers and one of our police vans was attacked by offenders, using hammers before setting it on fire” during clashes outside The Suites Hotel. One officer and two members of the public received slight injuries, police said. The protest came amid heightened tensions as record numbers of migrants are crossing the Channel in small boats, prompting the Conservative government to come up with a controversial plan to send such asylum seekers to Rwanda. Interior minister Suella Braverman condemned the “appalling disorder” in a tweet, adding that the “alleged behavior of some asylum seekers is never an excuse for violence and intimidation.”

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BRASILIA (AP) – Former President Jair Bolsonaro says he intends to return to Brazil “in the following weeks.” The comment during an event at an evangelical church in Florida was the first time that Bolsonaro has made a statement in public about returning home. The far-right politician has been in the U.S. since arriving in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 31, the eve of the inauguration of his leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as Brazil’s current president. Saturday’s event was held entirely in Portuguese for a Brazilian crowd of Bolsonaro supporters living abroad and was organized by the right-wing organization Yes Brazil USA. There has been speculation during recent weeks on when Bolsonaro might return to Brazil, where he is the subject of several investigations into possible wrongdoing. He initially entered the U.S. on a one-month diplomatic visa, which ended Jan. 31. He was accompanied by a team of presidential advisers and his wife, all of whom left Florida last month.