The Headlines - Milton’s Path of Destruction, and a First Biden-Netanyahu Call in Months

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Plus, the Kenyan police battle gangs in Haiti.   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:Milton Slices Across Central Florida as Powerful Hurricane, by Patricia Mazzei, Kate Selig, Audra D. S. Burch and Jenna RussellU.S. Races to Replenish Storm-Battered Supplies of IV Fluids at Hospitals, by Christina JewettBiden and Netanyahu Speak for the First Time in Months as Mideast Crisis Deepens, by David E. Sanger and Eric SchmittRepublicans Appear Poised to Take Control of Senate, New Poll Shows, by Shane GoldmacherThey Flew 7,000 Miles to Fight Haiti’s Gangs. The Gangs Are on Top, by Frances Robles

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, October 10th. Here's what we're covering. Yeah, Dennis, we have some unbelievable, something unbelievable to show you. This is Tropicana Field. The roof, a big portion of it has ripped off.

Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida last night as a Category 3 just south of Sarasota. Its high winds battered the Tampa Bay area, even ripping the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium, which was captured by the local ABC station. This is the power of Hurricane Milton. Unbelievable. The building was being used to house emergency workers there to help clean up after the storm. Milton also brought relentless rain to the area, with 10 to 14 inches falling just in the early part of the night. Within an hour of Milton coming ashore, almost a million people had lost power. That number doubled to 2 million by midnight. It's now at 3 million. The hurricane also spawned powerful tornadoes across the state, and search and rescue efforts

are underway this morning through the wreckage. According to police, multiple people were killed at a retirement community in Fort Pierce when a tornado tore through it. Even after the storm moves over Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean, it's going to continue to lash the state's east coast with wind and rain that could cause widespread flooding from the storm surge. Meanwhile, Hurricane Milton could exacerbate an already critical shortage of IV fluids that has hospitals nationwide scrambling. The fluids are essential for vulnerable patients from premature babies to people doing in-home dialysis to those in intensive care. And the plant that makes more

than half of the U.S. supply of IV fluids was damaged by Hurricane Helene and closed temporarily. Now, a plant in Daytona, Florida, which makes a quarter of the same supply, also finds itself in the path of extreme weather. Workers there were loading up trucks with the supplies to get them somewhere safer earlier this week. Together, that's 85 percent of the country's IV fluid production under threat from hurricanes. Hospitals have been rationing the fluids, and U.S. officials just approved an airlift of supplies from overseas to try and help. President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone yesterday about how Israel will respond to Iran's missile attack. David Sanger, who covers national security for The Times, says it was the first time the world leaders have spoken in two months.

What loomed over the conversation on Wednesday was one of the worst relationships between Israel and the United States in modern times. One of the deepest frustrations you've heard from administration officials is that the Israelis have not only ignored the president's advice, they haven't even given a heads up to the United States about some of the biggest attacks. David says it's not clear if this phone call went any better than previous talks between the two, after which Biden's been known to hang up the phone and mutter a string of epithets about Netanyahu. At the moment, the U.S. has been urging Israel to avoid hitting Iran's nuclear or energy sites, which could escalate the conflict and lead to more retaliation.

It's not clear if Israel will heed that advice. It's also not clear when Israel will act. And David says that may be the point. The Israelis now realize, in a way they didn't six months ago when there was a previous set of attacks, that they can take their time. That it actually kind of tortures the Iranian government to let them dangle, wondering when the retaliation's going to come.

A new poll from The Times and Siena College shows Republicans are on track to take control of the Senate. The Senate's been narrowly held by Democrats, 51 to 49, but Joe Manchin retiring in West Virginia means Republicans will almost certainly pick up a seat there. And now the latest numbers out of Montana show how they'll likely gain another one. Democratic Senator Jon Tester

is trailing his Republican challenger Tim Sheehy there by seven points. Tester has strong support from moderates and independent voters, but is struggling to overcome the state's conservative tilt. Facing that math, Democrats are hoping to flip a seat somewhere else, though it will be an uphill battle. Today's poll shows that the best chance to do that could be in Texas, where Republican Ted Cruz is running for his third term. His Democratic challenger Colin Allred is closing in on him, trailing by just four points. Flipping a seat in the deep red state of Texas has been a longtime dream of Democrats, though they've fallen far short of that in recent elections. And finally.

My name is Frances Robles. I'm a correspondent for The New York Times. I'm in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I'm about to go out with the Kenyan police forces who are here in Haiti trying to take back the city. Times reporter Frances Robles just got back from Haiti, where she embedded with Kenyan police forces who deployed to the country earlier this summer to try and fight rampant gang violence there.

The gangs have terrorized Haiti. Murders, kidnapping, and rape have been widespread. Frances and the officers from Kenya drove through the country's capital, much of which has been under gang control. We saw entire neighborhoods that were completely

desolate with burnt out cars, shot out buildings. It looked like war, to be honest. And as we were heading out of the really deserted area, we saw the most frightening thing. Someone had propped up a skull on a stick in the middle of the street. And it was a really menacing sign from the gangs. I took it as to the Kenyan police and to the military and to

the Haitian police. You know, we rule these streets. Francis says that the chaos has spread far beyond Port-au-Prince. More than 700,000 people have fled their homes, many of them landing in squalid camps. Half the population is struggling to find food. I think the Haitian people are really torn about the Kenyan police officers. On the one hand, yeah, they're absolutely thrilled that somebody's here to help them and trying to get portions of the city,

and hopefully the whole country, back from the gangs. But it would be dishonest to say anything except the fact that they're disappointed. They're disappointed in the results so far. There aren't that many Kenyans in Haiti yet. There was supposed to be 2,500 of them, and there were only 400. And there's only so much 400 people can do. And so the Haitian people are really feeling frustrated, and they're desperate, and they want to know when the

rest of the world is going to notice. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a roundtable of Times political reporters who break down the latest news from the campaign trail. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Traci Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.