‘They’re coming for you’: Harris slams Trump and Pence on healthcare – video

One of the most memorable moments of the vice-presidential debate was on healthcare, when Harris issued a stark warning about the Trump administration’s intentions.

Trump is seeking to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, which prevents health companies turning away patients with pre-existing conditions.

'If you have a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they’re coming for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they’re coming for you.'

Pence responded by claiming the Trump administration has a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions. Trump has spent years claiming he will release a comprehensive healthcare plan. We’re yet to see it

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‘I’m speaking’: Kamala Harris reins in Mike Pence during VP debate – video

The vice-presidential debate was more courteous than last week’s horror show, during which Donald Trump interrupted Joe Biden 71 times during the first presidential debate, but the events in Salt Lake City still showed two contrasting faces of the US.

'Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking,' Kamala Harris told Mike Pence, as he again tried to interject as she discussed Trump’s tax plans

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Fly that landed on Mike Pence head becomes VP debate star – video

A fly that landed on Mike Pence's head has become the star of the vice presidential debate after the Republican went head-to-head with Kamala Harris. The fly was on Pence's head for over one minute, which proved more than enough time to grow its notoriety online. Democratic candidate Joe Biden used the opportunity to raise money for his campaign, while multiple Twitter account where setup on the fly's behalf

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Looks speak louder than words as Harris makes quotable case against Pence

The vice-presidential debate was more courteous than last week’s horror show but still showed two contrasting faces of America

It was always going to be about the two faces of America.

One: white, male, midwestern, evangelical Christian. The other: Black, female, coastal, progressive.

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Pence-Harris vice-presidential debate: six key takeaways

Coronavirus was the key theme, but Harris also warned of the threat to Obamacare as both candidates dodged questions

The vice-presidential debate on Wednesday was less openly hostile than the Donald Trump-Joe Biden debacle last week – but provided a further insight into the state of both campaigns ahead of November.

Related: Kamala Harris and Mike Pence clash over coronavirus response in vice-presidential debate

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Minority of Europeans think US election will be free and fair – poll

Exclusive: majorities in seven countries favour Joe Biden and rate Donald Trump poorly

Fewer than one in 10 Europeans expect next month’s US presidential election to be completely free and fair, and an overwhelming majority say they would like Joe Biden to triumph over Donald Trump.

According to a YouGov tracker survey in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, in only one of these countries – Italy – are more than a tenth of voters confident that the American electoral process will prove irreproachable.

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Harris calls Trump’s Covid response ‘greatest failure’ of any administration – video

Separated from vice-president Mike Pence by plexiglass barriers, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris called the Trump administration's response to the growing coronavirus pandemic 'the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country'. 

Speaking directly to the camera, Harris said, 'They knew what was happening, and they didn't tell you.'

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Donald Trump says catching Covid-19 was ‘like a blessing from God’ – video

Donald Trump has described getting Covid-19 as 'a blessing in disguise' in a video delivered outside the Oval Office. Trump described his three-night stay at Walter Reed medical center, referring to the treatment he received as a cure, and promising to make it available to all Americans. 'I want to get for you, what I got and I'm going to make it free. You're not going to pay for it,' he said. 'It wasn't your fault that this happened. It was China's fault. And China is going to pay a big price – what they've done to this country. China is going to pay a big price.' Covid-19 has killed more than 210,000 Americans and over a 1 million people worldwide in 10 months

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Trump returns to Oval Office against CDC’s isolation guidelines – live

Here’s a recap of today so far, from me and Martin Pengelly:

Related: Coronavirus live news: Brazil cases pass 5m; Trump calls catching Covid 'a blessing in disguise'

Facebook has announced significant changes to its advertising and misinformation policies, saying it will stop running political ads in the United States after polls close on 3 November for an undetermined period of time.

The changes, announced Wednesday, come in an effort to “protect the integrity” of the upcoming election “by fighting foreign interference, misinformation and voter suppression”, the company said in a blog post.

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Battle for the suburbs: can Joe Biden flip Texas? – video

Texas is a rapidly changing state with the fastest growing population in the US. Hispanic Texans are expected to become the majority by 2022, but will this help Joe Biden flip a Republican stronghold? Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone travel to suburban Dallas and the border city of McAllen to look at the political impact of this diversification and the legacy of Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies 


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Joe Biden calls for unity in Gettysburg speech: ‘Again we are a house divided’ – video

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has called for the US to put politics aside and unite as the country faces 'too many crises'. Speaking at Gettysburg, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the US civil war, Biden said he decided to run for president after the far-right rally and resulting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. 'It was hate on the march in the open. In America,' he said. 'Hate never goes away. It only hides. And when it's given oxygen, when it's given an opportunity to spread, when it's treated as normal and acceptable behaviour, we've opened a door in this country that we must move quickly to close'

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US military chiefs in quarantine as Trump Covid chaos spreads

  • Mark Milley, chairman of joint chiefs of staff, in isolation
  • Military leaders attended event with president last week

The top general in the US military, Mark Milley, and several other members of the US joint chiefs of staff who advise Donald Trump entered quarantine on Tuesday, as the president, infected with the coronavirus himself, continued to recuperate at the White House.

While the number of White House staff and aides who have tested positive is unknown, given the administration’s cloak of secrecy around the outbreak, total cases appeared to number in the dozens, making the White House one of the hottest active zones for virus circulation in the entire US.

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‘Racism, fear, division’: Michelle Obama attacks Trump in election plea – video

In a speech highly critical of the president, the former first lady made an impassioned plea to Americans to vote for Joe Biden in the election on 3 November. Among the condemnations of Trump's presidency, she criticised his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying he 'doubled down on division and resentment', adding: 'What the president is doing is, once again, patently false ... it’s morally wrong ... and yes, it is racist'

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The legal battles over voting that could swing the US election

Rulings in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have eased mail-in voting restrictions but higher courts could yet intervene

America is less than a month away from election day, but high-stakes fights over access to the ballot have been moving through US courts for months. Democrats and civil rights groups have sought to ease restrictions on voting by mail amid the Covid-19 pandemic, while Republicans and the Trump campaign have sought to keep them in place.

In recent weeks, courts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all key battleground states, have issued hugely consequential rulings that could decide whether tens of thousands more votes are counted in November. Those three states will probably help decide who wins the election and Trump won each by less than one percentage point in 2016.

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‘Masks matter’: Biden says Trump is responsible for contracting coronavirus – video

Joe Biden says he was not surprised by Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection and delivered a blunt rebuke to the president during a town hall event in Miami, Florida. The Democratic presidential candidate drew a stark contrast with Trump, who on returning to the White House just an hour earlier had instantly removed his face mask for a photo op.

During the NBC event, moderator Lester Holt noted that a recent poll found two in three people think the president bears some responsibility for contracting coronavirus. Biden agreed, saying: ‘Anybody who contracts the virus by essentially saying, masks don’t matter, social distancing doesn’t matter, I think is – is responsible for what happens to them.’

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Footage suggests Trump was short of breath during maskless photo op at White House – video

After a three-day stay at a military hospital to treat symptoms of coronavirus, a contagious Donald Trump returned to the White House and immediately took off his face mask while posing for cameras.

Video footage suggests the US president was experiencing laboured breathing during part of the photo op in which he also gave two thumbs up and saluted as he watched Marine One lift off from the south lawn. 

Trump later waved and walked inside, where masked staff were visible, only to reemerge for what appeared to be a film shoot. In the film, which he tweeted soon after, Trump offered some bizarrely contrary advice about the virus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans: 'Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna beat it'

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Donald Trump’s desperation to leave hospital shows the dangers ahead

The president’s carelessness about others’ safety shows he will do almost anything not to lose in November

The desperation that has driven Donald Trump to leave hospital prematurely and theatrically pull off his mask on the White House balcony while in the throes of coronavirus infection gives some measure of how dangerous the next four weeks will be.

Many students of Trump’s life and career have warned that he would be prepared to sacrifice anyone – even those closest to him – to spare himself the humiliation of a one-term presidency, but even they surely could not have anticipated how literal that sacrifice would be.

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tests positive for coronavirus – live

A fascinating dispatch from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, who cites “two Republicans briefed on the family conversations” in reporting that Donald Trump Jr is worried by his dad’s car-ride-and-tweet-storm response to being hospitalised with Covid-19:

‘Don Jr has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,’ a source said. Don Jr is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. ‘Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’’ the source added.

One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. ‘They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,’ a source close to the family told me.

…Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr, insisted on working even after his Alzheimer’s disease advanced in the 1990s … Every day Fred Sr would go to the office in Brooklyn and they would give him blank papers to sort through and sign. The phone on Fred’s desk was set up so that it could only dial out to his secretary. “Fred pretended to work,” the family friend said.

A new Times/Siena survey has Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona, a traditionally conservative state-turned presidential battleground.

Biden leads Trump 49% to 41% in Arizona, with just 6% of likely voters saying they were undecided. He is buoyed by his lopsided support among Hispanics, women and young people. The candidates are effectively tied in their support among seniors, a critical voting block in the state that has soured on Trump amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

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How Covid is accelerating the fight for Black voting rights in the US – video

Donald Trump’s election campaign in 2016 targeted nearly 3.5 million Black Americans to deter them from voting, and the battle for the right to vote is just as important in 2020. Kenya Evelyn travels to Florida where it's the Democrats' most loyal bloc, Black women, who are also bearing the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak, with its impact accelerating the fight for voting rights. From mail-in ballots and early voting, to felon disenfranchisement, Black voters are wielding their power to demand more from Democrats ahead of November


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Donald Trump drives past supporters after saying he has ‘learnt a lot about Covid’ – video

After releasing an upbeat video message from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, US president Donald Trump left hospital to wave to his supporters in a motorcade. Throngs of flag-waving Trump supporters gathered outside the hospital where Trump was being treated for Covid-19. The move was criticised as insanity' by one Walter Reed doctor. In the video message Trump thanked the medical team, saying: 'The work they do is just absolutely amazing.' He added that his time in hospital has been 'a very interesting journey' and that he has 'learnt a lot about Covid'. 

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