Hurricane Milton whipped up deadly tornadoes, destroying homes and triggering flash floods and power outages in Florida. We head to Erie County – a historically must-win county in the battleground state of Pennsylvania and look at the candidates’ ground games there ahead of the U.S. election. And we talk to a Donetsk ranger about Ukraine’s devastated forests. Plus, Israel says it’s eliminated a Hezbollah member in Syria while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatens a hefty retaliation against Iran following Tehran’s missile attack last week.
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Today, as Hurricane Milton makes its way into the Atlantic, Central Florida and the Gulf Coast begin to assess the damage. The devastating impact to the war in Ukraine on the nation's forests. And we visit Erie, Pennsylvania, and a county that successfully chosen the last four presidents. It's Thursday, October 10th. Earth is right as world news, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Tara Oakes and Liverpool. And I'm Christopher Walgesper in Chicago. It'll likely take days to reveal the full extent of devastation from Hurricane Milton on Central Florida. But as the sun rises over the battered region, we're already getting a glimpse. More than 100 homes were destroyed overnight from sustained winds of up to 120 miles an hour as Milton made landfall at Siesta Key near Sarasota. Milton has already forced millions to evacuate and flee to hotels or shelters to the north or south of the region. The storm-made landfall around 8.30 local time, whipping up deadly tornadoes and knocking out power to more than 2 million people. Part of a destruction revealed so far includes tearing open the roof of Tropicana Field, the stadium of a Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, currently set up with beds for emergency first responders. Milton's expected to cross the Florida Peninsula overnight and emerge into the Atlantic still with Hurricane Force later today. Meteorology expert Sarah Griffin from the University of Madison, Wisconsin. So even if it weakens, yes, we'll see less impacts from the wind, which are probably less than the impacts inland. We're still going to see that huge storm surge on the coast. Patients have been evacuated from 19 hospitals and major theme parks like Disney and Universal Studios remain shuttered. We spoke to our TV reporter, Julio Cesar Chavez, last night as he was sheltering in place in Tampa. The thing that people are most afraid about really is the flooding. People that are in flood-prone areas, even inland, are very worried about the amount of rain that is being dumped and it's not just the beachfront properties that are at risk. We're working class neighborhoods that are still at a very significant risk of storm surge flooding. U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 30-minute phone call on Wednesday is their first known chat since August. The conversation comes amid heightened tensions with Iran, following Tehran's missile attack on Israel last week. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant promising retaliation against Iran will be lethal, precise and surprising. Sources tell Reuters that Iran is issuing a warning to Gulf states not to allow their airspace or military bases to be used in attacks against Tehran. Gulf states have assured their neutrality. Israel's military says it has eliminated a Hezbollah member in Syria who relayed intelligence against Israel in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Syrian media is reporting that Israeli airstrikes hit targets in Syria. The Kremlin says that President Donald Trump's administration sent COVID tests to Russia, but denies reports that Trump had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office. In his book, "Wall," U.S. journalist Bob Woodward quoted an unnamed Trump aide as saying that Trump and Putin may have spoken as many as seven times since he left the White House in 2021. Markets now and China's volatile week continues. Chinese stocks were back at it and surging on Thursday, shaking off the previous day's slump. The focus now is on a Saturday press briefing that investors hope will shed more light on fiscal stimulus measures aimed at reviving China's economy. The analysts are wary that if these lofty expectations are not met, there may yet be a steep pullback in stocks. And for all my econ nerds out there, especially with an interest in markets, there's a new episode of econ world podcast out now, looking at the carry trade and why what's big in Japan echoes globally. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump crisscross Pennsylvania in the final weeks of this election, the ground game in Erie County in the far northwest of the state is ramping up. It's a county where President Biden won in 2020 by just around 1,400 votes. So our political reporter, Jarrett Renshaw, took a trip to Erie to get a better sense of the two candidates' ground games. Erie County is considered one of a handful of so-called boomerang counties, so essentially they have predicted the winner of the White House in each of the last four elections. The Harris campaign has an outsized advantage in the ground game. They have more money, more bodies, more phone calls, more door knocking. And the Trump campaign is largely relying on the power of Trump's gravitational pull. It's going to be a real test of whether brick and mortar campaigns remain successful in a kind of a modern campaign where viral moments are really kind of what people are really focused on. When I was at the Democratic County headquarters there in Erie talking to the county chairman, I ran into Louise. She came into the office somewhat anxious and really wanted to volunteer. The Democrats there told me that once Harris entered the race, they went from about 100 volunteers to North of 300. Now Republicans would refuse to tell me how many volunteers they had, but they conceded that it wasn't as many as Democrats locally. The Trump campaign, much more of a freewheeling campaign, there was two guys sitting on the street in a deeply red part of the county, wearing Trump, rubber masks, wearing the signature red ties, asking cars to hunt for them. Since the primary, Republicans have registered three times as many as Democrats, so clearly they're winning the registration voter game, and so Republicans will point to that, they'll point to the power of Trump. Pine trees smoldering in Ukraine's east, blackened stumps as far as the eye can see. In the Svetya Haru or Holy Mountain National Park in the Donetsk region, forest ranger Serjid Zapok surveys a destruction of trees he's nursed for 20 years. He says he used to love the view driving to work in the morning, but now he just stares at the road. Looking either side of the remnants of the forest charred by war would tear his soul apart. Max Honda has the story. Some of the forests in eastern Ukraine, especially in areas which were on the front line of the fighting and have then been recaptured by Ukraine, look like something from the Mad Max films. Just total devastation, burn out husks of trees. Actually, sometimes I've been in forest, particularly ones that are still on the front line, where there's not even been a fire. Just the quantity of shells and explosives raining down that bit of forest is so massive that the trees just get husked like coconuts to the point where you're just surrounded by stumps that are completely unrecognizable. And as well as the environmental risks for this scale of forest destruction, these were really beautiful areas too, right? Yes, yes. This was what really struck me by remember going to this exact area, Svetya Haru National Park in 2021 to just relax in this beautiful area. And that makes the destruction now all the more poignant. It was also really important for locals because it was one of the few areas of natural beauty in this really industrialized, quite polluted region. And this has been a really devastating emotional loss for them because not only have their towns been heavily damaged or in some cases destroyed by the war, they can't even really go on the weekend to their local nature spot to just sort of take a break from all destruction. It's really all been destroyed. To see the sheer scale of the damage to the forests, go to rotors.com or the Rotors app and take a look at the wider image photo story. For today's recommended read, we've got a story about China's September missile test. This is right to spoke to said the rare test did have a political message amid the country's nuclear weapons build up, but also met a need for the army to check its nuclear deterrent was working as appetised. There's a link to the story in the pod description. And for more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. To never miss an episode, subscribe on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headlines show. (upbeat music) [MUSIC]
