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THE Tampa Bay Rays could be forced to move home next year after severe damage to their stadium.

Tropicana Field had the roof ripped off as it was battered by Hurricane Milton last week.

AP

Hurricane Milton ripped the roof off Tropicana Field in Tampa, Florida[/caption]

Getty

The Tampa Bay Rays face a huge bill to repair their stadium despite plans for a new home in 2028[/caption]

The storm brought winds over 100mph to Florida and torrential downpours.

The Rays’ stadium in St Petersburg, Florida had been set up as a base for first responders ahead of Milton making landfall.

Thousands of beds were placed on the outfield over where the diamond would usually have been.

But dramatic footage from Wednesday night showed Tropicana Field’s roof being shredded by the winds.

Some estimates for repairing the roof and other damaged parts of the stadium have come in as high as $39 million.

But the Tampa Bay Rays were already committed to building a new stadium in time for the 2028 season.

That leaves the Rays in a tricky situation when it comes to their Tropicana Field home for the next three years.

The MLB team would also face a race against time to have the stadium ready for the beginning of the 2025 season at the end of March.

“The city will work with the Rays on determining the best options once the assessment of the situation is complete,” Council member Gina Driscoll said in a statement to NBC News.

The Tampa region and Florida in general has a number of ballparks.

Half of the league’s teams head down to the state for Spring Training in February and March.

The New York Yankees play their home Spring Training games in downtown Tampa, next to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium.

Footage also showed the NFL stadium underwater and “looking like an ocean” Wednesday night.

The Philadelphia Phillies are also based in Clearwater, Florida, just north of Tropicana Field on the Gulf of Mexico coast.

At least 23 people have been killed by Hurricane Milton and millions of people were left without power.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were forced to flee for New Orleans earlier than scheduled last week for their NFL clash with the Saints.

The Tampa Bay Lightning NHL side also relocated before Milton hit the region.

And further north in Florida, the Jacksonville Jaguars were forced to delay a transatlantic flight.

The Jags flew to London, England to take on the Chicago Bears in an NFL clash at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Their departure from Florida was pushed back by a few hours to allow the worst of the winds and rain to pass into the Atlantic Ocean.

FEARS are looming that Hezbollah has found a way to beat Israel’s Iron Dome.

The drone attack that killed four on Sunday has left IDF chiefs questioning why their air defences didn’t detect the fatal strike.

Wikipedia

Israel’s Iron Dome being used to launch defence rockets[/caption]

EPA

Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system intercepts missiles launched from the Gaza Strip in October 2023[/caption]

Reuters

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from Lebanon towards Israel[/caption]

Getty

Images from the scene show a line of ambulances arriving to evacuate the injured[/caption]

Hezbollah said it had targeted a base belonging to the IDF’s Golani Brigade with a “swarm of drones”.

It was the deadliest strike by the terror group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

Tel Aviv has a world-class air defence system which has meant strikes to Israel have, for the most part, been inconsequential – until now.

Israeli investigators are trying to wrap their head around why the Iron Dome didn’t pick up the killer drone – as well as why air raid sirens failed to alert the Golani Brigade.

The Iron Dome is supposed to intercept rockets that are travelling in the direction of a urban areas and bring them down – making it the first system of its kind in the world.

But fears loom that if multiple strikes are conducted simultaneously, the system could be overwhelmed.

Others have warned the system is less effective against drones that fly slower than easily detectable rockets.

Israel’s top defence officials visited the army base that was hit in the deadly Hezbollah attack and vowed to investigate how the drone managed to evade air defences.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called the attack a “difficult event with painful outcomes” but ensured the government would be “coordinating a national effort and working on developing solutions”.

The IDF have consequently launched an investigation to determine why the early warning systems weren’t triggered by the deadly drone.

According to the Times of Israel, Hezbollah launched two “Misrad” drones into Israeli airspace from the sea.

The Alma Center, an Israeli research institute, said the drone has a 120-kilometre assault range and a top speed of 370 kilometres per hour.

It has the capacity to carry up to 40 kilograms of explosives, and the ability to fly up to 3,000 metres, the institute says.

One of the drones was reportedly shot down off the coast, north of Haifa.

But the other appeared to go completely undetected as it soared across the border without triggering air raid sirens.

It then fatally hit the Binyamina camp’s hall where dozens of soldiers were eating.

Sergeant Omri Tamari, Sergeant Yosef Hieb, Sergeant Yoav Agmon and Sergeant Alon Amitay, all 19, died in the attack.

Israel’s military also said 61 were wounded – with seven severely injured.

IDF

Sergeant Alon Amitay, 19, was killed at the Israeli base near Binyamina[/caption]

IDF

Sergeant Omri Tamari, 19, also died in the drone strike[/caption]

IDF

Sergeant Yosef Hieb, 19, was also among those killed[/caption]

IDF

Sergeant Yoav Agmon, 19, died in the drone attack on the base’s dining hall[/caption]

Hezbollah’s media office issued a statement after the attack, cruelly boasting “the dining rooms of Israeli soldiers have become death traps”.

They said: “What [Israel] witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people.”

The terror group also said the strike was in response to Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and Beirut on Thursday.

In a rare event, the US said on Sunday it would send US troops to Israel along with an advanced US anti-missile system.

The White House claim the extremely unusual deployment looks to bolster the country’s air defences following the missile attacks by Iran.

President Joe Biden said the move was “to defend Israel” which is waiting for an expected retaliation against Iran after Tehran fired over 180 missiles at Israel two weeks ago.

With Israel’s top air-defence systems, it is rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles.

Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily since the war in Gaza began – and fighting has escalated in recent weeks.

Israel launched its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month with the goal of weakening Hezbollah and pushing the terror group away from the border to allow displaced Israelis to return.

Earlier on Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised that Israel would never let Hezbollah regroup along the Lebanon border.

He said: “These are military targets containing underground tunnels and weapon storages.

“Our troops found hundreds of RPGs, munitions, and anti-tank missiles here.

“The IDF is currently destroying these weapons above and under the ground.”

He said he has “instructed the IDF… to ensure that terrorists cannot return to these places”.

The IDF said some 100 Hezbollah operatives have been killed over the last week – and claimed more than 50 Hezbollah rocket launchers and 60 command centres have been destroyed.

But Avraham Levine, an analyst with Israeli think-tank Alma, said it’s likely Hezbollah was “well prepared and waiting” for Israeli troops.

He said: “The fact that the chain of command has been damaged does not take away the ability to shoot Israeli communities or try to hit,” describing Hezbollah as “the same powerful terror army we all know”.

Hezbollah’s deadly strike on the Israeli base came the same day the US said it would send a new air defences to help bolster protection against missiles.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – both Iran-backed militant groups – and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month.

THE risk of bird flu merging with seasonal flu to create a dangerous mutant strain is now very high, experts have warned.

They fear the new bug could be as lethal as bird flu and as transmissible as regular flu, giving it the potential to cause a pandemic.

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Bird flu could become spreading among people, which might cause major outbreaks,[/caption]

When two viruses infect someone at the same time, they can mix and create a new, possibly more harmful variant, through a process called reassortment.

The risk of bird flu reassorting this winter will be five times higher in the winter, compared with the summer, according to preliminary modelling by analytics firm Airfinity.

Bird flu, specifically the H5N1 strain, has been spreading through cattle herds and poultry this year.

At least 17 people have been infected with H5N1 strain in the US this year – almost all of them poultry or dairy workers who had direct contact with sick animals.

Bird flu has a high mortality rate, but currently spreads ineffectively between humans, making it less of a threat.

But if it were to combine with a more transmissible flu variant like seasonal flu it could become better at spreading among people, which might cause major outbreaks, experts at the data firm warn.

The likelihood of dairy and poultry workers also being infected with seasonal flu rises in winter, when flu cases rise natually.

Infections always surge in colder months largely due to colder temperatures, indoor crowding, and weakened immune systems. 

On top of this, early data from the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) suggests the effectiveness of the 2024 flu vaccine to be as low as 35 per cent.

Coupled with a low uptake of the jab, which would leave more people at risk, these factors raise the likelihood of reassortment taking place, said Connor Browne, a biorisk consultant. 

“The combination of a lower-than-expected efficacy for this year’s flu vaccine and the likelihood that uptake of the vaccine could well be lower than in previous years increases the chances of a H5N1 reassortment event occurring through coinfection,” he said on X, formally Twitter.

Reassortment has been behind most, if not all, historical flu pandemics, including the 2009 ‘swine flu‘ pandemic.

This particualr strain, called H1N1, was a combination of avian, swine, and human influenza viruses, which led to a new variant which was able to spread rapidly.

It led to the deaths of an estimated quarter of a million people and infected up to 21 per cent of the global population. 

Bird flu is already on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of diseases with pandemic potenital, along with Ebola, Dengue and the black death.

Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation, told a press conference on Thursday that the US needs to focus on “access to testing, getting vaccines to people with high-risk occupational exposure, and answer some of the basic science questions – like how the virus is being transmitted between cows”.

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