US election roundup: Trump to resume campaigning, 2nd debate cancelled & more

US President Donald Trump will give a public speech at the White House on Saturday for the first time since testing positive for Covid-19, as he prepares a rapid return to the campaign trail just three weeks before the election.

The 74-year-old commander-in-chief has also announced a Florida rally on Monday in an attempt to relaunch his stumbling reelection campaign against surging Democratic rival Joe Biden, who called the president's behavior "reckless."

Addressing a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Friday, Joe Biden said that the country deserved a President who understood what people were going through.

"His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis and the destabilising effect it is having on our government is unconscionable. He didn't take the necessary precautions to protect himself or others. The longer Donald Trump is President, the more reckless he gets," Biden said.

The Commission on Presidential Debates said on Friday it has cancelled next week's showdown between Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden, after the President said he would not participate in a virtual format.

"Each (candidate) now has announced alternate plans for that date," the Commission said in a statement, adding "it is now apparent there will be no debate on October 15."

The move leaves just one more debate on the schedule -- October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee -- before the November 3 election.

A US judge has blocked an order from Texas' governor cutting the number of sites voters can drop off mail-in ballots for November's presidential election, which Democrats had said amounted to voter suppression.

The order, issued in early October by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, limited the number of drop-off centers to one per county, even as mail-in voting is expected to become much more popular due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The move would help curb "illegal voting," Abbott had said, in line with views expressed by President Donald Trump, who frequently claims without evidence that postal ballots are a source of massive vote fraud.

Hundreds of lawsuits about voting have been filed before the November 3 election. The cases concern the fundamentals of the American democratic process, including how ballots are cast and counted.

Arizona: A federal judge ruled in favor of Democrats by holding that voters who neglected to sign their early ballots before mailing them in get up to five days after the election to fix the problem.

Iowa: Several of the election disputes involve mail-in voting rules. In one, Democrats are challenging a new GOP-backed law that blocks county auditors from filling in any missing voter ID information on absentee ballot applications returned by voters.

Michigan: Officials are mired in litigation over how long ballots can be counted after November 3. State law requires the ballots to be counted by Election Day. But a state judge, citing mail delays, has ordered that they be counted if they are postmarked by November 2 and arrive by November 17. The Republican-led Legislature is appealing.

US President Donald Trump said he was "medication free" and revealed more details of his fight with Covid-19 in a televised interview aired on Friday, one week after he was hospitalized with the virus.

The President appeared on Fox's Tucker Carlson Tonight for what the White House described as an on-air "medical evaluation" conducted remotely by Fox contributor doctor Marc Siegel.

"Right now I'm medication-free, I'm not taking any medications as of, you know, probably eight hours ago," Trump told Siegel.

It was unclear when the interview, which Carlson said was filmed by a White House camera crew, was taped.

US Republican Senator Ted Cruz warned on Friday that his party could face a "bloodbath of Watergate proportions" in next month's election if voters are pessimistic about President Donald Trump's handling of the economy and the pandemic.

"I am worried.... It's highly volatile," Cruz, a staunch Trump ally, told CNBC television, although he noted that Trump could win re-election if voters feel the country is recovering from the pandemic-driven economic crisis.

"If people are going back to work, if they're optimistic, if they're positive about the future, we could see a fantastic election -- the president getting reelected with a big margin, Republicans winning both houses of Congress," Cruz said.

President Donald Trump's proclamation on Friday commemorating Columbus Day veered from a typical White House holiday announcement, with stark warnings of "radical activists" seeking to tarnish the explorer's legacy.

Native American advocates have pressed states for years to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day over concerns that Christopher Columbus helped launch centuries of genocide against indigenous populations in the Americas.

"Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus's legacy," Trump said in his proclamation declaring Columbus Day.

"These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions."

Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg on Saturday asked US voters to choose Joe Biden, saying the outcome of the US presidential election was crucial for fighting climate change.

The 17-year-old founder of the "Fridays for Future" climate protests said on Twitter: "I never engage in party politics. But the upcoming US elections is above and beyond all that.

"From a climate perspective it's very far from enough and many of you of course supported other candidates," Thunberg acknowledged.

"But, I mean...you know...damn! Just get organized and get everyone to vote #Biden," she added.