Ferocious wind gusts rip roof off MLB stadium as Hurricane Milton thrashes Florida
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Hurricane Milton slammed the Tampa-St. Petersburg area with over 100 mph wind gusts and torrential rain Wednesday, knocking out power to well over a million in the metro area and damaging the home of the city’s baseball team.
St. Petersburg’s airport reported more than three hours of gusts over 70 mph, including seven gusts over 90 mph and a peak gust of 101 mph just after 10:30 p.m. ET.
The ferocious winds caused significant damage to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where video showed massive tears in the stadium’s fabric roof. The facility is home to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Tropicana Field was being used as a temporary staging location for hundreds of first responders. According to local authorities, there were no reports of any injuries associated with the damage to the stadium.
Also in St. Petersburg, a construction crane collapsed at the 400 Central building, according to FOX 13 Tampa. There are no reports of any injuries there either.
Tampa International Airport recorded a peak gust of 83 mph so far. Power outages reached over 1.25 million customers just in Hillsborough and Pinellas County alone, according to PowerOutage.us.
Milton roared onshore just south of the St. Petersburg area in Siesta Key on Wednesday evening as a major Category 3 storm. But while the southern landfall spared the area from a feared record storm surge in Tampa Bay, flooding became an issue anyway as Milton dumped several inches of rain in minutes.
A Flash Flood Emergency covered 2 million people in the metro area. Over 5 inches of rain fell in one hour in St. Petersburg’s Albert Whitted Airport, over 10 inches in 3.5 hours, and 18 inches in 24 hours.
“This is a particularly dangerous situation,” the National Weather Service warned. “Seek higher ground now!”
VP Harris stumbles through hurricane update, appears to send message to staff
Vice President Harris, during a Hurricane Milton update from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Wednesday, covered her mouth and appeared to tell staff she was on a live broadcast after stumbling through a speech to the people of Florida.
President Biden and Harris received a briefing from disaster relief authorities on life-saving preparations for Hurricane Milton. The two also received the latest updates on the forecast and expected impacts for Florida.
While Biden attended the meeting from the White House, Harris and others attended virtually.
At one point during the briefing, Harris covered her mouth and appeared to relay a message to someone else.
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“It’s a live broadcast,” she could be heard saying.
The moment came nearly 20 minutes after Harris stumbled through a speech to Floridians. She glanced down multiple times, appearing to reference notes or a script.
“To the people of Florida, and in particular, the people of the Tampa region: We urge you to take this storm seriously,” she said. “As has been said before, this is a storm that is expected to be of historic proportions. And many of you, I know are tough… and you’ve ridden out these hurricanes before. This one’s going to be different.
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“We ask you that by every measure understand it’s going to be more dangerous, more deadly and more catastrophic. So please listen to your local officials,” Harris added. “They know what they’re talking about. They know what they’re doing. And if you are told to evacuate, please evacuate immediately. Do not wait until it is too late.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ office for comment on the incident, but has not yet heard back.
Hurricane Milton reached Category 5 storm strength multiple times over the course of the last two days, and made landfall as a Category 3 storm Wednesday night in the Tampa, Florida area.
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Forecasters warn that Milton could produce devastating storm surges up to 12 to 13 feet.
WSJ editor responds to liberal host’s ‘disinformation’ charge with devastating reminder
Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerry Baker mocked the idea that MSNBC hosts could lecture others about “disinformation” after covering for President Biden.
Baker spoke on Fox News’ “America Reports” about “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough attacking his publication for running an op-ed by Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, that criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to Hurricane Helene. Scarborough accused the paper of “publishing disinformation.”
“The Wall Street Journal is publishing disinformation that might as well be in the Epoch Times. The fact that it’s from a vice presidential candidate matters not. This is the same man who lied about cats and dogs being eaten when the governor of his own state said stop. When you said there are no standards, this is a perfect example of it,” Scarborough said Wednesday.
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Baker responded, “To be lectured by MSNBC on disinformation is quite a bit of chutzpah on their part. Remember, this is the same Joe Scarborough that told us, I think, days or weeks before that infamous presidential debate that saw Joe Biden pull out of the race, that Biden was in incredible shape.”
“He also attacked the Wall Street Journal article which had just said Joe Biden was slipping. ‘He is as sharp as he’s ever been, he’s brilliant.’ And of course, weeks later, we saw what Biden was like, and another month later, he pulled out of the race. We don’t need that kind of lecturing,” he added.
Baker argued “it is very early to make definitive judgments about whether FEMA messed up,” but “there are some interesting questions about where FEMA’s priorities are right now.”
“I remember such weather in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans particularly hard, and I was down there for a week afterwards. And initial reactions, especially from the media because George W. Bush was president was ‘oh, my God, this is a disaster and FEMA is a disaster and the federal government has failed.’ We learned actually afterwards, you know, there were many more problems on the ground there, that FEMA actually did a great job. It certainly wasn’t that bad, so I think it is too soon to say FEMA has messed up,” Baker said.
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He concluded, “It may not be actually true that FEMA resources that could have been available in North Carolina had been given to migrants. But there’s no question about the broader orientation of FEMA under the Biden-Harris administration, which is to channel huge amounts of money to communities and to non-government organizations to help with the massive influx of migrants that they themselves have created.”
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Liberal media host rips Dems for trying to ‘demonize and even dehumanize’ conservatives
“The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian explained what drove her to ditch the Democratic Party while on Jillian Michaels’ “Keeping It Real” podcast on Monday.
The progressive media host described feeling “politically homeless” over the past few years, as she started seeing an intolerance to debate and the free exchange of ideas as well as an embrace of soft-on-crime policies by the left that she believed were detrimental to society.
She ripped efforts to “demonize and even dehumanize the other side” while admitting she used to be a person who believed you could not be friends with conservatives or someone who supported former President Trump. Both women said they identified with disaffected Democrats who now feel unwelcome in their former party.
Kasparian said a turning point for her was when she was scolded by liberals after confessing she was fearful to leave her house after being sexually assaulted by a homeless man while walking her dog in Los Angeles in 2022.
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“Before I knew it, I started getting these messages, and it’s really, really harsh stuff, about how, ‘You are painting a picture of the homeless community. How could you be like this? These are your unhoused neighbors and they need help,'” she said of the negative messages she received.
“A few people accused me of being racist, even though I had never disclosed the race of the individuals who did this to me. And in fact, they were White,” Kasparian continued.
“That woke me up,” Kasparian said. “Some of the people that I’ve associated myself with because I thought they were the good people….They definitely have stereotypes in their head and are totally blind to the fact that they have those stereotypes and go around accusing others of being bad actors when they themselves need to do the work.”
Kasparian said she also disagreed with the “defeatist mentality” shown towards minorities.
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“At some point last year, the other thing that really hit me was the difference between my upbringing and what the Democratic Party espouses,” Kasparian said.
She described being raised by “very tough” parents who taught her to work hard to be self-sufficient and create her own opportunities. While she acknowledged there are obstacles today that some younger people are facing that older generations may not have had to face, she still sees America as a land of opportunity, which she said goes against messaging from the Democratic Party.
“However, we all get to wake up in the morning and make choices for ourselves. And when I hear the Democratic Party constantly disempower people of color, because that’s what they’re doing,” she said.
“They keep using this messaging that infantilizes them and makes them seem as though, you know, if it weren’t for us White saviors, messing around with these laws and policies, they would never be able to survive. And I find that so gross,” she continued.
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Kasparian gave examples of how a Los Angeles school district scrapped its honor student program because there wasn’t enough Hispanic students enrolled in the program.
“That p—d me off,” Kasparian said. “It’s doing away with an opportunity rather than seeing what the flaws are in our education system and then rising to the occasion to help these students, where we do see the disparity, to get to where we want them to be. That’s the right way to approach it. But there’s just this weird defeatist mentality. And I’m honestly also very sick of White people going around being offended on behalf of marginalized people.”
“They’re just virtue signaling. It’s disgusting,” Michaels agreed.
“We should celebrate people who want to better themselves and better their lives,” Kasparian said later in a discussion about the “fat-acceptance” movement on the far-left.
“Instead, there’s this effort to basically tell people, ‘you’re fine the way you are, you don’t need to change a thing,’ even if that thing is slowly killing you. It doesn’t make any sense,” she continued.
The pair also said they’ve seen their home state of California become “crazy” over time from when they were growing up.
Michaels, who left California in 2021, has previously shared how the deep blue state’s soft-on crime policies drove her and her family to leave and move to Miami.
“Nothing was crazy like this right?” Michaels told Kasparian. “Homelessness, crime, advocating for medicalization of children, advocating for late-term abortion?”
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading the “madness” in the state, Michaels said. “The concern is that it goes from California to a federal problem.”
“Unfortunately, some of the failed policies we’ve started here have been exported to other states,” Kasparian agreed.
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Trump to hold rally in one of America’s most iconic venues — and it holds nearly 20K people
Former President Trump will hold a rally this month at New York City’s Madison Square Garden (MSG), Fox News Digital has confirmed.
The rally is set to take place on Oct. 27, multiple sources told Fox News Digital, just nine days before Election Day.
The event is expected to be first-come, first-serve, and campaign officials are expecting massive attendance.
“Like Coachella and others to come, MSG is because we are adding some very big venues because we are seeing very high interest in attending events,” a campaign source told Fox News Digital.
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MSG is a 19,500-seat venue.
The former president, speaking at a campaign event in Scranton, Pennsylvania later on Wednesday, highlighted that “we just rented Madison Square Garden. We’re going to make a play. We’re going to make a play for New York. Hasn’t been done in a long time. It hasn’t been done in many decades.”
Then President Ronald Reagan in his 1984 re-election landslide, was the last Republican to carry New York in a White House race.
“We’re making a play for New Jersey. We’re making a play for Virginia,” Trump continued, before adding that he’s also aiming to compete in Minnesota and New Mexico.
The latest Fox News Power Rankings in the 2024 presidential election rank New York and New Jersey as solid Democrat, with Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia as likely Democrat.
This will be Trump’s second big rally in the state of New York.
Trump held a rally at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island, last month. More than 60,000 tickets were requested, but the venue only seats 16,000. Thousands of supporters who were not admitted to the venue watched him speak on large screens outside.
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Trump also held a rally in the Bronx over the summer at Crotona Park, which had a permit allowance of 3,500 people. The New York Post reported the Bronx rally drew up to 10,000 supporters.
Meanwhile, Trump has drawn massive crowds for his latest rallies, with more than 20,000 people attending his second rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekend.
The campaign also said they saw more than 100,000 people at the former president’s rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, in May.
The Garden, which is the home of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, hosted the Republican National Convention in 2004 and the Democratic National Convention in 1924, 1976, 1980 and 1992.
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Earlier this year during a campaign stop at an Upper Manhattan bodega, Trump said he would “straighten out New York.”
“We’re going to come in — number one, you have to stop crime, and we’re going to let the police do their job. They have to be given back their authority. They have to be able to do their job,” Trump said. “And we’re going to come into New York. We’re making a big play for New York, other cities, too. But this city, I love this city.”
Trump said New York has “gotten so bad in the last three years, four years.”
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“And we’re going to straighten New York out. So running for president, we’re putting a big hit in New York — we could win New York,” Trump said.
The New York Post first reported that Trump would rally at MSG.
While it is unlikely deep blue New York flips red in the White House race, another rally in the state may help Republicans down the ballot, as they try to hold on to their House of Representatives majority in November’s elections.
Software company CEO dies after 200-foot fall at popular national park
The CEO of a Utah-based software company tragically died over the weekend after falling 200 feet while climbing in Zion National Park in Springdale, Utah, according to officials.
Around 6 p.m. local time Saturday, Justin Bingham, 40, was canyoneering near the exit of Heaps Canyon, where he fell approximately 150 to 200 feet, the National Parks Service (NPS) confirmed in a statement.
NPS said he was with three other climbers, and they were all following their permitted itinerary.
After receiving the report of the fall, Zion National Park Technical Search and Rescue Team and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the scene and rendered emergency medical care.
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Bingham was extracted by a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter to a helispot where he received additional aid, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead before he could be transported by air ambulance to a hospital.
“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family and friends during this unimaginably difficult time,” said Zion National Park Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh.
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Bingham was the CEO of Opiniion, a software company in the city of Lindon just outside Provo that focuses on property management solutions.
The company confirmed his death to Fox News Digital, and said the tragic accident happened while he was enjoying one of his greatest passions — exploring the outdoors.
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“Justin was a visionary who believed in the power of genuine connections, both with our clients and within our team. His commitment to building meaningful relationships made a lasting impact on everyone who had the privilege of knowing him. Justin’s spirit of adventure and dedication to living life fully will be deeply missed,” the company said.
“If you spent any time around him, he was the eternal optimist. ‘Everything is always going to work out.’ He told me so many times…. But he was right, and it usually did,” added Opiniion President and COO Devin Shurtleff.
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“Justin wasn’t just a leader here at Opiniion—he was a mentor, a dad, and a friend to many of us. He believed that the relationships we build are what make this work meaningful, and he truly lived that every day,” Shurtleff continued.
Zion National Park and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office are still investigating the exact cause of Bingham’s death.
Jennifer Lopez gives first interview about divorce: ‘My whole f—ing world exploded’
Jennifer Lopez has seen all the tabloid fodder spurred by her painful divorce from Ben Affleck, but she’s not letting it get her down.
“I know that everything that’s being written and said about me, and all the conjecture of who I am as a person, is not who I am,” she said in a new conversation with comedian Nikki Glaser for Interview magazine.
“I learned that a long time ago. And social media, because it came along after I had been in the public eye for a while, I don’t take it as seriously as everybody else. I know I’m a good person. I know I’m a good mom. I know who my friends are. I know my friends know who I am, my mom, my dad, all that stuff. If you hope to have a long career, you have to learn how to deal with that part of the business.”
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“Some people are going to love you and some are not going to understand you, and some people just want to hate you to hate you, and none of that really matters. What matters for me, as an artist, is doing work that inspires me and that I enjoy doing, whether it’s a huge commercial success or something that only touches one person that nobody ever f—ing even sees. It doesn’t matter,” she expressed.
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“This is my life’s passion. I love to sing. I love to dance. I love to act. I love to entertain. I love to create. And anything anybody could say about me — and please don’t get me wrong, if I see something that’s hurtful, I’m not Teflon.”
“Some people are going to love you and some are not going to understand you, and some people just want to hate you to hate you.”
A lot of that hurt has come from her divorce from Affleck. The two reunited after previously ending their first engagement in 2004, were married in 2022, and Lopez filed for divorce in 2024. While she doesn’t regret for “one second” getting back together with the man she once called “the love of my life,” she does say the experience of splitting up was awful.
“My whole f—ing world exploded,” she said of that time.
Lopez noted that having no regrets “doesn’t mean it didn’t almost take me out for good. It almost did. But now, on the other side of it, I think to myself, ‘F—, that is exactly what I needed. Thank you, god. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that you had to do this to me so many times. I should have learned it two or three times ago. I get it. You had to hit me really hard over the head with a f—ing sledgehammer. You dropped the house on me. Don’t have to do it again.’”
Lopez has been married four times, first to Ojani Noa, then Cris Judd, followed by the father of her children, Marc Anthony. She was engaged to Alex Rodriguez before calling things off and rekindling things with Affleck.
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The mother of two says this new chapter of her life has been transformative.
“I think that’s what I love about life, that there’s no arrival point. There’s only getting better and growing if you want to. It’s either growing or dying, and I don’t want to do the dying part. And yeah, there’s times when I thought I figured it out, and then life goes, ‘Let’s send you another thing and see if you fall for it. Let’s see if you really have learned that lesson.’ And I hadn’t,” she admitted.
“I understand that now in a much deeper way, which doesn’t mean that I won’t make mistakes in the future, but again, when your whole house blows up, you’re standing there in the rubble going, ‘How do I not ever let that happen again?’ And then you start examining it little by little saying, ‘Okay, I did this, this was my part in it, this was what I should have seen early on, this is what I didn’t look at.’ Those things are what really are the lessons.”
“Thank you, god. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that you had to do this to me so many times. I should have learned it two or three times ago. I get it. You had to hit me really hard over the head with a f—ing sledgehammer.”
As for how Lopez puts in the work to figure out those lessons, she told Glaser, “It’s looking back at the feelings underneath and the belief systems that we have about ourselves that make us make certain choices and create certain patterns in our life.”
“And so, when you get to a point where you think that you’ve learned the lessons, and then it blows up in your face again, you realize, ‘Okay, I haven’t, so what is it that I need to look at right now?’ I would say, never stop looking inward, because it’s so easy to blame everybody else.’
The Grammy-nominated singer noted, “You have to be good on your own” if you want to have a relationship that’s “more complete.”
“I thought I learned that, but I didn’t. And then, this summer, I had to be like, ‘I need to go off and be on my own. I want to prove to myself that I can do that.’”
The “On the Floor” singer says “the most important” relationships in her life at the moment are the ones with God and herself.
“The relationship with yourself, for me, is the relationship with myself being cultivated in this moment and my relationship with god, that I think we tend to get away from at times, when you’re wrapped up with other people. And god has always been such a big part of my life.”
Glaser asked Lopez the question everyone wants to know: Is she searching for another great love? “Now, it sounds to me like you have a new bar for the next person that comes along,” Glaser stated.
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“Here’s the thing: There’s no new bar because I’m not looking for anybody. How’s that?” Lopez retorted.
Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck on Tuesday, Aug. 20, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, two years to the date of their Georgia wedding. She did so without a lawyer, Fox News Digital confirmed through court documents. Lopez cited “irreconcilable differences” for the reason of their split, adding that they’d separated on April 26.