US election roundup: Presidential debate to have 'mute' button, Trump attacks Fauci & more

The final debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden will feature a mute button to allow each candidate to speak uninterrupted, organizers said on Monday, looking to avoid the disruptions that marred the first matchup.

The Trump campaign voiced objections to the change - made after the president repeatedly talked over both Biden and the moderator at last month's debate in violation of its agreed-upon rules - but said the Republican would still take part in the Thursday night event, one of his last chances to reach a large prime-time audience before voting ends on Nov. 3.

The Presidential Commission on Debates said each candidate's microphone at the debate in Nashville, Tennessee, would be silenced to allow the other to make two minutes of opening remarks at the beginning of each 15-minute segment of the debate. Both microphones will be turned on to allow a back-and-forth after that time.

An angry President Donald Trump has come out swinging against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the press and polls that show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in key battleground states in a disjointed closing message two weeks before Election Day.

On the third day of a western campaign swing, Trump was facing intense pressure to turn around his campaign, hoping for the type of last-minute surge that gave him a come-from-behind victory four years ago. But his inconsistent message, another rise in coronavirus cases and his attacks on experts like Fauci could undermine his final efforts to appeal to voters outside his most loyal base.

"I'm not running scared," Trump told reporters on Monday before taking off for Tucson, Arizona, for his fifth rally in three days. "I think I'm running angry. I'm running happy, and I'm running very content 'cause I've done a great job."

The Nato military alliance is considering a summit in March in Brussels to welcome a new US President if Democrat candidate Joe Biden wins, diplomats and officials said, with a gathering in the first half of next year if Donald Trump is reelected.

While the US-led alliance agreed last year to hold a summit in 2021, a meeting in the spring would be an early chance to repair transatlantic ties if Biden were to be voted into the White House on November 3, after a bruising four years under Trump.

Trump has said that the Western alliance is "obsolete" and some allies are "delinquent" as well as issuing a veiled threat in July 2018 to pull the United States out of the alliance.

Rain or shine, democracy waits for no one: Kamala Harris

Rain or shine, democracy waits for no one, says Kamala Harris, the US Democratic Party's vice-presidential candidate for the November 3 election, as she is seen lightly dancing in the rain addressing voters in Florida in a video which has gone viral on social media.

Harris, whose mother was from India and father from Jamaica, scripted history in August when she was picked by the Democratic Party as its vice presidential nominee. She is the first Black woman and the first Asian-American woman to be selected as the vice presidential nominee of a major political party in the US.

"Rain or shine, democracy waits for no one," Harris, 55, said in a tweet along with a picture of herself dancing in the rain with an umbrella over her as supporters cheer her along in Jacksonville, Florida.

President Donald Trump's slide in opinion polls is weighing on Senate Republicans in 10 competitive races, while Democrats are playing defense over two seats, increasing the odds of Trump's Republicans losing their 53-47 majority on November 3.

That gives Democrats a good chance of adding a Senate majority to their control of the House of Representatives, which could either stymie Trump in a second term or usher in a new era of Democratic dominance in Washington if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the White House.

The 2020 US election promises to be a political spectacle with far-reaching implications for the country's domestic politics and the outlook for Indian and world foreign policy, according to The Observer Research Foundation.

In its report 'US Election 2020: The Battleground States', the ORF, a think-tank, said that the 'battleground states' in the US might ultimately decide the outcome of the November polls. Though the elections are around the corner, the ORF said these states have "no clear allegiances nor evident leanings" towards Democrats or Republican.

These states are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin- nine states with a combined 173 electoral votes between them.

Donald Trump Jr and Guilfoyle have taken up the mantle to campaign in the battleground states.

In the week gone by and this week, Trump Jr, 42, has more than 30 campaign events, in addition to his multiple appearances on national television channels and local media.

Similarly, Guilfoyle, who is in-charge of fund-raising in her capacity as National Chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee, has been joining Trump Jr in the rallies.

A leading Indian-American advocacy and political action committee has announced that it has raised $10 million over the past three months to fund for election campaigns of its endorsed Democratic candidates, including presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris.

$10 million is the highest amount raised by any Indian-American political action committee so far.

This fundraising strength reflects trends being seen across the country, said IMPACT executive director Neil Makhija.