MAYOR INDICTED: Federal prosecutors are expected today to release an indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams, accusing the Gotham’s politician of corruption. Federal early this morning raided the mayor’s residence, New York’s historic Gracie Mansion.

  The indictment is expected to accuse Adams and his campaign organization of conspiring with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations. There’s also a question  of whether Adams pressured the Fire Department to approve opening a high-rise consulate building for the Turkish government despite safety concerns.

  Adams professed innocence last night in a video saying, “I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers, that I would be a target — and a target I became.” 

STORM WARNING: Hurricane Helene is tracking to hit the “Big Bend” of the Florida gulf coast as a Category 4 with winds up to 130 mph and storm surges in the low-lying state up to 20 feet. The National Weather Service said that in some areas the storm surge will be “potentially unsurvivable.” 

  Nearly the entire state has been placed under alert and thousands of residents have already been forced to evacuate. 

  The storm is predicted to move north towards Atlanta and dump as many as 20 inches of rain in some areas.

IT’S POLITICAL: Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a 40-minute economic speech in Pittsburgh yesterday, passionately explaining what she would do as president, but not how.

  Some bullet points:

-Cutting taxes for the middle class.

-Lowering cost of child and elder care.

-Expanding access to paid leave.

-Provide more assistance for startup businesses and first-time home buyers.

  Meanwhile Donald Trump in North Carolina threatened dire consequences if Iran acts on suspected death threats to the former president.

  “If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump said. “We’re going to blow it to smithereens.”

BY THE NUMBERS: The latest political polls on the presidential election are wildly divergent with Reuters/Ipsos saying Kamala Harris leads by six percentage points and Quinnipiac having Donald Trump leading by 1.

  The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Harris leading by 2.1 percent … still inching upwards.  

  In the seven battleground states, the RCP averages have Harris leading in four states including Pennsylvania and Nevada by a statistical hair well within the margin for error.

THE WAR ROOM: While parts of Lebanon sustain heavy damage as Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, Israel less noticed has been using combat bulldozers to rip up streets and level buildings in swaths running miles through urban areas of the Palestinian West Bank.

  Video taken in the towns of Tulkarm and Jenin shows the bulldozers leaving behind only rubble on the sides of cleared paths about 20 feet wide. Heavy equipment also tore into sewer pipes allowing sewage to run in the open.

  Israel has claimed that the bulldozing is a counter terrorism effort intended to root out militants and weapon supplies.

  In response to questions from The NY Times, the Israeli military said that it was acting in line with international law and “undertakes all feasible precautions to avoid damaging essential infrastructure.” The response said military engineers need to demine roads and destroy arms stores hidden on private property.

HATE MAIL: With Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance whipping up fear and hatred of immigrants, particularly Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins tweeted the following:

  “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20^th.” 

  Speaker Mike Johnson said Higgins “prayed about it” and took the tweet down.

PRO BALL: If you have any doubt that college football is still an amateur sport, here’s a story for you.

  Matthew Sluka, the starting quarterback for the 3-0 University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) announced he is redshirting … sitting out the rest of the season … because has not been paid the $100,000 his agents say he was promised when he transferred after four years at Holy Cross in Massachusetts. 

  Sluka’s father, Bob, told The Athletic that two agents negotiated for the money but UNLV has refused to pay. “We tried everything,” Sluka said. “We’d take payments. Anything. And they just kept deferring it and deferring it, and to this day, we do not know why.”

  UNLV said in a statement that Matthew Sluka’s agents made “financial demands” but that “UNLV Athletics interpreted these demands as a violation of the NCAA’s pay-for-play rules, as well as Nevada state law.”

  By redshirting, Sluka preserves a year of eligibility and the ability to transfer to another school.

THE SPIN RACK: Congress as expected passed a short-term spending bill to keep the government running through the election. — Following the exit of his campaign staff, some of the office staff of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has also left. Robinson’s career and campaign for governor are dissolving following a CNN report that he posted racist and lecherous notes on a pornographic website years before he was in public office. — Letcher County Kentucky’s Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines pleaded not guilty yesterday to shooting and killing a local judge in the courthouse. Stines has yet to resign. — Swiss police have arrested several people from the organization Last Resort after they fostered the first use of a futuristic-looking capsule … a “suicide pod” …  that allowed a 64-year-old American woman to take her own life by releasing nitrogen gas. Aiding and abetting suicide is illegal in Switzerland.

BELOW THE FOLD:  A zoo in Finland is returning two giant pandas to China because they are too expensive to keep. Cuteness comes at a cost.

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