Scoop: Netanyahu expected to visit White House on Monday, sources say
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to visit the White House on Monday, four sources with knowledge tell Axios. Why it matters: If the
Dominicano Reynaldo López, derecho de Bravos, se someterá a cirugía artroscópica en hombro derecho
Por CHARLES ODUM
ATLANTA (AP) — Los Bravos de Atlanta esperan tener más conocimiento sobre la capacidad del derecho Reynaldo López para regresar a la rotación después del martes, cuando se someterá en Los Ángeles a una cirugía artroscópica exploratoria en el hombro derecho por un problema de inflamación. Los Bravos colocaron a López en la lista de lesionados de 15 días el lunes. Fue trasladado a la lista de lesionados de 60 días el jueves.
“No sabremos nada hasta ese procedimiento”, dijo el manager Brian Snitker el viernes, antes del partido inaugural en casa contra los Marlins de Miami. Los Bravos regresaron a casa con un récord de 0-7, su peor inicio desde 2016, cuando arrancaron la campaña en 0-9. Fueron barridos en San Diego y Los Ángeles para abrir la temporada.
Ningún equipo de las Grandes Ligas ha llegado a los playoffs después de un inicio de 0-7 en la historia. López permitió tres carreras y nueve hits el viernes de la semana pasada, en una derrota ante San Diego. El derecho fue una parte importante de la rotación en 2024, cuando tuvo un récord de 8-5 con una efectividad de 1.99 en su primer año con el equipo.
Los Bravos convocaron al derecho Bryce Elder desde la sucursal de la Triple-A en Gwinnett para ocupar el lugar del dominicano López en el roster activo.
El relevista derecho Jesse Chávez, quien fue colocado transferible el martes y rechazó una asignación directa a las menores, regresó a la organización con un contrato el viernes.
Chávez, quien firmó un convenio de ligas menores, permitió una carrera y dos hits en su única salida con Atlanta tras su llamado desde Gwinnett. ___
Nearly half of National Weather Service offices have 20% vacancy rates, and experts say it’s a risk
WASHINGTON — After Trump administration job cuts, nearly half of National Weather Service forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates — twice that of just a decade ago — as severe weather chugs across the nation’s heartland, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.
Detailed vacancy data for all 122 weather field offices show eight offices are missing more than 35% of their staff — including those in Arkansas where tornadoes and torrential rain hit this week — according to statistics crowd-sourced by more than a dozen National Weather Service employees. Experts said vacancy rates of 20% or higher amount to critical understaffing, and 55 of the 122 sites reach that level.
The weather offices issue routine daily forecasts, but also urgent up-to-the-minute warnings during dangerous storm outbreaks such as the tornadoes that killed seven people this week and “catastrophic” flooding that’s continuing through the weekend. The weather service this week has logged at least 75 tornado and 1,277 severe weather preliminary reports .
Because of staffing shortages and continued severe weather, meteorologists at the Louisville office were unable to survey tornado damage Thursday, which is traditionally done immediately to help improve future forecasts and warnings, the local weather office told local media in Kentucky. Meteorologists there had to chose between gathering information that will help in the future and warning about immediate danger.
“It’s a crisis situation,” said Brad Colman, a past president of the American Meteorological Society who used to be the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s Seattle office and is now a private meteorologist. “I am deeply concerned that we will inevitably lose lives as a result of the added risk due to this short-staffing.”
Former National Weather Service chief Louis Uccellini said if the numbers are right, it’s trouble.
“No one can predict when any office gets stretched so thin that it will break, but these numbers would indicate that several of them are there or getting close, especially when you factor that large segments of the country are facing oncoming threats of severe weather, flooding rains while others are facing ominous significant fire risks,” Uccellini said in an email.
The vacancy numbers were compiled in an informal but comprehensive effort by weather service workers after the cuts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. They checked on individual office staffing levels and looked at how they compared to the past. Staffing levels, including vacancies, are detailed and cross-referenced by offices, regions, positions and past trends, with special notes on whether efforts are being made to fill them.
The AP, after obtaining the list from a source outside the weather service, sought to verify the numbers by calling individual weather offices, checking online staff lists and interviewing other employees not involved in the data-gathering effort. The workers’ data sometimes varied slightly from data shown on weather service websites, though employees said those could be out of date.
Rep. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois Democrat and the only meteorologist in Congress, said his office independently obtained the data and he verified parts of it with weather professionals he knows in Midwestern weather service offices, which are called WFOs. The Davenport-Quad Cities office near his home has a 37.5% vacancy rate.
“They’re doing heroic effort. Just with what happened the other day with the tornado outbreak, the killer tornado outbreak, I saw incredible work being done by the WFOs down around Memphis and up to Louisville. Incredible work that saved people’s lives,” Sorensen told the AP on Friday. “Going forward with these types of cuts, we can’t guarantee that people are going to be as safe as they were.”
“I’m incredibly concerned because this affects everyone in every part of the country,” Sorensen said, noting the potential for severe storms Friday in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home district near Shreveport, Louisiana, where the data shows a 13% vacancy rate, well below the average for the south and the rest of the country.
The employees’ data, which goes back to 2015, showed that in March 2015 the overall vacancy rate was 9.3%. Ten years later, as of March 21, it was 19%.
The weather service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some northern and central stations — such as Rapid City, South Dakota, with a 41.7% vacancy rate, Albany, New York, at 25%, Portland, Maine, at 26.1% and Omaha, Nebraska at 34.8% — have been so short-staffed that they’ve curtailed weather balloon launches that said provide vital observations for accurate forecasts.
The vacancies go beyond meteorologists who do forecasts. Twenty-three offices are without the meteorologist-in-charge who oversees the office. Sixteen have vacancies in the crucial warning coordination meteorologist job which makes sure emergency officials and the public prepare for oncoming weather disasters. The Houston office, with a 30% vacancy rate, is missing both those top positions, according to the data and the office’s own website.
Houston has so much damage from flooding, hurricanes and even a derecho that “their (damage) numbers are through the roof,” said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central and a former television meteorologist.
“The National Weather Service employees are still going to do everything they can to keep people safe and prepared. It’s just that much harder and it puts lives at risk,” Placky said. “This time of the year and in this situation, this is when severe weather season peaks and we’re heading into the season of the biggest extremes with wildfires, with hurricanes, with extreme heat, which is our deadliest of all of extreme weathers.”
One weather service field office chief, who asked not to be identified because of fears of job loss, said the lack of technicians to fix radar and other needed equipment could be critically dangerous.
“People are bending over backwards” to cope with the lack of staffing, the chief meteorologist said. “The burden is going to kill us.”
Northern Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Victor Gensini and others compared being stretched thin to cracks in aviation safety.
“The question becomes, what falls through the cracks because they’re busy doing other things or they’re short-staffed,” Gensini said. “Maybe they can’t answer the phone to take a critical weather report that’s coming in. Maybe there’s so many storms in the counties that they’re responsible for that they can’t physically issue warnings for every single storm because they don’t have enough people working on the radar.”
“These are all theoretical concerns, but it’s sort of like when you read about aircraft disasters and how they occur,” Gensini said. “It’s the cascading of risk, right? It’s the compounding, like the pilot was tired. The pilot missed the cue.”
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Jonathan Cannon’s high pitch count leads to early exit in Chicago White Sox’s 7-4 loss to Detroit Tigers
DETROIT — Chicago White Sox starter Jonathan Cannon worked in and out of trouble while throwing 77 pitches through three innings Friday against the Detroit Tigers.
The right-hander knows that’s not a formula for lasting deep into games.
“Bottom line — got to be more efficient, got to be better, got to throw more strikes,” Cannon said.
Efficiency will be a key moving forward for Cannon, who allowed three runs in 3 2/3 innings during a 7-4 loss to the Tigers in front of 44,735 at Comerica Park.
“I think it’s partially chasing the strikeout maybe a little too much,” Cannon said. “Get ahead early 0-1, 0-2, go for the strikeout, you throw two uncompetitive pitches and now you’re in a battle. Allowing them back into counts, they’re fouling some balls off.
“That’s kind of what I was missing today. I wasn’t getting those first, second pitch outs and I felt like I was deep into the count with almost everyone. Just trying to get them out early and make better pitches. Just got to execute better.”
Cannon surrendered three hits, walked three batters and struck out three in his 88-pitch outing.
“Felt good, body felt good, just way too many free passes,” Cannon said. “I think that goes off the last start (March 29 against the Los Angeles Angels ) as well. Obviously didn’t let anyone score (against the Angels) but keep letting guys on, eventually they’re going to come around and score. Just got to continue harping on getting ahead.
“I thought I actually did a pretty good job on getting ahead today. Felt like I was in a lot of two-strike counts. I just threw some uncompetitive pitches to let them back into counts and it forced me to make pitches. I just shouldn’t let them back in the count like that. I should make some better pitches.”
The Tigers hit three home runs — one each against Cannon and relievers Brandon Eisert and Bryse Wilson — in their home opener, dealing the Sox (2-5) their third straight loss.
Cannon gave up a solo home run to Kerry Carpenter to right field in the first. Carpenter waited a moment between first and second base as umpires discussed whether it was a fair or foul ball before getting the OK to conclude his trot.
The next two batters reached via a single and a walk, but Cannon induced two flyouts to avoid allowing any more runs.
Cannon hit a batter and walked another during a scoreless second.
He wasn’t as fortunate after hitting Spencer Torkelson and walking Colt Keith with one out in the third. Zach McKinstry drove in Torkelson with a single to right to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead. Keith scored when Dillon Dingler grounded out to third on an 0-2 count during a seven-pitch at-bat.
Cannon retired the first two batters in the fourth, exiting after striking out Justyn-Henry Malloy in a sequence that went from 0-2 to a full count.
“He did a nice job getting ahead and just wasn’t able to put guys away and the pitch count got up on him,” manager Will Venable said. “Did a nice job dealing with some traffic there, but just not as sharp as we’re used to seeing from him.”
Carpenter greeted Eisert with his second home run of the game, this time to left. Torkelson added an RBI single later in the fourth.
Riley Greene hit a 417-foot home run to right against Wilson in the sixth, extending the Tigers’ lead to 7-1.
The Sox scored three in the ninth before Will Vest struck out Luis Robert Jr. to end the game.
The Sox scored eight runs on opening day and nine runs Monday against the Minnesota Twins. They’ve scored a combined 10 runs the other five games.
“It’s still early for this season,” said third baseman Miguel Vargas, who went 1-for-5 with an RBI. “Obviously we are facing really good pitchers. We have had a couple of good games offensively. We just need to be consistent with that.”
Tigers starter Jack Flaherty allowed one run on three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in 5 2/3 innings.
“We weren’t able to get anything going really off of Flaherty,” Venable said. “But really happy with the way the guys continued to battle there and we got a leverage arm (Vest) in the game, which is huge. And that can pay off later on in the series.”
And Venable is confident Cannon will make the proper adjustments.
“He pitches to contact and guys are just really grinding and fouling a lot of balls off,” Venable said. “I don’t know if there’s anything that he could do differently other than end at-bats more quickly and that’s what we’re used to seeing from him. I have no doubt that he’ll get back on track and have a good one the next time around.”