The Headlines - Floridians Rush to Evacuate, and Harris Outlines Home Health Care Plan

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Plus, Brazil unblocks X after Elon Musk backs down.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:Tracking Hurricane Milton’s Storm Surge Risk Across Florida, by William B. Davis and Judson JonesIsrael’s Defense Minister Postpones Trip to Washington, U.S. Says, by Eric SchmittIsrael Sends More Soldiers Into Lebanon as Strikes Hit Beirut and Damascus, by Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer, Ronen Bergman and Thomas FullerHarris Proposes Medicare Benefits for Home Care, Vision and Hearing, by Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-KatzAfghan Man Arrested on Charges of Plotting Election Day Attack, by Glenn Thrush and Adam GoldmanBrazil Unblocks X After Musk Backs Down, by Jack Nicas and Ana Ionova

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Traci Mumford. Today's Wednesday, October 9th. 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. 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. 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.

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. So please do not stay in these environment, 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. Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Galant 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. The U.S. has been urging restraint. Austin told Gallant earlier this week by phone the U.S. wants Israel to avoid any step that would trigger even more escalation by Iran. At a briefing, the deputy Pentagon press secretary declined to say why Gallant postponed his trip, but she 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. 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 tensions. I certainly wouldn't read into anything there. 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. 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. 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 outlined a new policy proposal on home health care yesterday during a stop at the talk show The View. Harris described a Medicare expansion plan that she said would help people struggling to afford in-home care, either for themselves or their relatives. In particular, she 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. 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-home care, and that number is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years as baby boomers age. One health policy professor who studies long-term care told The Times that it's, quote, the biggest gap in Medicare. 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. 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. The FBI has arrested an Afghan citizen in Oklahoma City for plotting a suicide attack on Election Day. Nasir Ahmad Tawadi, 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. 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. 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.

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. His arrest underscores the continuing threat posed by the Islamic State and would-be attackers inspired by their anti-American messaging. And finally, in Brazil, the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, is getting back up and running after a five-week suspension. 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.

Elon Musk, who owns X, disagreed, calling it illegal censorship. But he has now complied to get the site back up. This is Elon Musk backing down in Brazil. And 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 covers Brazil for The Times. He says losing five weeks of business is a big hit for X. Brazil was one of its biggest markets. During the ban, millions of users moved on to alternatives like Threads or Blue Sky and may not come back. But beyond the business issue, the showdown between Musk and the court could have wider-reaching repercussions.

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. 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. And so Brazil is kind of trying out a new model on how to deal with online speech and misinformation. 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 and misinformation. 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. Those are the headlines. 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. 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. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.