Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida as Trump spreads falsehoods | First Thing

A top emergency official says lies spread by Donald Trump and his supporters about Hurricane Helene have hampered recovery efforts. Plus: how to combat food waste

Good morning.

Hurricane Milton is expected to sweep past Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and hit the south-west coast of Florida by Wednesday evening local time, bringing sustained winds of nearly 155mph (250km/h) to an area already reeling from Hurricane Helene's devastation 12 days ago. Almost all of Florida's west coast was under a hurricane warning and more than a million people were told to evacuate.

How has the Fema chief responded to Trump's falsehoods? Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have accused the Biden administration of abandoning" people and, baselessly, of being short of disaster relief funds due to money spent on undocumented migrants. (Fema's housing program, which offers shelter to migrants leaving detention, is separate from its disaster relief program.) Deanne Criswell, the Fema administrator, said these falsehoods were creating an impedance to our ability to actually get people the help they need".

What else is the right saying about the hurricanes? The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been criticised for spreading false conspiracy theories that they can control the weather". Though she never specified who she meant by they", she has a history of promoting untrue conspiracy theories around the federal government, her political opponents and Jews.

What will happen to disaster relief if Trump is elected? Experts say that under the controversial rightwing Project 2025 manifesto, which was authored by numerous former Trump officials, federal forecasting of severe storms and aid given to shattered towns and cities would be drastically scaled back.

What else did Harris say? She vowed to raise taxes on billionaires and the biggest corporations in order to fund her economic proposals, which include plans to build millions of new housing units, tax breaks for new parents and $25,000 down-payment assistance for new homebuyers.

Will Trump sit down with 60 Minutes? The CBS correspondent Scott Pelley told the audience that Trump cancelled an interview last week, with the Trump campaign providing shifting explanations" for why the Republican nominee had declined to participate, including that he did not want to be factchecked.

What do the polls say? Harris has a narrow lead over Trump in national polls, though the race is in effect neck and neck in the swing states that will decide the election.