How Hurricane Melissa Got So Intense, and a ‘Plan’ for a Third Trump Term

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, October 28th. Here's what we're covering.

0:14Hurricane Melissa is on track to hit Jamaica this morning with the potential for catastrophic damage. It's the strongest storm in the Atlantic Ocean this year, and the National Hurricane Center is warning that its winds of up to 175 miles per hour could cause, quote, total structural failure and cut off power and communications. Forecasters are also predicting rain measured not in inches, but in feet, up to three feet of it in some places. Across the island, officials are concerned that not enough people have followed evacuation orders. As of last night, only 1 ,700 people had gone to shelters.

0:52I was hoping to get some bread, but the shelves are empty. Many residents were scrambling to gather supplies and board up their homes and storefronts. Along the coast, where resorts line the shore, the Times spoke with some tourists who didn't make it off the island before airports closed. The wind, if you look on the top, you can see it blowing. People have shut themselves into their hotel rooms and upended the beds to barricade the windows and protect themselves from shattering glass. In just the last few days, Hurricane Melissa grew rapidly into a Category 5 storm, and experts say the high temperature of the Caribbean Sea, which is warmer than usual right now, is one of the factors driving the storm's intensity.

1:37The storm is also moving slowly. An expert in atmospheric science told the Times tropical storms typically move across the Caribbean at an average speed of 10 to 12 miles per hour. But in recent days, Melissa nearly ground to a halt, at one point dropping to just one mile per hour. At its current pace, it will likely linger over Jamaica for much of today, bringing more rain and higher winds for longer, with the potential for more damage. After crossing Jamaica, it's expected to hit Cuba. For live updates on the storm and its trajectory, go to nytimes.com.

2:18Yesterday, while continuing his tour of Asia, President Trump returned to an idea that he's floated before, of running for a third term in office. I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers. Speaking with reporters on Air Force One, Trump said he would love to run again. Am I not ruling it out? You'll have to tell me. That would be a blatant violation of the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice. But Trump and some of his allies have repeatedly mused about it. This spring, he said he was, quote, not joking about the idea.

2:56He's shown off hats that say Trump 2028. And in the past week, his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, doubled down on it. Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump 28. Trump is going to be president 28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that. Speaking on a podcast from The Economist, Bannon suggested that he's working with others on a plan to circumvent the 22nd Amendment. There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan, and President Trump will be the president in 28. In private, Trump has told advisers that the third-term idea is a strategy to grab attention and aggravate his critics, according to people familiar with his comments.

3:39In a remarkable shift yesterday, the largest union representing federal workers broke from Democrats and urged all lawmakers to pass a spending bill to reopen the government as soon as possible. All year, the union had worked to oppose Republican policies, particularly President Trump's efforts to slash the federal workforce. And before the shutdown, the union's leadership had called on Republicans to negotiate with Democrats over their push to extend health care subsidies for over 20 million Americans. But as the shutdown nears the one-month mark and hundreds of thousands of federal workers go unpaid, the president of the union now says the priority is getting the government reopened and that policy debates in Congress should happen, quote, without punishing the people who keep our nation running.

4:29Meanwhile... So a reminder for my Republican colleagues, The majority of people who rely on the premium tax credits are in red states. Democratic lawmakers are underscoring the stakes of the health care subsidy issue at the center of the shutdown debate as the deadlock on Capitol Hill continues. These are your voters and you are not listening to them. Instead, what is the Republican solution? Wait. The subsidies lower the cost of health insurance that people can get through marketplaces set up by Obamacare. And nearly 60 % of people with that type of insurance live in Republican congressional districts.

5:06If Congress doesn't vote to extend the subsidies, which run out at the end of this year, the state that will see the biggest impact is Florida, where there are a lot of low-wage service workers who don't get health care through work and a lot of early retirees who aren't eligible yet for Medicare. For example, someone in their early 60s in the state who earns about$65 ,000 a year could see their premiums jump from a few hundred dollars a month to$1 ,000 or more. And according to some estimates, about 1.5 million people in Florida could drop their plans because of the soaring costs.

5:50A UN Human Rights Commission has concluded that Russia's been carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity in southern Ukraine by intentionally targeting and killing civilians with drones. For more than a year, in the city of Kherson, Russian operators have used drones to drop hand grenades on civilians when they're out on the sidewalk or working in their backyard gardens. It's happened so often the city has set up miles of netting over its streets to try and block the drones. Some of the attacks have hit ambulances, or the drones have hovered over burning buildings, waiting to drop grenades on firefighters as they arrive.

6:29Russia has denied targeting civilians, but Russian military units often post videos of the attacks online, with footage captured from the drone's eye view. UN investigators looked at more than 500 videos of the strikes. The report concluded that because the drones were equipped with live streaming cameras, that left, quote, no doubt about the knowledge and intent of the perpetrators.

7:03And finally. 11.50 in Los Angeles. Thurman sends a fly ball to center field. Varsho's going back before the catch. Buddy Freeman has ended it! Game three of the World Series dragged late, late, late into the night last night, tying the record for the longest game in World Series history at 18 innings. The matchup between the Toronto Blue Jays and the LA Dodgers lasted almost seven hours, an exhilarating and exhausting night for fans in the stands and at home. It ended, finally, with a walk-off home run that gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead in the series. While it was definitely a haul, the marathon-length game is still short of the MLB record for longest game time-wise.

7:53That goes to a 1984 game between the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers. It stretched for over eight hours and had to be played over two days.

8:08Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, a lot of firefighters who battle wildfires are contracted through private companies. A look at how lax rules and regulatory loopholes have left many of them sick and in debt. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.