--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, October 9th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. If you're under evacuation orders, you should evacuate now. Now, now. You should have already evacuated. It's a matter of life and death, and that's not hyperbole. It's a matter of life and death.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: One of the largest evacuation orders in Florida history is underway, as officials try to get as many residents as possible out of the path of Hurricane Milton. As of this morning, more than 5 million people are under mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders across the state.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This could be the worst storm hit Florida in over a century. And God willing, it won't be, but that's what it's looking like right now. Milton is expected to make landfall later today. Its winds have climbed back up to 160 miles per hour, and it's currently on a path towards Sarasota, south of Tampa, though that could easily change in the coming hours.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Officials at the National Hurricane Center have warned it could bring catastrophic flooding along a major stretch of the coast. Some buildings will wash away. Evacuation routes will be quickly cut off. We've lost people to storm surge in previous hurricanes who are trying to get out at the last minute, and they drown in their cars.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: So please do not stay in this unsafe area. Get out now while you still can. Remember, you only have to drive. You can follow the latest on the storm's path, along with live updates from Florida, at nytimes.com.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was supposed to be in Washington today for an in-person meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. But he's postponed. The two were set to discuss how Israel may respond to Iran's recent missile attack.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The U.S. has been urging restraint. Austin told Gallant earlier this week by phone, the U wants Israel to avoid any step that would trigger even more escalation by Iran.
--:-- Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary: At a briefing, I declined to say why Gallant postponed his trip. But I rejected the idea that the relationship is frayed. Is it fair to say that there are kind of tension between both Secretary Austin and Minister Gallant? No. To the contrary, I mean, I would push back on that.
--:-- Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary: I don't think there's tension. I don't think, you know, you can have frank, you can have direct conversations with your friends. You're not always going to agree on everything. But that doesn't mean that there's tension. I certainly wouldn't read into anything there.
--:-- Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary: In the last year, the Pentagon has repeatedly backed Israel and sent a wide array of weaponry to the Middle East in support. But Pentagon officials have complained that Israel has not been completely candid or timely in telling the U.S. about its plans and operations.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade aerial assaults, while Israel also fired rockets into Syria, striking near the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Israeli officials tell The Times it was an attempt to assassinate a high-ranking Hezbollah leader there involved in weapons smuggling.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In recent weeks, Israel has been specifically targeting Hezbollah leadership in airstrikes. So what I am proposing is that basically what we will do is allow Medicare to cover in-home health care.
--:-- Kamala Harris: I outlined a new policy proposal on home health care yesterday during a stop at the talk show The View. I described a Medicare expansion plan that I said would help people struggling to afford in-home care, either for themselves or their relatives.
--:-- Kamala Harris: In particular, I said it would help the sandwich generation, adults who find themselves caring for their kids and their aging parents. And it's just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work.
--:-- Kamala Harris: We're finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income. Not to mention the emotional stress. Millions of Americans have had to look for in care and that number is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years as baby boomers age.
--:-- Health Policy Professor: One health policy professor who studies long care told The Times that it's the biggest gap in Medicare.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Harris campaign said the new plan would be paid for by savings Medicare will get from negotiating cheaper drug prices, though it's not yet clear what the total cost would be.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Donald Trump's campaign said he's also supported the idea of covering in-home care. A spokeswoman said he would cover it through, quote, tax credits and reduced red tape.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The FBI has arrested an Afghan citizen in Oklahoma City for plotting a suicide attack on Election Day. Nasir Ahmadtowadi, who came to the U.S. in 2021, is accused of conspiring to carry out an attack on behalf of ISIS with the intent to cause mass casualties.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's not clear where he planned to stage the attack, though his online history showed he'd visited webcams of the White House and the Washington Monument, according to investigators.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Tawadi allegedly bought two AK-47 rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo from an undercover informant for the FBI. He was then arrested on Monday when he showed up to a remote ranch in Oklahoma to pick them up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The FBI says he also recruited his teenage nephew as a co-conspirator in the plot. Tawadi faces charges of aiding a terrorist group and obtaining firearms to commit terrorism, which carry a maximum of 35 years in prison, though more charges could be added.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: His arrest underscores the continuing threat posed by the Islamic State and would-be attackers inspired by their anti-American messaging.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, in Brazil, the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, is getting back up and running after a five-week suspension.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The site was blocked in Brazil after X refused to comply with orders to take down certain accounts, which the Brazilian Supreme Court said was necessary to protect democracy there.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Elon Musk, who owns X, disagreed, calling it illegal censorship, but he has now complied to get the site back up.
--:-- Jack Nickus: This is really a defeat for the businessman because he had really vowed to resist these orders to take down accounts and has completely gone back on that.
--:-- Jack Nickus: I cover Brazil for The Times. He says losing five weeks of business is a big hit for X. Brazil was one of its biggest markets.
--:-- Jack Nickus: During the ban, millions of users moved on to alternatives like Threads or Blue Sky and may not come back.
--:-- Jack Nickus: But beyond the business issue, the showdown between Musk and the court could have wider-reaching repercussions.
--:-- Jack Nickus: The Supreme Court judge at the center of this fight has ordered social networks to take down hundreds of accounts that he says threatens democracy.
--:-- Jack Nickus: He has become kind of the sheriff of the Brazilian internet. And now that he, you know, had a big tech company capitulate and eventually comply, suggests to me that there may be no end in sight for his powers and his strategy to continue to censor and police what people say online.
--:-- Jack Nickus: And so Brazil is kind of trying out a new model on how to deal with online speech and misinformation.
--:-- Jack Nickus: And for some, many on the left in Brazil, it's a really exciting new model that is kind of solving what they see as a dangerous threat to democracy from the global far right.
--:-- Jack Nickus: But to many on the right in Brazil, and increasingly some government officials in Brazil, this sort of action is posing its own threat to democracy because it's kind of having a single Supreme Court justice say what can be said online, and that could be problematic itself.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily. The Surgeon General Vivek Murthy put out an advisory What he's saying is that parenting has become so difficult that it's become an urgent public health crisis.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Claire Kane Miller on how modern parenting became so stressful. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
