Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Zeta, the earliest ever 27th named storm of the Atlantic season, is expected to head to Gulf of Mexico and then the US by Wednesday
Storm Zeta has strengthened into a hurricane as it churned towards beach resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, which it is expected to rake with strong winds and heavy rain before making possible landfall in the US later this week.
Zeta – the earliest ever 27th named storm of the Atlantic season – was centered about 90 miles (145km) south-east of Cozumel island Monday afternoon, the US National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 80mph (130kph).
Stock markets in the US and Europe fell sharply oas investors focused on signs that rich countries’ efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic were foundering.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index lost 1.8% after heavy falls in German blue-chip stocks. In the US the Dow Jones industrial average closed 2.3% down at 27685.38, while the benchmark S&P 500 fell 1.9% to 3400.97.
Financial technology firm will list on Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets in snub to US
Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s financial technology firm is aiming to raise more than $34bn (£26.15bn) in the world’s biggest initial public offering, valuing the business at more than $313bn.
Ant Group, which on Monday set the price for its much anticipated flotation and is expected to start trading early next month, will beat the record $25.6bn sold by state-backed oil giant Saudi Aramco in its flotation last December.
The two US presidential contenders offer starkly different approaches as the world tries to avoid catastrophic global heating
Among the myriad reasons world leaders will closely watch the outcome of a fraught US presidential election, the climate crisis looms perhaps largest of all.
The international effort to constrain dangerous global heating will hinge, in large part, on which of the dichotomous approaches of Donald Trump or Joe Biden prevails.
South Korea urged citizens to get vaccinated against influenza and reduce the chances of an outbreak that coincides with the battle against the coronavirus, as it kicked off free inoculations for the last eligible group, Reuters reports.
Public anxiety over the safety of flu vaccines has surged after at least 48 people died this month following vaccinations.
Authorities have said they found no direct link between the deaths and the flu shots and have sought to reassure South Koreans about the safety of the vaccines against flu, a disease that kills at least 3,000 each year.
However, last month, about 5 million doses had to be disposed of after not being stored at recommended temperatures.
Singapore has temporarily halted the use of two influenza vaccines as a precaution after these deaths, becoming among the first countries to publicly announce a halt of the vaccines’ usage. Singapore has reported no deaths linked to flu vaccinations.
India’s total coronavirus infections stood at 7.91 million on Monday, having risen by 45,148 cases in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed.
The world’s second-most populous country also has the second-highest number of infections after the United States, which has around 8.1 million.
However, India recorded its lowest death toll in about four months on Monday with 480 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, taking total fatalities to 119,014.
Here again is a link to the interview with Donald Trump published on Sunday by 60 Minutes, an institution in US television news known for editorial balance and seriousness of purpose. Significantly, the program also reaches millions of older voters, who overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016 but who appear to be splitting their vote this year between the candidates.
In this clip, via Vox’s Aaron Rupar, Trump whines about the difficulty level of the questions he is being confronted with, after interviewer Lesley Stahl refuses to endorse one of his conspiracy theories about the Russia investigation.
I don’t understand how anyone can watch this and draw any conclusion other than Trump is completely unfit for his job pic.twitter.com/DA87zGehXI
Hello and welcome to our round-the-clock coverage as the 2020 US election enters its final lap. Only eight days to go.
On Sunday, the number of early voters in the election surpassed 58m, the number who voted early in 2016. That means the 2020 election will mark the first time in history that more than half of the overall US vote was cast early.
As McConnell continues his cynical, revisionist version of how we’ve ended up at this moment – awaiting the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett – the supreme court, one member short, is still working.
Just now, the court upheld a federal appeals court ruling that blocks a deadline extension for mail-in-ballots, awarding a victory for Republicans in a crusade against expanding voting rights and access.
After four years of Trump, protected places such as national monuments and wildlife refuges have opened to oil drilling, new maps show – with more on the way
After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.
'By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,' he told the chamber.
The Senate voted 51-48 to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place on Monday
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is having a field day over the comments of the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows this morning. In a rare moment of transparency, Meadows admitted to a Sunday political talk show that the Trump administration had no intention of containing coronavirus, saying: “We’re not going to control the pandemic”.
Cuomo said that thinking was tantamount to giving in to the virus. “They surrendered without firing a shot. It was the great American surrender,” he said on Sunday, as reported by the Daily News.
After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.
“By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,” he told the chamber.
McConnell, just after the Senate votes to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: "A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come."
Also, McConnell's right hand, which was deeply bruised earlier this week and prompted several Qs about his health, appears much better. Most of the bruising is gone https://t.co/WPFJcqsog2
Lawyer for group issues scathing response to legal letter
Times Square ads blame Trump advisers for Covid deaths
The Lincoln Project “will not be intimidated by empty bluster”, a lawyer for the group wrote late on Saturday, in response to a threat from an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over two billboards put up in Times Square.
The authors of recent exposés, including Mary Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, on the president, his time in office – and what they expect to happen at the polls
Bob Woodward is associate editor of the Washington Post and the author of 20 books on American politics. In 50 years as a journalist he has covered nine presidents. His reporting on the Watergate break-in and cover-up with his colleague Carl Bernstein helped bring down Richard Nixon and won the Post a Pulitzer prize. His latest book about Donald Trump, Rage, is based on 10 hours of interviews, spread over 19 taped phone calls, often initiated by the president himself, in which Trump proved “only too willing to blow the whistle on himself”, as the Observer’s review noted.
Chief medical expert Anthony Fauci says President Trump is not following the science in suggesting that he is now immune and could 'come down and start kissing everybody'. In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US tempers Trump’s claims that there will be a vaccine by the end of the year, noting that a rollout will take 'several months into 2021' and that early use will focus on vulnerable populations and healthcare workers
Confirmation of a sixth conservative on the nine-member court is due on Monday, the result of ruthless Republican politics
The almost certain confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court on Monday represents a “power grab” by Republicans facing possible wipeout at the ballot box, activists and analysts say.
The challenger aims to fix the foreign policy upheaval of the Trump years but such an agenda presents many challenges
By any measure, Joe Biden is old in the ways of the world. As Barack Obama’s vice-president, he met all the big international actors. As chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, he helped direct US foreign policy.
After four years of Donald Trump’s manic leadership, the Democrat offers a steady, dependable hand on the tiller. Biden’s grand aim: a glorious American restoration, at home and abroad.
Nine days out from election day, polling shows the Democratic nominee with big leads in key demographics
Joe Biden’s hopes of reaching the White House could rest on two crucial demographic groups that appear to be deserting Donald Trump: elderly people and suburban women.
Abu Muhsin al-Masri was on FBI’s most-wanted list and had been charged with terrorism offences in US
Afghan security forces have killed Abu Muhsin al-Masri, a senior al-Qaida leader who was on the FBI’s most-wanted list, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) said in a tweet late on Saturday.
Al-Masri has been charged in the United States with having provided material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organisation, and conspiracy to kill US nationals.
It’s been a lively day on the election trail. We’re closing this blog now but will be back with all the developments in US political news, as it happens, tomorrow.
Here are the main events of the day:
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris is calling for an administration that is frank about racist police brutality in America.
“There isn’t a Black man I know, be it a relative or friend, who has not had some sort of experience with police that’s been about an unreasonable stop, some sort of profiling or excessive force,” she said.
We can’t just speak the truth about police brutality in our nation—we must act to change our systems of justice and demand accountability. pic.twitter.com/arSdFLi7Wj