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Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Hurricane Milton “wrought havoc across Florida, where it whipped up tornadoes, cut power for more than 3.3 million energy customers, put some 11 million people at risk of flooding and caused at least 12 deaths. Milton was moving into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday morning after making landfall the previous evening as a Category 3 storm in Siesta Key, roughly 70 miles south of Tampa.”
* On a related note: “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this afternoon that more than 10,000 federal staff were on the ground supporting the response to hurricanes Helene and Milton across the southeast.”
* In the Middle East: “The Israeli military continued dismantling Hezbollah leadership, killing two military commanders in airstrikes. Strikes also hit Syria this morning, as Israel expands its campaign across the Middle East.”
* The latest good news on the economy: “Inflation has come full circle for the Biden administration. Consumer price growth slowed to its lowest pace since February 2021 — the first month the president took office, the Labor Department said Thursday in its final inflation report before Election Day. The data, while a bit hotter than expected, points to an economy seeing cooler inflation even as the job market remains sturdy and interest rates ease.”
* Ukraine’s plan: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his ‘Victory Plan’ to end the war with Russia were dealt a significant blow this week by an unexpected foe — Hurricane Milton. A meeting of Kyiv’s allies, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, scheduled for this weekend at Ramstein Air Base in Germany was postponed after President Joe Biden canceled his travel plans to stay in the United States as the Category 3 storm made landfall in Florida on Wednesday night. It’s unclear when the summit will now take place and whether the same senior delegations, including Biden, will attend.”
* Congress is going to have to help FEMA, sooner rather than later: “Eight days into the fiscal year, the federal government has spent nearly half the disaster relief that Congress has allocated for the next 12 months. The rapid spending — which is likely to accelerate as aid flows to states pulverized by Hurricanes Helene and Milton — soon will force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restrict spending unless Congress approves additional funding.”
* A story I’ve been following: “The Gateway Pundit, a far-right news site that repeatedly published bogus stories claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, has settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers whom the site falsely reported had tampered with the election results in their state.”
See you tomorrow.