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      DeSantis Confronts Jacksonville Shooting and Storm Idalia in Florida

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      A racially motivated shooting and an impending storm provide the most serious tests of Mr. DeSantis’s leadership since he began running for president in May.For the first time since declaring his bid for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is facing a crisis in his home state.Well, not one crisis, but two.On Saturday, a gunman motivated by racial hatred killed three people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. All the victims were Black. The shooter was white. And on Wednesday, a major storm is projected to strike somewhere along Florida’s Gulf coast, the first to hit the state during the 2023 hurricane season.After the shooting, Mr. DeSantis flew back to Tallahassee from a campaign trip to Iowa. He then canceled a visit to South Carolina scheduled for Monday, citing the storm and sending his wife, Casey DeSantis, in his place. He has said he will stay in Florida for the storm’s duration and aftermath.“This is going to be our sole focus,” Mr. DeSantis said on Monday at a news conference at the state’s emergency operation center in Tallahassee.The twin crises provide the most serious tests of Mr. DeSantis’s leadership since he began running for president in May. On the stump, he often cites his track record as governor as his biggest advantage over his rivals, almost none of whom hold executive office. He has also criticized President Biden for his response to the wildfires that devastated Maui.But the emergencies have pulled Mr. DeSantis off the trail at a time when his campaign had seemed to stabilize after weeks of layoffs and upheaval among his staff, as well as a debate performance that drew strong reviews from many Republican voters.Both the shooting and the storm could further spotlight criticisms that rival candidates have made of Mr. DeSantis’s stewardship of Florida since being elected as governor in 2018. After clashes on a number of race-related issues, including the way African American history is taught in schools, his relationship with Florida’s Black community is so strained that he was loudly booed when he appeared at a vigil for the shooting victims in Jacksonville on Sunday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was booed and heckled when he spoke at a vigil for three people killed in an attack where officials say a white gunman targeted Black people inside a Jacksonville, Fla., store.John Raoux/Associated PressMr. DeSantis has also struggled with the state’s property insurance market, a long-running problem that the governor has repeatedly tried to address with legislation. The market has been so battered by high costs that Mr. DeSantis said in July that he would “knock on wood” for no big storm to hit Florida this year.Mr. DeSantis’s opponents, including former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, have used the issues to criticize him.A spokesman for the DeSantis campaign said the governor’s response to the shooting and the storm demonstrated “the strong leadership in times of crisis that Americans can expect from a President DeSantis.”“In the face of the tragedy in Jacksonville and the impending major hurricane, Ron DeSantis is focused on leading his state through these challenging moments,” Bryan Griffin, the campaign’s press secretary, said in a statement. “He’s now at the helm of Florida’s hurricane response and is working with local officials across the state to do everything necessary to ensure Florida is fully prepared.”Mr. DeSantis said in an afternoon news conference that he had spoken to Mr. Biden and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.Partly because of extreme weather, Florida homeowners have seen their property insurance costs rise more than those in any other state since 2015. Some major insurers have pulled out of the market, although smaller ones have entered. Last year, Mr. DeSantis called a special legislative session to address property insurance. But he has warned that fixing the troubled market will take time.Last month, Mr. Trump urged the governor to leave the campaign trail and “get home and take care of insurance.”Hurricanes traditionally provide an opportunity for Florida governors to demonstrate their strength and leadership. Mr. DeSantis has faced several major storms, as well as the fatal collapse of a condominium in Surfside, since taking office.Last year, Hurricane Ian killed 150 people in Florida, making it the state’s most deadly hurricane in decades and raising questions about why local officials had not issued evacuation orders earlier. On the trail, Mr. DeSantis frequently talks about his efforts to rebuild the state after the storm, including quickly repairing bridges and causeways to islands that had been cut off.On Sunday, Mr. DeSantis received a starkly negative reception when he attended a vigil for the victims of the shooting in Jacksonville, which has a large African American population.His administration has come under repeated fire for rejecting the curriculum of an Advanced Placement African American studies class and rewriting African American history courses, something that Mr. Scott, who is Black, has criticized.After the crowd in Jacksonville booed Mr. DeSantis when he tried to speak, a city councilwoman stepped in and asked people to listen. He was booed again when he finished.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis announced that he would award $1 million through the Volunteer Florida Foundation to bolster campus security at Edward Waters University, the historically Black university near the Dollar General store that the gunman attacked. He also said that the foundation, a tax-exempt state commission focused on community service projects, would donate $100,000 to the families of the victims.State Representative Angie Nixon, who represents Jacksonville, called the shooting “a stark reminder of the dangerous consequences of unchecked racism” and criticized Mr. DeSantis for “empty gestures” and “publicity stunts.”“Our historically Black institutions have faced an uphill battle for decades, and I invite DeSantis to go back through unfilled budget requests and line-item vetoes to begin to provide the funding they’ve needed for years. For it to take murder for him to dig in his overflowing coffers for support is appalling,” she said.In April, Mr. DeSantis was faulted for not visiting Fort Lauderdale, which strongly leans Democratic, after damaging flooding there. Since officially announcing his 2024 bid in May, Mr. DeSantis has spent several days per week out of Florida, usually meeting voters in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, or attending closed-door fund-raisers with donors.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has seemed to steady in recent days thanks in part to his performance in the first Republican primary debate last week in Milwaukee that Mr. Trump, the front-runner who is leading Mr. DeSantis by double digits, did not attend. The DeSantis campaign said it raised more than $1 million the next day and a snap poll of Republican voters by the Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos declared him the winner.On his weekend bus tour through northwest Iowa, many Republican voters said they had been impressed, particularly by how Mr. DeSantis talked about his record as governor.“DeSantis was the one who broke through,” said Cody Hoefert, a former co-chair of the Republican Party of Iowa who endorsed the governor immediately after the debate. “I want somebody who is going to lead and deliver results.” More

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      What’s In (and Not In) the $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill

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      A big boost for the military, more aid for Ukraine, a preference for the lobster industry over whales and an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act are among the provisions in the 4,155-page bill lawmakers expect to pass this week.WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in emergency aid to war-torn Ukraine and communities ravaged by natural disasters. A bipartisan proposal to overhaul the archaic law at the heart of former President Donald J. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. And a divisive oceanic policy that will change federal protections for whales in an effort to protect the lobster industry in Maine.In compiling the roughly $1.7 trillion catchall spending package that will keep the government open through September, lawmakers inserted several new funding and legislative proposals to ensure their priorities and policies become law before the end of the year.It includes funding that will guarantee the enactment of policies first authorized in bipartisan legislation approved earlier in this Congress, including money for innovation hubs established in the semiconductor manufacturing law and projects in the infrastructure law. The package also includes a round of earmarks, rebranded as community project funding, that allow lawmakers to redirect funds to specific projects in their states and districts.Here is a look at some of the provisions that would go into effect if enacted.Military spending is the big winner.The Defense Department would see an extraordinary surge in spending when adding its regular 2023 fiscal year budget together with additional funds being allocated to help respond to the war in Ukraine.All together, half of the $1.7 trillion in funding included in the package goes to defense, or a total of $858 billion. It comes after lawmakers bucked a request from President Biden and approved a substantial increase in the annual defense policy bill passed this month.The 2023 budget just for the Defense Department would total $797.6 billion in discretionary spending — a 10 percent increase over last year’s budget — representing an extra $69.3 billion in funds for the Pentagon, which is $36.1 billion above the president’s budget request.Sprinkled throughout the spending bill are hundreds of high-ticket add-ons that Congress wants to make to the president’s original Defense Department budget, such as an additional $17.2 billion for procurement that the Pentagon can largely distribute to military contractors to buy new ships, airplanes, missile systems and other equipment. The overall Pentagon procurement budget with these additional funds would be $162 billion.One of the biggest chunks of that extra money is for shipbuilding — an extra $4 billion that brings the Navy’s overall shipbuilding budget to $31.96 billion. That will allow it to buy 11 new ships, including three guided missile destroyers and two attack submarines.But that is just the start. There is $8.5 billion to buy 61 F-35 fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin and another $2.5 billion to buy 15 of Boeing’s new aerial refueling planes known as KC-46 tankers.There is also an extra $27.9 billion to help cover Defense Department costs associated with the war in Ukraine, as part of an emergency aid package to the country. That includes an extra $11.88 billion to replenish U.S. stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine — money that again will largely be used to purchase products from military contractors. That supplemental appropriation also includes $9 billion to assist Ukraine with training, equipment and weapons, as well as an extra $6.98 billion to cover U.S. military operations in Europe.— Eric Lipton and John IsmayMaking it easier (for some) to save for retirement.The package also includes a collection of new rules aimed at helping Americans save for retirement. The bill would require employers to automatically enroll eligible employees in their 401(k) and 403(b) plans, setting aside at least 3 percent, but no more than 10 percent, of their paychecks. Contributions would be increased by one percentage point each year thereafter, until it reaches at least 10 percent (but not more than 15 percent). But this applies only to new employer-provided plans that are started in 2025 and later — existing plans are exempt.Another provision would help lower- and middle-income earners saving for retirement by making changes to an existing tax credit, called the saver’s credit, now available only to those who owe taxes. In its new form, it would amount to a matching contribution, from the federal government, deposited into taxpayers’ retirement accounts.People struggling with student debt would also receive a new perk: Employees making student debt payments would qualify for employer matching contributions in their workplace retirement plan, even if they were not making plan contributions of their own.What to Know About Congress’s Lame-Duck SessionCard 1 of 5A productive stretch. More

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      Florida, a ‘Microcosm of the Country’

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      The Times’s Miami bureau chief, Patricia Mazzei, shares what it’s like to cover hurricanes and elections, sometimes in the same day.The day before Hurricane Ian touched down in Florida, cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic lined State Road 60, headed southeast, away from Tampa to avoid the storm. Patricia Mazzei, The Times’s Miami bureau chief since 2017, was in one of the few vehicles driving on the other side of the road, toward Tampa.“It’s a very strange feeling,” Ms. Mazzei, who worked at The Miami Herald for a decade before joining The Times, said of driving toward a storm, which she sometimes has to do for her work. “It’s always that way, but it doesn’t stop being weird.”Ms. Mazzei and a team of journalists covered the hurricane and its aftermath from the ground in Tampa and the Fort Myers area. The devastation was the latest headline-grabbing event for a state that has recently been at the forefront of the news cycle, with the F.B.I.’s seizure of documents from former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and the flights arranged by Gov. Ron DeSantis that transported migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.In a video call, Ms. Mazzei discussed the often frenetic pace of news in the state and how she keeps track of it all. This interview has been edited.Hurricane Ian has dominated both local and national news coverage in recent weeks. How do you approach the different facets of hurricane coverage?The Aftermath of Hurricane IanThe Victims: The storm, Florida’s deadliest since 1935, has been linked to the deaths of at least 119 people in the state. Many were at least 60, and dozens died by drowning.A Housing Crisis: As the extent of the damage from Ian comes into focus, many in Florida are uncertain of their next chapter, fearing they may become homeless.Uncertain Future: Older people displaced by Hurricane Ian are confronting a wrenching situation: At their age, remaking the lives they loved so much in Florida may not be possible.Lack of Insurance: In the Florida counties hit hardest by Ian, less than 20 percent of homes had flood insurance, new data show. Experts say that will make rebuilding harder.There is so much news in this region that it is more manageable to think of it in pieces. Sometimes you feel as if you’re in the middle of the vortex: How many articles have been written this week? How many different topics have come up? Because we’re coming at it from a news lens, most things are not necessarily related. There’s stuff happening in court. There are natural disasters. There are these things that aren’t related — they just happen to happen at the same time.You always know in an election year that the fall — when storm season and election season overlap — is going to be very busy. You’re hoping there’s no storm, but you have to pivot depending on any given moment. In 2018, we were covering the midterms, and Hurricane Michael hit the Panhandle. It’s 2022 and we’re covering the midterms, and Hurricane Ian hits southwest Florida.What audience are you thinking about in your report?Florida is a microcosm of the country, generally speaking. There’s a lot of interest from people in other places about this state because they have connections to it, either through family or work or vacation. You want the people who are represented in the stories, in the communities that you are in, to feel represented. And you want people nationally and internationally who maybe have never been in a hurricane to understand what it means.You want it to be informational, not just for the locals. It’s a balancing job, trying to let people who might not be in southwest Florida understand the geography of this place.Is there a specific moment of surprise or immediacy that you remember from any of these bigger news events?We were reporting a story following up on the migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida when Hurricane Ian took aim. I had to send my outline and my notes for my part of the story to my colleagues and then just be like, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to find gas, I have to get supplies. I’ve got to move out west. It sort of encapsulated the whiplash, and the fact that you have to be flexible and lean on your colleagues.Is that whiplash unsettling?It’s what we do. The lead-up to storms is stressful in a different way than actually covering them. There’s a lot of waiting and a lot of anxiety. You have to be worried about flash flooding. You’re not going to have connectivity, so how are you going to let people know to be safe? There’s a lot of worrying and planning. And then once the storm hits, you have to try to get a sense of the scope of the destruction by just going one foot at a time, one town at a time, to see how it looks.It’s stressful on both ends. But the more you do it, the more it becomes something that you know how to plan for. It helps to get experience and have a plan going into the next one.Do you think the hurricane is attached as a news story to the political news cycle?We have to wonder how the election is going to look in southwest Florida because it is the base of the Republican Party. The governor wants to keep things as normal as possible, but hurricanes sometimes require special accommodations for people to vote afterward. The long-term effects — in this case, long term is a month to the election — we’re going to have to see how one thing ends up affecting the other. More