Illinois officer fired after shooting Black couple inside their vehicle

Officer who fatally shot Marcellis Stinnette and wounded Tafara Williams committed ‘multiple policy’ violations, said police chief

Attorneys representing a Black woman who was shot and wounded inside a vehicle by a suburban Chicago police officer who also fatally shot her 19-year-old boyfriend called the officer’s firing “a first step in police accountability”, but said they were pressing ahead with their own investigation of the shooting.

The Waukegan police chief, Wayne Walles, announced late on Friday the firing of the officer who killed Marcellis Stinnette, a Black man, and wounded Tafara Williams, 20. Walles said in a brief statement the male officer committed “multiple policy and procedure violations”.

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Amy Coney Barrett faces recusal questions over links to Shell

Barrett previously recused herself from cases because her father worked for Shell but has failed to commit to doing so in future

Amy Coney Barrett is poised to make critical rulings on whether oil and gas companies will be held accountable for the effects of the climate crisis once she is confirmed to the supreme court, even though she has acknowledged in the past that she has a conflict of interest in cases involving Royal Dutch Shell.

Related: Trump and Barrett's threat to abortion and LGBTQ rights is simply un-American | Robert Reich

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As election day nears, what final dirty tricks could Trump turn to?

Days before the election, Hunter Biden emails dropped with a roll call of Trump associates involved in ‘discovering’ them – and experts say it probably isn’t the last of the dirty tricks

On 28 October 2016, the then director of the FBI, James Comey, dropped a bomb into the middle of the presidential race. With just 11 days to go until election day, he announced that his agents were investigating a newly discovered batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server.

Related: ‘What did we all do?’: why women who voted for Trump could decide the 2020 election

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‘We cannot survive’: New York’s Strand bookstore appeals for help

Proprietor Nancy Bass-Wyden appeals to customers as literary landmark suffers the effects of the pandemic

The Strand Bookstore, a landmark of literary New York, is in serious trouble, appealing for customers to help it stave off closure amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: New York's Strand bookstore fights back over landmark status

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Plane crash of US navy trainer kills crew and burns home

Two dead on board T-6B Texan II aircraft with a house and cars on fire in ‘heavily populated’ area outside Foley, Alabama

A US navy training plane that took off from Florida crashed on Friday in an Alabama residential neighbourhood near the Gulf Coast, killing both crew on board, authorities said.

Zach Harrell, a naval air forces spokesperson, said both people in the T-6B Texan II training plane died. No injuries were reported on the ground.

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US 2020 election could have the highest rate of voter turnout since 1908

Data from the US Elections Project predicts a record 150m ballots, representing 65% of eligible voters, for this election

More than 50 million Americans have cast ballots in the US presidential election with 11 days to go in the campaign, a pace that could lead to the highest voter turnout in over a century, according to data from the US Elections Project on Friday.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Republican Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, as well as Americans’ desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the United States.

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Joe Biden: I’m going to ‘shut down the virus’, not the US – video

Joe Biden said he would not shut down the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic during a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, reinforcing his answers during Thursday's presidential debate.

Donald Trump had claimed Biden would force a nationwide lockdown if he became president, but the Democratic nominee has repeatedly said he does not believe that will be necessary to get the virus under control

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Sudan and Israel agree US-brokered deal on normalising relations

Donald Trump seeks to score points from deal; Palestinians call it ‘a new stab in the back’

Israel and Sudan have agreed to work towards normalising relations in a deal brokered by the US that would make Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities with Israel in the past two months.

Donald Trump sealed the agreement in a phone call on Friday with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his Sudanese counterpart, Abdalla Hamdok, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional military council.

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US election: early voting could reportedly fuel highest turnout since 1908 – live

And now for a semi-regular feature when I’m blogging, entitled Fun With Polls and basically just a read-off of the averages from fivethirtyeight.com but nonetheless it paints a picture, less than two weeks out from election day.

Herewith, the current scores on the doors in the battleground states, both the ones everyone always thinks of and some – Georgia, Iowa, Texas – which really shouldn’t be close but with this Republican in the White House, are:

What you said about Texas, don’t worry about Texas. Texas is with us. [Democrats] want to take away your guns, your oil and your God. OK, that’s what they want. They want to take away your second amendment. They want to take away fracking and oil. They don’t care. They want to take it away they want to go to the Green New Deal. That’s not for Texas. Texas is not going to be losing the guns, and they’re not going to be losing their oil and they’re not going to be losing their religion or their God.

Following up the post below, Reuters has an eye-catching line about early voting and what it might say about turnout:

More than 50m Americans have cast ballots in the presidential election with 11 days to go, a pace that could lead to the highest turnout in more than a century, according to data from the US Elections Project.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as well as Americans’ desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the US.

Grrr....I'm getting emails from orgs cheering 50 million #earlyvote without saying where these data are coming from. All I ask for this free site is attribution. If you want to show appreciation, please donate to this charitable @UF election science fund https://t.co/xtN28Mq9Nn

The Attorney General has to act. He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast, he’s got to appoint somebody, this is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election, and by the way we’re doing very well, we’re gonna win the election, we’re doing very well, if you look at all of what’s happening and all of the people that come in and don’t come in, you take a look all around the country and with Texas early voting. Those are our votes and we were doing well in Texas. I mean, I just got to report we’re doing great in Texas, but we’re doing great all over, but forget that, this has to be done early. So the attorney general has to act.

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US nears daily Covid cases record amid warning of 500,000 deaths by February

A study says coronavirus is on course to claim 511,000 by 28 February as cases surge in many states, particularly upper midwest

The United States on Friday was approaching a record for the number of new daily coronavirus cases, as a new study warned that the pandemic is set to cause half a million American deaths by February.

Covid-19 is on course to ravage states across the nation throughout the coming winter and more than 511,000 lives could be lost by 28 February next year, modeling led by scientists from the University of Washington found.

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Man who searched for Biden’s home had ‘execute’ on checklist, court says

Alexander Hillel Treisman, who was indicted last month, traveled near Joe Biden’s home and purchased an AR-15

A North Carolina man searched earlier this year for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s home online, traveled near the home and wrote a checklist that ended with the word “execute,” according to federal court documents.

The information was contained in documents related to a detention hearing for Alexander Hillel Treisman, who was indicted last month on child abuse imagery charges, held in US district court in Durham. A magistrate, in an order signed 8 October, ordered Treisman to remain in custody.

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With 10 days to go, time and history are not on Donald Trump’s side

Covid has tanked the gains he made in the economy and any new stimulus could be too late

It all looked so simple for Donald Trump as he took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year. At the start of an election year, the annual gathering of the global business elite was an opportunity to launch his campaign.

It was one Trump eagerly seized. The next 30 minutes was one long boast, detailing how a US economy that had allegedly been on its knees under Barack Obama had been transformed under his stewardship.

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American Apparel ‘used fake comments to fuel founder’s bad boy image’

Ex-worker tells documentary series staff would post on articles about Dov Charney

A documentary series has revealed how American Apparel helped fuel its founder’s bad boy mythology in order to bolster interest in the clothing company online.

In the nine-part Big Rad Wolf, a former employee reveals she would leave approved fake comments under salacious articles about Dov Charney on celebrity media blogs such as Gawker and Jezebel, in order to manufacture his reputation as predatory.

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Trump v Biden: the key moments of the final presidential debate – video highlights

Joe Biden and Donald Trump have gone head-to-head for the final time before the US election on 3 November in the final television debate, helped by a mute button on the candidates’ microphones that prevented interruptions.

Squaring off in Nashville, Biden had to field aggressive questioning about his son’s business dealings and when Trump compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, the challenger branded his opponent 'one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history'. Here is a look back at the key moments

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‘Kills all the birds’: Trump and Biden spar over climate in TV debate – video

The closing moments of the final presidential debate focused on climate change. Joe Biden stressed the need to expand sources of renewable energy while again disputing Donald Trump’s claim that he intended to ban fracking, which he does not. 'I know more about wind than you do,' Trump retorted, drawing an exasperated laugh from Biden. 'It’s extremely expensive. Kills all the birds'

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Prince Andrew asked Ghislaine Maxwell about accuser, documents suggest

Deposition made in 2016 as Maxwell faced questions about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

Prince Andrew asked Ghislaine Maxwell for information about a woman who had accused him of sexual misconduct while she was underage, court documents appear to show.

The deposition, relating to Maxwell’s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that she had given during past civil litigation involving the accuser, Virginia Giuffre, was unsealed on Thursday, moments before a court-imposed deadline.

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Trump and Biden clash on coronavirus during final presidential debate – video

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have clashed over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the final presidential debate. While Trump says a vaccine will be available within weeks, Biden questioned the veracity of Trump's claims after the president's previous predictions the pandemic would end by Easter. The pandemic has killed more than 220,000 Americans and infected millions more, including the president

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‘Children brought here by coyotes’: Trump squares off with Biden on immigration – video

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have squared off over immigration policies, including the US government being unable to locate the parents of more than 500 immigrant children. 'Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. We now have as strong a border as we've ever had,' Trump said. The president also criticised immigration under the previous Obama-Biden administration, including the catch and release policy, saying 'those with the lowest IQ' were the only ones who returned for an immigration hearing

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The final Trump-Biden presidential debate: five key takeaways

Trump tried to change his tone, Biden calls the president a racist and ‘Bidencare’ is now a thing

In the days leading up to the debate, Donald Trump’s advisers urged the president to stay calmer than he was at the first presidential debate in Cleveland last month, when he was widely criticized for repeatedly and aggressively interrupting his Democratic presidential rival, Joe Biden.

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