Elections

As Hurricane Milton churned in the Gulf of Mexico and moved toward Florida this week, the warnings from officials were dire.Gov. Ron DeSantis warned people who intended to ride out the storm in coastal areas that “Mother Nature is going to win that fight.” Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa told residents “you are going to die” if they did not evacuate. The National Weather Service said the hurricane could be the worst to hit the Tampa Bay region in more than a century.On Thursday, as Hurricane Milton moved offshore into the Atlantic Ocean, officials and residents credited those warnings for getting people out of harm’s way. “We know lifesaving measures did make a difference,” President Biden said.“We know lifesaving measures did make a difference,” President Biden said at the White House on Thursday.Tierney L. Cross for The New York TimesWhile waiting for a bridge to open and allow traffic back into Fort Myers Beach on Thursday, Jacki Liszak, the president of the town’s Chamber of Commerce, said she was focused not on the triple-whammy punch of Hurricanes Ian, Helene and Milton, but instead on what had gone right during this latest storm.“When I write the script to this movie, nobody is going to believe it,” she said. “It’s insanity. But we’re going to take this as a win.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The search, and the seizure of a police official’s phone, were part of a welter of federal investigations into Mayor Eric Adams and his inner circle.Federal agents searched the offices of the Police Department’s School Safety Division on Thursday as part of an inquiry into a possible bribery scheme involving city contracts, one of four federal investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams, people with knowledge of the matter said.The agents also seized the cellphone of the School Safety Division’s former commanding officer in actions related to a company called SaferWatch, which sells panic button systems to schools and police departments around the United States, the people said.The bribery investigation has focused on a consulting firm run by the brother of two top officials in the Adams administration who both resigned in the weeks after the mayor was indicted last month in a separate federal corruption investigation.Tracking Charges and Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitFive corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Here is a closer look at the charges against Mr. Adams and how people with ties to him are related to the inquiries.The consulting firm, the Pearl Alliance, counted SaferWatch among its clients. It was formed by Terence Banks, a retired subway supervisor, in 2022. At the time, his older brothers, Philip B. Banks III and David Banks, were the deputy mayor for public safety and schools chancellor, respectively, two of the highest-ranking officials in the mayor’s administration.In early September, federal agents and city investigators seized the phones of all three men, as well as the phones of other top administration officials — including Sheena Wright, the former first deputy mayor and wife of David Banks. Philip and David Banks and Ms. Wright all resigned in the weeks after the phone seizures.SaferWatch did not have a foothold in New York City contracting before 2023, city records show. The Police Department subsequently conducted a small $67,000 pilot program with SaferWatch and decided not to move forward with its service.A company spokesman could not be reached for comment on Thursday night. The search by federal agents was earlier reported by The New York Post.The actions on Thursday came a day after The New York Times reported on yet another investigation into members of the mayor’s inner circle — conducted by the office of the Manhattan district attorney and the city’s Department of Investigation.The bribery investigation concerning city contracts is being conducted by the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, the same office that indicted Mr. Adams on corruption charges, and the city’s Department of Investigation. Representatives of the two agencies declined to comment.The former commanding officer of the Police Department’s School Safety Division whose phone was seized on Thursday was placed on modified assignment, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.The inspector, Kevin L. Taylor, could not immediately be reached for comment. The leader of the union that represents him also could not be reached for comment.Representatives of the two agencies and the Police Department declined to comment. More

Voters in Wisconsin are weighing which candidate better understands their economic anxieties.It was a resplendent autumn morning in central Wisconsin this week, and I was doing what I do best: hanging out at a farmers’ market, admiring a $6 bunch of dahlias, and talking to strangers about the election.“We’re 50-50. We’re middle-class. We’re in a swing state,” said Toni Case, 65, as she took a break from selling gyros from a silver trailer. “We’re in the middle of an election tornado.”Case was right.The market was set up in a suburban shopping center near Wausau, a city of about 40,000 people bisected by the Wisconsin River. The whole area is the kind of place that has almost mythic status in American politics today: a haven for the middle class.According to the Pew Research Center, the Wausau metropolitan area is one of 10 in the country with the largest share of middle-income residents. It has a gleaming downtown, a new Amazon distribution center and an abundance of parks along the river. It’s the sort of place that both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are evoking all the time, though not by name, as they talk about how to improve the American economy by strengthening the middle class.It’s also a place that lays bare the challenges both candidates face as they try to appeal to middle-class voters. As I interviewed voters in Wausau and Weston, right next door, I heard pronounced anxiety over the rising cost of living, and confusion over what being middle class even means anymore. It was clear that Trump’s dire picture of a middle class under attack has resonated here, but also that voters are thinking carefully about which candidate better understands the economic complexities of their lives.“It’s hard to stay ahead,” Mercedes Anderson, 25, told me. “It feels like you just get by.”Facing ‘outrageous’ costs, and seeking a solutionTrump has depicted an American middle class on the edge of extinction, accusing Harris of making middle-class life “unaffordable and unlivable.” He pledges to create a middle class that is “once again the envy of the entire world,” mostly by suggesting that his broad promises of tax cuts or mass deportations will help these Americans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The Gateway Pundit, the far-right news website that played a critical role in spreading false information about the 2020 election, has settled a defamation lawsuit with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing.Notice of the settlement was filed in circuit court in Missouri, where Freeman and Moss had sued the site for defamation. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the filing.Nearly 20 articles that Freeman and Moss said had falsely accused them of wrongdoing were no longer available on The Gateway Pundit’s website as of Thursday afternoon, according to a Guardian review.“The dispute between the parties has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” the legal team for Moss and Freeman said in a statement. Attorneys for the Gateway Pundit did not immediately return a request for comment.After the 2020 election, the Gateway Pundit published a series of stories amplifying a misleading video that showed Freeman and Moss counting ballots. The site pushed the false claim that the two women were committing fraud and counting illegal ballots after counting had ended for the night. The Gateway Pundit was the first news outlet to identify Freeman and later identified Moss, who have been cleared of all wrongdoing.Even after Georgia election officials debunked the video, the site continued to publish numerous articles falsely accusing Moss and Freeman of fraud. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, also attacked the two women publicly. A Washington DC jury ordered Giuliani to pay nearly $150m to the two women last year for libel, a decision the former New York mayor is appealing. At the trial, Giuliani’s lawyer at one point accused the Gateway Pundit of being the basis of the false claims about the two women.The two women faced vicious harassment, including death threats, and fled their homes and went into hiding after people showed up unannounced at Freeman’s home. Moss’s son received death threats on his phone and fell behind in school. Freeman testified last year that she had nowhere to live. Moss testified to the committee investigating the January 6 attack in 2022, but has otherwise not spoken much publicly.“I was terrorized,” Freeman said during a trial in Washington DC last year. “I’d rather stay in my car and be homeless rather than put that on someone else.”The site’s founder, Jim Hoft, had refused to concede that the site said anything false about the women, even though the state quickly debunked accusations of wrongdoing and a longer investigation formally cleared them. Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, also a contributor, held a press conference in Milwaukee during the Republican national convention in July and repeated many of the false claims about Freeman and Moss.The settlement with the Gateway Pundit is notable because of the influential role the site plays in spreading misinformation. One recent analysis by the group Advance Democracy found that the site is continuing to spread false information about voting and seed the idea that the 2024 election could be stolen.The two women have already settled a settled suit with One America News, another far-right outlet. The network issued an on-air apology after the settlement.They are also seeking to collect on the money Giuliani owes them. Their lawyers recently asked a New York judge to allow them to take control over Giuliani’s assets.The Gateway Pundit still faces a libel suit from Eric Coomer, a former employee of the voting system company Dominion who was falsely accused of subverting the 2020 election.The site had declared bankruptcy in an attempt to delay the case, but a judge dismissed the effort earlier this year.The case was one of several libel lawsuits filed against Trump allies and conservative networks that aired false claims about the 2020 election. Nearly all of those cases have settled, which observers have said may underscore the limited role defamation law can have in curbing misinformation.More details soon … More

The residents are the first in the state of Maine to successfully utilize a new law making it easier for them to compete with investors and gain ownership of the land their homes sit on.Manufactured houses, widely known as mobile homes, are one of the most affordable options for homeownership in the United States, but they typically come with a big risk: You own the house; you don’t own the lot it sits on.That has made mobile home parks ripe targets for investors, who buy communities and then increase the lot rents to boost profits. It’s a massive industry: manufactured homes account for approximately one in 10 new single-family homes in the United States, according to a 2023 report by the Manufactured Housing Institute trade organization.To curb investor involvement, the state of Maine ushered in a new law last year that requires mobile home park owners to give advance notice to residents if they intend to sell, giving the community members a chance to buy it themselves.Linnhaven Mobile Home Center is a community of nearly 300 occupied homes in Brunswick.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesNow, it’s the largest resident-owned community in Maine.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesOn Oct. 10, the residents of Linnhaven Mobile Home Center, a community of nearly 300 occupied homes in Brunswick, became the first to succeed in utilizing the new law. They paid $26.3 million to buy the property from their landlord by cobbling together loans and grants from several sources, including the state and the town of Brunswick.Now, it’s the largest resident-owned community in Maine, giving hope to other owners of manufactured homes. Several other states also have similar laws in place, including Connecticut and New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

She helped put her city on the modern culinary map, but many employees said they paid a price in workplace abuse.Barbara Lynch, the celebrated chef who helped kick-start Boston’s modern fine-dining scene, announced Wednesday that her remaining restaurants were closing, ending a starry 30-year run that was shadowed in recent years by accusations of toxic working conditions in her kitchens.Her flagship, No. 9 Park, popular among the city’s political class since it opened in 1998 on Beacon Hill, will close at the end of the year, according to a statement first reported by Eater Boston. Ms. Lynch also announced on Instagram that the Rudder, a storied seafood spot that she took over and reopened last year in Gloucester, on the North Shore, had already closed. Her company, the Barbara Lynch Collective, did not immediately respond to an email seeking details about the closing of B & G Oysters, in the South End of Boston.In a report last year in The New York Times, more than 20 former and current staff members described a variety of abuse Ms. Lynch had inflicted on employees, including verbal attacks, inappropriate propositions, and touching, shoving and hitting. She denied the allegations, saying they were “fantastical” and “seemed designed to bring me down.”In January, she closed her white-tablecloth restaurant Menton, along with Sportello and Drink, all in the same building in the city’s Fort Point neighborhood, blaming an “uncooperative landlord.” She sold the Butcher Shop and Stir, the South End spots where the chef Kristen Kish began her run from “Top Chef” winner in 2012 to the show’s current host.In her statement on Wednesday, Ms. Lynch attributed the final closings to “the harsh realities of the global pandemic” and other “difficulties.” Last week, her company was sued for outstanding debt by its linen supplier; a 2023 class-action lawsuit by former employees over tips withheld during the pandemic is scheduled to be heard in November.The closings mark the end of a prominent culinary career for Ms. Lynch, whose roles as a Boston native, an early leader among women chefs, and a survivor of childhood neglect and rape won her national attention. She has described physical abuse in the kitchen by her first high-profile boss, the chef Todd English, and campaigned against such practices. But among the hundreds of alumni of Ms. Lynch’s kitchens, her short temper and drinking problem became an open secret, especially after she was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated in 2017.That same year, when her memoir was published, she led seven restaurants and was on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential Americans. She trained many young chefs, including Ms. Kish, Stephanie Cmar, Colin Lynch and Jason Bond.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

That depends on whom you ask, and what country you live in. Here’s what the research suggests and how to think about it.Over the past several years, there has been a rise in alcohol-related deaths and a steady wave of news about the health risks of drinking. Calls for people to drink only in moderation have become more urgent. But what, exactly, does that mean?“Tongue in cheek, people have defined it as not drinking more than your doctor,” said Tim Stockwell, a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research.More officially, in the United States, moderate drinking is defined as one drink or less per day for women and two drinks or less per day for men. But other countries define moderate drinking, also called low-risk drinking, differently, and recent research around alcohol’s health harms has raised questions about current guidelines.How are the guidelines set?Experts used to think that low or moderate amounts of alcohol were good for you. That assumption was based on research showing that people who drank in moderation lived longer than those who abstained or drank excessively. The longevity benefit disappeared around two drinks a day for women and three drinks a day for men, Dr. Stockwell said.But many researchers now think that those conclusions were based on data analyses that had “all kinds of methodological problems,” said Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, a professor of nutrition and medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.For example, one issue was that many people who abstained from alcohol did so because they had existing health problems, while people who drank moderately were more likely to have healthy lifestyle habits. It created “really what was an illusion of health benefits with low to moderate amounts of drinking,” Dr. Mayer-Davis said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The cabinet was expected to authorize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, to initiate a retaliatory attack at their discretion, officials said.Israel’s security cabinet was set to convene on Thursday evening, officials said, to discuss Israel’s response to an Iranian barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles that sent nearly the entire country into reinforced shelters last week.Senior ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will discuss the overall plan for Israel’s retaliation, said two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the discussions.The cabinet was expected to authorize Mr. Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, to initiate the response at their discretion, the officials said.Iran’s attack in early October came in retaliation for Israel’s killing of top leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — all proxy militias funded by Iran. One of them, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, was assassinated while staying in a state guesthouse in Tehran in July. The majority of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. but a Palestinian was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when a fragment of an Iranian missile fell on him.International mediators and the Biden administration fear a massive Israeli strike could touch off a wider, direct escalation between Israel and Iran. The regional archnemeses’ decades-long shadow war escalated in direct action in April, when Iran launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israeli territory. Most were intercepted. More