President addresses mostly maskless crowd in key swing state of Florida: ‘I feel so powerful’
Keen to appear lively and well after his recent hospitalization for Covid-19, Donald Trump held his first rally since being diagnosed, addressing a packed, largely maskless crowd in Florida – a state he desperately needs to win.
Related: California investigates unauthorized ballot boxes installed by Republicans
Continue reading...Joe Biden told a drive-in rally in Ohio that Donald Trump 'turned his back on you' during the pandemic and its economic fallout.
Biden questioned why Republicans had time for supreme court hearings but no time to come to an agreement with House Democrats on another economic relief package to help individuals, businesses and city and state governments.
Trump has alternately called off Covid-19 relief talks, then pushed for a deal. Late last week, the White House expanded its offer to Democrats, but the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said it was unlikely Congress could pass a bill before the election and House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the White House offer didn’t include enough money.
Trump won Ohio by eight percentage points in 2016, but polls have tightened and it is now a key battleground state in the upcoming election.
Continue reading...US supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in during Monday's opening confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee and told senators she was humbled to be considered to fill the seat left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
President Donald Trump formally nominated Barrett on 26 September.
Trump's nomination of Barrett to a vacancy created by the death last month of Ginsburg just weeks before the election enraged Democrats, still furious about Republicans' refusal to consider a nominee from Barack Obama some 10 months before the 2016 election.
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Senator Gary Peters of Michigan shared his family’s personal abortion story, with Amy Coney Barrett hearings underway.
Peters, a moderate Democrat locked in a tight reelection race, shared with Elle Magazine that in the 1980s, his first wife Heidi, had her water break when she was only four months pregnant, leaving the fetus without amniotic fluid.
My story is one that’s tragically shared by so many Americans.
It’s a story of gut-wrenching and complicated decisions — but it’s important for folks to understand families face these situations every day.https://t.co/VA3VDbjWrO
The significance is hard to overstate. Barrett represents the culmination of a decades-long project by conservatives to control the high court. Her confirmation would extend the conservative reach into every corner of American life, well beyond the size of their shrinking electorate.
Related: What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America
Continue reading...Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has criticised Donald Trump’s re-election campaign for using his words out of context to make it appear as if he was praising the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In the video released on Saturday, Fauci can be heard saying: 'I can’t imagine that … anyone could be doing more' as the advert boasts of Trump’s response to Covid-19, which in the US has killed more than 214,000 and infected more than 7.7m. The clip came from an interview Fauci gave to Fox News, in which he was describing the work that he and other members of the White House coronavirus task force undertook to respond to the virus
Continue reading...Palestinians across Middle East suffering unprecedented poverty, says Philippe Lazzarini
People in Gaza are searching through rubbish to find food as Palestinians battle unprecedented levels of poverty, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.
Across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and elsewhere, Palestinian refugees are suffering at new depths because of the pandemic, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency chief, Philippe Lazzarini. “There is despair and hopelessness,” he said in an interview.
Continue reading...Doctor says use of his comments to praise president in Republican campaign ad is misleading
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert, has criticised Donald Trump’s reelection campaign for using his words out of context to make it appear as if he was praising the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci said in a statement to CNN on Sunday. “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP [Republican] campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”
Continue reading...Questions remain over the president’s health as he plans to return to the campaign trail in Florida on Monday
Donald Trump has claimed he no longer has coronavirus and is now “immune” to Covid-19 as he prepares to return to the campaign trail on Monday for a barrage of rallies in swing states in his pursuit of a second term in the White House.
Numerous opinion polls have continued to show the US president trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden by a significant margin nationally, adding urgency to Trump’s desire to get back to the in-person appearances he believes are key to his success on the 3 November election day.
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Here is a summary of the latest events:
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden continued to frame the November election as a choice between the interests of Scranton and Park Avenue in a speech on Saturday night at the Plumbers Local Union No 27 training center in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“Anyone who actually does an honest day’s work sees him and his promises for what they are,” Biden told a masked, socially distanced crowd at a training facility for plumbers and other tradespeople in Pennsylvania’s fourth-largest city.
Continue reading...Ted Cruz says he’s afraid of ‘bloodbath of Watergate proportions’ as John Cornyn slams Trump for ‘creating confusion’ over Covid
Ted Cruz fears an election “bloodbath”. His fellow top Republican senator Thom Tillis is talking in terms of a Joe Biden presidency. And even Mitch McConnell, the fiercely loyal Senate majority leader, won’t go near the White House over Donald Trump’s handling of coronavirus protocols.
Individually, they could arguably be seen as off-the-cuff comments from Trump’s allies attempting to rally support for the US president just days ahead of a general election that opinion polls increasingly show him losing.
Continue reading...Trump plans in-person rally on Monday as next presidential debate cancelled; Europe records 100,000 daily cases for first time; Canada at ‘tipping point’. Follow latest updates
I’m going to hand over to my colleague in London Aamna Mohdin.
Thanks for reading.
The ministry of health in India has said there were 73,272 new infections in the country over the past 24 hours.
There were also 926 new deaths, taking the death toll to 107,416. It is the seventh straight day where deaths have been below 1,000.
Continue reading...The second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has been cancelled, the Commission on Presidential Debates confirmed Friday, a move that came as the president announced his first in-person events since being diagnosed with Covid-19.
The decision by the nonpartisan commission follows a public disagreement between the two candidates over the debate’s format. The commission had previously announced the debate would take place “virtually” due to Trump’s diagnosis. Trump, however, said he would refuse to participate in a virtual event, while Biden advocated for it for safety reasons.
Continue reading...President’s pose on the White House balcony was a manic act of narcissistic theatre
The trouble with Trump is that, as he told Bob Woodward, “I bring rage out.” It’s hard to see this picture of him posing maskless on the White House balcony after “winning” against Covid without the red mist coming down.
To anyone with a sense of history, the echo of Mussolini on the balcony of Rome’s Palazzo Venezia is unmistakable. But many of his core voters may know as little history as he does and, besides, this is the White House, with American flags flanking him – still for many a stage of democracy, not dictatorship. Perhaps the real shock of the pose is its delusion. There is no crowd – he’s performing for himself and the camera.
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will invoke the 25th amendment, which gives Congress power to evaluate the health and stability of US presidents in conducting the duties of their office.
Although the amendment enables the House Speaker to create a commission to review the president’s fitness for office, the House of Representatives would not be able to remove Donald Trump from office without the agreement of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the cabinet.
Pelosi insisted the proposed commission was not about Trump, but said of the president: 'He is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state.'
The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.
Related: How the domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan's governor unravelled
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Reports are coming out that Donald Trump will not hold campaign events over the weekend but is planning on heading back to the trail on Monday.
.@FoxNews is told @realDonaldTrump will likely not have campaign events this weekend, but is planning to be back on the trail on Monday.
The Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral arguments for cases virtually in November and December and will provide live audio feed of the hearings. The court will follow the same format it has been using for its new term starting this month.
The justices have not heard arguments in person since early March. In a press release, the court said it will determine plans for January’s arguments soon.
JUST IN Due to COVID-19 #SCOTUS announces they'll hear oral arguments for November & December via teleconference with live audio. pic.twitter.com/4X4HcVmKfm
Continue reading...Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump for not condemning right-wing militias following the foiled kidnapping plot against Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Speaking from his campaign in Arizona, Biden criticised the president for not watching his words after Trump previously tweeted 'Liberate Michigan' in response to the state's Covid restrictions. 'You saw what the head of the FBI said a couple of days ago. He said the greatest terrorist threat in America is from white supremacists,' Biden said. 'Why can't the president just say, stop, stop, stop, stop, and we will pursue you if you don't"
Continue reading...Elliott Broidy allegedly asked the US president to play golf with now disgraced Malaysian PM Najib Razak as part of effort to end investigation
A former leading fundraiser for president Donald Trump has been indicted on a charge that he illegally lobbied the US government to drop its probe into the Malaysia 1MDB corruption scandal and to deport an exiled Chinese billionaire.
Elliott Broidy was charged in Washington federal court with one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent after allegedly agreeing to take millions of dollars to lobby the Trump administration.
Continue reading...Trump touts Regeneron antibody cocktail as a potential ‘cure’ while he has consistently sought to restrict abortion access
One of the drugs taken by Donald Trump that he has touted as a potential “cure” for coronavirus was developed using human cells originally obtained from an elective abortion, a practice repeatedly denounced by the president and many of his supporters.
The drug is a monoclonal antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron. The president received an 8-gram infusion under a “compassionate use” exemption when he was hospitalized over the weekend after testing positive for Covid-19. There is no cure for Covid-19, and the drug is not approved.
Continue reading...Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer called for unity and condemned Donald Trump for stoking division during the coronavirus outbreak during a press conference in which she addressed a plot to kidnap her.
Members of two domestic terrorist groups have been charged with Whitmer's attempted kidnap, which she said she 'never could have imagined' when she took office.
Referencing the first presidential debate, when Trump told far-right group the Proud Boys to 'stand back and standby', the governor said he is 'rallying' groups such as the ones that plotted her kidnap