US Elections 2020: Donald Trump is trailing Joe Biden in most national polls. US ELECTIONS Live Updates: Every day feels like a raw wound for Omari Barksdale. His sister, Laneeka Barksdale, died of COVID-19 in late March in Detroit – and since then, so have more than 226,000 Americans. Many were Black Americans whose communities were disproportionately devastated by the virus.
Omari Barksdale, a Black man, watched with alarm as the toll of the country’s racial injustice mounted. People of colour bore the brunt of pandemic-related job losses. Police shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her Kentucky home, and a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into George Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd gasped, “I can’t breathe,” in his final moments.
The convergence of the pandemic, joblessness and police brutality has forced the US to confront its centuries-old legacy of systemic racism this year. And for Barksdale and many Black Americans, it’s turned next week’s presidential election into a referendum on the future of race relations, an opportunity to take steps toward healing or the potential of a deeper divide.
Meanwhile, campaigning hours away in the battleground state of Florida, President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden highlighted their contrasting approach towards the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump’s dismissal of the virus was evident through the massive rallies featuring largely unmasked crowds and the lack of social distancing. Biden, on the other hand, held a drive in rally where supporters remained in or near their cars to avoid the spread of covid-19. Biden attacked the president for holding a “super-spreader event” and said that Trump had “waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to this virus.”
President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at HoverTech International, Monday, Oct. 26, 2020, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Top Trump administration officials visited Texas five days before Election Day to announce they have nearly completed 400 miles of US-Mexico border wall, trying to show progress on perhaps the president's best-known campaign promise four years ago.
While most of the wall went up in areas that had smaller barriers, the government built hundreds of miles of fencing as high as 30 feet (9 meters) in a short amount of time - most of it this year. But crews blasted hills and bulldozed sensitive habitats in national wildlife refuges and on American Indian land to do it, prioritizing areas where they could build more quickly.
The Department of Homeland Security waived environmental and other reviews to expedite construction. And despite President Donald Trump's repeated promises that Mexico would pay for the wall, the construction has been funded by U.S. taxpayers for at least USD 15 billion, two-thirds coming from military funding.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said steps taken by the social media giant have helped protect the integrity of more than 200 different elections around the world, including in India, and have also played an important role in stopping abuse ahead of US elections.
Noting that next week will certainly be a "test" for Facebook, Zuckerberg said the company will continue "fighting to protect the integrity of the democratic process". "These are all changes we've made in the last four years -- and they've helped us protect the integrity of more than 200 different elections around the world, including in the EU, India and Indonesia. And they've been important for stopping abuse ahead of next week's vote in the US," Zuckerberg said during the company's earnings call and outlined some of the steps that have been taken.
He added that the company has focused on issues like voter suppression, and has worked closely with experts in the space, including civil rights leaders.
Photos AP
In three days, the US will either have Joe Biden as its new president or Donald Trump will continue to serve for four more years. The dominating talking point in this year’s elections has been the coronavirus outbreak and both presidential candidates have clashed over the issue several times over the past few months.
Now, in the battleground state of Florida, the virus outbreak and Trump’s handling of the pandemic has again become a point of contention between the two candidates and the topic of discussion in their campaign rallies. Reuters reported that Trump “downplayed the pandemic, as he has done throughout the year, telling people that if they contracted the virus, they would “get better,” just as he did after his own diagnosis.”
Read all the developments from the last 24 hours here
Ahead of the final weekend before Election Day on Tuesday,Trump and Joe Biden will barnstorm across battleground states in the Midwest, including Wisconsin, where the coronavirus pandemic has exploded.
Trump, a Republican, is scheduled to campaign on Friday in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, while Biden has planned stops in Wisconsin and Minnesota as well as Iowa.
Michigan and Wisconsin were two of the three historically Democratic industrial states, along with Pennsylvania, that narrowly voted for Trump in 2016, delivering him an upset victory. Minnesota, which has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, is one of the few Democratic states that Trump is trying to flip this year.
Overall, the map looks ominous for Trump, who has consistently trailed Biden in national polls for months because of widespread disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus.
Be it the Trump or the rival Biden campaign, "Get out to Vote" is the common theme driving all the rallies and meetings for the November 3 US presidential elections. President Donald Trump, a Republican who is seeking a second term, and his Democratic rival and former vice president Joe Biden make it a point in their public remarks to emphasise to their supporters how important it is for them to go out and vote next Tuesday. "Whatever you do, you have to go out and vote," Trump said at an election rally in the Bullhead City of Arizona on Wednesday. The Democrats and the Biden Campaign have been aggressive in urging their supporters to mail in their votes or do early voting.(PTI)
If 2008 showed that America could live up to its political creed of equality, we now have grave threats to that foundational principle. Given Donald Trump’s barely disguised racism, his victory will be viewed as America’s regress into White primacy, an unfortunate historical reality which began to lose its sting after the mid-1960s. And his defeat will be welcomed by those who want Blacks and other racial minorities to reclaim the push for equality. The results will be viewed through a racial lens even if Trump’s handling of the pandemic, rather than his treatment of race relations, causes his defeat. (Read more here)
Addressing a rally in Florida, Trump said that unlike countries like France, who imposed a nationwide lockdown, America will never lockdown again due to the coronavirus pandemic. "We understood the disease, and now we are open for business," Trump remarked.
Campaigning hours away in the battleground state of Florida, President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden highlighted their contrasting approach towards the coronavirus pandemic. Trump's dismissal of the virus was evident through the massive rallies featuring largely unmasked crowds and the lack of social distancing. Biden, on the other hand, held a drive in rally where supporters remained in or near their cars to avoid the spread of covid-19.Biden attacked the president for holding a "super-spreader event" and said that Trump had "waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to this virus."
Long before Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced her as his running mate, Kamala Harris was the target of widespread online misinformation. Social media posts included racist claims that she was ineligible to serve in the White House or that she was lying about her Black and Indian heritage. Her mother is from India and her father from Jamaica. (AP)
Trump administration officials on Thursday stripped Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in most of the US, ending longstanding federal safeguards and putting states and tribes in charge of overseeing the predators. The US Department of Interior announcement just days ahead of the November 3 election could lead to resumption of wolf hunts in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- a crucial battleground in the campaign between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.It's the latest in a series of administration actions on the environment that appeal to key blocs of rural voters in the race's final days, including steps to allow more mining in Minnesota and logging in Alaska. (AP)
An ad on Twitter, that shows an 'interviewer' evaluating Donald Trump for a job, is going viral on social media. The ad, created by Win America Back...PAC, has been tweeted with the caption, 'Remember, the election is a job interview'. Take a look here:
Trying to pull back the veil on health care costs to encourage competition, the Trump administration on Thursday finalised a requirement for insurers to tell consumers up front the actual prices for common tests and procedures.
The late-innings policy play comes just days ahead of Election Day as President Donald Trump has been hammered on health care by Democratic challenger Joe Biden for the administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its unrelenting efforts to overturn "Obamacare," the 2010 law providing coverage to more than 20 million people.
A related Trump administration price disclosure requirement applying to hospitals is facing a federal lawsuit from the industry, alleging coercion and interference with business practices.
The idea behind the new regulations on insurers is to empower patients to become better consumers of health care, thereby helping to drive down costs.
But the requirements would take effect gradually over a four-year period, and patients face a considerable learning curve to make cost-versus-quality decisions about procedures like knee replacements or hernia repairs. (AP)
Hackers stole USD 2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party's account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party's chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The party noticed the suspicious activity on October 22 and contacted the FBI on Friday, said Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt.
Hitt said the FBI is investigating. FBI spokesman Leonard Peace did not immediately return a message seeking comment. "There's no doubt RPW is now at a disadvantage with that money being gone," Hitt said.
The party and campaign needs money late in the race to make quick decisions, he said. Hitt said the hackers were able to manipulate invoices from four vendors who were being paid to send out direct mail for Trump's reelection efforts and to provide pro-Trump material such as hats that could be handed out to supporters. (AP)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a scolding assessment of COVID-19 relief talks on Thursday, blaming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for failing to produce answers to her demands for Democratic priorities as part of an almost USD 2 trillion aid package.
Pelosi lobbed her latest public relations volley with a letter to Mnuchin that blames Republicans for the failed talks, which ground on for three months only to crater in the final days before the election. Where the talks go after the election is wholly uncertain.
Pelosi says remaining obstacles to an agreement include more than half a dozen big-ticket items, including a testing plan, aid to state and local governments, funding for schools, jobless benefits and a GOP-sought shield against coronavirus-related lawsuits.
Republicans, who will control the White House and the Senate until January regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's election, have pressed for a more targeted aid package that ignores key Pelosi demands, saying items like refundable tax credits for the working poor and families with children aren't directly related to fighting COVID-19. (AP)
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 751,000, the lowest since March, but it's still historically high and indicates the viral pandemic is still forcing many employers to cut jobs.
Rising confirmed virus cases in nearly every state, along with a cutoff in federal aid, are threatening to weaken the economy in the coming months. As temperatures fall, restaurants and bars will likely serve fewer customers outdoors. And many consumers may increasingly stay home to avoid infection. Those trends could force employers to slash more jobs during the winter.
The seven-day rolling average for confirmed new cases in the U.S. soared over the past two weeks from 51,161 to 71,832, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Under fire from President Donald Trump and his allies, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google rebuffed accusations of anti-conservative bias at a Senate hearing and promised to aggressively defend their platforms from being used to sow chaos in next week's election.
Lawmakers of both parties, eyeing the companies' tremendous power to disseminate speech and ideas, are looking to challenge their long-enjoyed bedrock legal protections for online speech - the stated topic for the hearing but one that was quickly overtaken by questions related to the presidential campaign.
With worries over election security growing, senators on the Commerce Committee extracted promises from Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai that their companies will be on guard against meddling by foreign actors or the incitement of violence around the election results.
Testifying via video on Wednesday, the executives said they are taking several steps, including partnerships with news organisations, to distribute accurate information about voting. Dorsey said Twitter was working closely with state election officials. "We want to give people using the service as much information as possible," he said. (AP)