WASHINGTON (AP) — El Nino, Nature’s chaotic climate agent, has formed in a warmed-up Pacific Ocean and is expected to grow to historic strength, meteorologists announced Thursday.

Experts said the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists forecast it will rival — or exceed — a record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially confirmed the existence of the El Nino, which is a warming of the Pacific near the equator that affects weather patterns across the globe. NOAA’s announcement said there’s a 63% chance that the El Nino will get so intense this late fall and early winter that it “would rank among the largest El Nino events in the historical record going back to 1950.”

The warm, deep waters of an El Nino affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier.

She said, especially in the Pacific, “it can get dire very quickly.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described El Nino as an “urgent climate warning.”

“El Nino conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” Guterres said in a video message.

El Nino’s impacts spawn winners and losers

The weather pattern’s effects vary by region. El Nino often dampens — but doesn’t eliminate — Atlantic hurricane season activity, but increases it in the Pacific. So while the U.S. East and Gulf coasts may get a break, Hawaii and other islands are more in danger, Frazier said.

The drought-stricken Middle East could benefit, climate scientists said. Other places are looking at more danger. Parts of western South America — where the first El Ninos were noticed decades ago — often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra warm summer. India faces more intense heat waves, while drought, wildfires and heat threaten Australia.

Northeastern Africa is likely going to get weather whiplash from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains, said Columbia University climate scientist and El Nino expert Muhammad Azhar Ehsan.

In the U.S., El Ninos can cause more intense storms with heavier rainfall in the South, but they also tend to generally benefit the U.S. agriculture industry, said Jon Gottschalck, operational branch chief at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

Michael Ferrari, meteorologist and head of research at the investment research firm Moby, said conditions for grains and seed, especially soybeans, look favorable in 18 major growing states, but are more mixed when it comes to dairy and cattle.

The northern Rockies and Southwest — where there’s an “off the charts” snow drought — could get some strong summer rains, Gottschalck said. The biggest effect in the U.S. is often in the winter, when the south can get wetter and the Pacific Northwest warmer and drier.

But overall, temperatures raised by the weather pattern can dampen American economic growth, said Stanford climate economist Marshall Burke. Several climate scientists forecast that 2027 will be the hottest year on record because of lagging effects of this El Nino, which is expected to peak in the fall or winter.

“We have pretty clear evidence that the U.S. economy grows more slowly when temps are above normal,” Burke said.

Strong early signs

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Pastry lovers will be hoping Scotland win their first match as there is a tasty prize in store.

With Scots up and down the country backing the Tartan Army ahead of our World Cup campaign starting this week, a beloved Scottish bakery has taken their loyalty to the football team even further with a very tasty announcement.

While thousands of football fans have flocked to America to take in the World Cup atmosphere, many Scots still on home soil are gearing up for a very long weekend as Scotland’s first game is set to take place in the wee hours of Sunday morning (June 14).

Up against Haiti, Scots will be joining watch parties or heading to their local late night pub to watch kick-off at 2am. Bringing everyone together to see Scotland’s first World Cup group match in the past three decades, there is sure to be a few sore heads going into the extra bank holiday.

However, if Scotland are able to clinch a win in their first match, Scottish bakery Bayne’s has made a bold claim. The bakery states that if Scotland secures a win in any of their upcoming Group C matches, Bayne’s will give away 7,000 of its famous sausage rolls away for free in its stores the following morning.

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If Scotland celebrate a victory this weekend, the family-run bakery is ready to hand out its most popular product as a reward to its loyal customers and football fans on Monday, June 15.

Bayne’s has over 70 shops across the country, including stores in Stirling, Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow, and Falkirk. However, pastry and football fans alike will need to get to stores early doors if the Tartan Army win their first match.

This is because Bayne’s is running the freebie on a first come, first served basis. With the free sausage rolls being distributed evenly across all the shops, this service will begin from the moment the shop doors open the morning after a win.

However, when they are gone, they are gone. So if you are wanting a savory treat to help cure your hangover or just love a flaky sausage roll, Scots will want to be up early as most shops open at around 6am.

Cheering on the Scottish football team, Bayne’s joint managing director John Bayne said: “As a proud Scottish family business, we wanted to find a meaningful way to stand behind the national team during this tournament.”

He added: “This initiative is our way of bringing local communities together to celebrate these historic games.

“Our retail and bakery teams across all 70 plus shops are fully prepared for the surge in demand, and we look forward to rewarding our customers the morning after a Scottish victory.”

To claim a free celebratory sausage roll, all customers need to do is visit their local Bayne’s shop on the morning following a confirmed Scotland tournament win, while stocks last.

With the giveaway also linked to Scotland’s other upcoming Group C matches, pastry fans will be able to head to their local Bayne the following morning for a free treat if Scotland confirms a win.

On June 19 Scotland will play against Morocco, while on June 24 the Tartan Army will be playing off against Brazil.

Sharing the giveaway on social media, Bayne’s added: “Our bakery and retail teams are fully prepared for the surge in demand. Come on Scotland, let’s give us all something to celebrate!”

In his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, former Royal Marines commando Mr Carns wrote: “I have sat in the rooms, seen the assessments, and spoken to the commanders who will be asked to do more with less, and I cannot in good conscience stand at the dispatch box and defend a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task.

On Thursday evening, police said a girl, 14, had also been charged with two counts of possessing a bladed article on school premises.

She will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Friday.

Two pupils, both aged 14, and a male member of staff, 27, were injured in the incident at the Co–op Academy on Plant Hill Road, Blackley, on Tuesday morning, according to Greater Manchester Police.

Police said the investigation had been passed to counter-terrorism officers due to circumstances around the incident but that at this time it has not been declared a terrorist incident.

Detective Chief Superintendent Jonathan Chadwick, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: “These are extremely serious charges against a young girl and, working closely with Greater Manchester Police, we continue to support the victims and their families and offer support to the wider school community, who have been deeply affected by what happened.

“Although charges have now been secured, our investigation is still ongoing, and we continue to work with local policing colleagues in the Blackley area.”

All three who were injured have been released from hospital and suffered no serious injuries, police previously said.

It is a dilemma plenty of people in the UK will be wrestling with over the next few weeks – stay up for the match, or catch up the morning after.

But how do you find out what’s happened overnight at the World Cup without any spoilers?

Well, we are giving you the chance to do that via bbc.co.uk/nospoilers.

This page will take you direct to a World Cup highlights page on BBC iPlayer, which will have highlights for every match without telling you who has won.

It might give you a hint as to what’s happened – if there has been a seven-goal thriller, for example – but we won’t be giving you the winner or the result.

We’ll continue doing that as usual on the BBC Sport website and app and on the World Cup page on BBC iPlayer, but if you want to get your fix without knowing the scores first, head to bbc.co.uk/nospoilers.

Add that page as a bookmark, and you can visit direct – allowing you to watch the highlights in blissful ignorance of what happens.

If you’re watching iPlayer on your TV, head to our World Cup destination page.

Just don’t come complaining to us if it means you’ve spent seven minutes watching highlights of a 0-0 draw…

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama is waging a last-minute legal fight to execute a man with nitrogen gas Thursday night, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to set aside a judge’s finding that the method violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Jeffery Lee, 49, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. However a federal judge ruled Tuesday that nitrogen executions are unconstitutional and blocked the state from using the method to put Lee to death. The state filed an appeal Thursday asking the Supreme Court to set aside the ruling and allow the execution.

“If that ruling stands, it would be unprecedented in American history. Not only does it portend the first-ever permanent ban on a legislatively enacted method, but it would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,” lawyers with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office wrote. The Supreme Court has never ruled that a state’s execution method violates the Constitution.

Lee’s lawyers asked the high court to keep the execution on hold, saying in a response that Alabama is asking it to intervene at the eleventh hour “to allow an execution that has been found unconstitutional to proceed.”

Prison officials said Lee did not request a final meal Thursday but had potato chips, Skittles, water and a Sprite in the hours ahead of his possible execution.

His case has put a spotlight on the nitrogen method and the sharp disagreements over its use.

The execution method involves strapping a respirator to the person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from a lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has been used in eight executions in the United States — seven in Alabama and one in Louisiana. Lee was scheduled to be the ninth person put the death by nitrogen.

U.S. District Judge Emily Marks ruled Tuesday, after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional, that Lee had shown by a “preponderance of the evidence that the protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision Wednesday night, rejected Alabama’s request to stay the ruling. The court earlier said the three minutes that it could take for an inmate to lose awareness is an “intolerable” time frame, “given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”

A jury voted 7-5 that Lee should receive a sentence of life imprisonment. However, a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. Alabama in 2017 ended the practice of judicial override and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.

Bestselling author John Grisham called on Gov. Kay Ivey to honor the jury’s decision and commute Lee’s sentence to life without parole.

“The practice of a judge overriding a jury was declared unconstitutional and so indefensible that Alabama itself abolished it in 2017,” Grisham said in a statement. “Jeffery Lee’s jury made its decision, the Alabama Legislature later agreed that juries, not judges, should decide life or death sentences.”

Marks did not block the state from using its other authorized execution methods, lethal injection and the electric chair. However, it is unclear if the state could swiftly change the method.

President Donald Trump unexpectedly summoned reporters to the Oval Office to watch him sign a proclamation rolling back longstanding environmental regulations to permit more aggressive fishing in American waters, but before taking press questions he had one of his own to be answered.

“So, tell me, how do they define that? Because in most industries, like you have policemen, policemen, you call them fishermen and fisherwomen. I haven’t heard of that one before we, how are the women? Do they want to be designated as fisherwomen? Does anybody want to answer that question?”

One of the fishing industry representatives arrayed behind him chimed in to reply that one could use either term — or the gender-neutral term “fisher” if one wants to be “politically correct.”

The president interjected with another question, asking whether the term “fisher people” would work before dismissing the entire topic as “crazy.”

At that point, another attendee spoke up to cite Google results which he claimed had indicated that most women involved in the fishing industry prefer the term “fisherman” because “they feel like they’re strong individuals, and they can do the work of a man.”

Trump later returned to the subject of the regulatory rollback proclamation by grousing about how the “Obama-Biden administration’s radical environmentalists” had “drastically restricted access for fishermen and coastal communities.”

“What a bunch of dopes. Those decisions close off vast resources, and really, the richest fishing grounds, they say, anywhere in the world destroyed livelihoods and made the United States more dependent on foreign products,” he said.

He continued riffing about the supposed unfairness of the regulations and suggested that both Canada and Japan — the latter of which is nowhere near the Atlantic coast of the U.S. — were unfairly being permitted to fish off the coast of Maine.

“You weren’t allowed to fish, but Canada was, Japan was. They all came in fish, but our people weren’t allowed to fish there. That was put in by Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? Barack Hussein Obama and Sleepy Joe Biden, and it’s a shame,” he said.

The proclamation that was the impetus for Thursday’s Oval Office ceremony will restore commercial fishing access to approximately half a million square miles in the Pacific Ocean by rolling back protections for three of what were declared national marine monuments — the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument near Hawaii, the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument located east of the Philippines, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa.

Trump suggested the monument protections, which were established by the previous administration, had been wholly ruinous for the wealthy commercial fishermen and fishing executives he’d assembled behind him.

He asked them: “When they destroyed your whole life and your family and your business, and everything else, did you ever think you would have somebody who would come along and save it?”

The president’s latest action follows a similar proclamation last April, which restored fishing access to 400,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean that had been covered by the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.

Following authorisation from the Crown Prosecution Service, the girl was charged on Thursday evening (June 11) with three counts of attempted murder and two counts of possessing a bladed article on school premises.

She is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Friday (June 12).

Detective Chief Superintendent Jonathan Chadwick, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said: “These are extremely serious charges against a young girl and, working closely with Greater Manchester Police, we continue to support the victims and their families and offer support to the wider school community, who have been deeply affected by what happened.

“Although charges have now been secured, our investigation is still ongoing, and we continue to work with local policing colleagues in the Blackley area.”

Police were called to a school on Plant Hill Road, Blackley, on Tuesday following reports of a stabbing.

Due to the circumstances surrounding the incident, the investigation was passed to Counter Terrorism Policing North West.

However, at this stage, it has not been declared a terrorist incident.

Alistair Warren MacLeod, 29, and Ryan MacLeod, 34, are charged with conspiracy to supply heroin, conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to supply ketamine.

Neither man was asked to enter a plea as the charges can only be tried by a judge and jury and only spoke to confirm their name, dates of birth and addresses.

Alistair MacLeod, of Moor Lane, Copmanthorpe, and Ryan MacLeod, of Hebron Road, Stokesley, were sent to York Crown Court.

They will appear before the higher court on July 13 for a plea and trial preparation hearing when they will be asked to enter their pleas.

Both were arrested as part of a police operation near Skelton, north of York, during which officers allegedly seized drugs worth £19,500.

Both were remanded in custody.