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Severe rains and flooding have killed at least 1,033 people, including 348 children, and left 1,527 more injured in Pakistan since mid-June, officials said on Sunday.

The country's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) added that 119 people had died and 71 injured in the last 24 hours alone.

At least 33 million people have been affected by the disaster, Pakistan's Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman said on Thursday. She called the floods "unprecedented" and "the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade."

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"Pakistan is going through its eighth cycle of monsoon while normally the country has only three to four cycles of rain," Rehman said. "The percentages of super flood torrents are shocking."

She highlighted in particular the impact on the south of the country, adding that "maximum" relief efforts are underway.

The deployment of the army was authorised to assist with relief and rescue operations in flood-stricken areas, the country's Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Friday.

The ministry said troops would assist Pakistan's four provincial governments, including the worst-hit southwestern province of Balochistan.

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The exact number of troops as well as where and when they would be deployed would be worked out between the provinces and the government, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, flood relief centres are being established in various parts of the country to assist collection, transportation and distribution of flood relief goods to victims, the Pakistan Armed Forces said.

Army troops are also helping people evacuate to safer places, providing shelter, meals and providing medical care to those affected by the floods, the armed forces said.

The southern province of Sindh, which has been badly hit by the flooding, has asked for one million tents, while nearby Balochistan province – largely cut off from electricity, gas and the internet – has requested 100,000 tents, Rehman said.

"Pakistan's priority, at the moment, is this climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions," Rehman said, urging the international community to provide aid given Pakistan's "limited" resources.

On Friday, Pakistan's Prime Minister Sharif briefed international diplomats on the crisis, stating that his country – on the front line of climate change despite a relatively small carbon footprint – must focus its rehabilitation toward greater climate change resilience.

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal separately told Reuters that 30 million people had been affected, a figure that would represent about 15 per cent of the South Asian country's population.

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UN agency Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Thursday that the monsoon rains had affected some three million people in Pakistan, of whom 184,000 have been displaced to relief camps across the country.

Funding and reconstruction efforts will be a challenge for cash-strapped Pakistan, which is having to cut spending to ensure that the International Monetary Fund approves the release of much-needed bailout money.

The NDMA said in a report that in the past 24 hours, 150 kilometres of roads had been damaged across the country and more than 82,000 homes partially or fully damaged.

Since mid-June, when the monsoon began, more than 3,000 kilometres of road, 130 bridges and 495,000 homes have been damaged, according to NDMA's last situation report, figures also echoed in the OHCA report.

Bystanders had an up-close and personal encounter with an alligator in Philadelphia's Love Park in the US- but this reptile wasn't a wild beast.

It's the emotional support animal of a Philadelphia man who runs several social media accounts documenting his loving relationship with Wally the alligator.

Several visitors to the park, as well as Wally's owner, Joie Henney, posted images and videos of the affable alligator on a leash, greeting visitors and wandering through the water sprayed by the fountain.

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Henney told CNN that he acquired Wally six years ago. A longtime reptile rescuer who has worked with alligators for 30 years, Henney was contacted by a friend working in Florida.

"There was an overabundance of gators in that area," Henney said.

In Florida, so-called "nuisance alligators" must be either euthanised or transferred into captivity, he explained.

Wally was removed from a lagoon in Florida, said Henney. His friend brought the baby gator, then just 20 inches long and a little over a year old, to Pennsylvania.

Thus began a unique relationship between man and alligator.

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"Wally has been quite different than any alligator I've ever dealt with in the past 30 years," said Henney.

"He doesn't show anger. He doesn't show aggression. He hasn't since the day he was caught. We never could understand why.

"He's just loveable. He sleeps with me, steals my pillows, steals my blankets. He's just awesome."

Wally's easygoing personality led Henney to have the gator licensed as an emotional support animal, he said. The alligator has provided comfort for him as he has undergone radiation treatments for cancer.

Most people who see Wally are "really excited and happy to see him," said Henney.

Henney isn't concerned about the possibility of the alligator biting someone, he said. "Wally is the only gator I've ever been around that refuses to bite," he said.

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"It's mind-boggling – just hard to believe."

Their visit to the Love Park came after the odd pair visited Philadelphia to film a news segment, accompanied by his close friend Mary Johnson and her children, said Henney. Johnson helps film content for Wally's TikTok and Instagram, and her family is "super special to me," Henney added.

"They just had a blast," said Henney.

"People came as soon as they heard Wally was there to get a hug and get a photo with him."

Henney hopes that Wally's story can help encourage people to "be nice to other people." He's proud that Wally can help "put a smile on people's faces – this world is rough enough."

When Dani posted a video of her drawing on TikTok out of boredom during a COVID-19 lockdown, she had no idea she was sitting on a six-figure business idea.

That 20-second video, filmed spontaneously in her Melbourne living room, was the beginning of what was soon to become a thriving international company.

Less than two years on, Dani Regan's career – and life – has completely changed.

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She was working in a corporate 9-5 job, but is now the director of a rapidly expanding six-figure company that sells to customers around the world.

Hundreds of people are wearing her designs as tattoos or on pieces of jewellery, while businesses, such as a construction company in the Middle East, have taken on her designs for their branding.

Customers have also had her designs printed onto clothing, packaging, used them in specialist nail art, and one has had her design made into a branding iron for cattle.

Even Dani herself finds it hard to comprehend how Danibydsgn came to be what it is.

"It's just crazy to me how it all eventuated," she told 9news.com.au.

"It sounds too good to be true, to be honest.

"Every morning I think, 'This is just so surreal'.

"I don't like saying it fell in my lap – because I've obviously worked very hard, and long hours and learnt how to create a website and learnt how to do so many things – but it just kind of took on a life of its own on the internet."

How it all began

Dani was bored at home during a COVID-19 lockdown in June 2020 when she decided to download the social media app TikTok.

She saw a video encouraging people to try writing their name with the letters overlapping and decided to have go using the name of her anonymous account 'Harlo and Rei'.

She was left shocked by what followed after she posted the video of her quickly creating the monogram.

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A landmark poll in the US has revealed that for the first time, marijuana is more popular than tobacco.

The Gallup poll, released recently, showed that 16 per cent of Americans said they smoked marijuana, compared to 11 per cent who had smoked tobacco in the past week.

It comes on the back of multiple states legalising the drug for recreational use in recent years, including Arizona, Colorado, and California.

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For comparison, a Gallup poll from the year 1969 showed that at that time, just four per cent of Americans admitted they had even tried marijuana – compared to 48 per cent today.

But polling data from that same year revealed 40 per cent of Americans had smoked tobacco cigarettes in the past week – and that number was the lowest recorded by Gallup on that issue between 1944 and 1972.

Marjiuana and tobacco usage trends have been going in opposite directions for a few decades now. By 1985, nearly as many Americans said they had tried marijuana (33 per cent) as had smoked a cigarette in the past week (35 per cent).

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Cigarette smoking has been declining ever since. By 2013, just 19 per cent of Americans were smoking cigarettes at least once a week.

The trend toward more marijuana smokers is driven by young people. The National Institutes of Health reported last week that more young adults used marijuana in 2021 than in any year prior.

Nearly a third (30 per cent) of adult respondents under the age of 35 admitted to Gallup this year that they smoke marijuana. That's significantly higher than those aged 35-54 (16 per cent) or 55-plus (seven per cent).

And just eight per cent of adults under 35 are smoking cigarettes at least once a week. Slightly more adults aged 35-54 (10 per cent) or 55-plus (14 per cent) said they had.

The higher rates of marijuana smoking come with major political implications. A record high percentage of Americans (over two-thirds, per Gallup) say they favor legalisation of recreational marijuana.

Roland Mesnier, who created often-magical desserts for five US presidents and their guests as White House executive pastry chef, has died at age 78.

His death was confirmed on the weekend by the White House Historical Association, which said he died Friday following a short illness.

One of the longest-serving White House chefs, Mesnier was hired in 1979 by first lady Rosalynn Carter and retired during the George W Bush administration.

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Answering questions in an online "Ask the White House" forum in 2004, he explained that in preparing desserts not just for the first family but for parties, receptions and dinners, he was often called on to prepare thousands of pastries. He said he planned the number of pastries according to who would be in attendance.

"Over the 25 years I've been here, I've noticed that Democrats usually eat more than Republicans," Mesnier said.

"I've also observed that if the guests are mostly ladies, they will usually eat more pastries than men."

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At Christmas time, he was known for the elaborate gingerbread houses he made to help decorate the White House. He said he also needed to make more pastries than usual for holiday parties because some tended to "disappear into pocketbooks or pockets" and often ended up as Christmas tree ornaments in people's homes.

Mesnier grew up in Bonnay, a village in eastern France, in a family of nine children and began his career as an apprentice at age 14.

White House archives describe him leaving home with a cardboard suitcase and five francs to begin his apprenticeship at the Patisserie Maurivard in Besançon, France. He later worked in Paris and the German cities of Hanover and Hamburg before landing a job at the Savoy hotel in London.

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In 1967, he became a pastry chef at a hotel in Bermuda and while living on the island met his future wife, a vacationing schoolteacher from West Virginia. A decade later, he was working at The Homestead resort in Virginia when he heard that the White House was looking for a new pastry chef.

When asked in 2004 about working at the White House, he said: "You don't think about free time, spare time, etc. Because your time is at the White House. Any time you are needed you have to be there."

"It could be Christmas day, Easter, your birthday, your mother's birthday, your child's birthday — you are going to be at the White House if you are needed," he said.

"The White House always comes first."

He is survived by his son, George Mesnier.

NASA's new moon rocket remained on track to blast off on a crucial test flight in less than 24 hours, despite a series of lightning strikes at the launch pad.

The 98-metre Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built by NASA. It's poised to send an empty crew capsule into lunar orbit, a half-century after NASA's Apollo program, which landed 12 astronauts on the moon.

Astronauts could return to the moon in a few years, if this six-week test flight goes well. NASA officials caution, however, that the risks are high and the flight could be cut short.

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In lieu of astronauts, three test dummies are strapped into the Orion capsule to measure vibration, acceleration and radiation, one of the biggest hazards to humans in deep space. The capsule alone has more than 1000 sensors.

Officials said Sunday that neither the rocket nor capsule suffered any damage during Saturday's thunderstorm; ground equipment also was unaffected. Five strikes were confirmed, hitting the 183m lightning-protection towers surrounding the rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The strikes weren't strong enough to warrant major retesting.

"Clearly, the system worked as designed," said Jeff Spaulding, NASA's senior test director.

More storms were expected. Although forecasters gave 80 per cent odds of acceptable weather Monday morning local time, conditions were expected to deteriorate during the two-hour launch window.

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On the technical side, Spaulding said the team did its best over the past several months to eliminate any lingering fuel leaks.

A pair of countdown tests earlier this year prompted repairs to leaking valves and other faulty equipment; engineers won't know if all the fixes are good until just a few hours before the planned liftoff. If Monday doesn't pan out, the next launch attempt would be Friday.

After so many years of delays and setbacks, the launch team was thrilled to finally be so close to the inaugural flight of the Artemis moon-exploration program, named after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology.

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"We're within 24 hours of launch right now, which is pretty amazing for where we've been on this journey," Spaulding told reporters.

The follow-on Artemis flight, as early as 2024, would see four astronauts flying around the moon. A landing could follow in 2025.

NASA is targeting the moon's unexplored south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to hold ice that could be used by future crews.

A drug that works to prolong survival for some patients with advanced ovarian cancer is being added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, making it affordable for 300 women a year.

Typically, a course of Zejula costs up to $130,000. From September 1, its listing on the PBS will slash the price to $42.50 per script.

Zejula is a type of PARP inhibitor, which is a treatment that works for women with a genetic mutation by preventing cancer cells from repairing their DNA, until the cells eventually die.

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Oncologists say PARP inhibitors are used to maintain the effects achieved by chemo and surgery.

"It impacts the way cancer cells divide but largely leaves normal cells alone," cancer genetics specialist Dr Yoland Antill told 9News.

Jacinta Frawley was diagnosed with cancer on her 59th birthday after a 16-centimetre tumour was discovered on her ovaries.

The Sydney mum had no idea the tumour was growing, until she suddenly developed major abdominal swelling over the space of three days in 2019.

"By the end of that week, I could barely get out of bed without help … I could barely walk around the house so it was a very sudden onset of a very aggressive cancer," Frawley told 9News.

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When doctors confirmed the news, she feared the worst.

"He said to me … this is about management not cure. I'll never forget those words," Frawley said.

"You just think, I'm going to die and I'm going to die quickly. I was thinking I'll never meet my grandchildren."

But after surgery and chemotherapy, Frawley started on a PARP inhibitor, a pill she took daily.

"I think the PARP inhibitor was absolutely life saving for me. I would not be here without that. My prognosis was very dire," she said.

While it's no substitute for a cure, the oral medication allows women to live a largely normal life, without needing to undergo chemo.

"You're still tired, but I was able to return to work, I was able to return to caring for my family," Frawley said.

She believes more research is key to improving survival rates for women with ovarian cancer, almost half of whom lose their battle with the disease within five years.

Health Minister Mark Butler agrees.

"We still lose three women every day on average to ovarian cancer. There's still so much more to do," he told 9News.

"This drug provides support for some of those but we'll keep fighting the fight."

A light plane has made a crash landing at an airport in Adelaide's north.

Two men were on the plane when the front nose wheel of the twin engine Piper aircraft collapsed on landing at Parafield Airport just after 3pm on Sunday.

The men on board walked away uninjured.

Police said the aircraft would be towed for examination as part of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation.

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More to come.