Media Today

[Rick Plant]

Pakistan flood toll rises with 25 children among 57 more deaths



KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - The toll from cataclysmic floods in Pakistan continued to climb on Saturday with 57 more deaths, 25 of them children, as the country grapples with a relief and rescue operation of near unprecedented scale.

A high-level body set up to coordinate the relief effort met in Islamabad on Saturday for the first time, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to take stock of the disaster.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in northern mountains brought floods that have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,265 people, including 441 children. The inundation, blamed on climate change, is still spreading.

The proportion of children's deaths has raised concern. On Friday, the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) said there was a risk of "many more" child deaths from disease after floods.

The floods that have inundated a third of the country were preceded by four heatwaves and multiple raging forest fires, the disaster management chief told the high-level meeting, highlighting the effects of climate change in the South Asian nation.

"The year 2022 brought some harsh realities of climate change for Pakistan," the chief of the National Disaster Management Authority Lieutenant-General Akhtar Nawaz told a briefing for the country's top leadership.

"This year we did not witness a spring season - we faced four heatwaves which caused large-scale forest fires across the country," he said.

The fires were particularly severe in the southwestern province of Balochistan, destroying swaths of pine-nut forests and other vegetation, not far from areas now underwater.

Balochistan has received 436% more rain than the 30-year average this monsoon.

The province has seen widespread devastation, including a washing away of key rail and road networks as well as breakdowns in telecommunications and power infrastructure, the meeting was told.

The country has received nearly 190% more rain than the 30-year average in the quarter through August, totalling 390.7 millimetres (15.38 inches). Sindh province, with a population of 50 million, was hardest hit, getting 464% more rain than the 30-year average.

Aid has flowed in from a number of countries, with the first humanitarian assistance flight from France landing on Saturday morning in Islamabad. But Pakistan's largest charity group has said there were still millions who had not been reached by aid and relief efforts.

Initial estimates of the damage have been put at $10 billion, but surveys are still being conducted along with international organisations.

The United Nations has appealed for $160 million in aid to help tackle what it said was an "unprecedented climate catastrophe" as Pakistan's navy has fanned out inland to carry out relief operations in areas that resemble a sea.

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

Dinosaur fossil from asteroid strike that caused extinction found, scientists claim - BBC News

A dinosaur's leg, stunningly preserved, has been presented by scientists claiming it was likely killed by a giant asteroid which caused the species' extinction.

The limb, complete with skin, is just one of a series of remarkable finds emerging from the Tanis fossil site in the US State of North Dakota.

But it's not just their exquisite condition that's turning heads - it's what these ancient specimens purport to represent.

The claim is the Tanis creatures were killed on the actual day the asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, which saw the reign of dinosaurs end.

The BBC's Rebecca Morrelle reports.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Yankees' Aaron Judge homers for third consecutive game, raises season total to 54

The Yankees star is now just seven homers shy of matching Roger Maris' AL record



New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his majors-leading 54th home run of the season on Monday against the Minnesota Twins, pulling him to within seven home runs of matching Roger Maris' franchise and American League single-season record of 61, established back during the 1961 season. Judge reached a new personal best on Sunday after he launched No. 53 in a victory against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Judge's Monday home run, a two-run shot and his third in as many games, came in the bottom of the sixth inning against right-handed reliever Trevor Megill. The home run broke up what had been a 2-2 tie between the teams. Here's a look at the blast in all its moving picture glory:

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1566864560824500225

According to Statcast, Judge's home run left his bat with a 109.6-mph exit velocity and carried 404 feet.

The Yankees will have 27 games remaining on their schedule after Monday. If Judge continues to hit home runs at his current pace -- a home run every 2.5 team games -- he would finish the season with 65 on the year. That would, of course, shatter Maris' records for the franchise and the AL alike. It would also tie Judge for the fourth-most in a single-season all-time, and it would leave him trailing only seasons from Barry Bonds (73 in 2001), Mark McGwire (70 in in 1998), and Sammy Sosa (66 in 1998).

It's worth remembering that Judge is an impending free agent. He rejected the Yankees' seven-year extension offer in spring training that would have paid him $213.5 million. CBS Sports recently projected him to serve as the top free agent in the upcoming class, noting that only one other player (Paul Goldschmidt) had accumulated more Wins Above Replacement during the Pandemic Era.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-power-rankings-whats-the-best-playoff-race-in-baseball-ranking-all-eight-on-labor-day/

[Rick Plant]

Liz Truss wins race to be next U.K. leader and succeed scandal-hit Boris Johnson

Truss, who beat former finance minister Rishi Sunak to be elected the leader of the ruling Conservative Party, inherits a country facing a dire winter energy crisis, widespread strikes and economic recession



LONDON — Liz Truss will be Britain’s next prime minister after she was elected leader of the ruling Conservative Party on Monday, ending a race to succeed the scandal-tarnished Boris Johnson.

Truss, 47, has been foreign secretary and was the clear front-runner. She clinched victory by appealing to the right-wing party faithful as a tax-cutting, anti-"woke" candidate who would take a hard line on post-Brexit dealings with the European Union.

She inherits a country facing a dire winter energy crisis, widespread strikes and economic recession — as well as long-term questions about the erosion of its cherished public services and its status as a world power after Brexit. Those issues were largely absent from discussion in the two-month leadership race, in which she defeated the former chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, Rishi Sunak, by 57% to 43% in the final runoff.

That is a smaller margin than opinion polling had suggested and than her supporters may have hoped for.

As leader of the country's largest party, she will be appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on Tuesday, a break from tradition for the aging monarch, who has always performed the royal duty in London.

Truss, addressing a crowd of Conservative activists and lawmakers at an announcement event in the capital, joked that the lengthy leadership race was "one of the longest job interviews in history."

Her victory means she will become the country’s third female leader, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.

Johnson announced his resignation in July when six months of rolling scandals culminated in a critical mass of his own lawmakers’ abandoning him.

Most of Britain’s 67 million people had no say in Truss’ ascension. Instead, she was chosen by the party’s 180,000 members, who are 97% white; skew older, wealthy and male; and lean to the right of Britain’s political spectrum. Truss does not appear to be hugely popular in polls of the broader public, and she was not the top choice of her party’s lawmakers, but she was the favorite of its members.

The next general election might not be until early 2025; polls give the opposition Labour Party large leads over the Conservatives following the acrimony around Johnson’s fall.

Labour leader Keir Starmer congratulated Truss in a recorded video but added, “The change we need in Britain is not a change at the top of the Tory party,” referring to the Conservative Party by its centuries-old nickname.

Top of Truss’ priorities will be the country’s cost-of-living crisis: skyrocketing bills for food and energy (household electricity and gas bills are set to triple), fears of blackouts this winter and inflation that has sent real-terms wages falling. Millions of people may face the choice between heating their homes or feeding their families, while many small businesses say they will fold unless the government takes action.

Truss has promised to announce her plans on the issue this week. In her acceptance speech, she vowed tax cuts and said: "I will deliver on the energy crisis."

But tackling the crisis is doubly hard because her party is bitterly divided over what to do about it.

Johnson assembled a broad coalition that agreed on one issue — Brexit — said Anand Menon, the director of the U.K. in a Changing Europe think tank. That big tent covers lifelong middle-class Tories in the southern countryside, who may want a small state and lower taxes, to party newcomers from the traditionally Labour-voting north, who generally favor more investment in public services.

“The party is so divided on the only issue that matters to people now, and that’s going to be problematic,” Menon said. “The only issue that matters is the economy.”

Trying to unite those factions is Truss, a political chameleon who, supporters say, has been nimble and pragmatic enough to adapt her views and whom critics decry as opportunistic.

She was born in Oxford to a math professor father and a nurse mother whom she described as “left-wing.” As a student at Oxford University, she supported the centrist Liberal Democrats and advocated such positions as abolishing the monarchy and banning nuclear weapons.

After she switched to the Conservatives, she was elected to Parliament in 2010 following several unsuccessful attempts.

In 2016, she voted to remain in the E.U. in the Brexit referendum. That put her on the liberal — and losing — side of a political and cultural war that has raged ever since. However, she has since switched sides, often displaying the zeal of the convert that seems to have convinced the party faithful.

"She’s loyal, she’s honest, and I’m sure she’ll deliver what she said she would deliver, and I trust her 100%,” said Andrea Andino, 52, sporting an "In Liz we Truss" T-shirt outside the central London conference center where the result was announced.

Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, said Truss “wooed” the Conservative grassroots “by telling them what they want to hear — and pretty much only what they want to hear.”

She has tried to burnish those right-wing credentials further by imitating the divisive Thatcher, wearing similar outfits and posing for a photo op in a tank.

Few, if any, pundits regard Truss as a polished orator, and she has become known among critics as overly rehearsed but prone to gaffes. Yet she emerged as the favorite and natural heir to succeed Johnson — still beloved by many on the right even if they accepted it was time for him to go.

In her speech Monday, she paid tribute to Johnson as “my friend."

Johnson quickly repaid the compliment on Twitter, saying Truss "has the right plan to tackle the cost of living crisis, unite our party and continue the great work of uniting and levelling up our country."

Truss had stints as minister for the environment, justice and international trade and most recently as foreign minister, giving her an opportunity to polish her no-nonsense image in dealings over Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where Britain has been a key and valued ally of Kyiv’s defensive fight.

That is unlikely to change with Truss at the helm, although her focus will almost certainly be on the domestic crises greeting her elevation to the top job.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/liz-truss-wins-uk-prime-minister-conservative-leader-boris-johnson-rcna45455

[Rick Plant]

Record high temperatures continue to bake the West. Here's how days of extreme heat are impacting life
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/06/us/extreme-heat-impact-us-west/index.html

[Rick Plant]

WaPo: Material on foreign nation's nuclear capabilities seized at Mar-a-Lago

Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett joins CNN’s Anderson Cooper to discuss his reporting that the FBI recovered material relating to a foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities during their search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Watch:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/09/07/wapo-mar-a-lago-document-foreign-power-nuclear-capabilities-vpx.cnn

[Rick Plant]

New York Yankees put Anthony Rizzo on IL, to call up Ronald Guzman

NEW YORK -- The Yankees are placing Anthony Rizzo on the injured list before Wednesday's doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins, and the team will call up first baseman Ronald Guzman to take his place.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Rizzo has been dealing with headaches in recent days and previously was dealing with lingering back issues. Rizzo received an epidural to relieve pain in his back, but the team is unsure whether the headaches and the injection are connected.

"We don't think so based on this, but he had the epidural and now the headaches," Boone said. "It's hard to tell. I know some of the images and stuff were good signs as far as not being that, but I think they're trying to get heads around exactly why."

Boone said Rizzo "can't do much" right now due to the headaches once he gets up. Rizzo has slumped since the beginning of August, hitting .208/.299/.442, but he is hitting .225/.339/.493 overall with 30 homers this season

Because Guzman is not on the 40-man roster, the Yankees will need to make a corresponding move ahead of Wednesday's games. In 90 games this season for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, Guzman is hitting .260/.357/.466 with 12 homers.

Boone also said infielder DJ LeMahieu will need some time off while dealing with a toe issue, adding that he would not have played in Tuesday's game. LeMahieu's toe injury has affected his power at the plate and isn't something that will get better with a few days of rest, Boone said. He will need time in the offseason.

Additionally, Giancarlo Stanton, who left Monday's game with an injury scare after fouling multiple balls off his foot and ankle, might be an option for the team during its doubleheader, Boone said. X-rays came back negative after Monday's game.

In good news on the Yankees injury front, Luis Severino will pitch for the Double-A Somerset Patriots on Wednesday and will throw about 55 pitches. Severino said he hopes that it will be his final rehab appearance. Severino has stated on multiple occasions he has felt ready to return and has been unhappy with being on the 60-day injured list. In 16 starts this season, Severino has a 3.45 ERA, 1.07 WHIP in 86 innings pitched across 16 starts. -

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34536907/new-york-yankees-put-anthony-rizzo-il-call-ronald-guzman