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BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 10 (UPI) — Lebanon and Syria announced Friday the opening of a new chapter in their relations nearly 10 months after the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

This marks an attempt to move away from decades of tense ties, characterized by political domination and military interference, toward building a strong political and economic partnership.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani, the first high-ranking Syrian official to visit Lebanon since Assad was overthrown by rebel insurgents in December, said a historic, political and economic opportunity exists to transform the Lebanese-Syrian relationship from “a tense, security-based one into a strong political and economic partnership” that benefits both countries.

“We look forward to turning the page on the past because we want to build the future,” al-Shibani said, reaffirming his country’s respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and its commitment to establishing strong bilateral relations.

Earlier Friday, Syria told Lebanon it decided to suspend the work of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council and limit all forms of correspondence between the two countries to official diplomatic channels.

The council was established in 1991, after Syria — under the late President Hafez Assad — imposed itself as the main power broker in Lebanon, having been granted a guardianship role after the civil war ended a year earlier.

Lebanon has suffered from a decades-long Syrian military presence — which began in 1976, shortly after the outbreak of the civil strife — along with political domination and manipulation that deeply affected its governance, political life, economy and overall stability.

Syria also was accused of being behind the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and numerous other such killings during the civil war and in peace time. Its influence over Lebanon began to wane rapidly following the withdrawal of its troops in 2005 and the outbreak of anti-Assad peaceful protests in 2011, which soon escalated into a bloody civil war.

Syrians, for their part, harbor grudges against Hezbollah — and its patron, Iran –for siding with the Assad regime and joining the brutal battles against opposition fighters starting in 2012. The involvement of Hezbollah and Iran in Syria ended with Assad’s fall.

“Our peoples have suffered from wars and tragedies; let us try peace,” al-Shibani said after talks with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, calling for strengthened cooperation in all fields so that Lebanon can benefit from the lifting of international sanctions on Syria.

Aoun, who called for the appointment of a new Syrian ambassador to Lebanon — a post vacant since the fall of Assad — said that deepening and developing bilateral relations requires the formation of joint committees to address all outstanding issues.

Both countries have undergone major changes and are working to resolve several complex issues, including the case of over 2,000 Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons, the fate of numerous Lebanese prisoners or missing persons in Syria, the return of 1.5 million Syrian refugees from Lebanon to their homeland, the demarcation of land and maritime borders, and joint efforts to combat drug trafficking and terrorism.

“We have a long road ahead of us. …. We have no choice but to agree on what serves these mutual interests,” Aoun said, noting that the situation along the Lebanese-Syrian border has improved.

Al Shibani, accompanied by Syrian Justice Minister Mazhar al-Wais, the head of Syrian intelligence, Hussein al-Salama; and the assistant interior minister, Maj. Gen. Abdel Qader Tahan, said all these issues were “certainly top priorities” and that committees from both countries are reviewing them.

The Syrian foreign minister, who also met with his Lebanese counterpart, Joe Rajji, and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, emphasized the importance of enhancing security and intelligence coordination, as well as forming technical and economic committees across the public and private sectors to support Syria’s post-war reconstruction.

“Syria is undergoing a phase of recovery and reconstruction, which should positively reflect on Lebanon,” al-Shibani said.

Rajji praised Syria’s new leadership for respecting Lebanon’s sovereignty and refraining from interference in its internal affairs, adding, “We will work together to open a new path based on peace, security, economic cooperation and joint development.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri, who attended the meeting between al-Shibani and Salam, said both countries demonstrated “political will” to address every issue “without taboos.”

“We have opened a new chapter in Lebanese-Syrian relations unlike any seen in the past fifty years,” Mitri said in an official statement released after the meeting.

Oct. 9 (UPI) — A strong 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the southeastern coast of the Philippines on Friday morning, according to seismologists. The extent of potential damage was not immediately clear.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center said a tsunami is not expected for the western U.S. coast.

However, it warned of waves of up to nearly 10 feet for parts of the Philippines.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, known as Phivolcs, is warning of waves of more than a meter, or 3.2 feet, to affect enclosed bays and straits.

Residents along coastal areas in eight provinces are “STRONGLY ADVISED TO IMMEDIATELY EVACUATE to higher grounds or move farther inland,” it said.

The quake struck at 9:43 a.m. PHT Friday about 27 miles off the coast of Manay in the southeastern province of Davao Oriental, according to a statement from Phivolcs, which said damage was expected. It had initially rated it a magnitude-7.6 earthquake.

The agency said it struck at a depth of 12 miles.

The U.S. Geological Survey rated the quake at magnitude 7.4 and the depth 36 miles.

Aftershocks were expected, with 11 having struck within an hour of the original temblor, the strongest being a 5.2 magnitude temblor.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement that the situation on the ground is being assessed, and that federal agencies, including the military, have been deployed to conduct evacuations in coastal areas and activate emergency communication lines.

“Search, rescue and relief operations are already being prepared and will be deployed as soon as it is safe to do so,” he said in a statement.

“We are working round the clock to ensure that help reaches everyone who needs it.”

The provincial government of Davao Oriental has ordered the suspension of all public and private classes and work in public and private offices.

The city government of Davao similarly canceled all classes at both private and public schools and suspended all government work until further notice except for services in security, health, social services and disaster and emergency response due to the temblor. Private offices are encouraged to follow suit.

The earthquake struck two weeks after more than 70 people were killed in a 6.9-magnitude earthquake that hit Cebu Province late last month.

The Marinette is the final vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla still heading towards Gaza after Israel intercepted nearly 40 others. The Polish-flagged boat is expected to be stopped within hours.

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Sept. 26 (UPI) — Core inflation stayed about the same in August, the Federal Reserve said, and personal consumption expenditures had a 0.3% gain for the month.

The personal consumption expenditures price index rise made the annual headline inflation rate 2.7%, which is the inflation over last year, the Commerce Department reported.

The core inflation rate is at 2.9%. It rose 0.2% for the month.

Meanwhile, consumer sentiment fell to 55.1, the University of Michigan said in a survey released Friday. The report was the seventh-lowest on record since 1952.

The pessimism stems from fears of higher inflation, which could get worse. On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on trucks, cabinets and pharmaceuticals.

Americans are now also becoming nervous about the labor market.

“Consumers continue to express frustration over the persistence of high prices, with 44% spontaneously mentioning that high prices are eroding their personal finances, the highest reading in a year,” Joanne Hsu, the Michigan survey’s director, said in a release.

“Interviews this month highlight the fact that consumers feel pressure both from the prospect of higher inflation as well as the risk of weaker labor markets,” she said.

Consumer spending is still going strong. Personal consumption expenditures climbed 0.6% in August from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday.

After adjusting for inflation, spending rose 0.4% last month. The personal saving rate, which is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 4.6%.

“Recent data show consumers resumed spending over the summer, especially those with higher incomes. And why wouldn’t they? Unemployment is still low, nominal wages are still increasing and asset valuations are near all-time highs,” CNN reported Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said Friday at an event in Washington, D.C.

Stock market futures rose after the report, while Treasury yields dipped, CNBC reported.

“Net, net, consumers literally hit it out of the park with very strong gains in spending not just for August, but June and July as well,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds, told CNBC.

“Summer was the time for consumer revenge spending after hunkering down in retreat from the shops and malls during the uncertainty and fear produced by the White House tariff rollout in April and May.”

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Last Wednesday, Delta Air Lines (DAL -0.83%) delivered a strong June-quarter update and reiterated its 2025 outlook, helping steady sentiment after a choppy year for airlines. The Atlanta-based carrier, one of the largest global network airlines, highlighted resilient premium demand, steady co-brand card economics, and progress on costs — all while acknowledging ongoing softness in economy seats.

The mix between main cabin and premium cabins has become a key storyline for Delta. Premium revenue and loyalty economics are doing more heavy lifting, while management trims weaker main cabin flying and leans into higher-margin products. With this backdrop, are shares a buy? More specifically, with guidance intact and premium resilience evident, do shares offer an attractive risk-reward today?

Image source: Getty Images.

Recent results underline resilience

If there’s a meaningful slowdown in travel, Delta isn’t seeing it. The company’s second quarter produced record revenue and double-digit margins, giving management enough confidence to reiterate its full-year guidance. In the quarter, operating revenue was roughly $16.6 billion, operating margin was 13%, and earnings per share landed at $2.10 on the company’s non-GAAP basis. Management guided the September quarter to flat to up low-single-digit revenue growth year over year and a 9% to 11% operating margin, and reaffirmed full-year targets for earnings per share of $5.25 to $6.25 and free cash flow of $3 billion to $4 billion.

Beyond the headline numbers, the mix story stood out. Management said in the company’s second-quarter earnings call that “main cabin margins remain soft,” while reiterating that diversified revenue streams — credit card remuneration, loyalty, and premium cabins — now represent a large slice of the business. That matches comments on the call that softness is “largely contained to main cabin,” with premium products and the Delta-American Express partnership offsetting the pressure.

Asked whether the premium outperformance would persist, Delta president Glen Hauenstein said, “there’s nothing in any of the forward bookings that would have us indicate that there is a diminishing demand for premium cabins or services,” adding that Delta continues to evaluate aircraft layouts to “put more and more premium” seats on board. In addressing main cabin weakness, Hauenstein explained that the company is removing the “weakest trips,” often off-peak departures midweek or very early or late, to consolidate demand and improve unit revenues.

What it means for the stock

After this update, Delta provided an upbeat near-term revenue outlook and reaffirmed profit guidance, pointing to steady demand and industry capacity adjustments. Management now expects third-quarter revenue to be up about 2% to 4% year over year, and it provided earnings guidance of $1.25 to $1.75 per share.

Overall, this guidance signals that premium demand and loyalty revenue are cushioning the main cabin softness. And that industry supply is tightening where it’s least painful — the lower end of the market.

Valuation helps the case for the stock. With shares recently around $60 to $61, and a 2025 earnings target of $5.25 to $6.25 per share, Delta trades at roughly 10 to 11 times this year’s expected earnings — reasonable for a carrier producing double-digit margins and multibillion-dollar free cash flow. The company also raised its quarterly dividend by 25% earlier this year; at recent prices, the annualized dividend yield at about 1.2%, a modest payout that still signals confidence in cash generation.

There are risks. Main cabin softness could linger longer than expected, especially if consumer budgets tighten or international shoulder-season strength fades. Jet fuel and labor remain key cost variables, and any mistimed capacity reductions could pressure unit economics. But management is already trimming off-peak flying, expanding premium seating, and leaning on high-quality loyalty economics — strategies that can protect margins while demand normalizes.

Stepping back reveals that the picture is balanced but constructive, and ultimately good enough to make the stock a buy. Solid June-quarter profitability, guidance reaffirmation, resilient premium demand, and capacity discipline all support the view that Delta’s earnings power is intact. At a valuation that is not stretched, the shares look like a reasonable way to participate if premium strength and industry supply rationalization continue to play out. For investors comfortable with the usual airline cyclicality, Delta’s mix of premium momentum, loyalty cash flows, and cost focus makes the stock a credible buy candidate today.

Roki Sasaki topped 100 mph a half-dozen times in four shutout innings of a rehab start for triple-A Oklahoma City on Tuesday, pushing himself back into the conversation for a spot on the Dodgers’ postseason pitching staff.

“We’ve all got to huddle up and figure out what’s the next plan,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I personally don’t know Roki’s plan after tonight.”

Sasaki struggled through four rehab appearances and seemed to have dropped off the Dodgers’ radar. But he gave up just a hit through the first four innings Tuesday before tiring in the fifth, when he gave up three runs, two walks, two hits and a hit batter.

He threw 90 pitches, 52 for strikes, striking out eight and walking four.

It’s unlikely Sasaki, 23, will be considered for a spot in the rotation but he could pitch out of the bullpen.

“Anything’s possible,” Roberts said. “I know he wants to contribute. So we’ve just got to see where he fits in. And we’ll have that conversation as an organization.”

Sasaki went 1-1 with a 4.72 ERA in eight starts before going on the injured list with a shoulder impingement in mid-May. In his first four rehab starts for Oklahoma City, he gave up 17 hits and 11 earned runs in 14 innings.

The Dodgers’ bullpen is starting to get crowded, however, with left-hander Alex Vesia returning from the injured list Tuesday. Vesia was 3-2 with a 2.75 ERA in 59 games before going to the sidelines on Aug. 23 with a right oblique strain. Right-hander Ben Casparius was optioned to Oklahoma City to create a roster spot for Vesia. Casparius was 7-5 with a 4.64 ERA in 46 games.

Roberts said as the postseason roster begins to come together the decisions on who stays and who goes with 2 ½ weeks left in the regular season become harder.

“The conversation with Ben yesterday wasn’t fun for anyone,” he said. “It starts to get tougher.”

He’ll have to have another one of those talks Wednesday before activating utility player Tommy Edman from the injury list. Outfielder Justin Dean, who has appeared mostly as a defensive replacement, batting just twice in 18 games entering Tuesday, is the most likely to be sent down.

While Zscaler (ZS 2.14%) stock has had a strong run this year, the momentum shifted after the cybersecurity company reported its fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results following the close of trading Tuesday. Though the period’s numbers were good, and management issued upbeat guidance, the stock sank 4% in Wednesday trading. However, even after the pullback, the stock is still up by about 50% year to date.

Let’s take a closer look at the company’s results and guidance to see if Wednesday’s dip has created a buying opportunity.

An upbeat outlook

While endpoint cybersecurity companies like CrowdStrike (CRWD 1.18%) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW 0.99%) tend to get more attention from investors, Zscaler has carved out an important niche in a fast-growing part of the cybersecurity sector. It’s focused on zero trust security, which is built around the idea that no individual user or device should automatically be trusted, even if it was previously found to be trustworthy. That means that all users’ access to various platforms must be verified, authorized, and then regularly revalidated.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI agents, meanwhile, has only added to the complexity of the cyberthreat landscape. This is leading to growth in newer areas for Zscaler, including AI Security, Zero Trust Everywhere, and Data Security Everywhere, which combined to exceed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in its fiscal Q4, which ended July 31. The company is also working on solutions to secure agent-to-agent and agent-to-application communications.

All of this helped Zscaler achieve robust revenue growth. In the quarter, its revenue climbed 21% year over year to $719.2 million, easily surpassing management’s prior guidance for revenue of between $705 million and $707 million. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) climbed to $0.89 from $0.72 a year earlier. That was also well ahead of the company’s $0.79 to $0.80 forecast.

Zscaler generated operating cash flow of $250.6 million and free cash flow of $171.9 million. It ended the period with $3.6 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet and $1.7 billion in debt in the form of convertible notes. It also completed the acquisition of managed detection and response specialist Red Canary for an undisclosed sum right after the quarter ended, so that cash position is likely to come down.

Image source: Getty Images

Zscalar’s calculated billings — the amount invoiced to customers, and a potential indicator of future revenue growth — surged by 32% year over year to $1.2 billion. Deferred revenue — money the company has received for services that it has not yet delivered — jumped by 30% to $2.47 billion. Both these metrics are indications that revenue growth could begin to accelerate in the new fiscal year.

Management forecast that fiscal 2026 revenue would be between $3.265 billion and $3.284 billion, which would amount to approximately 22% to 23% growth. Red Canary is projected to add about $90 million in revenue. ARR is projected to be between $3.676 billion and $3.698 billion, also equal to growth of 22% to 23%. The guidance range for adjusted EPS was $3.64 to $3.68.

For its fiscal 2026’s first quarter, Zscaler guided for revenue of between $772 million and $774 million with adjusted EPS of between $0.85 and $0.86.

Data source: Zscaler.

Is it time to buy the dip?

Zscaler turned in a solid quarter, but what is even more promising is that metrics such as calculated billings and deferred revenue suggest that revenue growth should nicely accelerate in fiscal 2026. Moreover, while the company issued an upbeat outlook, historically, it tends to guide very conservatively, so revenue growth in the mid-to-high 20% range is possible.

The company is seeing nice momentum in new growth vectors, and the advent of AI agents could only add to this. Meanwhile, Zscaler has also taken a page out of CrowdStrike’s book by introducing its own flexible payment program, Z-Flex. Such programs let customers pay for and deploy modules only when needed. Zscalar introduced Z-Flex two quarters ago and saw a 50% increase in flex billings in fiscal Q4. This could be another growth driver for Zscaler.

Zscaler trades today at a forward price-to-sales multiple of about 13 based on analysts’ consensus estimates for the current fiscal year. Given that I think its revenue growth is likely to be around 25%, I think that is a fair multiple, but the stock isn’t in the bargain bin. Overall, given its valuation and prospects, I view Zscaler as a solid stock to hold although I’d prefer to be a new buyer after a further dip in price.

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Salesforce has slashed another 4,000 jobs from its customer support workforce as the tech giant doubles down on artificial intelligence, even as the company reports strong financial results.

The latest layoffs gutted Salesforce’s customer service division, reducing its headcount from 9,000 to 5,000. AI agents now reportedly handle about one million customer conversations.

In a recent episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, CEO Marc Benioff justified the cuts by saying he “needs less heads” as Salesforce invests heavily in AI across its operations.

Earlier this year, Benioff boasted that AI was already doing 30 to 50 percent of the work, which he framed as efficiency gains – a 17 percent cost reduction achieved after shedding 1,000 people in February.

On Wednesday, the Slack owner reported revenue topped $10.2bn for the quarter ending July 31, up 10 percent from the same period last year. The company also announced a $20bn increase in its share buyback plan.

“These results reflect the success of our customers – like Pfizer, Marriott and the US Army – who are transforming into agentic enterprises, where humans and AI agents work side by side to reimagine workflows, accelerate productivity, and deliver customer success,” Benioff said.

“We exceeded all our financial targets while achieving our 10th consecutive quarter of operating margin expansion, delivering strong returns and maximising value for our customers and shareholders.”

But the business software provider also forecast that the current quarter revenue would be below Wall Street estimates, as clients dial back spending on its enterprise cloud products due to macroeconomic uncertainty.

Shares of the San Francisco, California-based company fell more than 4 percent in trading after the bell.

Benioff, whose annual compensation package was valued at $55m, has openly embraced automation as a central pillar of Salesforce’s future even as thousands lose their jobs. He insists the aggressive replacement of people with machines is worth celebrating, calling the past year of AI expansion “the eight most exciting months of my career”.

This is not new for Salesforce. In early 2023, Benioff oversaw a mass layoff of 7,000 workers, roughly 10 percent of the company’s global workforce, although later in the year, the cloud computing giant hired 3,000 workers.

A mixed message

“Just months ago, they [Salesforce] downplayed AI’s threat to jobs. The latest action raises important questions on trust in the sector. It’s very damaging and gives rise to a climate of fear among the industry’s wider workforce,” tech consultant Waseem Mirza told Al Jazeera.

In July, Benioff echoed that softer line, insisting AI would “augment” rather than replace people. Just a day before announcing the layoffs, he doubled down on that reassurance in a post on X.

“Our agentic future is not preordained. If AI replaces human judgment, creativity, empathy, we diminish ourselves,” he wrote.

“This is quite an important signal that this says to the tech sector with the biggest AI-driven layoffs thus far and could lead to a copycat effect across the sector,” Mirza said.

“The disruption is growing day by day, and we are going to see it continue.”

Salesforce is not alone. Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, cut 1,300 jobs amid its AI shift in July. Klarna laid off 40 percent of its workforce earlier this year. Duolingo announced in April it would stop hiring contractors and replace them with AI.

“Internally [at Salesforce], these cuts can be read as a way to maximise efficiency and ultimately shareholder value. But there’s a risk when companies cut too deeply in junior positions; they may be undermining their own future talent pipeline, which could hurt them strategically in the long run,” Fabian Stephany, assistant professor for AI and Work at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

That concern is widely shared across the industry. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, told the outlet Axios earlier this year that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.

“Highly exposed” fields have seen a 13 percent relative decline in opportunities for workers aged 22-25 between October 2022 and July 2025. In tech specifically, the effect is even more amplified. Opportunities for software engineers have fallen 20 percent, according to new research from Stanford University.

Salesforce did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mitch Farris pitched five effective innings to win his major league debut and Jo Adell hit a two-run homer that helped the Angels defeat the Kansas City Royals 5-1 on Tuesday night.

Adell finished with three hits and Oswald Peraza had an RBI double for the Angels, who scratched star slugger Mike Trout less than an hour before the game because of a skin infection.

Trout is considered day-to-day.

Kansas City remained 2 1/2 games behind Seattle for the last American League wild card.

Farris (1-0) walked his first batter but soon settled in. He gave up one run and three hits with two walks and three strikeouts.

Royals starter Michael Lorenzen (5-9) permitted two runs and four hits in six innings. He walked one and struck out five.

Bobby Witt Jr. tripled for Kansas City in the third and scored on Vinnie Pasquantino’s sacrifice fly.

The Angels took a 2-1 lead on Adell’s two-run homer off Lorenzen in the sixth. Peraza doubled home a run in the seventh and scored on a wild pitch.

Key moment

Lorenzen took a two-hit shutout into the sixth. But after a one-out single, Adell launched a 454-foot homer to left field.

Key stat

Farris was the fourth Angels pitcher to make his MLB debut as a starter in Kansas City, following Frank Tanana (1973), Jarrod Washburn (1998) and Seth Etherton (2000).

Up next

The Royals will send right-hander Ryan Bergert (2-1, 2.67 ERA) to the mound Wednesday night. The Angels have not announced a scheduled starter.

Explore the exciting world of UFP Industries (UFPT 0.02%) with our contributing expert analysts in this Motley Fool Scoreboard episode. Check out the video below to gain valuable insights into market trends and potential investment opportunities!
*Stock prices used were the prices of Jul. 30, 2025. The video was published on Aug. 28, 2025.

Joyce Birdwell survived the North Complex fire in 2020, though it devoured her home, and a life she loved, in the mountain town of Berry Creek.

Her partner, Art Linfoot, built the house they lost, a cabin with a wraparound porch and a year-round brook where deer drank and the sound of the water lulled the couple to sleep. Birdwell fired up her chain saw nearly every morning, she told me, aware that keeping the brush at bay was crucial for safety.

Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.

But the fire that came through their Butte County home didn’t care about her trimmed trees, or her hard work or our persistent belief that everything will somehow be OK after a disaster. Birdwell, 69, and Linfoot, 80, are in Irvine now, with no intention of returning, or rebuilding.

Berry Creek Elementary School burned to the ground in the North Complex fire in 2020.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

“I never thought twice about it as soon as we went back there and saw what was left,” she told me. “I know how long it takes for a tree to grow, and I just knew this would never, never work out for us.”

Hers is a bit of wisdom that is too often lost in our conversations about urban fire: Sometimes, recovery is not rebuilding. Politicians won’t admit it, but the ethos of #strong — measuring success with how quickly we can raise up houses on scorched earth — is snake oil, an emotional rallying cry that often delivers little more than a slippery bit of comfort that benefits the rich more than the rest. Because even rebuilding the most beloved of homes at the fastest of paces will not restore lives or communities to what they were. Or what they need to be. And by focusing on this powerful but narrow idea of recovery, we do a disservice to individual survivors and our collective good.

We need to change our understanding of what recovery is, because we live in an era when the climate crisis has created not just survivors, but refugees and migrants in California and the United States — and they deserve more than a slogan that, to steal a favorite phrase from our governor, does not “meet the moment.”

As we hurl forward to rebuild after January’s fires in the Palisades and Altadena — and all the disasters yet to come — it’s time to acknowledge that recovery and rebuilding, for all our talk, is never fair. There is a bias toward the rich embedded in the process. And for every recovery that we allow to be unfair under the guise of #strong, we march deeper to a California where the elite live in comfort and the rest live in fear — a rightful anxiety that everything we have is tenuous, given and taken as afterthoughts in a tug-of-war between Mother Nature and the wealthy.

‘Conspicuous resilience’

The idea that fire recovery is fair has always been a scam. In his infamous 1998 essay, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” the much-revered and equally despised environmental activist and historian Mike Davis wrote that the “flatland majority” has always been paying “the ever increasing expense of maintaining and, when necessary, rebuilding sloping suburbia,” those rarefied neighborhoods that consider themselves part of Los Angeles proper only when they need something from the rest of us.

If that was true at the turn of the millennium, it’s even more so now.

A 75-year history of fires in the Santa Monica Mountains

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

2010-2019

2020-2025

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES

When Davis wrote his controversial piece, he also noted that “late August to early October is the infernal season in Los Angeles.” More than three decades later, climate change has intensified our weather so much that floods and fires haunt almost every month of the California calendar, eclipsing the chthonic terrors of earthquakes that rattle us only now and then.

Summer Gray, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies the inequities in our responses to climate change, says disaster recovery can be “highly performative, often driven by more privileged members of the community” who have the money and clout that allow them to suck up resources. She saw this firsthand by examining recovery after the debris flows in Montecito in the wake of the 2017 Thomas fire.

Though talk in the ultra-wealthy enclave was all about community recovery, Gray concluded — through interviewing community members — that those with the ability to speak loudest and earliest often received more help, and set the agenda for what recovery included, and didn’t. She found that “narratives of resilience were actually obscuring systemic inequalities.”

Gray warns that sometimes, whether consciously or not, these privileged groups leverage “the optics of this collective recovery to accelerate their own rebuilding,” leaving working-class survivors “sidelined or ignored.” Gray calls this attitude part of “conspicuous resilience,” conflating being temporarily displaced and inconvenienced with being oppressed and vulnerable, leading to the celebration and glorification of a recovery that mostly benefits the few.

“I am not saying that our billionaire class has bad intent,” Gray said. But the elite, “don’t really understand what the needs are.”

My colleague Liam Dillon reported not long ago that before the fire, “the average home in Pacific Palisades cost $3.5 million, the median household earned $325,000 and the total number of rental units restricted as affordable housing was two.”

Two.

When Dillon asked former mayoral candidate and developer Rick Caruso, whose super-high-end mall is an anchor of Palisades commerce, if that should be expanded at this unique moment when everything must be rebuilt anyway, Caruso told him, “Now is not the time for outside groups with no ties to the area to slow down the ability of people to rebuild their homes by trying to impose their agenda.”

Two people ride past a burning house off Enchanted Way in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in January.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

No ties to the area except our tax dollars, of course, and our erstwhile equality as Angelenos and Californians.

Mayor Karen Bass’ now-ousted recovery czar, developer Steve Soboroff, who supported more affordable housing, put the mood more succinctly.

“We’re not rethinking,” Soboroff said. “We’re rebuilding.”

But if now is not the time to rethink, when is?

The climate crisis is costly, whipping up more and more disasters each year. When Davis wrote his book, there were about six natural disasters in the U.S. every year where the costs of recovery exceeded a billion dollars. Last year, there were 27. This year, we stopped counting, as part of government cost cutting, but that has not stopped floods, fires and heat waves.

Even if the federal government, largely through our taxes, was able to pick up the tab for every tornado, hurricane and wildfire, our current administration has made it clear it does not want to. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been gutted, and may hand off many of its former duties to states, including California, that even if prosperous, lack the money to cover those costs.

Add to that the financial precariousness of tariffs that are making building more expensive, immigration policies that are decimating our construction workforce and insurance costs that are skyrocketing, if you can get a policy, and the prospect of the poor and middle class recovering from fire as quickly as the rich seems naive at best.

Fixes for the future

There are three actions we can take that have the potential to keep California from further devolving into climate rich and poor, housing winner and housing loser.

First, we need to end the fixation on speed.

“If it’s speed without a plan, it means you’re more likely to return to the status quo,” Laurie A. Johnson told me. She’s an urban planner who specializes in disaster recovery and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery convened by L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

Johnson views a focus on speed as “an empowerment of those who have everything they need, or who can easily get it.”

Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, and Parker Sheriff carefully sift through rubble and ash while looking for cremated remains at a house in Altadena on Feb. 18.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Why don’t we acknowledge that fire destroys more than owner-occupied houses and give equal weight to graduation rates for affected students or the number of renters successfully relocated to safe apartments? What about measuring success around health outcomes for those with asthma or heart conditions exposed to the smoke, or count the number of people who feel their mental health needs have been met or their jobs stabilized?

Certainly home ownership is emotionally and financially important, especially in unique places such as Altadena where a Black middle class found refuge and economic security. But home ownership — and by extension rebuilding — is predominantly a measure of an upper-class recovery, especially in L.A. County, where less than half of the people own the place where they live.

It’s time to slow down, and, yes, rethink.

The second action that will help us reform how we handle disaster is even more difficult: Openly talk about who gets to recover with public money (which repaves roads and fixes water systems and sewers, for example) and who gets to decide who recovers with public money.

Returning to Davis’ point all those years ago, do we continue to rebuild in places that we know, for certain, will experience fire again? What do we owe places such as Malibu, where housing values have increased significantly with each post-fire rebuilding and which have made their elitism part of their identity? What do we owe places such as Altadena, if we allow homeowners with modest means to rebuild without robustly mitigating risk of a future fire?

Maybe not every place should be rebuilt. Maybe in some places, it’s time to let Mother Nature win, or at least create buffers so that she doesn’t have the upper hand.

Our better natures want to help everyone who faces loss, rich or poor. The idea that we would tell a community that they cannot have the money to restore themselves sounds like a political and moral absurdity. But it is increasingly likely that there simply will not be enough money in the future to rebuild everything.

To be honest, we are not rebuilding everything now, though we shove that truth out of our consciousness. Trump has already denied or delayed federal disaster aid to places including West Virginia and Washington state. North Carolina remains in crisis from its recent floods. And in the middle of both hurricane and fire season, FEMA recently proposed cutting $1 billion in grant funding for disaster preparedness and security, while at the same time allocating funds to build immigration detention centers.

It is absolutely time to impose a recovery “agenda” that takes into account the realities of climate change and our housing crisis and seeks to create communities that are safe and in service of our collective needs. Anything less ignores the reality of the majority, and nearly ensures that these places will return more gentrified, wealthier and even more exclusive, the exact opposite of what public dollars should support.

The Tahitian Terrace mobile home park, destroyed by the Palisades fire, is seen along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 10.

(Zoe Meyers / AFP via Getty Images)

The last action we need to take to better face a difficult future is to expand what recovery means. It is not always rebuilding. More often than we like to acknowledge, it means moving on. But currently, few of our resources or even our conversations include help for those who don’t want to stick around. In fact, they’re often scorned or simply forgotten.

The Palisades fire wiped out 600 homes in Malibu, 5,500 overall. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings. Almost certainly, something will be built on all of those lots. Developers are already snapping some of them up. But almost as certain, many of the people who once lived in these places will not return — and probably shouldn’t.

Age, finances, health — there are myriad reasons why spending five to 10 years rebuilding a lost home is not the right decision. Recovery needs to support other options with government money, including moving elsewhere, without shame and without the pressure of the elite-driven #strong ethos that forces us to believe recovery looks like the past.

California’s best example of what this could include is the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance (HBA) Program. This program gave financial assistance of up to $350,000 per household through a forgivable second mortgage loan to low- and middle-income folks, mainly renters, displaced by past fires — basically helping to buy houses for economically-challenged survivors.

The catch? The new home had to be outside a high-risk fire zone. That’s a win for displaced people, for the climate, and for encouraging safe housing and wealth building for the future. But the state is not currently funding the program for fire survivors, though some impacted by floods have a shot.

None of this is to argue that rebuilding is wrong, or that losing a home is undeserving of sympathy or help. It is. But there is so much more to survivors, and recovery, than a house.

Birdwell, who lost her home in Berry Creek, still thinks of that cabin as a “slice of heaven” and reminiscences “about how life used to be.” But she is left with anxiety — a remnant of the fire for which no one has offered her help — and a sense of dislocation and discontent. A few nights ago, she dreamed fire was coming at her again.

“I woke up, my heart was beating out of my chest,” she said. “That might be something that will happen the rest of my life.”

Her fire was five years ago, but like so many, her recovery is as incomplete as it is ignored. The conversation about Berry Creek still doggedly sticks to rebuilding.

In the next 30 years, we will assuredly have more climate refugees, more climate migrants, like Birdwell and Linfoot and the thousands of Angelenos still reeling from our recent fires. We can plan for that now if we choose to, leave behind the gratifying but false camaraderie of #strong and instead broaden our response to ensuring everyone who survives climate tragedy has options and equity.

If we don’t, we will simply move further into a future that bends recovery to benefit the wealthy, as Davis predicted long ago — prioritizing the rebuilding of hazardous communities again and again until the only people who can afford to live in them are the people who can afford to watch them burn.

RESTORE your nail health with Boots’ five star buy that will leave them feeling stronger and longer in just one application.

Beauty fans have been racing to Boots to get their hands on this nourishing nail and cuticle care pen.

2

The Boots product that will heal your nails

If you are looking to restore your nail health this summer, Boots may have the perfect solution.

The No 7 star product has become the latest craze amongst beauty enthusiasts.

The Nourishing Nail and Cuticle Care Pen has been billed as the ultimate solution to flaky, weak nails, and it won’t break the bank either.

Retailing for just £6.95 the treatment provides continuous moisture which nourishes the skin and promotes nail growth.

The product description recommends users massage the product into nails and cuticles once a day to see the best results.

This nail saviour has gone a storm with Boots shoppers, with the product receiving 100 five star reviews.

Glowing reveals for star nail product

One glowing review reads: “Absolutely the best cuticle cream I have used – very easy to use and super results.

“Having used more expensive brands I now realise that No 7 is the one I will always use in the future.”

Another delighted shopper added: “One one application and I have noticed a difference.

“My nails were flaky and split all the time. They are now actually growing without breaking.”

One happy customer also praised its affordable price point, writing: “Very cheap bur very good product!!!”

The hypo-allergenic product comes in a 10ml container.

How to keep your nails in pristine condition

Nail techs often recommend that avid acrylic and gel users take breaks in between every few sets, to give them a bit of a break.

If you’re looking to start the natural journey or are looking to just enhance nail condition, nail strengtheners and cuticle oils are a great place to start.

Other nail strengtheners and oil that The Sun recommends include OPI’s Nail Envy, Sally Hansen’s Miracle Cure, and Jessica’s Bend Don’t Break.

If you are in the market for another more affordable option, Barry M’s Mani Hero is less than £5 and promises to be a great quality, budget-friendly alternative.

Earlier this month, nail pro Sarah Green, also told The Sun the four things people should avoid doing to keep them in good condition.

Among her pro tips were avoiding using hot water, using UV protection and applying cuticle oil.

Following this advice may help ensure your at-home manicure stays in pristine condition and chip-free for much longer.

2

Joyce Birdwell survived the North Complex fire in 2020, though it devoured her home, and a life she loved, in the mountain town of Berry Creek.

Her partner, Art Linfoot, built the house they lost, a cabin with a wraparound porch and a year-round brook where deer drank and the sound of the water lulled the couple to sleep. Birdwell fired up her chain saw nearly every morning, she told me, aware that keeping the brush at bay was crucial for safety.

Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.

But the fire that came through their Butte County home didn’t care about her trimmed trees, or her hard work or our persistent belief that everything will somehow be OK after a disaster. Birdwell, 69, and Linfoot, 80, are in Irvine now, with no intention of returning, or rebuilding.

Berry Creek Elementary School burned to the ground in the North Complex fire in 2020.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

“I never thought twice about it as soon as we went back there and saw what was left,” she told me. “I know how long it takes for a tree to grow, and I just knew this would never, never work out for us.”

Hers is a bit of wisdom that is too often lost in our conversations about urban fire: Sometimes, recovery is not rebuilding. Politicians won’t admit it, but the ethos of #strong — measuring success with how quickly we can raise up houses on scorched earth — is snake oil, an emotional rallying cry that often delivers little more than a slippery bit of comfort that benefits the rich more than the rest. Because even rebuilding the most beloved of homes at the fastest of paces will not restore lives or communities to what they were. Or what they need to be. And by focusing on this powerful but narrow idea of recovery, we do a disservice to individual survivors and our collective good.

We need to change our understanding of what recovery is, because we live in an era when the climate crisis has created not just survivors, but refugees and migrants in California and the United States — and they deserve more than a slogan that, to steal a favorite phrase from our governor, does not “meet the moment.”

As we hurl forward to rebuild after January’s fires in the Palisades and Altadena — and all the disasters yet to come — it’s time to acknowledge that recovery and rebuilding, for all our talk, is never fair. There is a bias toward the rich embedded in the process. And for every recovery that we allow to be unfair under the guise of #strong, we march deeper to a California where the elite live in comfort and the rest live in fear — a rightful anxiety that everything we have is tenuous, given and taken as afterthoughts in a tug-of-war between Mother Nature and the wealthy.

‘Conspicuous resilience’

The idea that fire recovery is fair has always been a scam. In his infamous 1998 essay, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” the much-revered and equally despised environmental activist and historian Mike Davis wrote that the “flatland majority” has always been paying “the ever increasing expense of maintaining and, when necessary, rebuilding sloping suburbia,” those rarefied neighborhoods that consider themselves part of Los Angeles proper only when they need something from the rest of us.

If that was true at the turn of the millennium, it’s even more so now.

A 75-year history of fires in the Santa Monica Mountains

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

2010-2019

2020-2025

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES

When Davis wrote his controversial piece, he also noted that “late August to early October is the infernal season in Los Angeles.” More than three decades later, climate change has intensified our weather so much that floods and fires haunt almost every month of the California calendar, eclipsing the chthonic terrors of earthquakes that rattle us only now and then.

Summer Gray, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies the inequities in our responses to climate change, says disaster recovery can be “highly performative, often driven by more privileged members of the community” who have the money and clout that allow them to suck up resources. She saw this firsthand by examining recovery after the debris flows in Montecito in the wake of the 2017 Thomas fire.

Though talk in the ultra-wealthy enclave was all about community recovery, Gray concluded — through interviewing community members — that those with the ability to speak loudest and earliest often received more help, and set the agenda for what recovery included, and didn’t. She found that “narratives of resilience were actually obscuring systemic inequalities.”

Gray warns that sometimes, whether consciously or not, these privileged groups leverage “the optics of this collective recovery to accelerate their own rebuilding,” leaving working-class survivors “sidelined or ignored.” Gray calls this attitude part of “conspicuous resilience,” conflating being temporarily displaced and inconvenienced with being oppressed and vulnerable, leading to the celebration and glorification of a recovery that mostly benefits the few.

“I am not saying that our billionaire class has bad intent,” Gray said. But the elite, “don’t really understand what the needs are.”

My colleague Liam Dillon reported not long ago that before the fire, “the average home in Pacific Palisades cost $3.5 million, the median household earned $325,000 and the total number of rental units restricted as affordable housing was two.”

Two.

When Dillon asked former mayoral candidate and developer Rick Caruso, whose super-high-end mall is an anchor of Palisades commerce, if that should be expanded at this unique moment when everything must be rebuilt anyway, Caruso told him, “Now is not the time for outside groups with no ties to the area to slow down the ability of people to rebuild their homes by trying to impose their agenda.”

Two people ride past a burning house off Enchanted Way in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in January.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

No ties to the area except our tax dollars, of course, and our erstwhile equality as Angelenos and Californians.

Mayor Karen Bass’ now-ousted recovery czar, developer Steve Soboroff, who supported more affordable housing, put the mood more succinctly.

“We’re not rethinking,” Soboroff said. “We’re rebuilding.”

But if now is not the time to rethink, when is?

The climate crisis is costly, whipping up more and more disasters each year. When Davis wrote his book, there were about six natural disasters in the U.S. every year where the costs of recovery exceeded a billion dollars. Last year, there were 27. This year, we stopped counting, as part of government cost cutting, but that has not stopped floods, fires and heat waves.

Even if the federal government, largely through our taxes, was able to pick up the tab for every tornado, hurricane and wildfire, our current administration has made it clear it does not want to. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been gutted, and may hand off many of its former duties to states, including California, that even if prosperous, lack the money to cover those costs.

Add to that the financial precariousness of tariffs that are making building more expensive, immigration policies that are decimating our construction workforce and insurance costs that are skyrocketing, if you can get a policy, and the prospect of the poor and middle class recovering from fire as quickly as the rich seems naive at best.

Fixes for the future

There are three actions we can take that have the potential to keep California from further devolving into climate rich and poor, housing winner and housing loser.

First, we need to end the fixation on speed.

“If it’s speed without a plan, it means you’re more likely to return to the status quo,” Laurie A. Johnson told me. She’s an urban planner who specializes in disaster recovery and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery convened by L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

Johnson views a focus on speed as “an empowerment of those who have everything they need, or who can easily get it.”

Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, and Parker Sheriff carefully sift through rubble and ash while looking for cremated remains at a house in Altadena on Feb. 18.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Why don’t we acknowledge that fire destroys more than owner-occupied houses and give equal weight to graduation rates for affected students or the number of renters successfully relocated to safe apartments? What about measuring success around health outcomes for those with asthma or heart conditions exposed to the smoke, or count the number of people who feel their mental health needs have been met or their jobs stabilized?

Certainly home ownership is emotionally and financially important, especially in unique places such as Altadena where a Black middle class found refuge and economic security. But home ownership — and by extension rebuilding — is predominantly a measure of an upper-class recovery, especially in L.A. County, where less than half of the people own the place where they live.

It’s time to slow down, and, yes, rethink.

The second action that will help us reform how we handle disaster is even more difficult: Openly talk about who gets to recover with public money (which repaves roads and fixes water systems and sewers, for example) and who gets to decide who recovers with public money.

Returning to Davis’ point all those years ago, do we continue to rebuild in places that we know, for certain, will experience fire again? What do we owe places such as Malibu, where housing values have increased significantly with each post-fire rebuilding and which have made their elitism part of their identity? What do we owe places such as Altadena, if we allow homeowners with modest means to rebuild without robustly mitigating risk of a future fire?

Maybe not every place should be rebuilt. Maybe in some places, it’s time to let Mother Nature win, or at least create buffers so that she doesn’t have the upper hand.

Our better natures want to help everyone who faces loss, rich or poor. The idea that we would tell a community that they cannot have the money to restore themselves sounds like a political and moral absurdity. But it is increasingly likely that there simply will not be enough money in the future to rebuild everything.

To be honest, we are not rebuilding everything now, though we shove that truth out of our consciousness. Trump has already denied or delayed federal disaster aid to places including West Virginia and Washington state. North Carolina remains in crisis from its recent floods. And in the middle of both hurricane and fire season, FEMA recently proposed cutting $1 billion in grant funding for disaster preparedness and security, while at the same time allocating funds to build immigration detention centers.

It is absolutely time to impose a recovery “agenda” that takes into account the realities of climate change and our housing crisis and seeks to create communities that are safe and in service of our collective needs. Anything less ignores the reality of the majority, and nearly ensures that these places will return more gentrified, wealthier and even more exclusive, the exact opposite of what public dollars should support.

The Tahitian Terrace mobile home park, destroyed by the Palisades fire, is seen along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 10.

(Zoe Meyers / AFP via Getty Images)

The last action we need to take to better face a difficult future is to expand what recovery means. It is not always rebuilding. More often than we like to acknowledge, it means moving on. But currently, few of our resources or even our conversations include help for those who don’t want to stick around. In fact, they’re often scorned or simply forgotten.

The Palisades fire wiped out 600 homes in Malibu, 5,500 overall. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings. Almost certainly, something will be built on all of those lots. Developers are already snapping some of them up. But almost as certain, many of the people who once lived in these places will not return — and probably shouldn’t.

Age, finances, health — there are myriad reasons why spending five to 10 years rebuilding a lost home is not the right decision. Recovery needs to support other options with government money, including moving elsewhere, without shame and without the pressure of the elite-driven #strong ethos that forces us to believe recovery looks like the past.

California’s best example of what this could include is the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance (HBA) Program. This program gave financial assistance of up to $350,000 per household through a forgivable second mortgage loan to low- and middle-income folks, mainly renters, displaced by past fires — basically helping to buy houses for economically-challenged survivors.

The catch? The new home had to be outside a high-risk fire zone. That’s a win for displaced people, for the climate, and for encouraging safe housing and wealth building for the future. But the state is not currently funding the program for fire survivors, though some impacted by floods have a shot.

None of this is to argue that rebuilding is wrong, or that losing a home is undeserving of sympathy or help. It is. But there is so much more to survivors, and recovery, than a house.

Birdwell, who lost her home in Berry Creek, still thinks of that cabin as a “slice of heaven” and reminiscences “about how life used to be.” But she is left with anxiety — a remnant of the fire for which no one has offered her help — and a sense of dislocation and discontent. A few nights ago, she dreamed fire was coming at her again.

“I woke up, my heart was beating out of my chest,” she said. “That might be something that will happen the rest of my life.”

Her fire was five years ago, but like so many, her recovery is as incomplete as it is ignored. The conversation about Berry Creek still doggedly sticks to rebuilding.

In the next 30 years, we will assuredly have more climate refugees, more climate migrants, like Birdwell and Linfoot and the thousands of Angelenos still reeling from our recent fires. We can plan for that now if we choose to, leave behind the gratifying but false camaraderie of #strong and instead broaden our response to ensuring everyone who survives climate tragedy has options and equity.

If we don’t, we will simply move further into a future that bends recovery to benefit the wealthy, as Davis predicted long ago — prioritizing the rebuilding of hazardous communities again and again until the only people who can afford to live in them are the people who can afford to watch them burn.

The Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow and the Cardinals’ Sonny Gray squared off in an old-school pitchers’ duel Monday. But both were watching from the clubhouse when pinch-hitter Yohel Pozo’s two-out single in the ninth lifted the Cardinals to a 3-2 victory at Dodger Stadium.

Glasnow gave the Dodgers seven strong innings for the second time in three starts, allowing a run on three hits — none after the second inning — while striking out seven. Gray was even better in his seven innings, giving up just a fourth-inning solo home run to Freddie Freeman and a second-inning walk to Max Muncy.

Both then gave way to shaky bullpens, which is when things got interesting.

The Dodgers’ bullpen gave up more runs over a span of nine batters than Glasnow did all night. Anthony Banda went first, allowing a go-ahead homer to Iván Herrera three batters into the eighth inning. But the Cardinals’ Riley O’Brien gave the run right back in the bottom of the inning on a double to Teoscar Hernández.

Newcomer Brock Stewart started the ninth for the Dodgers, but he didn’t finish it. After Willson Contreras and Lars Nootbaar greeted him with singles to put runners at the corners, Pozo squirted a two-out single over the infield to score pinch-runner Garrett Hampson for the go-ahead run.

After Shohei Ohtani’s led off the ninth with a single, the Cardinals’ JoJo Romero finally shut the door, getting Mookie Betts to pop out and striking out Freeman. After walking Will Smith to put the tying run at second, he retired Muncy on a line drive to right to end the night.

Glasnow got off to a rough start, allowing three hits, including a solo homer by Masyn Winn, in the first two innings. But he settled in after that, allowing just one baserunner the rest of the way, though he would have nothing to show for it, finishing without a decision for the eighth time in 10 starts.

Gray, meanwhile, was dealing from the start for the Cardinals, setting down 10 of the first 11 batters he faced before Freeman tied the game with a one-out home run, his 13th of the season, in the fourth.

Freeman has hits in 12 of his last 13 games and is batting .500 over his last six games. But his home run would prove to be the only hit the Dodgers would get off Gray, who struck out eight and walked just one.

Sasaki set to throw

Right-hander Roki Sasaki is expected to throw the equivalent of three innings to hitters Friday and if that goes well, he could begin a minor-league rehab assignment next week. He has not pitched in nearly three months after going on the IL with a shoulder impingement.

Edman goes on injured list

Utilityman Hyeseong Kim, out since July 29 with a shoulder issue, is swinging a bat and taking grounders. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is optimistic he will be able to return soon. But another utility player, Tommy Edman, went on the IL with an ankle injury. With Kim, Edman and Kiké Hernández, another utility player, all out with injuries, Roberts has not had the usual versatility he has enjoyed in fielding a lineup.

“It was a hard effort and spending 12 and a half laps out there is a bit different and a bit more than I’m expecting, but that mile push hopefully shows I’m strong enough for five weeks time.”

Kerr pointed out the strength of British middle distance running.

“This title’s been British for about three or four years and it’s hopefully going to stay British for the next couple of years and it’s my job to do that,” he said after his win at the event in Birmingham that doubled as the British trials.

“We have a fantastic set of 1500m guys going after it as well, so we are in a great spot in the UK.”

Gourlay proved himself best of the rest and said “it feels great” after beating Englishman Elliot Giles in a sprint finish to secure the British title for the fourth time in six years.

“It’s a bit surreal having that longevity with all the people that have been coming and going through this event,” he told Scottish Athletics.

“It’s always the challenge to come and take care of business here in terms of qualification for the world championships, but the goal was certainly to win and it feels satisfying to do that today.

“To win the last three is quite something given the people I’ve ended up being up against over these years.”

Jemma Reekie booked her 800m place in the team for Tokyo, but the Scot had to be content with second spot behind in-form Englishwoman Georgia Hunter Bell.

Meanwhile, Alessandro Schenini took gold in the long jump, Kirsty Law won silver in the discus and Bera Ajala was third in the men’s triple jump.