PRAGUE (AP) — The death toll rose in central European countries on Sunday after days of heavy rain caused widespread flooding and compelled mass evacuations.

Several Central European countries are already affected by severe flooding, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Slovakia and Hungary might be next to be hit, as a low-pressure system from northern Italy has been dumping record rainfall within the region since Thursday.

Six people have died in Romania, one each in Austria and Poland. According to police, 4 individuals are missing within the Czech Republic after being swept away by the floodwaters.

It's not over yet

Most parts of the Czech Republic have been affected, with authorities issuing the best flood warning for around 100 locations across the country, however the situation has been worst in two northeastern regions, which have seen the heaviest rainfall in recent days, including the Jeseníky Mountains near the Polish border.

In the town of Opava, as much as 10,000 people (out of a population of around 56,000) were asked to go away their homes and move to higher ground. Rescue staff took people to safety by boat after they arrived in a neighbourhood flooded by the raging Opava River.

“There is no reason to wait,” Mayor Tomáš Navrátil told Czech public radio, saying the situation was worse than the last devastating flood in 1997, which became referred to as the “flood of the century.”

“We must focus on saving lives,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Czech public television on Sunday. His government was as a result of meet on Monday to evaluate the damage.

The worst “is not yet behind us,” the prime minister warned as floods ravaged the country.
President Petr Pavel sounded more optimistic, saying: “It is obvious that we have learned a lesson from the last crisis.”

At least 4 missing and villages cut off

Thousands of individuals also needed to be evacuated in the just about completely flooded towns of Krnov and Cesky Tesin. In Ostrava and Bohumin, the Oder, which flows into Poland, reached extreme water levels, triggering mass evacuations.

Ostrava, the capital of the region, is the third largest Czech city. Mayor Jan Dohnal said the town would need to expect significant traffic disruptions in the approaching days. Almost no trains were running within the region.

Towns and villages within the Jeseniky Mountains, including the town center of Jeseniky Mountains, were flooded by the raging waters and cut off from the skin world. Streets become rivers. The military sent a helicopter to assist with the evacuation.

Jesenik Mayor Zdenka Blistanova told Czech public television that several houses in her and other nearby towns had been destroyed by the floods. Numerous bridges and roads were also badly damaged.

Around 260,000 households across the country were without electricity on Sunday morning and traffic was paralyzed on many roads, including the principal D1 motorway.

A firefighter dies when Lower Austria is asserted a disaster area

A firefighter “slipped on a staircase” while pumping out a flooded cellar within the town of Tulln, the pinnacle of the Lower Austrian fire service, Dietmar Fahrafellner, told reporters on Sunday.

The authorities declared the whole state of Lower Austria within the north-east of the country a disaster area. 10,000 emergency staff have to this point evacuated 1,100 houses there. Emergency personnel have begun establishing emergency shelters for residents who had to go away their homes as a result of the flooding.

The municipality of Lilienfeld in Lower Austria, with around 25,000 inhabitants, is cut off from the skin world. The authorities there asked residents to boil tap water as a precaution.

In Lower Austria, the situation along the Kamp River, which flows into the Danube, is especially dangerous.

The Ottenstein reservoir on the Kamp still has a buffer function, but could reach its limits in the subsequent few hours and further flooding could occur, experts say.

After an emergency meeting on the Interior Ministry in Vienna on Saturday afternoon, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told journalists that the situation was “continuing to deteriorate”.

He said 2,400 soldiers were able to support relief efforts in Austria, with 1,000 of them being sent to the disaster area in Lower Austria where dams began to interrupt.

“We are experiencing difficult and dramatic hours in Lower Austria. For many Lower Austrians, these are probably the most difficult hours of their lives,” said Lower Austria's governor, Johanna Mikl-Leitner.

In Vienna, the Vienna River overflowed its banks, flooding houses and making it obligatory to evacuate houses near the river.

Romania reports further flood victims

Romanian authorities said on Sunday that two more people had died within the hard-hit eastern Romanian county of Galati, after 4 deaths were reported there a day earlier in consequence of unprecedented rainfall.

Dramatic floods in Poland

One person is believed to have died in floods within the southwest of Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday.

Tusk said the situation across the town of Klodzko, which has a population of 25,000 and is positioned in a valley within the Sudetes near the border with the Czech Republic, was “dramatic”. In some cases, helicopters were used to rescue people from rooftops.

In Glucholazy, the water overflowed a river dam and flooded streets and houses. Mayor Paweł Szymkowicz said: “We are drowning” and appealed to residents to evacuate to higher ground.

A vulnerable bridge in the town collapsed under the pressure of the flood, and in Stronie Śląskie, a police station constructing was destroyed after the floods broke through the town's dam. In the Kłodzko Valley region on the border with the Czech Republic, submerged cars might be seen in lots of places, while a brand new flood wave was expected there.

In the town of Jelenia Gora, which has a population of 75,000, streets in the town center were flooded after one in all the dams on the Bobr River broke. City authorities warned residents that they may need to evacuate as more flooding was moving toward the town.

Power and communications have been disrupted in some flooded areas, and a few regions may depend on the satellite-based Starlink service, Tusk said.

A hotter atmosphere as a result of human-induced climate change can result in more intense rainfall.

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Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Philipp-Moritz Jenne and Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna and Stephen McGrath in Sibiu, Romania, contributed to this report.

Related Press

BANGKOK — The death toll in Myanmar from floods and landslides brought on by Typhoon Yagi has risen to at the least 74, with 89 people missing, Myanmar state television reported Saturday.
Due to the difficulties in obtaining information, there are fears that the variety of victims may very well be even higher.

The latest official death toll announced by the country's military government was greater than double the 33 reported on Friday. Typhoon Yagi had previously hit Vietnam, northern Thailand and Laos, killing greater than 260 people and causing widespread damage.

The latest figures were announced after state media reported that General Min Aung Hlaing, chairman of the ruling military council, said Myanmar had asked other countries for assistance.

According to reports, nearly 240,000 people have been displaced. According to the UN Refugee Agency, there have been already 3.4 million displaced people in Myanmar in the beginning of September, mainly as a result of war and unrest in recent times.

In Myanmar, low-lying areas within the central regions of Mandalay and Bago, in addition to in eastern Shan State and the capital Naypyidaw, have been under water since Wednesday.

Min Aung Hlaing and other military officials inspected flooded areas and reviewed rescue, relief and reconstruction efforts in Naypyidaw on Friday, the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper reported. The report said he had instructed officials to contact other countries to acquire rescue and relief efforts for victims, as other countries affected by the storm have done.

“It is necessary to initiate rescue, relief and rehabilitation measures as soon as possible,” he was quoted as saying.

The exact extent of the damage remains to be unclear, but there are fears that the death toll could rise significantly. Local news agencies are reporting that over 100 persons are missing.

Determining the variety of victims and damage and providing aid is difficult. Myanmar has been in civil war since 2021 after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Independent analysts estimate that the military controls far lower than half of the country.

State television news on Saturday evening said that 24 bridges, 375 school buildings, a Buddhist monastery, five dams, 4 pagodas, 14 power transformers, 456 lamp posts and greater than 65,000 houses had been damaged by flooding in the middle and east of the country.

Naypyidaw is considered one of the regions worst affected by the floods. Myanmar's media group Eleven Media reported on Friday that record rains had damaged several pagodas in Bagan, the country's ancient capital, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The rain, considered the heaviest in 60 years, had caused partitions of several centuries-old temples to collapse, it said.

The USA is approaching the top of the one among the most well liked summers since weather records beganAcross the country, heatwaves have pushed peak electricity demand on some days to levels well above seasonal averages.

To ensure they will meet these peaks in demand, grid operators depend on what are often called “peaker plants.” Peaker plants can initiate quickly and comparatively inexpensively, but they typically use more fuel per unit of electricity produced than other kinds of fossil fuel plants.

Because they’re less efficient than other power plants, peaker power plants typically only run during times of high demand. lower than 10% of the 12 months have runoften just for a couple of hours at a time.

However, their higher emissions per unit of electricity produced raise environmental and health concerns. As of 2021, there have been 999 peak load power plants within the USAin all 50 states. About 70% of those plants burned natural gas, the remainder were powered by oil and coal.

To reduce air pollution and combat climate change, the United States is moving away from fossil fuels and increasingly using renewable energy sources corresponding to wind and solar energy. Ironically, climate change is generating more frequent and intense heat wavesMany power systems increasingly depend on peak load power plants to balance fluctuations in renewable energy production. Proposals for construct recent peakers or extend the lifetime of the old have in states like Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Texas And recent York.

My research focuses on the economic and environmental costs and advantages of electricity generationThe energy transition is changing the role of peak load power plants and offering further options for maintaining electricity supply during peak load times.

Balancing the ability supply

For grid operators, a very important feature of an influence plant is whether or not it will possibly produce electricity on demand. Many renewable resources, including wind, solar and certain kinds of hydropower, are often called non-distributable resources because they’re controlled by nature and produce energy when conditions allow. The cost of generating electricity with them is low, so that they are frequently used to their maximum capability.

Power plants that run on fossil fuels or nuclear power are called deliverable resources because they will produce electricity each time it is required. However, their operating costs are higher than those of renewables, mainly because gas, coal, nuclear and oil power plants need to buy fuel to operate.

Some of those power plants – historically people who run on coal or nuclear fuel – are called Baseload power plantsThey generate electricity relatively cheaply, but need time to begin up and reach full power. Intermediate units produce electricity at the next cost for every additional megawatt-hour produced, but can ramp up and down their output more quickly than baseload plants. Peakload plants have the very best costs per megawatt-hour, but can adjust their output in a short time.

In the past, baseload power plants operated all 12 months round, while intermediate power plants adjusted their output to short-term fluctuations in demand. Peakload power plants were used only during rare peak demand periods.

But as utilities add more wind and solar energy to the grid, they’re increasingly using demand-responsive fossil fuel plants to smooth out fluctuations in renewable energy production – for instance, to run air conditioners when the sun goes down but temperatures are still high. This favors plants that may quickly adjust their production levels, even in the event that they are less fuel efficient. The result’s a growing importance of peaker power plants.

Environmental justice hotspots

Electricity generation from fossil fuels within the USA has decreased with major investments in wind and solar energy. But fossil fuel power plants still produce about 60% of US electricity – and these plants emit pollutants that contribute to climate change and worsen local air quality.

Pollution from sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter and ozone is related to Respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and premature deathAlthough air pollution within the United States has declined overall in recent many years, low-income and minority neighborhoods still suffer disproportionately from poor air quality.

A 2022 report estimates that 32 million Americans you reside inside 3 miles of a peak load power plantIn 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic communities are statistically more prone to be settled closer than average to peak values.

Other ways to deal with peak demand

How else can supply and demand be balanced? One way is to make use of batteries to store electricity when wind or solar energy is powerful, after which discharge it when demand exceeds supply from conventional sources.

Although the investment costs for batteries are currently high, they’re expected to say no significantly in the approaching many years. In 2023, the United States had a complete of about 15 gigawatts of battery storage capability – the equivalent of 15 large nuclear power plants – and this number could double in 2024.

Another alternative is to expand transmission networks that allow electricity to be sourced from lower-cost plants in distant areas slightly than counting on nearby peak-load power plants. However, the development of recent transmission lines is related to significant Regulatory, permitting and land use challenges.

A 3rd possibility is Demand response programswhere electricity consumers pay higher prices in periods of upper demand. This could help reduce peaks and troughs in demand throughout the day, benefiting more efficient but less flexible baseload power plants which are designed to run 24 hours a day.

However, most consumers currently don’t pay prices that reflect short-term changes in wholesale electricity costsIn addition, it’s uncertain whether private customers would adjust their consumption because of short-term price fluctuations. Technologies corresponding to smart thermostats and energy management apps could help by relieving consumers of the burden of getting to manually adjust their electricity consumption to cost fluctuations.

Finally, power plant owners can put money into technologies to scale back emissions from fossil-fuelled power plants. technologies for combating pollutants are generally lacking because they usually are not used fairly often. Retrofitting older power plants to make them more efficient could also help, as they might produce fewer emissions per unit of electricity.

These investments are costly, so policymakers must weigh the health advantages of reduced air pollution against the investment costs for power plant owners.

Increasing investments in wind and solar energy are Reducing local air pollution from electricity production. But it also shifts production away from thermally efficient baseload units that can’t respond quickly to fluctuations in demand or renewable energy production. I consider it’s increasingly vital to think about policies that incentivize investment in alternatives corresponding to battery storage and transmission infrastructure, in addition to in modernizing power plants to scale back pollution.

By STAN CHOE and ELAINE KURTENBACH

NEW YORK (AP) — Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose greater than 10 percent early Tuesday, a day after causing turmoil in Europe and on Wall Street. Other markets in Asia appear to have calmed down somewhat after the rollercoaster ride earlier within the week.

The frightening Monday began with a Crash abroad reminds of 1987 The crash that went all over the world and hit Wall Street with greater losses, than the fears a few Slowdown US Business.

The Nikkei rose nearly 11% early Tuesday but then fell back to shut 8.7% higher at 34,211.83 as investors snapped up bargains after the day past's 12.4% plunge.

On Monday, the S&P 500 lost 3 percent, its worst day in nearly two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1,033 points, or 2.6 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.4 percent as Apple, Nvidia and other Big Tech firms that were once the celebrities of the stock market continued to falter.

The declines were the most recent in a wave of world selling that began last week, and were the primary opportunity for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday's report that showed the U.S. Employers slowed their hiring rate last month by way more than economists expected. These were the most recent data on the US economy, which were weaker than expectedand all of it caused fear, the The US Federal Reserve has slowed the US economy for too long and an excessive amount of, through high Interest charges with hope for suffocating inflation.

Professional investors warned that some technical aspects could amplify the market movement and that declines could have been overdone, but losses were nonetheless staggering. South Korea's Kospi index plunged 8.8 percent and Bitcoin fell from over $61,000 on Friday to below $54,000.

Even gold, which has a status for providing safety in turbulent times, lost about 1 percent.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 1.1 percent to 16,876.98 early Tuesday and the Kospi jumped 3.5 percent to 2,526.20. Taiwan's Taiex rose 1.2 percent and in Australia the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3 percent to 7,675.90.

The Shanghai Composite Index, which was largely unaffected by the day past's drama, rose 0.2 percent to 2,865.06.

Monday's declines reflected fears that the damage to the economy from persistently high rates of interest is so great that the Federal Reserve may have to chop rates in an emergency meeting before making its next decision on Sept. 18. The yield on two-year U.S. Treasury notes, which closely tracks Fed expectations, briefly fell below 3.70 percent through the morning, after reaching 3.88 percent late Friday and 5 percent in April. It later recovered and fell back to three.89 percent.

“The Fed could come in on a white horse and save the day with a big rate cut, but the case for a rate cut between meetings seems flimsy,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Those are usually reserved for emergencies like COVID, and an unemployment rate of 4.3% doesn't really seem like an emergency.”

Naturally, the US economy continues to be growingThe U.S. stock market continues to be up an honest amount for the 12 months, and a recession is much from certain. The Fed made clear the high-quality line it’s walking when it began sharp rate hikes in March 2022: An approach that was too aggressive would stall the economy, but an approach that was too soft would give inflation more respiratory room, hurting everyone.

Some of the recent declines on Wall Street may simply be air escaping from a stock market that has hit dozens of all-time highs this 12 months, partly resulting from a Hype about artificial intelligence Technology. Critics have been saying for a while that the stock market looks expensive after prices rose faster than corporate earnings.

“Markets tend to move up like they're climbing stairs and down like they're falling out of a window,” said JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America. He attributes much of the recent worry to waning enthusiasm around AI, increasing pressure on firms to indicate how AI can translate into profits, and “a market that got ahead of itself.”

The only solution to make stocks look cheaper is for prices to fall or for earnings to rise. Expectations for the latter remain high, with the S&P 500's earnings growth last quarter expected to be the strongest since 2021.

Professional investors also pointed to the Bank of Japan’s move last week, raise its key rate of interest from almost zeroWhile such a move helps strengthen the Japanese yen, it also causes traders to exit deals through which they borrowed money for virtually nothing in Japan and invested it elsewhere on this planet.

U.S. Treasury yields also pared losses on Monday after a report said growth within the U.S. services sector was barely stronger than expected. The growth was led by firms in the humanities, entertainment and leisure and accommodation and food services sectors, in keeping with the Institute for Supply Management.

Still, stocks of firms whose profits depend most on the strength of the economy suffered sharp losses on fears of a slowdown. Small-company stocks within the Russell 2000 Index fell 3.3 percent, erasing the recovery for this and other beaten-down areas of the market.

Making matters worse for Wall Street was the crash in stocks of major technology firms because the market's hottest commodity continued to falter for many of this 12 months. Apple, Nvidia and a handful of other stocks of major technology firms, often called ” The glory seven “ had helped the S&P 500 set one record after another this year, even as high interest rates weighed on much of the rest of the stock market.

But the dynamics of big technology companies have changed in the past month because investors have priced them too high and expectations for future growth have become too difficult to meet. A series of disappointing earnings reports, accompanied by updates from Tesla And alphabet Pessimism was further intensified and the decline accelerated.

Apple fell 4.8% on Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced that it reduced his ownership share from the iPhone manufacturer.

NVIDIAthe chip company that has become the poster child for Wall Street's AI boom fell even more, 6.4 percent. Analysts cut their earnings forecasts for the company over the weekend after a report from The Information said Nvidia's new AI chip was delayed. The recent sell-off has cut Nvidia's profit for the year to nearly 103 percent from 170 percent in mid-June.

Another Big Tech titan, Alphabet, fell 4.4% after a US court ruled that Google’s search engine illegally exploit his dominance to suppress competition and stifle innovation.

Overall, the S&P 500 fell 160.23 points to 5,186.33. The Dow fell 1,033.99 to 38,703.27 and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 576.08 to 16,200.08.

Concerns beyond corporate profits, interest rates and the economy are also weighing on the market. War between Israel and Hamas could worsen, which could lead to human casualties and also to sharp fluctuations in oil prices. This reinforces the broader concerns about potential Hot spots all over the world, while upcoming US elections could mess things up even more.

Wall Street is concerned about the impact November's policies could have on markets, but the sharp swings in stock prices could also have an impact on the election itself.

The threat of a recession is likely to put Vice President Kamala Harris on the defensive. But slowing growth could also further reduce inflation and force former President Donald Trump to shift his focus away from higher prices and instead outline ways to revive the economy.

“It's about jobs,” said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial. Jobs drive spending by U.S. consumers, who in turn make up the largest part of the U.S. economy.

“As election day approaches, the unemployment rate will play a very important role.”

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AP business writers Matt Ott, Christopher Rugaber and Damian J. Troise contributed.

Originally published: August 5, 2024 at 19:13

According to the most recent official estimate, the variety of homeless people in San Mateo County has increased by 18% over the past two years, despite the fact that local authorities have arrange about 300 emergency shelters to assist people get off the streets.

The count released Wednesday found that 2,130 people were homeless across the county. More than half were living outside, in vehicles or other places not designed for housing. The rest were staying in shelters.

Despite the rise, local officials attributed the opening of two shelters in Redwood City and San Mateo to the rise within the variety of homeless individuals with a roof over their heads. The county noted that 985 people were housed in shelters, a 38% increase from 2022.

“This means fewer people are living in more unsafe situations, such as on the streets or in tents,” Claire Cunningham, director of the county's Human Services Agency, said in a press release. “And emergency shelters provide case management and supportive services to help residents find permanent housing.”

The latest numbers come from the county's most up-to-date biennial “Point-In-Time” homeless count, conducted by a team of volunteers and repair providers on a single evening in January.

In the Bay Area, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties also conducted counts earlier this 12 months. Alameda County recently reported that the variety of homeless people dropped by three percent to 9,450, while Oakland's homeless number increased by nine percent. In San Francisco, the variety of homeless people rose by seven percent to over 8,300.

Figures for Contra Costa County are expected soon, while Santa Clara County, which conducted the count last 12 months, won’t conduct one other count until 2025.

Although these estimates are widely viewed as underestimated, they’re critical for cities and counties to plan their homelessness response efforts and determine what state and federal funding they’ll expect.

Although unprecedented billions of public funds have been poured into the fight against homelessness in recent times, getting people off the streets stays a serious challenge as rising housing costs, job losses, and mental health and addiction problems force others to depart homelessness.

“This confirms that our work is never finished and we remain committed to helping as many of our homeless residents as they wish,” County Executive Officer Mike Callagy said in a press release.

Earlier this 12 months, the county passed an ordinance that will criminally penalize homeless individuals who refuse shelter, but just for those in unincorporated areas, an estimated 114 residents. Homeless people sometimes refuse shelter for a wide range of personal reasons, from health and safety concerns to an unwillingness to comply with curfews. County officials hope the ordinance, which homeless advocates have condemned as cruel, generally is a model for cities across the peninsula.

Across San Mateo County, 1,145 homeless people without shelter were identified, a 5% increase from 2022. Of that number, 70% were living of their cars, vans or RVs. The remainder of the homeless had some type of shelter.

Redwood City, where the county opened a 240-unit homeless shelter and orientation center last 12 months, had probably the most homeless people at 189, up from 245 two years ago. Pacifica had the second most at 180, followed by San Mateo at 95.

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket carrying a secret spy satellite lifted off from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 12:53 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. ULA transported the cargo for the US National Reconnaissance Office.

This is the last flight of a heavy Delta IV rocket. It was the third highest capability launch vehicle on the planet, after NASA's Space Launch System and SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.