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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Six Nato countries are planning to develop a “drone wall” to help defend their borders with Russia after a series of provocations, ranging from forced migration to attempts to amend the frontiers.

Ministers from Finland, Norway, Poland and the three Baltic states said at the weekend that they had discussed creating a co-ordinated system of drones along their borders with Russia to prevent smuggling and further provocations, and to help with defence.

“This is a completely new thing — a drone wall stretching from Norway to Poland — and the goal is to use drones and other technologies to protect our borders . . . against provocations from unfriendly countries and to prevent smuggling,” Lithuania’s interior minister Agnė Bilotaitė told the Baltic News Service.

All six countries have faced so-called hybrid attacks — non-military measures that tend to have an element of deniability — from Russia in recent months and years, including undocumented asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East being sent over their borders.

Mari Rantanen, Finland’s interior minister, told public broadcaster Yle that the drone wall plan would “improve in time” and could help defend the Nordic country’s 1,340km-long border with Russia.

Details of the timing and how the drone wall would work were not provided. Bilotaitė said each country needed to do its “homework” and suggested that EU funds could be used as well.

The frontline Nato states have stepped up warnings about Russia’s intentions after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and its subsequent moving of its economy to a war footing.

Russia’s defence ministry published a draft proposal last week on its website on unilaterally expanding its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland, before deleting the plan.

A day later, Russian border guards removed 25 buoys from Estonian waters that were marking the border, sparking outrage and messages of support for Tallinn from Nato and a number of its member states.

Many Nato countries believe Russia could test Nato’s border within the next five to 10 years, while intelligence services have uncovered a number of assumed sabotage operations on their soil.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has highlighted the importance of drones, with both sides using them in attacks. Several Nato countries have responded by setting up or intensifying their drone warfare units.

The six Nato countries also discussed plans at the meeting for evacuating large parts of their population in the event of a conflict. Finnish officials, for instance, have expressed surprise that Ukraine has kept its civilian population in or close to the frontlines, saying that the defence plans of the Nordic country involve evacuating border populations.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A tornado touched down and crossed an interstate in Texas, causing damage and possible injuries as scattered severe storms moved through Texas and Oklahoma Saturday night.

Forecasters issued tornado and severe thunder storm warnings for parts of both states, as some heat records were broken during the day in South Texas and residents received triple-digit temperature warnings over the long holiday weekend.

A tornado crossed into northern Denton County in Texas late Saturday and overturned tractor-trailer trucks, stopping traffic on Interstate 35, Denton County Community Relations Director Dawn Cobb said in a statement.

The tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 40 mph (64 kph), prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.

The storm damaged homes, overturned motorhomes and knocked down power lines and trees throughout the area including points in Sanger, Pilot Point, Ray Roberts Lake and Isle du Bois State Park, Cobb said, adding that the number of injuries in the county was not immediately known.

The fire department in the city of Denton, about 37 miles (59.5 kilometers) north of Forth Worth, Texas, posted on X that emergency personnel were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.”

The Claremore, Oklahoma, police announced on social media that the city about 28 miles (45 kilometers) east of Tulsa was “shut down” as a result of storm damage including downed power lines and trees and inaccessible roads.

Earlier Saturday night, the National Weather Service’s office in Norman, Oklahoma, said via the social platform X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.

A following post at 10:05 p.m. said storms had exited the area but warned of a storm moving across north Texas that could affect portions of south central Oklahoma.

At 10:24 p.m., the weather service office in Fort Worth posted a message warning residents in Era and Valley View they were in the direct path of a possible tornado and to immediately seek shelter. The Forth Worth office continued to post notices and shelter warnings tracking the movement of the storm through midnight and separately issued a severe thunderstorm warning with “golf ball sized hail” possible.

The weather service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, warned on X of a dangerous storm moving across the northeast part of the state through 2 a.m. and issued severe thunderstorm notices for communities including Hugo, Boswell, Fort Towson, Grainola, Foraker and Herd.

The Norman office had compared conditions Saturday to “ a gasoline-soaked brush pile.” Forecasters said any storms that form could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes.

“There’s a small chance most of the matches are duds and we only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a match I would want to play with. It only takes one storm to be impactful,” it said via Facebook.

Excessive heat, especially for May, was the danger in South Texas, where the heat index was forecast to approach 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) in some spots during the weekend. Actual temperatures will be lower, although still in triple-digit territory, but the humidity will make it feel that much hotter.

The region is on the north end of a heat dome stretching from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.

Sunday looks like the hottest day with record highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.

Brownsville and Harlingen near the Texas-Mexico border already set new records Saturday for the May 25 calendar date — 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), respectively — according to the weather service.

Red Flag fire warnings were also in place in West Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. Humidity was very low, under 10%, and wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) were recorded.

“We’ve got very dry air, warm temperatures and strong winds creating a high fire danger over a wide area … that can lead to rapidly spreading or uncontrollable fires,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.

April saw the United States’ second-highest number of tornadoes on record. So far for 2024, the country is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Iowa was hit hard this week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield. And other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.

The storm system causing the severe weather was expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.

The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Proxy adviser Glass Lewis has urged Tesla shareholders to vote against Elon Musk’s $56bn pay award and a proposal to reincorporate the electric vehicle maker in Texas, a major blow for the board ahead of its crucial annual meeting next month.

Glass Lewis said the chief executive’s package of share options was unduly dilutive and of “excessive size” in a report released on Saturday. It also criticised the proposed move to Texas as offering “uncertain benefits and additional risk” to shareholders.

The proxy adviser also raised issues with Musk’s “slate of extraordinarily time-consuming projects”, in particular the 2022 acquisition and ongoing overhaul of Twitter, now known as X, which it claims are distracting the billionaire from leading the world’s largest EV manufacturer. Musk also runs SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company.

Tesla’s board has been lobbying investors to re-ratify the $56bn award given in 2018, which was struck down by a Delaware judge in January due to concerns over its size and the independence of the board. In response, Musk vowed to leave the state and move Tesla’s incorporation to Texas.

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm has argued that Musk deserves to be paid so much because the company hit ambitious targets for revenue and its stock price. She brushed off criticism she is too close to the CEO as “crap”.

Glass Lewis’s recommendations are significant because they influence the voting of large institutional investors such as Vanguard, Capital Group, Norges and State Street, all of whom are top-10 shareholders in Tesla and voted against the pay proposal the first time around. Nevertheless, the proposal passed with 73 per cent approval.

Fellow proxy adviser ISS is expected to release its own report soon ahead of Tesla’s June 13 annual meeting.

While winning the pay vote would not overturn the court’s decision, the carmaker hopes it will prove investors still back the package six years later and could be decisive in subsequent legal appeals.

If successful, Musk’s stake will jump to more than 20 per cent from 13 per cent. A loss would be symbolically damaging for Denholm and the rest of the board and raise questions about Musk’s future at Tesla. He has threatened to develop future artificial intelligence products elsewhere if he does not gain greater control of the automaker, which he is repositioning as an AI and robotics company.

Some large investors have indicated they are prepared to back the award regardless of proxy advice. Baillie Gifford’s flagship Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust told the FT this week that it was in favour because Musk had delivered “remarkable corporate performance leading to huge creation of value for shareholders”.

Tesla also has to persuade thousands of retail investors around the world to vote in favour of the resolutions. They account for about 30 per cent of shares, an unusually high amount for a listed company, and will be crucial in the outcome.

On the pay vote, a simple majority must be in favour, excluding those shares owned by Musk and his brother Kimbal. Reincorporation in Texas has a higher bar, requiring a majority of all shares outstanding, meaning those not cast are counted as a “no”.

Glass Lewis also recommended voting against the re-election of Kimbal to the eight-person board, warning “shareholders may reasonably consider the board’s overall independence to be a material concern.”