The Associated Press

Milton finally breaches the West Coast of Florida, and weather will continue threatening lives across the Florida Peninsula.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency can meet immediate needs but does not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters Wednesday.The agency is being stretched as it works with states to assess damage from Hurricane Helene and delivers meals, water, generators and other critical supplies. The storm struck Florida last week, then plowed through several states in the Southeast, killing more than 160 people.

The union representing 45,000 striking U.S. dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports reached a deal Thursday to suspend a three-day strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract.The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately. The temporary end to the strike came after the union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents ports and shipping companies, reached a tentative agreement on wages, the union and ports said in a joint statement.

Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 56 people — another Associated Press story is reporting as many as 100 — caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and left millions without power.“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).

Emergency crews are rushing to rescue people trapped in flooded homes after Helene roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane in Florida, generating a massive storm surge and knocking out power to millions of customers. At least 25 people were reported dead in four states.

A man with an AK-style rifle pointed the firearm’s muzzle into Donald Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president was playing a round, prompting the U.S. Secret Service to open fire, according to three law enforcement officials. The former president is safe and unharmed, and the FBI says it is investigating “what appears to be an attempted assassination” of the Republican presidential candidate.

Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump on Tuesday in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly goading him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy.

State police are showing up at Florida voters’ homes to question them about signing a petition to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot in November, and a state health care agency has launched a website targeting the ballot initiative with politically charged language.Critics say they’re the latest efforts by Florida’s Republican elected officials to leverage state resources to try to block the abortion rights measure, moves which some Democratic officials argue could violate state laws against voter intimidation.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are gearing up to take the stage for Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia, where they’ll fight to sway 2024 election voters on the biggest stage in U.S. politics.The debate won’t have an audience, live microphones when candidates aren’t speaking, or written notes, according to rules that ABC News, the host network, shared with both campaigns last month.The parameters in place for the debate are essentially the same as they were for the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, a disastrous performance for the incumbent Democrat that fueled his exit from the campaign.