A Biden campaign official said the incident occurred Friday on I-35 between Austin and San Antonio.

FBI investigating after Trump supporters surround Biden campaign bus in Texas

Tuesday’s election will be seen globally as a referendum on the durability of democracy. If American democracy, long a beacon, cannot self-correct, then all democracies are at risk. European nations have watched with alarm as President Donald Trump has set about undermining American democracy while attacking the very foundations — the European Union and NATO — that allowed war-torn Europe to become whole, democratic and free.

The Oval Office was once the focal point of the respect the United States commanded around the world; no longer. It has become impossible for democracies today to believe it is in their national interest to take Trump’s America seriously. With this president, there are simply too many petulant reversals of course. The presidency and dishonesty have become synonymous. Alliances are founded on trust. When that goes, they begin to dissolve.

Hence the talk in European capitals of the need to “contain” the United States, a verb once reserved for the Soviet Union. America, under Trump, has lost the credibility and legitimacy that were cornerstones of its influence.

Allies believe a second Trump term could lead to the United States’ leaving NATO, following the decision to leave the World Health Organization. Departure from the World Trade Organization is also possible. Trump has yet to encounter a multilateral organization he does not want dead.

The values of liberty, democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law for which the United States has stood, albeit with conspicuous failings, over the postwar decades have been abandoned. Despite the horrors of Vietnam and Abu Ghraib, and Cold War support for dictatorial regimes, America led not just because it had a huge army and nuclear arsenal, but also because it shared beliefs with its allies and worked with them. The United States has become a values-free international actor under a president who has led a values-free life.

This American abdication has allowed President Vladimir Putin of Russia to proclaim liberalism “obsolete.” It has led Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to say Europeans must “take our fate into our own hands.” It has empowered President Xi Jinping of China to offer his country’s one-party system as an alternative model for developing countries. It has turned the phrase “leader of the free world,” as applied to the United States, into a laughable notion.

The Trump administration has unrelentingly undermined proven international relationships. America-first nationalism (even on vaccine development) has replaced the stabilizing commitment of the United States to multilateral institutions, a rules-based order and painstakingly negotiated international accords, like the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

Over the past four years, America has come close to exiting the global community of democracies. Trump is far more comfortable with autocrats like Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia than with a democratic leader like Merkel. (She has, for the president, the added drawback of being a woman.)

Human rights have all but disappeared from the American agenda. This has been evident in the brutality at the Mexican border. America has long had a complicated relationship with immigration, but underlying it there has always existed, as a core element in the national identity, a commitment to openness and an understanding that constant demographic renewal was a unique source of American strength. By ripping children from their parents (545 of those children have not been reunited), barring entry from some majority-Muslim countries and largely closing American doors to refugees, Trump has trampled on the idea of America as a land of immigrants.

The aura that once set America apart has dimmed. The country, under Trump, has lost its compassion; it has appeared crueler to the world. Trump has severed America from the idea of America. Liberty’s torch cannot be the symbol of a country committed to building walls.

Trump’s nationalism has done great harm. The pandemic has been the first major global crisis since 1945 in which the United States has gone AWOL. Nobody is inclined to trust in the competence of an America whose response to the pandemic has been so incoherent that it now comfortably leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths. Trump’s “fake news” accusations and lies about the coronavirus have been relentless.

The democratic framework of the United States rests on certain principles: checks and balances, a vigorous free press, an independent judiciary, protection of the individual against forms of racial, religious or sexual prejudice. All these principles, inspirations to democracies across the world, have been attacked by Trump. He has turned the Department of Justice into his personal fief. The president has even refused to commit to leaving office if he loses the election.

None of this has been lost on a world where the United States once built democracies: in Germany, in Japan, throughout Central Europe after the collapse of the Soviet imperium.

In the European Union the realization that it may now stand alone against Russia, China and the United States in embodying liberal democratic principles and the defense of human rights has come as a painful, if galvanizing, shock.

Almost four years of Trump’s rule has left an anchorless international order, in which an old American-led system is dead and the new is not yet born. How far a Joe Biden presidency could reverse this dangerous drift is an open question. But the damage is deep; the old status quo will not return.

A second Trump term of erratic American belligerence meeting growing Chinese assertiveness would be pregnant with the possibility of violence. The big powers would be on the march, freed of the multilateral safety net slowly constructed in the second half of the 20th century. America-the-beacon would be lost, and the world darker still.

Tuesday’s election will be seen globally as a referendum on the durability of democracy. If American democracy, long a beacon, cannot self-correct, then all democracies are at risk.

Tuesday’s election will be seen globally as a referendum on the durability of democracy. If American democracy, long a beacon, cannot self-correct, then all democracies are at risk. European nations have watched with alarm as President Donald Trump has set about undermining American democracy while attacking the very foundations — the European Union and NATO — that allowed war-torn Europe to become whole, democratic and free. The Oval Office was once the focal point of the respect the United States commanded around the world; no longer. It has become impossible for democracies today to believe it is in their national interest to take Trump’s America seriously. With this president, there are simply too many petulant reversals of course. The presidency and dishonesty have become synonymous. Alliances are founded on trust. When that goes, they begin to dissolve. Hence the talk in European capitals of the need to “contain” the United States, a verb once reserved for the Soviet Union. America, under Trump, has lost the credibility and legitimacy that were cornerstones of its influence. Allies believe a second Trump term could lead to the United States’ leaving NATO, following the decision to leave the World Health Organization. Departure from the World Trade Organization is also possible. Trump has yet to encounter a multilateral organization he does not want dead. The values of liberty, democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law for which the United States has stood, albeit with conspicuous failings, over the postwar decades have been abandoned. Despite the horrors of Vietnam and Abu Ghraib, and Cold War support for dictatorial regimes, America led not just because it had a huge army and nuclear arsenal, but also because it shared beliefs with its allies and worked with them. The United States has become a values-free international actor under a president who has led a values-free life. This American abdication has allowed President Vladimir Putin of Russia to proclaim liberalism “obsolete.” It has led Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to say Europeans must “take our fate into our own hands.” It has empowered President Xi Jinping of China to offer his country’s one-party system as an alternative model for developing countries. It has turned the phrase “leader of the free world,” as applied to the United States, into a laughable notion. The Trump administration has unrelentingly undermined proven international relationships. America-first nationalism (even on vaccine development) has replaced the stabilizing commitment of the United States to multilateral institutions, a rules-based order and painstakingly negotiated international accords, like the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. Over the past four years, America has come close to exiting the global community of democracies. Trump is far more comfortable with autocrats like Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia than with a democratic leader like Merkel. (She has, for the president, the added drawback of being a woman.) Human rights have all but disappeared from the American agenda. This has been evident in the brutality at the Mexican border. America has long had a complicated relationship with immigration, but underlying it there has always existed, as a core element in the national identity, a commitment to openness and an understanding that constant demographic renewal was a unique source of American strength. By ripping children from their parents (545 of those children have not been reunited), barring entry from some majority-Muslim countries and largely closing American doors to refugees, Trump has trampled on the idea of America as a land of immigrants. The aura that once set America apart has dimmed. The country, under Trump, has lost its compassion; it has appeared crueler to the world. Trump has severed America from the idea of America. Liberty’s torch cannot be the symbol of a country committed to building walls. Trump’s nationalism has done great harm. The pandemic has been the first major global crisis since 1945 in which the United States has gone AWOL. Nobody is inclined to trust in the competence of an America whose response to the pandemic has been so incoherent that it now comfortably leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths. Trump’s “fake news” accusations and lies about the coronavirus have been relentless. The democratic framework of the United States rests on certain principles: checks and balances, a vigorous free press, an independent judiciary, protection of the individual against forms of racial, religious or sexual prejudice. All these principles, inspirations to democracies across the world, have been attacked by Trump. He has turned the Department of Justice into his personal fief. The president has even refused to commit to leaving office if he loses the election. None of this has been lost on a world where the United States once built democracies: in Germany, in Japan, throughout Central Europe after the collapse of the Soviet imperium. In the European Union the realization that it may now stand alone against Russia, China and the United States in embodying liberal democratic principles and the defense of human rights has come as a painful, if galvanizing, shock. Almost four years of Trump’s rule has left an anchorless international order, in which an old American-led system is dead and the new is not yet born. How far a Joe Biden presidency could reverse this dangerous drift is an open question. But the damage is deep; the old status quo will not return. A second Trump term of erratic American belligerence meeting growing Chinese assertiveness would be pregnant with the possibility of violence. The big powers would be on the march, freed of the multilateral safety net slowly constructed in the second half of the 20th century. America-the-beacon would be lost, and the world darker still.

How Trump lowered America’s standing in the world

There is much to fear this year, as campaign speeches and ads remind voters. The virus is surging, hospitals are filling again, and children are falling behind in school. Renters risk eviction, and businesses remain boarded up. Violent crime has risen and could reach your neighborhood, the president warns. And in this unsettling time, you could lose your health care, your job, your property values or your local police department.

But when asked what really worries them on the eve of this election, most voters don’t cite their own finances, job prospects or personal safety. According to a national survey conducted by The Upshot and Siena College, they aren’t so much fretting about themselves as they are anxious about the country.

They fear the next generation in America will be worse off. Even some voters who say they are personally better off than four years ago say the country as a whole is worse off. And by wide margins, voters on the left and right say they’re concerned about the stability of American democracy.

These findings reflect long-standing research about the politics of fear: Broad anxieties about society tend to influence voters, and how they view government, much more than personal worries do. Even with that truism, voters in the poll described in follow-up interviews a level of alarm about the country — and American democracy in particular — that they say is new to them.

“I’ve never felt this way about our country,” said Jerry Thatcher, a 76-year-old Trump voter in Yamhill, Oregon. He doesn’t recognize the country that he says broke out in riots this year, or the politicians he believes did little about it. And he’s still haunted by the policy promises of Democrats in the primary. “It’s just not the country I fought for anymore,” he said. “They’re trying to change it over to socialism. And I’m just worried that they might get it done.”

Diane Haller, a 50-year-old Biden supporter in Avon, Ohio, says President Donald Trump has threatened the country’s foundations by bending the Department of Justice to his personal ends. “How is a democracy going to work if that’s allowed?” she said. “We’re just teetering, and it’s scary as all get-out.”

There have certainly been other moments of interlocking crises and deep anxiety in America in the past century. The 1920 election followed a world war and a pandemic, and came at a time of labor strife and racial violence. The 1968 campaign was contested amid urban unrest and anti-war protests.

But in those moments, the country didn’t have a president seen by many as having “taken a pickax to the tent poles of democratic institutions,” said David Bennett, a historian at Syracuse University.

And American sentiment has changed, too, said Beverly Gage, a Yale historian.

“People a century ago or even 50 years ago tended to still believe in a kind of narrative of progress,” she said. “‘Things are unstable now, but we are surging forth into some better future’ — even when they’re deeply, deeply anxious.”

That belief has been eroding for a couple of decades, she said. Today, there is little precedent in modern surveys for Americans expressing so much worry about democracy itself.

“Normally, these are concerns Americans have about other countries but not about their own,” said Ted Brader, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.

This presidential election, in other words, was for many voters never going to be about some of the personal fears Trump has emphasized: that your neighborhood could change for the worse in Joe Biden’s America; that you, personally, could be less safe.

Nor was it likely to be broadly about personal economic instability or job loss, the kinds of pocketbook issues Kamala Harris has often described as keeping voters up at night.

That’s in part because most voters simply don’t see how their personal circumstances relate to federal policy and the people who set it, political scientists say.

“It’s hard to make those connections — to think that your individual job is directly connected to what the government is doing,” said Jennifer Merolla, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside. “That’s a really complex evaluation to make.”

For Trump, who effectively wielded fear of immigration and demographic change in 2016, this campaign has been more challenging.

“There are a couple ways in which the president has chosen an ineffective strategy,” said Shana Gadarian, a political scientist at Syracuse. The first is that he has tried to tug on personal worries, like falling property values. “The second,” she said, “is telling people not to be worried about something that is in fact worrisome.”

That is, the pandemic. In the Times/Siena survey, independent voters the president needs to win were far more likely than Republicans to say that they fear the worst of the coronavirus is yet to come, and that they worry their own family will become ill.

The voters who are most concerned about crime and neighborhood decline, on the other hand, are not the voters Trump’s messages appear intended to reach: They are African Americans, not white suburbanites. On crime, 38% of African American voters described themselves as very concerned, compared with just 13% of white suburban voters. The difference is similarly wide on voters’ fears that the character of their community could change for the worse.

Gayle Headen, an African American voter in New Hill, North Carolina, responded in the survey that she was very concerned about being a victim of crime — “a crime committed against me by the police,” she clarified in a follow-up interview.

That fear is both personal to her family and much wider, she said, and she connects it to her deeper worries about American democracy. She learned on her car radio about the death of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man shot by police in Philadelphia. The news brought her to tears.

“When I was crying, I was praying, saying, ‘God, please keep me from falling into despair,’” Headen said. Racial injustice against African Americans has been at the front of her mind each day, and it is central to her family’s concerns, she said. “It is a part of our consciousness in a way that it has not been for the majority of my life,” said Headen, who is 53.

She knows that Pennsylvania could be pivotal to the outcome of the election, and that the president has repeatedly disparaged Philadelphia. She worries that the protests there in the election’s final days could discourage African Americans from voting, or that jailed protesters will be unable to cast a ballot. She, too, has never felt this anxious.

“I have more fear in 2020,” she said, “because I really see us falling over a cliff.”

The fears that Tom Scribner holds won’t be fixed by this election, he said. Scribner, a 36-year-old Hispanic voter in Gainesville, Florida, doesn’t believe the country holds the same values it did when he enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18. He opposes defunding the police and removing the statues of Confederate generals and Founding Fathers, and he feels disrespected as a veteran by athletes who kneel during the national anthem. He worries that his two children will grow up walking on eggshells in America, for fear of saying the wrong thing.

He plans to vote for Trump. But he doesn’t believe any one president or election can alter underlying shifts in American values.

“That’s why I fear for our democracy,” Scribner said. “I feel like it may just crumble. It may not happen in the next four years. It may take 20 years for it to happen, and it’s going to be chaos for however long until it does. That saddens me deeply.”

In earlier moments of anxiety about democracy itself, reforms followed, said Gage, the historian. When Americans grew anxious about corrupt political machines and concentrated economic power in the early 20th century, what followed were civil-service laws, new political primaries, the direct election of senators and voting rights for women. Out of the 1960s, the voting age was lowered so Americans old enough to be sent to war would also be old enough to vote. And political primaries were reformed again to give voters more say in the nominees.

It’s unclear whether something similar will happen this time.

“If people have actually lost faith in the idea that you can fix things and make them better,” Gage said, “then that’s not a great political moment to be in.”

There is much to fear this year, as campaign speeches and ads remind voters. The virus is surging, hospitals are filling again, and children are falling behind in school.

There is much to fear this year, as campaign speeches and ads remind voters. The virus is surging, hospitals are filling again, and children are falling behind in school. Renters risk eviction, and businesses remain boarded up. Violent crime has risen and could reach your neighborhood, the president warns. And in this unsettling time, you could lose your health care, your job, your property values or your local police department. But when asked what really worries them on the eve of this election, most voters don’t cite their own finances, job prospects or personal safety. According to a national survey conducted by The Upshot and Siena College, they aren’t so much fretting about themselves as they are anxious about the country. They fear the next generation in America will be worse off. Even some voters who say they are personally better off than four years ago say the country as a whole is worse off. And by wide margins, voters on the left and right say they’re concerned about the stability of American democracy. These findings reflect long-standing research about the politics of fear: Broad anxieties about society tend to influence voters, and how they view government, much more than personal worries do. Even with that truism, voters in the poll described in follow-up interviews a level of alarm about the country — and American democracy in particular — that they say is new to them. “I’ve never felt this way about our country,” said Jerry Thatcher, a 76-year-old Trump voter in Yamhill, Oregon. He doesn’t recognize the country that he says broke out in riots this year, or the politicians he believes did little about it. And he’s still haunted by the policy promises of Democrats in the primary. “It’s just not the country I fought for anymore,” he said. “They’re trying to change it over to socialism. And I’m just worried that they might get it done.” Diane Haller, a 50-year-old Biden supporter in Avon, Ohio, says President Donald Trump has threatened the country’s foundations by bending the Department of Justice to his personal ends. “How is a democracy going to work if that’s allowed?” she said. “We’re just teetering, and it’s scary as all get-out.” There have certainly been other moments of interlocking crises and deep anxiety in America in the past century. The 1920 election followed a world war and a pandemic, and came at a time of labor strife and racial violence. The 1968 campaign was contested amid urban unrest and anti-war protests. But in those moments, the country didn’t have a president seen by many as having “taken a pickax to the tent poles of democratic institutions,” said David Bennett, a historian at Syracuse University. And American sentiment has changed, too, said Beverly Gage, a Yale historian. “People a century ago or even 50 years ago tended to still believe in a kind of narrative of progress,” she said. “‘Things are unstable now, but we are surging forth into some better future’ — even when they’re deeply, deeply anxious.” That belief has been eroding for a couple of decades, she said. Today, there is little precedent in modern surveys for Americans expressing so much worry about democracy itself. “Normally, these are concerns Americans have about other countries but not about their own,” said Ted Brader, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. This presidential election, in other words, was for many voters never going to be about some of the personal fears Trump has emphasized: that your neighborhood could change for the worse in Joe Biden’s America; that you, personally, could be less safe. Nor was it likely to be broadly about personal economic instability or job loss, the kinds of pocketbook issues Kamala Harris has often described as keeping voters up at night. That’s in part because most voters simply don’t see how their personal circumstances relate to federal policy and the people who set it, political scientists say. “It’s hard to make those connections — to think that your individual job is directly connected to what the government is doing,” said Jennifer Merolla, a political scientist at the University of California, Riverside. “That’s a really complex evaluation to make.” For Trump, who effectively wielded fear of immigration and demographic change in 2016, this campaign has been more challenging. “There are a couple ways in which the president has chosen an ineffective strategy,” said Shana Gadarian, a political scientist at Syracuse. The first is that he has tried to tug on personal worries, like falling property values. “The second,” she said, “is telling people not to be worried about something that is in fact worrisome.” That is, the pandemic. In the Times/Siena survey, independent voters the president needs to win were far more likely than Republicans to say that they fear the worst of the coronavirus is yet to come, and that they worry their own family will become ill. The voters who are most concerned about crime and neighborhood decline, on the other hand, are not the voters Trump’s messages appear intended to reach: They are African Americans, not white suburbanites. On crime, 38% of African American voters described themselves as very concerned, compared with just 13% of white suburban voters. The difference is similarly wide on voters’ fears that the character of their community could change for the worse. Gayle Headen, an African American voter in New Hill, North Carolina, responded in the survey that she was very concerned about being a victim of crime — “a crime committed against me by the police,” she clarified in a follow-up interview. That fear is both personal to her family and much wider, she said, and she connects it to her deeper worries about American democracy. She learned on her car radio about the death of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man shot by police in Philadelphia. The news brought her to tears. “When I was crying, I was praying, saying, ‘God, please keep me from falling into despair,’” Headen said. Racial injustice against African Americans has been at the front of her mind each day, and it is central to her family’s concerns, she said. “It is a part of our consciousness in a way that it has not been for the majority of my life,” said Headen, who is 53. She knows that Pennsylvania could be pivotal to the outcome of the election, and that the president has repeatedly disparaged Philadelphia. She worries that the protests there in the election’s final days could discourage African Americans from voting, or that jailed protesters will be unable to cast a ballot. She, too, has never felt this anxious. “I have more fear in 2020,” she said, “because I really see us falling over a cliff.” The fears that Tom Scribner holds won’t be fixed by this election, he said. Scribner, a 36-year-old Hispanic voter in Gainesville, Florida, doesn’t believe the country holds the same values it did when he enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18. He opposes defunding the police and removing the statues of Confederate generals and Founding Fathers, and he feels disrespected as a veteran by athletes who kneel during the national anthem. He worries that his two children will grow up walking on eggshells in America, for fear of saying the wrong thing. He plans to vote for Trump. But he doesn’t believe any one president or election can alter underlying shifts in American values. “That’s why I fear for our democracy,” Scribner said. “I feel like it may just crumble. It may not happen in the next four years. It may take 20 years for it to happen, and it’s going to be chaos for however long until it does. That saddens me deeply.” In earlier moments of anxiety about democracy itself, reforms followed, said Gage, the historian. When Americans grew anxious about corrupt political machines and concentrated economic power in the early 20th century, what followed were civil-service laws, new political primaries, the direct election of senators and voting rights for women. Out of the 1960s, the voting age was lowered so Americans old enough to be sent to war would also be old enough to vote. And political primaries were reformed again to give voters more say in the nominees. It’s unclear whether something similar will happen this time. “If people have actually lost faith in the idea that you can fix things and make them better,” Gage said, “then that’s not a great political moment to be in.”

Americans are afraid. Not for themselves, but for the country

The&nbsp;US&nbsp;presidential election 2020 was&nbsp;expected to be a dramatic and eventful ride with Republican candidate Donald Trump running for re-election and competing with Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

However, nobody predicted a global pandemic that would upend every facet of the campaign.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-president-donald-trumps-wildest-prediction-till-date-338554" hreflang="en">US election 2020: President Donald Trump's wildest prediction till date</a>

This is the first time in the history of American politics that the early voter count has reached 90 million. As per a tally posted by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, more than 90 million Americans have already cast their ballots and the number is expected to grow as the residents still have two more days to vote.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/more-than-90-million-voters-cast-ballots-two-days-before-us-election-2020-339354" hreflang="en">More than 90 million voters cast ballots two days before US election 2020</a>

Here are 10 pivotal moments from a dizzying election year:

1. Trump acquitted, February&nbsp;5, 2020, At the beginning of the year, things were looking up for the Republican president. Trump's Senate impeachment trial ended with him cleared on two charges brought by Democrats. The fallout from the Mueller Report was no longer hanging over his head. The economy was roaring - and prospects for his re-election looked relatively strong. After years of strife, the moment offered him a chance for a reset. But even as things looked rosier for the president, cases of COVID-19 were beginning to circulate in California and the Pacific Northwest.

2. Biden wins South Carolina primary, February&nbsp;29, 2020, After disappointing finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Joe Biden's presidential bid looked cooked. But his campaign aides asserted that things would turn around as soon as African Americans began voting in large numbers - and they were right. Biden blew the field away in South Carolina, causing several rivals to drop out immediately and setting the stage for a stunning run that sewed up the Democratic nomination in a matter of weeks. Biden would perhaps prove to be the one Democrat best suited to pull moderate voters in the Midwest and elsewhere away from Trump.

3. Trump delivers coronavirus address, March 11, 2020, After weeks of downplaying the coronavirus threat and with cases skyrocketing in the country, Trump delivered a rare national address from the Oval Office in an attempt to reassure a jittery public. Two days later, he would declare a national emergency. The virus would reshape American life, closing schools, businesses, and restaurants, trapping millions at home, and becoming the dominant issue of the 2020 election. It would also keep Trump - and Biden even more so - off the campaign trail for months.

4. Sanders drops out, April 8, 2020, Trailing Biden badly in delegates, and with the coronavirus outbreak paralyzing the nation, Bernie Sanders became the final rival for the Democratic nomination to drop out of the race. He would endorse Biden a few days later, ensuring that the party would not be riven by discord as it was four years earlier when Sanders refused to concede to Hillary Clinton until the party's national convention. Sanders' move allowed Biden to turn his focus squarely to the general election with nearly seven months to go. Biden worked to make Sanders' supporters feel welcome, establishing a series of policy working groups that included progressive voices.

5. Trump's 'bleach' moment, April 23, 2020, With the death toll from the pandemic nearing 50,000, Trump at one of his daily virus briefings spontaneously suggested that injecting disinfectants into the human body could eliminate the virus. Public health experts quickly warned the public that doing so would be toxic, and Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic. The resulting furor was a factor in his deciding, days later, to suspend the briefings entirely, even though opinion polls in April had shown an uptick in public approval of his handling of the crisis.

6. Protesters tear gassed outside the White House, June 1, 2020, Washington was one of several cities convulsed by largely peaceful protests in the wake of the death on May 25 of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. On June 1, Trump gave an address at the White House invoking the "law and order" theme he would employ during the rest of his campaign. US&nbsp;Park Police and National Guard troops, clad in riot gear, then used pepper spray to clear the park outside the White House of protesters so that Trump could walk to historic St. John's Church and pose for a photo holding up a Bible. The melee became an image that would haunt Trump, as polls showed Americans largely supportive of the protests for racial justice. His approval rating soon dropped to a seven-month low.

7. Harris joins Biden's ticket, August&nbsp;11, 2020, Biden tapping Senator Kamala Harris of California, a former rival for the nomination, as his running mate didn't come as a surprise. She had been the favorite all along. But she swiftly proved herself to be everything Biden needed, giving him a practiced and polished campaign partner and energizing the Democratic base. She also brought her own fundraising prowess to bear, with contributions to Biden's campaign reaching stratospheric levels once she was in the fold.

8. Justice Ginsburg dies, September&nbsp;18, 2020, The worst fears of liberals came true as the storied Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg succumbed to cancer less than two months before the November&nbsp;3 election. Trump did not hesitate to fill her Supreme Court slot, nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the court and likely ensuring a conservative majority for years to come. The move gave conservatives a reason to cheer in what had been a challenging year for the president. But it also galvanized Democrats, particularly women, while allowing the Biden campaign's warnings of threats to the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights to be thrown into stark relief.

9. The first Trump-Biden debate, September&nbsp;29, 2020, Needing something to turn his fortunes around, Trump came into his first debate with Biden looking for a fight. But his belligerence worked against him. He repeatedly interrupted Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace, to the point where the entire event veered out of control. He attacked Biden's family. Polls and focus groups conducted afterward showed swing voters were repulsed by his behavior. Trump would later drop out of the second debate after it was switched to a virtual format in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis. He then adopted a more restrained tone for the final face-off with Biden on Oct. 22.

10. Trump gets COVID-19, October&nbsp;2, 2020, After weeks of holding in-person rallies in which safety measures against the spread of the coronavirus were largely ignored, Trump and several aides tested positive for the disease. A short illness and quarantine period kept him off the campaign trail for 10 days. The bigger damage, however, may have been to the president's image. With Trump already faulted by a majority of Americans for his handling of the pandemic, his diagnosis made the White House look bumbling and hypocritical. And it ensured the virus would remain the central issue of the campaign just weeks before Election Day.

The US presidential election 2020 was expected to be a dramatic and eventful ride with Republican candidate Donald Trump running for re-election and competing with Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

The US presidential election 2020 was expected to be a dramatic and eventful ride with Republican candidate Donald Trump running for re-election and competing with Democratic candidate Joe Biden. However, nobody predicted a global pandemic that would upend every facet of the campaign. Also read| US election 2020: President Donald Trump's wildest prediction till date This is the first time in the history of American politics that the early voter count has reached 90 million. As per a tally posted by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, more than 90 million Americans have already cast their ballots and the number is expected to grow as the residents still have two more days to vote. Also read: More than 90 million voters cast ballots two days before US election 2020 Here are 10 pivotal moments from a dizzying election year: 1. Trump acquitted, February 5, 2020, At the beginning of the year, things were looking up for the Republican president. Trump's Senate impeachment trial ended with him cleared on two charges brought by Democrats. The fallout from the Mueller Report was no longer hanging over his head. The economy was roaring - and prospects for his re-election looked relatively strong. After years of strife, the moment offered him a chance for a reset. But even as things looked rosier for the president, cases of COVID-19 were beginning to circulate in California and the Pacific Northwest. 2. Biden wins South Carolina primary, February 29, 2020, After disappointing finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Joe Biden's presidential bid looked cooked. But his campaign aides asserted that things would turn around as soon as African Americans began voting in large numbers - and they were right. Biden blew the field away in South Carolina, causing several rivals to drop out immediately and setting the stage for a stunning run that sewed up the Democratic nomination in a matter of weeks. Biden would perhaps prove to be the one Democrat best suited to pull moderate voters in the Midwest and elsewhere away from Trump. 3. Trump delivers coronavirus address, March 11, 2020, After weeks of downplaying the coronavirus threat and with cases skyrocketing in the country, Trump delivered a rare national address from the Oval Office in an attempt to reassure a jittery public. Two days later, he would declare a national emergency. The virus would reshape American life, closing schools, businesses, and restaurants, trapping millions at home, and becoming the dominant issue of the 2020 election. It would also keep Trump - and Biden even more so - off the campaign trail for months. 4. Sanders drops out, April 8, 2020, Trailing Biden badly in delegates, and with the coronavirus outbreak paralyzing the nation, Bernie Sanders became the final rival for the Democratic nomination to drop out of the race. He would endorse Biden a few days later, ensuring that the party would not be riven by discord as it was four years earlier when Sanders refused to concede to Hillary Clinton until the party's national convention. Sanders' move allowed Biden to turn his focus squarely to the general election with nearly seven months to go. Biden worked to make Sanders' supporters feel welcome, establishing a series of policy working groups that included progressive voices. 5. Trump's 'bleach' moment, April 23, 2020, With the death toll from the pandemic nearing 50,000, Trump at one of his daily virus briefings spontaneously suggested that injecting disinfectants into the human body could eliminate the virus. Public health experts quickly warned the public that doing so would be toxic, and Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic. The resulting furor was a factor in his deciding, days later, to suspend the briefings entirely, even though opinion polls in April had shown an uptick in public approval of his handling of the crisis. 6. Protesters tear gassed outside the White House, June 1, 2020, Washington was one of several cities convulsed by largely peaceful protests in the wake of the death on May 25 of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. On June 1, Trump gave an address at the White House invoking the "law and order" theme he would employ during the rest of his campaign. US Park Police and National Guard troops, clad in riot gear, then used pepper spray to clear the park outside the White House of protesters so that Trump could walk to historic St. John's Church and pose for a photo holding up a Bible. The melee became an image that would haunt Trump, as polls showed Americans largely supportive of the protests for racial justice. His approval rating soon dropped to a seven-month low. 7. Harris joins Biden's ticket, August 11, 2020, Biden tapping Senator Kamala Harris of California, a former rival for the nomination, as his running mate didn't come as a surprise. She had been the favorite all along. But she swiftly proved herself to be everything Biden needed, giving him a practiced and polished campaign partner and energizing the Democratic base. She also brought her own fundraising prowess to bear, with contributions to Biden's campaign reaching stratospheric levels once she was in the fold. 8. Justice Ginsburg dies, September 18, 2020, The worst fears of liberals came true as the storied Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg succumbed to cancer less than two months before the November 3 election. Trump did not hesitate to fill her Supreme Court slot, nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the court and likely ensuring a conservative majority for years to come. The move gave conservatives a reason to cheer in what had been a challenging year for the president. But it also galvanized Democrats, particularly women, while allowing the Biden campaign's warnings of threats to the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights to be thrown into stark relief. 9. The first Trump-Biden debate, September 29, 2020, Needing something to turn his fortunes around, Trump came into his first debate with Biden looking for a fight. But his belligerence worked against him. He repeatedly interrupted Biden and the moderator, Chris Wallace, to the point where the entire event veered out of control. He attacked Biden's family. Polls and focus groups conducted afterward showed swing voters were repulsed by his behavior. Trump would later drop out of the second debate after it was switched to a virtual format in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis. He then adopted a more restrained tone for the final face-off with Biden on Oct. 22. 10. Trump gets COVID-19, October 2, 2020, After weeks of holding in-person rallies in which safety measures against the spread of the coronavirus were largely ignored, Trump and several aides tested positive for the disease. A short illness and quarantine period kept him off the campaign trail for 10 days. The bigger damage, however, may have been to the president's image. With Trump already faulted by a majority of Americans for his handling of the pandemic, his diagnosis made the White House look bumbling and hypocritical. And it ensured the virus would remain the central issue of the campaign just weeks before Election Day.

US election 2020: Top 10 pivotal moments of the presidential campaign

With Donald Trump running for re-election, the 2020 U.S. presidential election was always expected to be a dramatic and eventful ride. But nobody predicted a global pandemic that would upend every facet of the campaign. Here are 10 pivotal moments from a dizzying election year.

Ten moments that defined the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested early on Monday that he might seek to fire a highly respected member of his coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, after Fauci further criticized Trump's handling of the virus.

Fauci, the country's leading infectious-disease expert who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has taken issue with Trump's repeated assertions that the U.S. fight against the virus was "rounding the turn" when in fact tens of thousands of people are being infected daily.

“We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation," Fauci told The Washington Post on Friday. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."

When Trump defended his handling of the virus at a late-night campaign rally at Opa-Locka airport in the Miami area, a "Fire Fauci" chant broke out.

In response to the chant, Trump said: "Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election."

Election Day is on Tuesday, with Trump trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls.

Fauci is one of the most popular health experts in the United States, a fact that Trump has cited in the past to avoid getting into tangles with him.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested early on Monday that he might seek to fire a highly respected member of his coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, after Fauci further criticized Trump's handling of the virus.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested early on Monday that he might seek to fire a highly respected member of his coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, after Fauci further criticized Trump's handling of the virus. Fauci, the country's leading infectious-disease expert who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has taken issue with Trump's repeated assertions that the U.S. fight against the virus was "rounding the turn" when in fact tens of thousands of people are being infected daily. “We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation," Fauci told The Washington Post on Friday. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly." When Trump defended his handling of the virus at a late-night campaign rally at Opa-Locka airport in the Miami area, a "Fire Fauci" chant broke out. In response to the chant, Trump said: "Don't tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election." Election Day is on Tuesday, with Trump trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls. Fauci is one of the most popular health experts in the United States, a fact that Trump has cited in the past to avoid getting into tangles with him.

Trump suggests he might try to fire Fauci post-election

If the 2016 election pitted feminism against machismo, this one asks voters to consider what masculinity means.

President Donald Trump, in his personality and policies, has presented himself as hypermasculine: tough, plain-spoken, the patriarch who is unafraid to offend and unapologetic when he does. Joe Biden has emphasized family, empathy and caring for others — the loving, supportive and protective father.

Despite trailing in polls nationally by an average of around 9 percentage points, Trump has continued to lead Biden with male voters. Now, in the final days of the campaign, both sides are trying to appeal to voters’ sense of what a man should be.

Last week, a male conservative pundit posted a photograph on Twitter of Biden embracing his son Hunter, and asked, “Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you?” A female conservative media figure taunted Biden for wearing a mask, saying he should carry a purse with it. The message was clear: To show vulnerability isn’t masculine.

Biden’s campaign suggests that not only can men express love for their family members, admit when they’re wrong and tear up in public — but that it’s also manly to do so.

“There are a lot of Biden tropes that link up with masculinity — protecting, serving, sacrificing, being the rock that the family can depend on,” said Matthew Gutmann, author of “Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short,” and an anthropologist at Brown who has studied masculinity around the world.

As for Trump, Gutmann said: “I think the misogyny is front and center and absolutely essential to his total persona, his total appeal. And not just to men. A lot of women think that’s the way guys should be. They’re not just begrudgingly voting for Trump, but saying, ‘He’s a real man.’”

During the first debate, when Trump criticized Hunter, Biden responded with emotion: “My son had a drug problem. He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.” In recent days, male Biden supporters flooded social media with their own photos of hugging their fathers or sons.

The Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans, released a new ad titled “Men,” narrated by Sam Elliott, the quintessential Hollywood cowboy. It shows fathers and sons changing a tire, throwing a football and embracing.

“Our dads weren’t perfect, but they did their best to raise us to be good, to be honorable, to be men of family and faith,” it says. “But above all, they taught us to own up to it when we did something wrong.”

Implying that one of those wrong things was voting for Trump last time, the ad concludes: “It’s time to own up, to be the men our dads raised us to be and the fathers our sons need us to be. It’s our turn to set the example.”

Honor and family are values that voters in either party would support. But the goal is to convince male voters that Biden is the candidate who most embodies the men they want themselves and their sons to be, said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project: “We’re asking these people, ‘Are you going to defy your own upbringing, the things you know you should do? And if you choose not to, are you willing to watch your child’s behavior be modeled on Donald Trump versus what your dad taught you?’”

Though Trump’s version of masculinity appeals to a large segment of voters, both male and female, it has also repelled many of the white women who once supported him. This election has a large gender gap among voters, with women supporting Biden by 23 points, and just over half of white women supporting him, according to a national poll this month by The New York Times and Siena College. Biden may also have gained more college-educated men.

Now, Wilson said, they are making their case to less educated men, who were instrumental in Trump’s 2016 victory: “It’s a harder set of targets, but it’s more rewarding if we’re able to drop off even 2 or 3% of the men who voted for him.”

Sixty-seven percent of white men without college degrees support Trump, according to the Times/Siena poll. Also, a small but potentially significant number of Black and Latino men have shifted their support from the Democratic Party to Trump, in part because of the president’s macho appeal, analysts say.

Trump’s approach can be seen as a throwback to a time when men’s main role was to provide for and lead their family, researchers said. Trump’s children briefly greeted him in his office before and after school, recalls his first wife, Ivana, in her book “Raising Trump.” Today, he relies on his children professionally — both in business and politics — and publicly praises them, but is rarely seen showing them affection.

Biden has been fully hands-on with his children, and was their primary caregiver long before that became less of a rarity. He became a single father early in his career after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash, and he helped care for his son Beau while he had cancer (he died of it in 2015).

“He’s lived that experience of ‘What will I do? I have to go to a meeting, and where will my kids be?’” said Cynthia Hogan, who served as Biden’s counsel starting in 1991 when he was a senator and again when he became vice president in 2009. “At that time — and I think even today — a lot of men really weren’t doing that.”

The two political parties in the United States have long differed along stereotypically gendered lines, as have voters, according to research by Monika McDermott, a political scientist at Fordham.

“The Democrats are the more feminine party: They’re willing to tax more and have bigger government because they’re willing to care for people,” she said. “Republicans are more about rugged individualism, being independent and fending for yourself.”

For the current candidates, their views of manhood are reflected in their policies and politics.

Trump prioritizes strength and patriarchy. “Don’t let it dominate your lives,” he said of the coronavirus, for which he was hospitalized. His foreign policy is called “America First.” He disparages or fires political enemies. At a rally this week, he told voters he wants to get “husbands back to work.” Though Trump has spoken of the need for family policies, he has delegated them to his daughter Ivanka, and very little has been done.

Biden has made caregiving a big part of his economic proposals, with a $775 billion plan to help young children, older adults and people with disabilities, and to increase pay for caregivers. He has drawn upon the grief he’s experienced to comfort families touched by the coronavirus. And he has promised to try to build consensus and share power — starting with his choice of a woman as his running mate, Kamala Harris.

“The gender norms around caregiving are changing,” said Ai-jen Poo, senior adviser for Care in Action, a nonprofit, and an expert on the care economy. “I think representation matters, and it’s not just in terms of race and ethnicity, it’s also in terms of experience. People want to see somebody who understands the kind of caregiving struggles they’ve been through.”

Still, as much as gender roles are evolving, the candidates that voters are choosing between are both straight white men in their 70s, and versions of traditional men and fathers. No matter the outcome, it will be at least four more years before America is asked to consider any version of a leader that breaks that mold.

If the 2016 election pitted feminism against machismo, this one asks voters to consider what masculinity means. President Donald Trump, in his personality and policies, has presented himself as hypermasculine: tough, plain-spoken, the patriarch who is unafraid to offend and unapologetic when he does.

If the 2016 election pitted feminism against machismo, this one asks voters to consider what masculinity means. President Donald Trump, in his personality and policies, has presented himself as hypermasculine: tough, plain-spoken, the patriarch who is unafraid to offend and unapologetic when he does. Joe Biden has emphasized family, empathy and caring for others — the loving, supportive and protective father. Despite trailing in polls nationally by an average of around 9 percentage points, Trump has continued to lead Biden with male voters. Now, in the final days of the campaign, both sides are trying to appeal to voters’ sense of what a man should be. Last week, a male conservative pundit posted a photograph on Twitter of Biden embracing his son Hunter, and asked, “Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you?” A female conservative media figure taunted Biden for wearing a mask, saying he should carry a purse with it. The message was clear: To show vulnerability isn’t masculine. Biden’s campaign suggests that not only can men express love for their family members, admit when they’re wrong and tear up in public — but that it’s also manly to do so. “There are a lot of Biden tropes that link up with masculinity — protecting, serving, sacrificing, being the rock that the family can depend on,” said Matthew Gutmann, author of “Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short,” and an anthropologist at Brown who has studied masculinity around the world. As for Trump, Gutmann said: “I think the misogyny is front and center and absolutely essential to his total persona, his total appeal. And not just to men. A lot of women think that’s the way guys should be. They’re not just begrudgingly voting for Trump, but saying, ‘He’s a real man.’” During the first debate, when Trump criticized Hunter, Biden responded with emotion: “My son had a drug problem. He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.” In recent days, male Biden supporters flooded social media with their own photos of hugging their fathers or sons. The Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans, released a new ad titled “Men,” narrated by Sam Elliott, the quintessential Hollywood cowboy. It shows fathers and sons changing a tire, throwing a football and embracing. “Our dads weren’t perfect, but they did their best to raise us to be good, to be honorable, to be men of family and faith,” it says. “But above all, they taught us to own up to it when we did something wrong.” Implying that one of those wrong things was voting for Trump last time, the ad concludes: “It’s time to own up, to be the men our dads raised us to be and the fathers our sons need us to be. It’s our turn to set the example.” Honor and family are values that voters in either party would support. But the goal is to convince male voters that Biden is the candidate who most embodies the men they want themselves and their sons to be, said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project: “We’re asking these people, ‘Are you going to defy your own upbringing, the things you know you should do? And if you choose not to, are you willing to watch your child’s behavior be modeled on Donald Trump versus what your dad taught you?’” Though Trump’s version of masculinity appeals to a large segment of voters, both male and female, it has also repelled many of the white women who once supported him. This election has a large gender gap among voters, with women supporting Biden by 23 points, and just over half of white women supporting him, according to a national poll this month by The New York Times and Siena College. Biden may also have gained more college-educated men. Now, Wilson said, they are making their case to less educated men, who were instrumental in Trump’s 2016 victory: “It’s a harder set of targets, but it’s more rewarding if we’re able to drop off even 2 or 3% of the men who voted for him.” Sixty-seven percent of white men without college degrees support Trump, according to the Times/Siena poll. Also, a small but potentially significant number of Black and Latino men have shifted their support from the Democratic Party to Trump, in part because of the president’s macho appeal, analysts say. Trump’s approach can be seen as a throwback to a time when men’s main role was to provide for and lead their family, researchers said. Trump’s children briefly greeted him in his office before and after school, recalls his first wife, Ivana, in her book “Raising Trump.” Today, he relies on his children professionally — both in business and politics — and publicly praises them, but is rarely seen showing them affection. Biden has been fully hands-on with his children, and was their primary caregiver long before that became less of a rarity. He became a single father early in his career after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash, and he helped care for his son Beau while he had cancer (he died of it in 2015). “He’s lived that experience of ‘What will I do? I have to go to a meeting, and where will my kids be?’” said Cynthia Hogan, who served as Biden’s counsel starting in 1991 when he was a senator and again when he became vice president in 2009. “At that time — and I think even today — a lot of men really weren’t doing that.” The two political parties in the United States have long differed along stereotypically gendered lines, as have voters, according to research by Monika McDermott, a political scientist at Fordham. “The Democrats are the more feminine party: They’re willing to tax more and have bigger government because they’re willing to care for people,” she said. “Republicans are more about rugged individualism, being independent and fending for yourself.” For the current candidates, their views of manhood are reflected in their policies and politics. Trump prioritizes strength and patriarchy. “Don’t let it dominate your lives,” he said of the coronavirus, for which he was hospitalized. His foreign policy is called “America First.” He disparages or fires political enemies. At a rally this week, he told voters he wants to get “husbands back to work.” Though Trump has spoken of the need for family policies, he has delegated them to his daughter Ivanka, and very little has been done. Biden has made caregiving a big part of his economic proposals, with a $775 billion plan to help young children, older adults and people with disabilities, and to increase pay for caregivers. He has drawn upon the grief he’s experienced to comfort families touched by the coronavirus. And he has promised to try to build consensus and share power — starting with his choice of a woman as his running mate, Kamala Harris. “The gender norms around caregiving are changing,” said Ai-jen Poo, senior adviser for Care in Action, a nonprofit, and an expert on the care economy. “I think representation matters, and it’s not just in terms of race and ethnicity, it’s also in terms of experience. People want to see somebody who understands the kind of caregiving struggles they’ve been through.” Still, as much as gender roles are evolving, the candidates that voters are choosing between are both straight white men in their 70s, and versions of traditional men and fathers. No matter the outcome, it will be at least four more years before America is asked to consider any version of a leader that breaks that mold.

What makes a man manly? Trump and Biden offer competing answers

When the coronavirus first erupted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the spring, Mayor Paul TenHaken arrived at work each morning with a clear mission: Stop the outbreak at the pork plant. Hundreds of employees, chopping meat shoulder to shoulder, had gotten sick in what was then the largest U.S. virus cluster.

That outbreak was extinguished months ago, and these days, when he heads into City Hall, the situation is far more nebulous. The virus has spread all over town.

“You can swing a cat and hit someone who has got it,” said TenHaken, who had to reschedule his own meetings to Zoom this past week after his assistant tested positive for the virus.

As the coronavirus soars across the country, charting a single-day record of 99,155 new cases on Friday and surpassing 9 million cases nationwide, tracing the path of the pandemic in the United States is no longer simply challenging. It has become nearly impossible.

Gone are the days when Americans could easily understand the virus by tracking rising case numbers back to discrete sources — the crowded factory, the troubled nursing home, the rowdy bar. Now, there are so many cases, in so many places, that many people are coming to a frightening conclusion: They have no idea where the virus is spreading.

“It’s just kind of everywhere,” said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who estimated that tracing coronavirus cases becomes difficult once the virus spreads to more than 10 cases per 100,000 people.

In some of the hardest-hit spots in the United States, the virus is spreading at 10 to 20 times that rate, and even health officials have all but given up trying to figure out who is giving the virus to whom.

There have been periods earlier in the pandemic when infections spread beyond large, well-understood clusters in prisons, business meetings and dinner parties, tearing through communities in ways that were nearly impossible to keep track of. But for the most part, that experience was isolated to hard-hit places like New York City in the spring and portions of the Sun Belt in the summer.

This time, the diffuse, chaotic spread is happening in many places at once. Infections are rising in 41 states, the country is recording an average of more than 79,000 new cases each day, and more Americans say they feel left to do their own lonely detective work.

“I was so careful,” said Denny Taylor, 45, who said he had taken exacting precautions — wearing a mask, getting groceries delivered — before he became the first in his family and among his co-workers to test positive for the virus.

Lying in a hospital bed in Omaha, Nebraska, this past week, he said he still had no idea where he caught it.

Uncovering the path of transmission from person to person, known as contact tracing, is seen as a key tool for containing the spread of the coronavirus. Within a day or two of testing positive, residents in many communities can expect to get a phone call from a trained contact tracer, who conducts a detailed interview before beginning the painstaking process of tracking down each new person who may have been exposed.

“We were pretty successful, and we were very proud of how the case numbers went down,” said Dr. Sehyo Yune, who supervised a team of contact tracers in Massachusetts this spring.

It was one of several strategies that helped tamp down earlier outbreaks in places like Massachusetts, New York and Washington, D.C.

But as cases skyrocket again in many states, many health officials have conceded that interviewing patients and dutifully calling each contact will not be enough to slow the outbreak.

“Contact tracing is not going to save us,” said Dr. Ogechika Alozie, chief medical officer at Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, where hospitalizations in the county have soared by more than 400% and officials issued a new order for residents to stay at home.

The problem, of course, is that failing to fully track the virus makes it much harder to get a sense of where the virus is flourishing and how to get ahead of new outbreaks. But once an area spins out of control, trying to trace back each chain of transmission can feel like scooping cupfuls of water from a flood.

In some places, overwhelmed health officials have abandoned any pretense of keeping up.

In North Dakota, state officials announced they could no longer have one-on-one conversations with everyone who may have been exposed. Aside from situations involving schools and health care facilities, people who test positive were advised to notify their own contacts, leaving residents largely on their own to follow the trail of the outbreak.

In Philadelphia, where cases recently spiked to more than 300 per day, city officials acknowledged that they now must leave some cases untracked. Most people, they said, are catching the virus through family and friends.

“We weren’t supposed to get to this point,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, who said the process of tracking cases and notifying people who may have been exposed is a gold standard of disease prevention but impractical after a certain level of infection.

“If you have five clusters going on at the same time,” he said, “it’s hard to say where it came from.”

When a first major outbreak hit Grand Forks, North Dakota, in April, the problem was clear: More than 150 employees of a wind turbine blade factory were infected. The factory shut its doors for several weeks, and public health officials tested and contact traced each case.

For the rest of the summer, Grand Forks, a college town of 56,000 on the border with Minnesota, saw almost no new infections. An uptick in August was quickly tied to students at the University of North Dakota and largely contained.

Now, though, any sense of control has vanished. Active cases of COVID-19 have quadrupled since the beginning of October to 912 in Grand Forks County, and about half the people contacted by the health department say they are not sure how they became infected.

“People are realizing that you can get it anywhere,” said Kailee Leingang, a 21-year-old nursing student who also works for the state as a contact tracer in Grand Forks.

Even Leingang has fallen ill, along with several of her colleagues. She traces her case to her parents, who first started showing symptoms. Beyond that, the trail goes cold.

“They have no idea,” she said of where her parents came in contact with the virus.

Leingang, isolating at her home with her cat, feels sicker by the day. Dishes have piled up in the sink — she is too weak to stand long enough to wash them. But she is still working, calling at least 50 people a day to notify them that their tests came back positive, although her job is no longer to track who else they may have infected.

“With the high number of cases right now,” she said, “our team can’t afford to have somebody not work.”

In earlier, quieter periods of the pandemic, the virus spread with some degree of certainty. In all but the hardest-hit cities, people could ask a common question — “Where did you get it?” — and often find tangible answers.

A popular college bar in East Lansing, Michigan, Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub, became a hot spot this summer after dozens of people piled into the bar, drinking and dancing in close quarters. At least 192 people — 146 people at the bar and 46 people with ties to those at the bar — were infected. Afterward, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down indoor dining in bars in parts of the state.

In Ingham County, which includes much of East Lansing, it is far harder to tell where the virus is spreading now. Of the county’s 4,700 reported cases over the course of the pandemic, more than 2,700 have come since the beginning of September.

Much of the new spread may be tied to students at Michigan State University, where students are living off campus and taking classes online. But every day, employers and residents call the Health Department to report random cases that defy easy explanation.

“It’s just a hodgepodge,” said Linda Vail, the Ingham County health officer.

Heidi Stevens is among the newly infected who considers her case a mystery. As a columnist at The Chicago Tribune, Stevens works from home. Her children attend school online. She wears a mask when she goes for a run, and she has not had a haircut since January.

So when she got a precautionary test a few weeks ago, with the hopes of inviting friends over to have cake for her daughter’s 15th birthday, Stevens was shocked to learn she was positive.

“I would drive myself crazy if I tried to really nail it down,” said Stevens, 46, who was hospitalized for three days and still wakes up with headaches.

Did she pick up an infected apple at the grocery store and somehow touch her eye? Should she have been wearing a face shield, in addition to her mask? The possibilities feel endless.

“It’s just out there,” she said.

When the coronavirus first erupted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the spring, Mayor Paul TenHaken arrived at work each morning with a clear mission: Stop the outbreak at the pork plant.

When the coronavirus first erupted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the spring, Mayor Paul TenHaken arrived at work each morning with a clear mission: Stop the outbreak at the pork plant. Hundreds of employees, chopping meat shoulder to shoulder, had gotten sick in what was then the largest U.S. virus cluster. That outbreak was extinguished months ago, and these days, when he heads into City Hall, the situation is far more nebulous. The virus has spread all over town. “You can swing a cat and hit someone who has got it,” said TenHaken, who had to reschedule his own meetings to Zoom this past week after his assistant tested positive for the virus. As the coronavirus soars across the country, charting a single-day record of 99,155 new cases on Friday and surpassing 9 million cases nationwide, tracing the path of the pandemic in the United States is no longer simply challenging. It has become nearly impossible. Gone are the days when Americans could easily understand the virus by tracking rising case numbers back to discrete sources — the crowded factory, the troubled nursing home, the rowdy bar. Now, there are so many cases, in so many places, that many people are coming to a frightening conclusion: They have no idea where the virus is spreading. “It’s just kind of everywhere,” said Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who estimated that tracing coronavirus cases becomes difficult once the virus spreads to more than 10 cases per 100,000 people. In some of the hardest-hit spots in the United States, the virus is spreading at 10 to 20 times that rate, and even health officials have all but given up trying to figure out who is giving the virus to whom. There have been periods earlier in the pandemic when infections spread beyond large, well-understood clusters in prisons, business meetings and dinner parties, tearing through communities in ways that were nearly impossible to keep track of. But for the most part, that experience was isolated to hard-hit places like New York City in the spring and portions of the Sun Belt in the summer. This time, the diffuse, chaotic spread is happening in many places at once. Infections are rising in 41 states, the country is recording an average of more than 79,000 new cases each day, and more Americans say they feel left to do their own lonely detective work. “I was so careful,” said Denny Taylor, 45, who said he had taken exacting precautions — wearing a mask, getting groceries delivered — before he became the first in his family and among his co-workers to test positive for the virus. Lying in a hospital bed in Omaha, Nebraska, this past week, he said he still had no idea where he caught it. Uncovering the path of transmission from person to person, known as contact tracing, is seen as a key tool for containing the spread of the coronavirus. Within a day or two of testing positive, residents in many communities can expect to get a phone call from a trained contact tracer, who conducts a detailed interview before beginning the painstaking process of tracking down each new person who may have been exposed. “We were pretty successful, and we were very proud of how the case numbers went down,” said Dr. Sehyo Yune, who supervised a team of contact tracers in Massachusetts this spring. It was one of several strategies that helped tamp down earlier outbreaks in places like Massachusetts, New York and Washington, D.C. But as cases skyrocket again in many states, many health officials have conceded that interviewing patients and dutifully calling each contact will not be enough to slow the outbreak. “Contact tracing is not going to save us,” said Dr. Ogechika Alozie, chief medical officer at Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, where hospitalizations in the county have soared by more than 400% and officials issued a new order for residents to stay at home. The problem, of course, is that failing to fully track the virus makes it much harder to get a sense of where the virus is flourishing and how to get ahead of new outbreaks. But once an area spins out of control, trying to trace back each chain of transmission can feel like scooping cupfuls of water from a flood. In some places, overwhelmed health officials have abandoned any pretense of keeping up. In North Dakota, state officials announced they could no longer have one-on-one conversations with everyone who may have been exposed. Aside from situations involving schools and health care facilities, people who test positive were advised to notify their own contacts, leaving residents largely on their own to follow the trail of the outbreak. In Philadelphia, where cases recently spiked to more than 300 per day, city officials acknowledged that they now must leave some cases untracked. Most people, they said, are catching the virus through family and friends. “We weren’t supposed to get to this point,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, who said the process of tracking cases and notifying people who may have been exposed is a gold standard of disease prevention but impractical after a certain level of infection. “If you have five clusters going on at the same time,” he said, “it’s hard to say where it came from.” When a first major outbreak hit Grand Forks, North Dakota, in April, the problem was clear: More than 150 employees of a wind turbine blade factory were infected. The factory shut its doors for several weeks, and public health officials tested and contact traced each case. For the rest of the summer, Grand Forks, a college town of 56,000 on the border with Minnesota, saw almost no new infections. An uptick in August was quickly tied to students at the University of North Dakota and largely contained. Now, though, any sense of control has vanished. Active cases of COVID-19 have quadrupled since the beginning of October to 912 in Grand Forks County, and about half the people contacted by the health department say they are not sure how they became infected. “People are realizing that you can get it anywhere,” said Kailee Leingang, a 21-year-old nursing student who also works for the state as a contact tracer in Grand Forks. Even Leingang has fallen ill, along with several of her colleagues. She traces her case to her parents, who first started showing symptoms. Beyond that, the trail goes cold. “They have no idea,” she said of where her parents came in contact with the virus. Leingang, isolating at her home with her cat, feels sicker by the day. Dishes have piled up in the sink — she is too weak to stand long enough to wash them. But she is still working, calling at least 50 people a day to notify them that their tests came back positive, although her job is no longer to track who else they may have infected. “With the high number of cases right now,” she said, “our team can’t afford to have somebody not work.” In earlier, quieter periods of the pandemic, the virus spread with some degree of certainty. In all but the hardest-hit cities, people could ask a common question — “Where did you get it?” — and often find tangible answers. A popular college bar in East Lansing, Michigan, Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub, became a hot spot this summer after dozens of people piled into the bar, drinking and dancing in close quarters. At least 192 people — 146 people at the bar and 46 people with ties to those at the bar — were infected. Afterward, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down indoor dining in bars in parts of the state. In Ingham County, which includes much of East Lansing, it is far harder to tell where the virus is spreading now. Of the county’s 4,700 reported cases over the course of the pandemic, more than 2,700 have come since the beginning of September. Much of the new spread may be tied to students at Michigan State University, where students are living off campus and taking classes online. But every day, employers and residents call the Health Department to report random cases that defy easy explanation. “It’s just a hodgepodge,” said Linda Vail, the Ingham County health officer. Heidi Stevens is among the newly infected who considers her case a mystery. As a columnist at The Chicago Tribune, Stevens works from home. Her children attend school online. She wears a mask when she goes for a run, and she has not had a haircut since January. So when she got a precautionary test a few weeks ago, with the hopes of inviting friends over to have cake for her daughter’s 15th birthday, Stevens was shocked to learn she was positive. “I would drive myself crazy if I tried to really nail it down,” said Stevens, 46, who was hospitalized for three days and still wakes up with headaches. Did she pick up an infected apple at the grocery store and somehow touch her eye? Should she have been wearing a face shield, in addition to her mask? The possibilities feel endless. “It’s just out there,” she said.

How are Americans catching the virus? Increasingly, ‘they have no idea’

He was attempting to land Democrat Joe Biden an electoral slam dunk, but former president Barack Obama nailed a 3-pointer instead. Literally.

On the campaign trail Saturday at a high school gym in Flint, Michigan, Obama, who is known for his skill on the court, was passed a basketball as he left the room.

The ex-president dribbled, then sank the 3-pointer from the corner before casually resuming his exit and telling the campaign entourage confidently that "that's what I do."

Video of the shot -- posted to Twitter by both Obama and Biden's traveling digital director Olivia Raisner -- quickly went viral, gaining hundreds of thousands of likes and praise from none other than LeBron James, recently named Most Valuable Player of the 2020 NBA Finals.

"Now you just showing out now my friend!!" James tweeted. "That's what you do huh?? Ok ok I see. All cash!"

Biden, who was Obama's vice president, made his first joint appearance of the campaign with his former boss in Flint, scrambling to boost turnout ahead of Tuesday's election against Republican incumbent President Donald Trump who is trailing in the polls.

Shooting hoops on election day is a tradition for Obama, even when his name is not on the ballot.

The habit is reportedly part superstition for the ex-president who skipped the court during voting in the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2008 and lost the race to then-senator Hillary Clinton.

He was attempting to land Democrat Joe Biden an electoral slam dunk, but former president Barack Obama nailed a 3-pointer instead. Literally. On the campaign trail Saturday at a high school gym in Flint, Michigan, Obama, who is known for his skill on the court, was passed a basketball as he left the room.

He was attempting to land Democrat Joe Biden an electoral slam dunk, but former president Barack Obama nailed a 3-pointer instead. Literally. On the campaign trail Saturday at a high school gym in Flint, Michigan, Obama, who is known for his skill on the court, was passed a basketball as he left the room. The ex-president dribbled, then sank the 3-pointer from the corner before casually resuming his exit and telling the campaign entourage confidently that "that's what I do." Video of the shot -- posted to Twitter by both Obama and Biden's traveling digital director Olivia Raisner -- quickly went viral, gaining hundreds of thousands of likes and praise from none other than LeBron James, recently named Most Valuable Player of the 2020 NBA Finals. "Now you just showing out now my friend!!" James tweeted. "That's what you do huh?? Ok ok I see. All cash!" Biden, who was Obama's vice president, made his first joint appearance of the campaign with his former boss in Flint, scrambling to boost turnout ahead of Tuesday's election against Republican incumbent President Donald Trump who is trailing in the polls. Shooting hoops on election day is a tradition for Obama, even when his name is not on the ballot. The habit is reportedly part superstition for the ex-president who skipped the court during voting in the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2008 and lost the race to then-senator Hillary Clinton.

'That's what I do': Obama casually sinks 3-pointer on campaign trail

Support for the Democrat candidate and former Vice President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;is growing in every part of the world, and&nbsp;the Republican candidate and current President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;is taking a hit a few days before the upcoming&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/us-election">US election</a>.

In such a move to show support for Joe Biden, a Palestinian shoemaker is stamping Donald Trump's name in Arabic calligraphy on the footwear&nbsp;he produces and sells as an insult to the US President.&nbsp;The shoemaker is now quite popular among his Palestinian-American customers since he started making shoes with Trump's name on it.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-announces-executive-order-to-protect-fracking-at-us-election-rally-339339">Donald Trump announces executive order to protect fracking at US election rally</a>

He says the footwear a person wears is one of the most important things in one's apparel and attracts a lot of eyes and speaks volumed about the person. "When you observe body language, the lowest thing is the shoe. So the best thing to do is to put... Trump on the shoes of Palestinians,"&nbsp;said the 57-year-old Imad Haj-Muhammad.

"Shoes touch the ground, dust and dirt. So if we write someone's name on them and that also gets dirty, then it shows... how you value that person," he continued.

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Watch | Palestinian shoemaker's unique protest against US President in which he has written <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Trump</a>'s name on the shoes 
 
In Arab culture, writing a person's name on a shoe is considered as a demeaning gesture 
 
Priyanka Sharma (<a href="https://twitter.com/PriyankaSh25?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PriyankaSh25</a>) with the latest updates <a href="https://t.co/sDurSWkZAU">pic.twitter.com/sDurSWkZAU</a>
— WION (@WIONews) <a href="https://twitter.com/WIONews/status/1322763349130502144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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He says he put Trump's name on the shoes because he "assaulted our people" and "sold Jerusalem to Israel". The Palestinian man wants an apology from the President, his American customers or the win of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden&nbsp;to remove Trump's name from the shoes. "The apology is for my people because the insult was against my people... and my Islamic nation," he said.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318" hreflang="en">On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a>

Haj-Muhammad also has a sign outside his shop asking the American and French citizens to apologise for the statements and actions made by their leaders, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, before entering the shop. While his anger towards Macron will not go away easily, he claims he is ready to remove the American poster if Joe Biden wins the election and reverses Trump's decisions.

"I will not remove the demand for an apology from the Americans unless America's decisions (to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital) is cancelled," he said. "If Biden rescinds the decision, I will remove the sign and I will be happy."

The shoes with Trump's names are available in his shop for $50 (200 shekels) and are made from pure and genuine leather inside and outside, which he claims is "more genuine than him (Trump)."

Support for the Democrat candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is growing in every part of the world, and the Republican candidate and current President Donald Trump is taking a hit a few days before the upcoming US election.

Support for the Democrat candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is growing in every part of the world, and the Republican candidate and current President Donald Trump is taking a hit a few days before the upcoming US election. In such a move to show support for Joe Biden, a Palestinian shoemaker is stamping Donald Trump's name in Arabic calligraphy on the footwear he produces and sells as an insult to the US President. The shoemaker is now quite popular among his Palestinian-American customers since he started making shoes with Trump's name on it. Also read| Donald Trump announces executive order to protect fracking at US election rally He says the footwear a person wears is one of the most important things in one's apparel and attracts a lot of eyes and speaks volumed about the person. "When you observe body language, the lowest thing is the shoe. So the best thing to do is to put... Trump on the shoes of Palestinians," said the 57-year-old Imad Haj-Muhammad. "Shoes touch the ground, dust and dirt. So if we write someone's name on them and that also gets dirty, then it shows... how you value that person," he continued. Watch | Palestinian shoemaker's unique protest against US President in which he has written #Trump's name on the shoes In Arab culture, writing a person's name on a shoe is considered as a demeaning gesture Priyanka Sharma (@PriyankaSh25) with the latest updates pic.twitter.com/sDurSWkZAU — WION (@WIONews) November 1, 2020 × He says he put Trump's name on the shoes because he "assaulted our people" and "sold Jerusalem to Israel". The Palestinian man wants an apology from the President, his American customers or the win of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden to remove Trump's name from the shoes. "The apology is for my people because the insult was against my people... and my Islamic nation," he said. Also read| On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments Haj-Muhammad also has a sign outside his shop asking the American and French citizens to apologise for the statements and actions made by their leaders, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, before entering the shop. While his anger towards Macron will not go away easily, he claims he is ready to remove the American poster if Joe Biden wins the election and reverses Trump's decisions. "I will not remove the demand for an apology from the Americans unless America's decisions (to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital) is cancelled," he said. "If Biden rescinds the decision, I will remove the sign and I will be happy." The shoes with Trump's names are available in his shop for $50 (200 shekels) and are made from pure and genuine leather inside and outside, which he claims is "more genuine than him (Trump)."

Days before US election 2020, shoes with Donald Trump's name appears in Palestine

US First Lady Melania Trump made her campaign appearance for President Donald Trump on Saturday in the battleground of Wisconsin, where she urged voters to let her husband return to the White house.

US Election 2020: First lady campaigns for Trump in battleground Wisconsin

Two days before Election Day, President Donald Trump on Sunday launched a campaign sprint across battleground states starting with Michigan that will be crucial to the outcome of the U.S. election in an effort to defy the polls and fend off Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

US Election 2020 could see record-high turnout

They may have differing opinions about whether Donald Trump deserves a second term in the White House but residents of this suburb of Detroit say they won't let politics divide the community.

US Election 2020: Nextdoor neighbours in Michigan have politics that are worlds apart

Less than three days are left for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/us-election">US election</a>,&nbsp;and the two leaders are campaigning in the last few key states urging people to vote early. The Americans are, this year, listening to their leaders —&nbsp;the current Republican candidate and President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;and his Democrat rival and former Vice President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;— are rushing to cast their ballots.

This is the first time in the history of American politics that the early voter count has reached 90 million. As per a tally posted by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, more than 90 million Americans have already cast their ballots and the number is expected to grow as the residents still have two more days to vote.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318">On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a>

The record-breaking number is about 65 per cent of the 2016 total turnout in which Donald Trump contested against Hillary Clinton. The new turnout shows the new interest of the Americans in the leadership of the country. it is also being understood as a cry for help by the Americans who are rushing to elect their choice of candidate to make sure their demands and ideologies are met.

This turnout can also be a direct result of the recent controversies such as the election of the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=006054055338965708568:09spwrlibei&amp;q=https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trumps-pick-amy-coney-barrett-sworn-in-as-supreme-court-justice-at-white-house-338166&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj9pYzax-DsAhXm7XMBHaTFBNMQFjAEegQIBhAC&amp;usg=AOvVaw25zQB5YD8TfbXViETR4UeX">Amy Coney Barrett</a> and social movements such as Black lives Matter that have divided the people of the United States, and the crisis of coronavirus pandemic which has taken several lives.

Experts are predicting that the total voter count can surpass 138 million with the&nbsp;2016 elections as a comparison model — a total of 47 million voters had cast their ballot four days before the elections in 2016.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-announces-executive-order-to-protect-fracking-at-us-election-rally-339339">Donald Trump announces executive order to protect fracking at US election rally</a>

The party registration data shows that in 20 states&nbsp;19.9 million registered Democrats have cast their vote, while only 13 million Republicans have chosen their leader till now. Nearly&nbsp;10.1 million with no party affiliation have also cast their ballots in these states.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are now wrapping up their election campaigns and hitting the key states to gain as many voters as possible in the last few days. As of now, Joe Biden is in the lead, but experts seem to believe that the opinion polls cannot be trusted as the number had seen a drastic change in 2016 too as many people ended up voting at the last day.

Less than three days are left for the US election, and the two leaders are campaigning in the last few key states urging people to vote early. The Americans are, this year, listening to their leaders — the current Republican candidate and President Donald Trump and his Democrat rival and former Vice President Joe Biden — are rushing to cast their ballots.

Less than three days are left for the US election, and the two leaders are campaigning in the last few key states urging people to vote early. The Americans are, this year, listening to their leaders — the current Republican candidate and President Donald Trump and his Democrat rival and former Vice President Joe Biden — are rushing to cast their ballots. This is the first time in the history of American politics that the early voter count has reached 90 million. As per a tally posted by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, more than 90 million Americans have already cast their ballots and the number is expected to grow as the residents still have two more days to vote. Also read| On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments The record-breaking number is about 65 per cent of the 2016 total turnout in which Donald Trump contested against Hillary Clinton. The new turnout shows the new interest of the Americans in the leadership of the country. it is also being understood as a cry for help by the Americans who are rushing to elect their choice of candidate to make sure their demands and ideologies are met. This turnout can also be a direct result of the recent controversies such as the election of the Amy Coney Barrett and social movements such as Black lives Matter that have divided the people of the United States, and the crisis of coronavirus pandemic which has taken several lives. Experts are predicting that the total voter count can surpass 138 million with the 2016 elections as a comparison model — a total of 47 million voters had cast their ballot four days before the elections in 2016. Also read| Donald Trump announces executive order to protect fracking at US election rally The party registration data shows that in 20 states 19.9 million registered Democrats have cast their vote, while only 13 million Republicans have chosen their leader till now. Nearly 10.1 million with no party affiliation have also cast their ballots in these states. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are now wrapping up their election campaigns and hitting the key states to gain as many voters as possible in the last few days. As of now, Joe Biden is in the lead, but experts seem to believe that the opinion polls cannot be trusted as the number had seen a drastic change in 2016 too as many people ended up voting at the last day.

More than 90 million voters cast ballots two days before US election 2020

Healthcare is one of the most important services needed by any citizen and the Americans have often had to choose their leaders as per their future plans related to these basic necessities.&nbsp;

With the healthcare expense amounting to nearly 20 per cent of the US economy, the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/us-election">elections</a> this year are no different. In this term of the Presidential election, the debate started with a choice between Obamacare and Trumpcare.

However, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>, the Democratic candidate and the Former President who served under Barack Obama, is hoping to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and re-launch it under his own name, if he wins the elections.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-trump-focused-on-feeding-his-ego-did-not-take-pandemic-seriously-obama-339438" hreflang="en">Trump focused on feeding his ego, did not take pandemic seriously: Obama</a>

On the other hand, the current President and the Republican candidate &nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> wants to scrap the whole deal altogether. This has started a debate over which approach would be better for the economy.&nbsp;

Bidencare, as many are now labelling it, aims to either increase the federal spending on healthcare by at least $2 trillion (and more) over a period of nearly ten years. Trumpcare, on the other hand, wants to either reduce the funding or, in Trump’s ideal world, completely suspend the federal funding.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-trump-rallies-led-to-30000-covid-19-infections-700-deaths-stanford-study-339425">Trump rallies led to 30,000 Covid-19 infections, 700 deaths: Stanford study</a>

The United States had nearly 46.5 million people without health insurance in 2010. This was when Obama decided to help out his fellow Americans and introduced ACA to assist and provide pocket-friendly healthcare insurance. Now the count of Americans without health insurance has dropped down to nearly 30 million, and under Bidencare, the Democrat party expects to reduce this number by at least 15 to 20 million further. Trump, on the other hand, has revealed no such plan and has time and again focused on the need to suspend or decrease federal funding for ACA.

Bidencare, upto this point, does sound like a better plan. The question now is, how will Joe Biden pump in more money into the healthcare plan.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-leads-in-michigan-and-wisconsin-donald-trump-struggling-survey-339408">Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey</a>

More people can be covered under the healthcare scheme by subsidising health insurance purchases through tax credits. Biden has announced that he will be raising this amount by charging tax from the wealthy taxpayers and will expand public insurance to make sure the medical costs do not skyrocket. However, the plan sounds easier said than done, and whether or not Biden will be able to raise such funds from charging the wealthy groups is a tale that only time can tell. However, if Biden succeeds, the minority groups will be benefitted the most as several pieces of research have shown that the minority groups in the US suffer more chronic diseases, including the novel coronavirus, in comparison to the White nationals.

One thing, however, that is very clear through Bidencare, up to this point, is that if Joe Biden is successful in implementing his health care plan, it will be more beneficial for the economy as uninsured patients, as per few studies, do get expensive treatments and then end up in a bad credit score or if they are unable to pay then it negatively affects the financial stability of the hospitals.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/joe-biden-leading-in-us-election-2020-against-donald-trump-survey-338733">Joe Biden leading in US Election 2020 against Donald Trump: Survey</a>

Trump’s backup

While the Democrats are fighting to make sure their candidate wins the Presidential elections, the Republican President is also fighting another battle in the US court — one with the aim to repeal the ACA.

Trump has been unsuccessful in dismantling Obama’s healthcare plan in his four-year-long term. However, he is now fighting a court battle to fulfil his dream. A Supreme Court hearing is scheduled a week after the US elections.&nbsp; 
However, if Trump wins the court hearing (which is not something the experts foresee), there is no specified backup plan to replace the insurance of the almost 21 million Americans who rely on Obamacare.&nbsp;

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318" hreflang="en">On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a>

Some seem to believe that the only backup plan Trump has right now is to distribute the ACA funds to respective state governments who can further assist people by buying private health insurance and provide better coverage even to low-income households, provided it is not misused by the states.

Which leader has a better healthcare plan is a tough decision because while Biden is simply amplifying his former President’s plan, the current President is not revealing his whole set of cards yet. So, whether or not Americans will be able to afford proper healthcare will now only be clear once the next President of the US elections is chosen after the November 03 elections.

Healthcare is one of the most important services needed by any citizen and the Americans have often had to choose their leaders as per their future plans related to these basic necessities.

Healthcare is one of the most important services needed by any citizen and the Americans have often had to choose their leaders as per their future plans related to these basic necessities. With the healthcare expense amounting to nearly 20 per cent of the US economy, the elections this year are no different. In this term of the Presidential election, the debate started with a choice between Obamacare and Trumpcare. However, Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate and the Former President who served under Barack Obama, is hoping to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and re-launch it under his own name, if he wins the elections. Also read| Trump focused on feeding his ego, did not take pandemic seriously: Obama On the other hand, the current President and the Republican candidate Donald Trump wants to scrap the whole deal altogether. This has started a debate over which approach would be better for the economy. Bidencare, as many are now labelling it, aims to either increase the federal spending on healthcare by at least $2 trillion (and more) over a period of nearly ten years. Trumpcare, on the other hand, wants to either reduce the funding or, in Trump’s ideal world, completely suspend the federal funding. Also read| Trump rallies led to 30,000 Covid-19 infections, 700 deaths: Stanford study The United States had nearly 46.5 million people without health insurance in 2010. This was when Obama decided to help out his fellow Americans and introduced ACA to assist and provide pocket-friendly healthcare insurance. Now the count of Americans without health insurance has dropped down to nearly 30 million, and under Bidencare, the Democrat party expects to reduce this number by at least 15 to 20 million further. Trump, on the other hand, has revealed no such plan and has time and again focused on the need to suspend or decrease federal funding for ACA. Bidencare, upto this point, does sound like a better plan. The question now is, how will Joe Biden pump in more money into the healthcare plan. Also read| Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey More people can be covered under the healthcare scheme by subsidising health insurance purchases through tax credits. Biden has announced that he will be raising this amount by charging tax from the wealthy taxpayers and will expand public insurance to make sure the medical costs do not skyrocket. However, the plan sounds easier said than done, and whether or not Biden will be able to raise such funds from charging the wealthy groups is a tale that only time can tell. However, if Biden succeeds, the minority groups will be benefitted the most as several pieces of research have shown that the minority groups in the US suffer more chronic diseases, including the novel coronavirus, in comparison to the White nationals. One thing, however, that is very clear through Bidencare, up to this point, is that if Joe Biden is successful in implementing his health care plan, it will be more beneficial for the economy as uninsured patients, as per few studies, do get expensive treatments and then end up in a bad credit score or if they are unable to pay then it negatively affects the financial stability of the hospitals. Also read| Joe Biden leading in US Election 2020 against Donald Trump: Survey Trump’s backup While the Democrats are fighting to make sure their candidate wins the Presidential elections, the Republican President is also fighting another battle in the US court — one with the aim to repeal the ACA. Trump has been unsuccessful in dismantling Obama’s healthcare plan in his four-year-long term. However, he is now fighting a court battle to fulfil his dream. A Supreme Court hearing is scheduled a week after the US elections. However, if Trump wins the court hearing (which is not something the experts foresee), there is no specified backup plan to replace the insurance of the almost 21 million Americans who rely on Obamacare. Also read| On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments Some seem to believe that the only backup plan Trump has right now is to distribute the ACA funds to respective state governments who can further assist people by buying private health insurance and provide better coverage even to low-income households, provided it is not misused by the states. Which leader has a better healthcare plan is a tough decision because while Biden is simply amplifying his former President’s plan, the current President is not revealing his whole set of cards yet. So, whether or not Americans will be able to afford proper healthcare will now only be clear once the next President of the US elections is chosen after the November 03 elections.

US Election 2020: Trumpcare or Bidencare? Americans vote for affordable healthcare

With two days left for the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/us-election">US election</a>&nbsp;the current Republican candidate and President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;and his Democrat rival and former Vice President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;are now wrapping up their rallies and bidding farewell to their supporters for a few days.

During on of these rallies in Montoursville,&nbsp;Pennsylvania, Trump made an announcement that he signed an executive order to protect fracking earlier in the day — which has been a controversial topic between the two political parties.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318" hreflang="en">On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a>

Fracking, also known as&nbsp;Hydraulic fracturing,&nbsp;is the process of drilling a hole in the Earth to releae the gas inside. The procedure has been subjject to controversies as it can be harmful for the quality of groundwater and can pollute the surface water and threaten wildfire if proper guidelines are not followed.

The local media had reported a few days ago that Donald trump was to collect information from the&nbsp;Office of the US Trade Representative and the Treasury Department about the benefits and side effects of fracking on the US economy and trade.

"Moments ago I signed an executive order to protect Pennsylvania fracking and block any effort to undermine energy production in your state,"&nbsp;Trump told the crowd on Saturday.&nbsp;

"So if one of these maniacs come along say end fracking, I signed it on the beautiful Marine One,"&nbsp;he said.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/joe-biden-runs-off-stage-as-rain-interrupts-florida-rally-339302" hreflang="en">Joe Biden runs off-stage as rain interrupts Florida rally</a>

This has come as a big hit to the Democratic candidate as Trump has often grilled Biden over his one-day statement of him agreeing to banning fracking, which Biden declines. Biden has been subjected to an array of questions by his rivals on the topic of banning fracking, and he has time and again clarified that he would not be banning it, which the Republic Party claims is not rue and has provided audio-visual proof for their claim.

The announcement by Trump has comes a masterstroke at the end of the election campaigns, with some experts calling it an ace card played a few days before the elections. This is being considered as a positive move for Trump as it sends the message of him being a 'get work done' guy, which Biden has not been able to establish.

It was also reported that Trump would be asking officials from the Energy Department and Interior Department to advise him on how the technology and land management can be utilised to increase the use and benefits of fracking, without harming the envorinment.

The details of the same have not been officially announced yet.

With two days left for the US election the current Republican candidate and President Donald Trump and his Democrat rival and former Vice President Joe Biden are now wrapping up their rallies and bidding farewell to their supporters for a few days.

With two days left for the US election the current Republican candidate and President Donald Trump and his Democrat rival and former Vice President Joe Biden are now wrapping up their rallies and bidding farewell to their supporters for a few days. During on of these rallies in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, Trump made an announcement that he signed an executive order to protect fracking earlier in the day — which has been a controversial topic between the two political parties. Also read| On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments Fracking, also known as Hydraulic fracturing, is the process of drilling a hole in the Earth to releae the gas inside. The procedure has been subjject to controversies as it can be harmful for the quality of groundwater and can pollute the surface water and threaten wildfire if proper guidelines are not followed. The local media had reported a few days ago that Donald trump was to collect information from the Office of the US Trade Representative and the Treasury Department about the benefits and side effects of fracking on the US economy and trade. "Moments ago I signed an executive order to protect Pennsylvania fracking and block any effort to undermine energy production in your state," Trump told the crowd on Saturday. "So if one of these maniacs come along say end fracking, I signed it on the beautiful Marine One," he said. Also read| Joe Biden runs off-stage as rain interrupts Florida rally This has come as a big hit to the Democratic candidate as Trump has often grilled Biden over his one-day statement of him agreeing to banning fracking, which Biden declines. Biden has been subjected to an array of questions by his rivals on the topic of banning fracking, and he has time and again clarified that he would not be banning it, which the Republic Party claims is not rue and has provided audio-visual proof for their claim. The announcement by Trump has comes a masterstroke at the end of the election campaigns, with some experts calling it an ace card played a few days before the elections. This is being considered as a positive move for Trump as it sends the message of him being a 'get work done' guy, which Biden has not been able to establish. It was also reported that Trump would be asking officials from the Energy Department and Interior Department to advise him on how the technology and land management can be utilised to increase the use and benefits of fracking, without harming the envorinment. The details of the same have not been officially announced yet.

Donald Trump announces executive order to protect fracking at US election rally

The second weekend in October was “citizenship weekend” at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.

“Up and down the ballot, there are two very different visions for our nation, and every one of us need to vote biblical principles,” the Rev. Jack Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisers, told the congregation. The 45,000-member church has a committee urging members to be “actively involved in our government,” including by running for office. At one point, Graham told the congregation, 23 members of the church held some kind of elected office. Graham invited four to the stage that Sunday, all Republicans.

But Graham does not see it as his job to tell members how to fill out their ballots. “You preach on the issues; you don’t insult people by telling them how to vote,” Graham said in an interview. “People will figure out how to vote if you guide them from Scripture.” On Oct. 25, he preached on the importance of religious liberty.

Decades after the rise of the Christian right as a political influence, conservative evangelicals have a reputation for political activism. That reputation has only intensified in the Trump era. White evangelicals voted for Trump overwhelmingly in 2016 and have remained his most dependable supporters. The president himself, who is not a frequent churchgoer, has indicated that he assumes conservative evangelical pastors would be eager to speak even more directly — perhaps to endorse him — if freed by tax law to do so.

In 2017, he signed an executive order intended to loosen enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, the provision that forbids pastors at tax-exempt churches to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit. “We are giving churches their voices back,” he said at a Rose Garden signing ceremony, framing the change as a gift to religious conservatives.

But tuning into conservative evangelical sermons across the country in the weeks leading up to a hotly contested election reveals a complex relationship between the pulpit and politics. Some pastors grappled directly with the question of a Christian’s political obligations. Others edged close to an endorsement. But many barely hinted at political themes, perhaps gesturing broadly to “unity” or “justice.”

Compared with other Christian traditions, white conservative Protestant churches are notably unenthusiastic about engaging directly in some kinds of traditional political activities. If tax law changed, 45% of self-described liberal congregations would endorse specific candidates, compared with 11% of self-described conservative congregations, according to a forthcoming paper analyzing data from the National Congregations Study, an ongoing nationally representative survey of about 1,200 leaders of religious congregations. Black churches, whose members are often theologically conservative and vote Democratic, are the most politically engaged.

But surveys about voter registration or lobbying — activities that liberal churches are likelier to engage in — do not capture the full portrait of churches’ political messaging. “There’s a lot more political signaling going on than we pick up with these explicit collective actions,” said Mark Chaves, director of the National Congregations Study and a professor at Duke University.

Surveys do not capture, for example, an American flag displayed at the front of the church, prayers offered for police officers but not protesters (or vice versa), or passing references to “life” or “freedom” in a sermon.

As a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, Keith Mannes would have said for most of his career that he did not preach about politics. He calls himself “a pretty conservative guy,” and he occasionally addressed abortion or homosexuality in his sermons, but he saw those topics as biblical, not political.

But in 2015 something changed when Mannes watched Trump slowly descend a gleaming escalator at Trump Tower to start his presidential bid. The gaudiness struck him as grotesque; the biblical term “mammon” came to mind.

After Trump became president, Mannes increasingly felt called to speak directly about what he saw as an ungodly alliance between white conservative Christians and Trump. But for several years, he tried to stay quiet. “It’s just in our bones that we don’t make trouble about politics,” Mannes said. “We don’t talk about that stuff from the pulpit.”

He delivered his last sermon at East Saugatuck Christian Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan, on Oct. 11. After years of trying to “avoid politics” in the pulpit to keep peace in the congregation, he approached church leadership to suggest it was time to part ways. “You realize you’re extending all this energy just to make sure people don’t get upset,” he said. “I wanted to be able to speak openly in the world about what I believe.”

Pastors whose own political beliefs are in line with their congregations’ tend to feel more empowered to speak. In Apex, North Carolina, another evangelical pastor had watched in a very different mood as Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower. “When he came down the escalator, I didn’t know much about him but I turned to my wife and said, ‘Honey, that guy’s going to win,’” Rodney Finch recalled. Finch, the Black pastor of a large multiracial church he founded in 1995, said he had not been strongly engaged in politics before, but the moment was electrifying.

This election cycle, Finch is all in. On Oct. 4, he preached a Sunday sermon on voting. “The Bible is a voter’s guide,” he told the congregation. Without explicitly telling members how to fill out their ballots, he ticked off God’s priorities, in his view: abortion, support for Israel, religious freedom.

Finch is not alone in his awakening. Just 1% of Protestant pastors say they have endorsed a candidate from the pulpit this year, according to a survey conducted this fall by LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. That number is unchanged since 2016. But 32% of Protestant pastors said they have endorsed a political candidate away from the pulpit, ostensibly outside of their role as a pastor. That is a 10 percentage point increase since the last presidential election cycle. Pastors who say they are voting for Trump are more likely to say they have made an endorsement.

Still, in many white conservative churches, “there’s a fear of being labeled ‘political,’” said Kaitlyn Schiess, the author of “The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor,” a book urging evangelicals to engage more intentionally with politics. “As Christians, we’re supposed to be above that.”

An analysis by the Pew Research Center of 50,000 sermons streamed online last year found that 4% of Christian sermons even mentioned abortion, and those that did rarely focused entirely on the topic. Smaller congregations were more likely than larger ones to hear discussion of abortion in sermons.

At many evangelical churches, there have been almost no hints from the pulpit in recent weeks of the divisive election on the way.

“My job is to articulate to the members of our congregation a traditional, orthodox Christian worldview,” said Tim Breen, pastor of First Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa, a congregation he described as “center right.” “I don’t feel a call to recommend who to vote for or even necessarily how to vote.” Most of his congregation, he said, would not be able to guess whom he is voting for.

At Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, churchgoers can participate in a class titled “The Bible, the Church and Politics” on Wednesday evenings leading up to the election. One session listed biblical priorities including a safety net for the poor, fair wages, “creation stewardship,” personal responsibility and “protection of the unborn.”

“The church is trying to balance, ‘How do we engage faithfully with social issues, but how do we not get swallowed up?’” said Trinity’s pastor, Walter Kim, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, referring to the American church in general.

Kim describes his university-town congregation as “conservative theologically but mixed politically.” “There’s a bit of a tension,” he said. “Some people come to church with a deep desire to understand their world. Some come to church to find a reprieve from the world.”

Kim tries to navigate that tension by focusing on larger moral principles rather than partisan politics from the pulpit. On Oct. 25, he preached from the New Testament book of James, a sermon that focused on humility, repentance and the ultimate folly of many disputes. He did not mention Joe Biden, Trump or the upcoming election. “From the perspective of eternity,” he told his congregation, “we’re going to regret a lot of our fights.”

The second weekend in October was “citizenship weekend” at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. “Up and down the ballot, there are two very different visions for our nation, and every one of us need to vote biblical principles,” the Rev.

The second weekend in October was “citizenship weekend” at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. “Up and down the ballot, there are two very different visions for our nation, and every one of us need to vote biblical principles,” the Rev. Jack Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisers, told the congregation. The 45,000-member church has a committee urging members to be “actively involved in our government,” including by running for office. At one point, Graham told the congregation, 23 members of the church held some kind of elected office. Graham invited four to the stage that Sunday, all Republicans. But Graham does not see it as his job to tell members how to fill out their ballots. “You preach on the issues; you don’t insult people by telling them how to vote,” Graham said in an interview. “People will figure out how to vote if you guide them from Scripture.” On Oct. 25, he preached on the importance of religious liberty. Decades after the rise of the Christian right as a political influence, conservative evangelicals have a reputation for political activism. That reputation has only intensified in the Trump era. White evangelicals voted for Trump overwhelmingly in 2016 and have remained his most dependable supporters. The president himself, who is not a frequent churchgoer, has indicated that he assumes conservative evangelical pastors would be eager to speak even more directly — perhaps to endorse him — if freed by tax law to do so. In 2017, he signed an executive order intended to loosen enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, the provision that forbids pastors at tax-exempt churches to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit. “We are giving churches their voices back,” he said at a Rose Garden signing ceremony, framing the change as a gift to religious conservatives. But tuning into conservative evangelical sermons across the country in the weeks leading up to a hotly contested election reveals a complex relationship between the pulpit and politics. Some pastors grappled directly with the question of a Christian’s political obligations. Others edged close to an endorsement. But many barely hinted at political themes, perhaps gesturing broadly to “unity” or “justice.” Compared with other Christian traditions, white conservative Protestant churches are notably unenthusiastic about engaging directly in some kinds of traditional political activities. If tax law changed, 45% of self-described liberal congregations would endorse specific candidates, compared with 11% of self-described conservative congregations, according to a forthcoming paper analyzing data from the National Congregations Study, an ongoing nationally representative survey of about 1,200 leaders of religious congregations. Black churches, whose members are often theologically conservative and vote Democratic, are the most politically engaged. But surveys about voter registration or lobbying — activities that liberal churches are likelier to engage in — do not capture the full portrait of churches’ political messaging. “There’s a lot more political signaling going on than we pick up with these explicit collective actions,” said Mark Chaves, director of the National Congregations Study and a professor at Duke University. Surveys do not capture, for example, an American flag displayed at the front of the church, prayers offered for police officers but not protesters (or vice versa), or passing references to “life” or “freedom” in a sermon. As a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, Keith Mannes would have said for most of his career that he did not preach about politics. He calls himself “a pretty conservative guy,” and he occasionally addressed abortion or homosexuality in his sermons, but he saw those topics as biblical, not political. But in 2015 something changed when Mannes watched Trump slowly descend a gleaming escalator at Trump Tower to start his presidential bid. The gaudiness struck him as grotesque; the biblical term “mammon” came to mind. After Trump became president, Mannes increasingly felt called to speak directly about what he saw as an ungodly alliance between white conservative Christians and Trump. But for several years, he tried to stay quiet. “It’s just in our bones that we don’t make trouble about politics,” Mannes said. “We don’t talk about that stuff from the pulpit.” He delivered his last sermon at East Saugatuck Christian Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan, on Oct. 11. After years of trying to “avoid politics” in the pulpit to keep peace in the congregation, he approached church leadership to suggest it was time to part ways. “You realize you’re extending all this energy just to make sure people don’t get upset,” he said. “I wanted to be able to speak openly in the world about what I believe.” Pastors whose own political beliefs are in line with their congregations’ tend to feel more empowered to speak. In Apex, North Carolina, another evangelical pastor had watched in a very different mood as Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower. “When he came down the escalator, I didn’t know much about him but I turned to my wife and said, ‘Honey, that guy’s going to win,’” Rodney Finch recalled. Finch, the Black pastor of a large multiracial church he founded in 1995, said he had not been strongly engaged in politics before, but the moment was electrifying. This election cycle, Finch is all in. On Oct. 4, he preached a Sunday sermon on voting. “The Bible is a voter’s guide,” he told the congregation. Without explicitly telling members how to fill out their ballots, he ticked off God’s priorities, in his view: abortion, support for Israel, religious freedom. Finch is not alone in his awakening. Just 1% of Protestant pastors say they have endorsed a candidate from the pulpit this year, according to a survey conducted this fall by LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. That number is unchanged since 2016. But 32% of Protestant pastors said they have endorsed a political candidate away from the pulpit, ostensibly outside of their role as a pastor. That is a 10 percentage point increase since the last presidential election cycle. Pastors who say they are voting for Trump are more likely to say they have made an endorsement. Still, in many white conservative churches, “there’s a fear of being labeled ‘political,’” said Kaitlyn Schiess, the author of “The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor,” a book urging evangelicals to engage more intentionally with politics. “As Christians, we’re supposed to be above that.” An analysis by the Pew Research Center of 50,000 sermons streamed online last year found that 4% of Christian sermons even mentioned abortion, and those that did rarely focused entirely on the topic. Smaller congregations were more likely than larger ones to hear discussion of abortion in sermons. At many evangelical churches, there have been almost no hints from the pulpit in recent weeks of the divisive election on the way. “My job is to articulate to the members of our congregation a traditional, orthodox Christian worldview,” said Tim Breen, pastor of First Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa, a congregation he described as “center right.” “I don’t feel a call to recommend who to vote for or even necessarily how to vote.” Most of his congregation, he said, would not be able to guess whom he is voting for. At Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, churchgoers can participate in a class titled “The Bible, the Church and Politics” on Wednesday evenings leading up to the election. One session listed biblical priorities including a safety net for the poor, fair wages, “creation stewardship,” personal responsibility and “protection of the unborn.” “The church is trying to balance, ‘How do we engage faithfully with social issues, but how do we not get swallowed up?’” said Trinity’s pastor, Walter Kim, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, referring to the American church in general. Kim describes his university-town congregation as “conservative theologically but mixed politically.” “There’s a bit of a tension,” he said. “Some people come to church with a deep desire to understand their world. Some come to church to find a reprieve from the world.” Kim tries to navigate that tension by focusing on larger moral principles rather than partisan politics from the pulpit. On Oct. 25, he preached from the New Testament book of James, a sermon that focused on humility, repentance and the ultimate folly of many disputes. He did not mention Joe Biden, Trump or the upcoming election. “From the perspective of eternity,” he told his congregation, “we’re going to regret a lot of our fights.”

Preaching or avoiding politics, conservative churches walk a delicate line

The campaign for the November 3 vote in the United States -- largely muted by the pandemic -- is drawing to a close. And quite understanding the gravity of the election, a record 90 million people have already cast their early votes.

US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are making a late push for their respective campaigns, pressing closing arguments in a frantic sprint days ahead of the presidential election.

Biden has taken the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like Texas, a large, traditionally conservative bastion now seen as a toss-up.

Trump and Biden whisked through crucial states in the industrial Midwest and coastal southeast on Saturday.

Trump did what he has been doing -- warned of "bedlam in our country" if no clear winner emerges quickly in Tuesday's election, saying, without evidence, that it could take weeks to sort out a result and that "very bad things" could happen in the interim.

Biden meantime told backers it was "time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home."

The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw that gun sales have surged in some areas. Businesses in some cities, including Washington, are protectively boarding windows, and police are preparing for the possibility of violence.

Trump Saturday focussed on the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, while Biden made his first joint appearance of the campaign with his former boss Barack Obama -- probably the most popular Democrat in the country -- in Flint, Michigan as they scramble to boost turnout in a state Trump carried by a razor-thin margin in 2016.

Trump is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticising public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States.

At a small, in-person rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration's record of fighting COVID-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country.

"I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He`s got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID," Trump told the crowd, some of whom did not wear masks.

He said the United States was "just weeks away" from mass distribution of a safe vaccine against COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an imminent vaccine.

Vice-President Mike Pence meanwhile campaigned in narrowly divided North Carolina as Biden's running mate Kamala Harris was in Florida, another vitally important swing state.

In Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump arrived at the biggest rally of the day so far with well over 5,000 people crammed in -- few in masks but many wearing red Trump hats.

In remarks at an event in Bucks County, Trump lashed out at Biden, saying he would shut down the state's fossil-fuel industry.

The president claimed credit for creating the "greatest economy in the history of this country -- the history of the world" -- while "foreign nations are in freefall."

Despite recent signs of recovery from the virus-induced economic pain, however, millions remain jobless.

In stark contrast, Biden and Obama appeared Saturday before a socially distanced drive-in rally in Flint, and made an unannounced stop in suburban Bloomfield Hills before heading to Detroit, where they were joined by superstar singer Stevie Wonder.

Obama pulled few punches in Flint and Detroit, saying 140,000 American lives would have been saved if the president had taken an approach to the pandemic similar to Canada's.&nbsp;

"This is not a contest of just calling each other names," Obama said.

"This isn't a sporting event. This is life or death."

Biden said "we're done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the failure, the refusal to take any responsibility."

Biden's campaign announced he will address the nation on election night from his home base of Wilmington, after a vote that will undoubtedly leave millions bitterly disappointed, no matter who wins.

Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. In a flurry of legal motions, his campaign has sought to restrict absentee balloting.

"I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There’s nothing – let me say that again – there’s nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy,” Biden said.

In his closing arguments, Biden has accused Trump of being a bully, criticised his lack of a strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; his efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law; and his disregard for science on climate change.

He has offered his own made-in-America economic platform, a contrast with Trump's "America First" approach, saying he will get the wealthy to pay their fair share and make sure earnings are distributed more equitably.

Opinion polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern.

STANFORD REPORT

Meanwhile, Stanford University economists on Saturday released an estimate that Trump rallies held from June to September led to more than 30,000 additional COVID-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not actual investigations of coronavirus cases. The paper, which did not cite disease experts among its authors, has not been peer-reviewed.

Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states.

(with inputs from agencies)

The campaign for the November 3 vote in the United States -- largely muted by the pandemic -- is drawing to a close. And quite understanding the gravity of the election, a record 90 million people have already cast their early votes.

The campaign for the November 3 vote in the United States -- largely muted by the pandemic -- is drawing to a close. And quite understanding the gravity of the election, a record 90 million people have already cast their early votes. US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are making a late push for their respective campaigns, pressing closing arguments in a frantic sprint days ahead of the presidential election. Biden has taken the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like Texas, a large, traditionally conservative bastion now seen as a toss-up. Trump and Biden whisked through crucial states in the industrial Midwest and coastal southeast on Saturday. Trump did what he has been doing -- warned of "bedlam in our country" if no clear winner emerges quickly in Tuesday's election, saying, without evidence, that it could take weeks to sort out a result and that "very bad things" could happen in the interim. Biden meantime told backers it was "time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home." The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw that gun sales have surged in some areas. Businesses in some cities, including Washington, are protectively boarding windows, and police are preparing for the possibility of violence. Trump Saturday focussed on the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, while Biden made his first joint appearance of the campaign with his former boss Barack Obama -- probably the most popular Democrat in the country -- in Flint, Michigan as they scramble to boost turnout in a state Trump carried by a razor-thin margin in 2016. Trump is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticising public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States. At a small, in-person rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration's record of fighting COVID-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country. "I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He`s got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID," Trump told the crowd, some of whom did not wear masks. He said the United States was "just weeks away" from mass distribution of a safe vaccine against COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an imminent vaccine. Vice-President Mike Pence meanwhile campaigned in narrowly divided North Carolina as Biden's running mate Kamala Harris was in Florida, another vitally important swing state. In Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump arrived at the biggest rally of the day so far with well over 5,000 people crammed in -- few in masks but many wearing red Trump hats. In remarks at an event in Bucks County, Trump lashed out at Biden, saying he would shut down the state's fossil-fuel industry. The president claimed credit for creating the "greatest economy in the history of this country -- the history of the world" -- while "foreign nations are in freefall." Despite recent signs of recovery from the virus-induced economic pain, however, millions remain jobless. In stark contrast, Biden and Obama appeared Saturday before a socially distanced drive-in rally in Flint, and made an unannounced stop in suburban Bloomfield Hills before heading to Detroit, where they were joined by superstar singer Stevie Wonder. Obama pulled few punches in Flint and Detroit, saying 140,000 American lives would have been saved if the president had taken an approach to the pandemic similar to Canada's. "This is not a contest of just calling each other names," Obama said. "This isn't a sporting event. This is life or death." Biden said "we're done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the failure, the refusal to take any responsibility." Biden's campaign announced he will address the nation on election night from his home base of Wilmington, after a vote that will undoubtedly leave millions bitterly disappointed, no matter who wins. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. In a flurry of legal motions, his campaign has sought to restrict absentee balloting. "I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There’s nothing – let me say that again – there’s nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy,” Biden said. In his closing arguments, Biden has accused Trump of being a bully, criticised his lack of a strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; his efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law; and his disregard for science on climate change. He has offered his own made-in-America economic platform, a contrast with Trump's "America First" approach, saying he will get the wealthy to pay their fair share and make sure earnings are distributed more equitably. Opinion polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern. STANFORD REPORT Meanwhile, Stanford University economists on Saturday released an estimate that Trump rallies held from June to September led to more than 30,000 additional COVID-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not actual investigations of coronavirus cases. The paper, which did not cite disease experts among its authors, has not been peer-reviewed. Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states. (with inputs from agencies)

On final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments

A record 90 million Americans have voted early in the U.S. presidential election, data on Saturday (October 31) showed, as President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden campaigned across the country to try to sway the few remaining undecided voters.

US early voting surges as Trump, Biden make late push

President Donald Trump’s campaign is raising money for a prolonged political and legal fight long after Nov. 3 and recently began automatically checking a box to withdraw additional weekly contributions from online donors through mid-December — nearly six weeks after Election Day.

Predicting “FRAUD like you’ve never seen,” the language on Trump’s website opts contributors into making the weekly postelection donations “to ensure we have the resources to protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day.” Users must proactively click to avoid making multiple contributions.

The unusual postelection revenue stream would help Trump pay off any bills that his campaign accumulates before Tuesday — a campaign spokesperson said no such debts had been incurred — and could help fund a lengthy legal fight if the results are contested.

“This race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign. “The election process this year is under extraordinary circumstances, and we are also anticipating that Silicon Valley will attempt to interfere with our online fundraising efforts postelection.”

Democrats said automatically opting contributors into postelection giving was a misleading tactic.

“They’re inventing new deceptive tactics to essentially steal money from people,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic digital strategist with expertise in fundraising. “They’re going completely and totally scorched earth on their own supporters.”

Murtaugh said that no one would receive a “recurring charge without their knowledge” and that donors could opt out of recurring contributions. “Three days before each recurring charge, donors are emailed a reminder that the charge is about to occur,” he said. “There is a one-click link inside this email for donors to cancel if they wish. Our process is extremely transparent.”

“When the recount or litigation process ends,” Murtaugh added, “the recurring payments will end."

The extra donations are the latest tactic employed by the Trump operation as it struggles to keep up financially with Joe Biden’s campaign. On Friday, the campaign promised supporters that their contributions would be matched “1000%,” after months of ratcheting up the levels of matches that campaign experts said almost surely do not actually exist.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is raising money for a prolonged political and legal fight long after Nov. 3 and recently began automatically checking a box to withdraw additional weekly contributions from online donors through mid-December — nearly six weeks after Election Day.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is raising money for a prolonged political and legal fight long after Nov. 3 and recently began automatically checking a box to withdraw additional weekly contributions from online donors through mid-December — nearly six weeks after Election Day. Predicting “FRAUD like you’ve never seen,” the language on Trump’s website opts contributors into making the weekly postelection donations “to ensure we have the resources to protect the results and keep fighting even after Election Day.” Users must proactively click to avoid making multiple contributions. The unusual postelection revenue stream would help Trump pay off any bills that his campaign accumulates before Tuesday — a campaign spokesperson said no such debts had been incurred — and could help fund a lengthy legal fight if the results are contested. “This race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign. “The election process this year is under extraordinary circumstances, and we are also anticipating that Silicon Valley will attempt to interfere with our online fundraising efforts postelection.” Democrats said automatically opting contributors into postelection giving was a misleading tactic. “They’re inventing new deceptive tactics to essentially steal money from people,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic digital strategist with expertise in fundraising. “They’re going completely and totally scorched earth on their own supporters.” Murtaugh said that no one would receive a “recurring charge without their knowledge” and that donors could opt out of recurring contributions. “Three days before each recurring charge, donors are emailed a reminder that the charge is about to occur,” he said. “There is a one-click link inside this email for donors to cancel if they wish. Our process is extremely transparent.” “When the recount or litigation process ends,” Murtaugh added, “the recurring payments will end." The extra donations are the latest tactic employed by the Trump operation as it struggles to keep up financially with Joe Biden’s campaign. On Friday, the campaign promised supporters that their contributions would be matched “1000%,” after months of ratcheting up the levels of matches that campaign experts said almost surely do not actually exist.

Trump camp uses online gimmick to fuel donations into December

A record 90 million Americans have voted early in the U.S. presidential election, data on Saturday showed, as President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden campaigned across the country to try to sway the few remaining undecided voters.

Stanford study: Donald Trump rallies led to 30,000 new cases

US President Donald Trump's eighteen election rallies held from June to September are estimated to have led to 700 deaths, a study by Stanford University researchers said. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318">Also read: On the final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a> 
 
According to the report, the communities where Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death.

In the study titled ‘The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies', researchers concluded 18 rallies by Trump held between June 20 and September 22 "ultimately resulted in more than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19 and likely led to more than 700 deaths, which may not necessarily have been among attendees. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-leads-in-michigan-and-wisconsin-donald-trump-struggling-survey-339408">Also read | Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey</a> 
 
Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states.

Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, described the report as "suggestive."

“I would just say it’s suggestive but hard to completely isolate the specific impact of one event without robust contact trace data from the cases,” Adalja said.

(With inputs from agencies)

US President Donald Trump's eighteen election rallies held from June to September are estimated to have led to 700 deaths, a study by Stanford University researchers said.

US President Donald Trump's eighteen election rallies held from June to September are estimated to have led to 700 deaths, a study by Stanford University researchers said. Also read: On the final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments According to the report, the communities where Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death. In the study titled ‘The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies', researchers concluded 18 rallies by Trump held between June 20 and September 22 "ultimately resulted in more than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19 and likely led to more than 700 deaths, which may not necessarily have been among attendees. Also read | Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, described the report as "suggestive." “I would just say it’s suggestive but hard to completely isolate the specific impact of one event without robust contact trace data from the cases,” Adalja said. (With inputs from agencies)

Trump rallies led to 30,000 Covid-19 infections, 700 deaths: Stanford study

Launching a scathing attack on his successor at the White House, Former US president Barack Obama has accused Donald Trump of focusing on feeding his ego, saying he did not take the significant problem of the coronavirus pandemic seriously and had time to worry about other things. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-rallies-led-to-30000-covid-19-infections-700-deaths-stanford-study-339425">Also read: Trump rallies led to 30,000 Covid-19 infections, 700 deaths: Stanford study</a> 
 
Obama's remarks included blistering rebukes of Trump -- including mocking his focus on crowd sizes and belittling his economic achievements -- but the events stood out from earlier Obama appearances because of the way the former President touted Biden's character. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/on-final-weekend-before-nov-3-vote-trump-and-biden-press-closing-arguments-339318">Also read: On the final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments</a>

"President Trump is focused on feeding his ego, while the Democratic presidential candidate Biden focused on decency and empathy," Obama said. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-joe-biden-leads-in-michigan-and-wisconsin-donald-trump-struggling-survey-339408">Also read | Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey</a>

Obama, who was the 44th US president, blasted Trump for his policies and rhetoric.

"He hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself or his friends or treating the presidency as anything more than a reality show to give him the attention that he craves. But unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with the consequences," he said.

According to a new study by Stanford University researchers, about 18 election rallies by Donald Trump are estimated to have led to more than 30,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and likely claimed over 700 lives, stressing that the communities where the US President's rallies took place "paid a high price in terms of disease and death.”

Earlier on October 25, Claiming that Trump has no empathy and no concern for average Americans, Obama had said that the US president was seeking a second term only "to help himself" and his wealthy friends.

On the other hand, Biden and Harris are going to be in the fight, not for themselves, "but for you and us", he had said.

(With inputs from agencies)

Launching a scathing attack on his successor at the White House, Former US president Barack Obama has accused Donald Trump of focusing on feeding his ego, saying he did not take the significant problem of the coronavirus pandemic seriously and had time to worry about other things.

Launching a scathing attack on his successor at the White House, Former US president Barack Obama has accused Donald Trump of focusing on feeding his ego, saying he did not take the significant problem of the coronavirus pandemic seriously and had time to worry about other things. Also read: Trump rallies led to 30,000 Covid-19 infections, 700 deaths: Stanford study Obama's remarks included blistering rebukes of Trump -- including mocking his focus on crowd sizes and belittling his economic achievements -- but the events stood out from earlier Obama appearances because of the way the former President touted Biden's character. Also read: On the final weekend before Nov 3 vote, Trump and Biden press closing arguments "President Trump is focused on feeding his ego, while the Democratic presidential candidate Biden focused on decency and empathy," Obama said. Also read | Joe Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump struggling: Survey Obama, who was the 44th US president, blasted Trump for his policies and rhetoric. "He hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself or his friends or treating the presidency as anything more than a reality show to give him the attention that he craves. But unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with the consequences," he said. According to a new study by Stanford University researchers, about 18 election rallies by Donald Trump are estimated to have led to more than 30,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and likely claimed over 700 lives, stressing that the communities where the US President's rallies took place "paid a high price in terms of disease and death.” Earlier on October 25, Claiming that Trump has no empathy and no concern for average Americans, Obama had said that the US president was seeking a second term only "to help himself" and his wealthy friends. On the other hand, Biden and Harris are going to be in the fight, not for themselves, "but for you and us", he had said. (With inputs from agencies)

Trump focused on feeding his ego, did not take pandemic seriously: Obama

Protesters in Mexico burned effigies of US President Donald Trump and a border patrol agent on the US border on Saturday, urging Americans to reject him at the ballot box on Tuesday.

They were agitated over the Trump administration's migration policies.

A few dozen migrant activists marched to the beach fence separating Mexico from the United States at the border city of Tijuana chanting, "Trump, we won't pay for your wall," then set fire to a crude, besuited effigy of the president on a stick.

Protesters said Democratic challenger Joe Biden has promised them a humanitarian migration reform.

Alongside the Trump effigy, the demonstrators torched a pinata of a border patrol agent, a week after a Mexican man was killed in an altercation with US officials attempting to cross into the United States on the Tijuana-San Diego border.

Trump is seeking re-election as president four years after he won office pledging to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, which he has accused of sending rapists and murderers north.

Insisting Mexico will pay for the border wall he is building between the two countries, Trump has pushed and threatened President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador into tightening up Mexico`s borders against migrants from Central America.

Protesters in Mexico burned effigies of US President Donald Trump and a border patrol agent on the US border on Saturday, urging Americans to reject him at the ballot box on Tuesday.

Protesters in Mexico burned effigies of US President Donald Trump and a border patrol agent on the US border on Saturday, urging Americans to reject him at the ballot box on Tuesday. They were agitated over the Trump administration's migration policies. A few dozen migrant activists marched to the beach fence separating Mexico from the United States at the border city of Tijuana chanting, "Trump, we won't pay for your wall," then set fire to a crude, besuited effigy of the president on a stick. Protesters said Democratic challenger Joe Biden has promised them a humanitarian migration reform. Alongside the Trump effigy, the demonstrators torched a pinata of a border patrol agent, a week after a Mexican man was killed in an altercation with US officials attempting to cross into the United States on the Tijuana-San Diego border. Trump is seeking re-election as president four years after he won office pledging to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, which he has accused of sending rapists and murderers north. Insisting Mexico will pay for the border wall he is building between the two countries, Trump has pushed and threatened President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador into tightening up Mexico`s borders against migrants from Central America.

Protesters in Mexico burn Trump effigy, slam US border policy

At a Florida rally, Donald Trump joined by FLOTUS, spoke for over an hour in 87-degree heat. Fire trucks sprayed water & ambulances attended to fainting Trump supporters.

Gravitas: Trump's Florida rally sends a dozen attendees to hospital

United States President Donald Trump has falsely accused doctors of profitting from COVID-19 cases, saying doctors are somehow incentivised to drive up the death count -- even as cases, hospitalisations and deaths surge across the country.

"Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. You know that, right? I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say 'I'm sorry but everybody dies of Covid,' " Trump said at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan.

There is undeniably no evidence for the president's claim as the country faces its worst public health emergency in more than 100 years.&nbsp;

The US recorded over 94,000 coronavirus cases on Friday, taking its Covid tally to more than 9 million.

In fact, according to a new research published this month, there were 20 per cent more deaths from March 1 through August 1 than normally would be expected.

At the rally, Trump claimed that other countries attribute deaths among coronavirus patients with underlying conditions to other factors, but in the United States, doctors choose Covid-19 because they get additional funds.

"In Germany and other places, if you have a heart attack, or if you have cancer, you're terminally ill, you catch Covid, they say you die of cancer, you died of heart attack. With us, when in doubt choose Covid. It's true, no, it's true. Now they'll say 'oh that's terrible what he said,' but that's true. It's like $2,000 more so you get more money," Trump said.

There is no evidence to this statement either.

The American Medical Association, without naming Trump, condemned claims that physicians inflate the number of Covid-19 patients they treat -- calling such rumors "malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided."

It's, however, not the first time that Trump has made such a stunning remark on the coronavirus situation in the US.

"We report them and you know -- doctors get more money, and hospitals get more money. Think of this incentive," Trump said last Saturday.

"This country and their reporting systems are really not doing it right."

At the rally, Trump also criticised Democratic governors who have imposed restrictions that aim to slow the virus's spread.

"You've got to open up your state and you've got to do it fast!" Trump said at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with just four days to go before the election.

At a later event in Rochester, Minnesota, he greeted hundreds of supporters who were locked out of a rally that was limited to 250 participants by state authorities.

Trump, who recovered from COVID-19 weeks ago, has played down the health crisis for months, telling supporters in recent weeks that the country is "turning the corner" even as cases surge.

Democratic challenger Joe Biden leads Trump 52% to 42% in Reuters/IPSOS national opinion polling, partly because of widespread disapproval of his handling of the pandemic.&nbsp;Opinion polls show a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election.

Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points in Michigan and Wisconsin and 5 points in Pennsylvania, according to Reuters/IPSOS polling.

Meanwhile, the pandemic and an extraordinary level of enthusiasm have prompted Americans to vote early in unprecedented numbers.

More than 86 million votes have been cast either by mail or in person, roughly 63% of the total number of votes in the entire 2016 election, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud, and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count.

Early voting data show that far more Democrats have voted by mail, while Republicans are expected to turn out in greater numbers on Tuesday.

(with inputs)

United States President Donald Trump has falsely accused doctors of profitting from COVID-19 cases, saying doctors are somehow incentivised to drive up the death count -- even as cases, hospitalisations and deaths surge across the country.

United States President Donald Trump has falsely accused doctors of profitting from COVID-19 cases, saying doctors are somehow incentivised to drive up the death count -- even as cases, hospitalisations and deaths surge across the country. "Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. You know that, right? I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say 'I'm sorry but everybody dies of Covid,' " Trump said at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan. There is undeniably no evidence for the president's claim as the country faces its worst public health emergency in more than 100 years. The US recorded over 94,000 coronavirus cases on Friday, taking its Covid tally to more than 9 million. In fact, according to a new research published this month, there were 20 per cent more deaths from March 1 through August 1 than normally would be expected. At the rally, Trump claimed that other countries attribute deaths among coronavirus patients with underlying conditions to other factors, but in the United States, doctors choose Covid-19 because they get additional funds. "In Germany and other places, if you have a heart attack, or if you have cancer, you're terminally ill, you catch Covid, they say you die of cancer, you died of heart attack. With us, when in doubt choose Covid. It's true, no, it's true. Now they'll say 'oh that's terrible what he said,' but that's true. It's like $2,000 more so you get more money," Trump said. There is no evidence to this statement either. The American Medical Association, without naming Trump, condemned claims that physicians inflate the number of Covid-19 patients they treat -- calling such rumors "malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided." It's, however, not the first time that Trump has made such a stunning remark on the coronavirus situation in the US. "We report them and you know -- doctors get more money, and hospitals get more money. Think of this incentive," Trump said last Saturday. "This country and their reporting systems are really not doing it right." At the rally, Trump also criticised Democratic governors who have imposed restrictions that aim to slow the virus's spread. "You've got to open up your state and you've got to do it fast!" Trump said at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with just four days to go before the election. At a later event in Rochester, Minnesota, he greeted hundreds of supporters who were locked out of a rally that was limited to 250 participants by state authorities. Trump, who recovered from COVID-19 weeks ago, has played down the health crisis for months, telling supporters in recent weeks that the country is "turning the corner" even as cases surge. Democratic challenger Joe Biden leads Trump 52% to 42% in Reuters/IPSOS national opinion polling, partly because of widespread disapproval of his handling of the pandemic. Opinion polls show a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points in Michigan and Wisconsin and 5 points in Pennsylvania, according to Reuters/IPSOS polling. Meanwhile, the pandemic and an extraordinary level of enthusiasm have prompted Americans to vote early in unprecedented numbers. More than 86 million votes have been cast either by mail or in person, roughly 63% of the total number of votes in the entire 2016 election, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud, and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. Early voting data show that far more Democrats have voted by mail, while Republicans are expected to turn out in greater numbers on Tuesday. (with inputs)

Trump derides medical system, says doctors are inflating coronavirus death counts

As the last weekend before the US Presidential Election 2020 started, US President Donald Trump and his Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden were barrelling through crucial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday.

In Michigan, Joe Biden will be joined on stage by former US President Barack Obama. They will hold drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit. Stevie Wonder, who is a Detroit native, is expected to be the musical guest there.

In the 2016 US Presidential Election, Donald Trump had won Michigan with a narrow margin of 0.2 points. However, he is trailing Joe Biden by nearly 7 points in polls, as per Real Clear Politics average of polls. Michigan has 16 electoral votes.

For the past week, Obama has put his popularity at the service of his former vice president, hosting several rallies at which he repeatedly slammed Trump's response to the pandemic, notably in the crucially important states of Florida and Pennsylvania.

Trump, however, has dismissed Obama's rallies as much smaller than his own. Trump will go to Pennsylvania on Saturday.

He won Pennsylvania, where Biden was born, by a razor-thin margin against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Every ballot will therefore count on 
November 3 if he hopes to claim its 20 electoral votes once more.

Biden will follow suit there both Sunday and Monday in a clear sign that his campaign also sees the Keystone State as absolutely crucial to victory.

The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw and polarization so pronounced that gun sales have surged in some areas and law enforcement agencies have made contingency plans for possible violence.

Chasing every vote

On Friday the two candidates carried their battle to the American Midwest, barnstorming three heartland states each as they chased every last 
vote in a region that propelled the Republican to victory in 2016.

The race has been overshadowed by the pandemic, with infections spiking across the country. Morethan 94,000 new infections were recorded 
Friday -- a new high for the second day running -- and total cases passed nine million.

Nevertheless, Trump, who has long said the virus will "disappear," remained defiant at rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

"We just want normal," he told supporters -- many of them unmasked -- at an outdoor rally near Detroit as he pushed states to relax public health 
restrictions and resume daily life.

He again downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, saying, "If you get it, you're going to get better, and then you're going to be immune."

The virus has killed nearly 230,000 Americans.

US hospitals are bracing as infections soar in nearly every state, with winter flu season looming.

The outbreak has ravaged the economy,and while there have been signs of recovery, millions remain jobless.

Trump has touted the economic successes of his presidency, including positive GDP figures Thursday. But US stocks closed out their worst week 
since March, highlighting concerns about a shaky recovery.

'Turn Texas blue?'

After a campaign largely muted by the pandemic, Biden is on the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like 
Texas,a large, traditionally conservative bastion now rated a toss-up by multiple analysts.

On Friday, the state reported that a staggering nine million residents had already voted, surpassing its 2016 total. 
Biden's running mate Kamala Harris visited Texas Friday in a bid to turn the state Democratic for the first timesinceJimmyCarter won therein 
1976.

A Biden victory there would be a major blow to Trump, but the president dismissed the notion, saying: "Texas, we're doing very well."

Biden also stumped Friday in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, where he sharpened his attacks on the president on everything from Trump seeking to dismantle Obama-era health care protections and keeping his taxes secret to climate change and trade policy with China.

"We cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump," the Democrat said at a socially distanced drive-in rally in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"So honk your horn if you want America to lead again!" he said, embracing the awkward pandemic-campaign trend of rallying supporters in 
their vehicles.

(With Reuters inputs)

As the last weekend before the US Presidential Election 2020 started, US President Donald Trump and his Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden were barrelling through crucial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday.

As the last weekend before the US Presidential Election 2020 started, US President Donald Trump and his Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden were barrelling through crucial states of Michigan and Pennsylvania on Saturday. In Michigan, Joe Biden will be joined on stage by former US President Barack Obama. They will hold drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit. Stevie Wonder, who is a Detroit native, is expected to be the musical guest there. In the 2016 US Presidential Election, Donald Trump had won Michigan with a narrow margin of 0.2 points. However, he is trailing Joe Biden by nearly 7 points in polls, as per Real Clear Politics average of polls. Michigan has 16 electoral votes. For the past week, Obama has put his popularity at the service of his former vice president, hosting several rallies at which he repeatedly slammed Trump's response to the pandemic, notably in the crucially important states of Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump, however, has dismissed Obama's rallies as much smaller than his own. Trump will go to Pennsylvania on Saturday. He won Pennsylvania, where Biden was born, by a razor-thin margin against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Every ballot will therefore count on November 3 if he hopes to claim its 20 electoral votes once more. Biden will follow suit there both Sunday and Monday in a clear sign that his campaign also sees the Keystone State as absolutely crucial to victory. The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw and polarization so pronounced that gun sales have surged in some areas and law enforcement agencies have made contingency plans for possible violence. Chasing every vote On Friday the two candidates carried their battle to the American Midwest, barnstorming three heartland states each as they chased every last vote in a region that propelled the Republican to victory in 2016. The race has been overshadowed by the pandemic, with infections spiking across the country. Morethan 94,000 new infections were recorded Friday -- a new high for the second day running -- and total cases passed nine million. Nevertheless, Trump, who has long said the virus will "disappear," remained defiant at rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. "We just want normal," he told supporters -- many of them unmasked -- at an outdoor rally near Detroit as he pushed states to relax public health restrictions and resume daily life. He again downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, saying, "If you get it, you're going to get better, and then you're going to be immune." The virus has killed nearly 230,000 Americans. US hospitals are bracing as infections soar in nearly every state, with winter flu season looming. The outbreak has ravaged the economy,and while there have been signs of recovery, millions remain jobless. Trump has touted the economic successes of his presidency, including positive GDP figures Thursday. But US stocks closed out their worst week since March, highlighting concerns about a shaky recovery. 'Turn Texas blue?' After a campaign largely muted by the pandemic, Biden is on the offensive, pushing Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like Texas,a large, traditionally conservative bastion now rated a toss-up by multiple analysts. On Friday, the state reported that a staggering nine million residents had already voted, surpassing its 2016 total. Biden's running mate Kamala Harris visited Texas Friday in a bid to turn the state Democratic for the first timesinceJimmyCarter won therein 1976. A Biden victory there would be a major blow to Trump, but the president dismissed the notion, saying: "Texas, we're doing very well." Biden also stumped Friday in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, where he sharpened his attacks on the president on everything from Trump seeking to dismantle Obama-era health care protections and keeping his taxes secret to climate change and trade policy with China. "We cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump," the Democrat said at a socially distanced drive-in rally in St. Paul, Minnesota. "So honk your horn if you want America to lead again!" he said, embracing the awkward pandemic-campaign trend of rallying supporters in their vehicles. (With Reuters inputs)

Trump, Biden to hold rallies in key states on final weekend before election

Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum removes waxwork of US current President Donald Trump & places it in a garbage container.

Berlin's Madame Tussauds removes waxwork of Donald Trump before US election

Less than a week before the US elections, the state of Minnesota has decided not to bring in emergency intervention from the Supreme Court over an appeals ruling that questions legality of their decision to allow mail-in ballots which will be received after election day.

A ruling was issued in the state of Minnesota, which will not be considered as the final word of litigation yet, that states that the mail-in ballots received after the Election day, which is November 03, will have to be separated from the ones received before and on the day of the election.&nbsp;It states that the ruling by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals — which was seen in favour of Republicans — that stated all the ballots received after the Election day should not be counted is unlawful.

"While Minnesota will comply with the 8th Circuit`s ruling to segregate the ballots received after November 3, we need to emphasize that there is no court ruling yet saying those ballots are invalid," said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-moves-his-election-night-party-to-the-white-house-339149">Also read|&nbsp;Trump 'moves' his election night party to the White House</a>

"We absolutely reserve the right to make every argument after Election Day that protects voters," he added.

Simon also urged people to deliver their mail-in ballot directly to the country election offices or bote in person&nbsp;instead of mailing in the envelope. As per the state law, the residents are supposed to deliver their mail-in ballots by the November 93. This rule, however, was changed a bit and the deadline was extended through a settlement reached&nbsp;with a citizens group that sued earlier this year. The settlement states that election officials can count mail-in ballot until November 10, but they have to be postmarked by November 03.

The current President and Republican candidate Donald Trump has also warned about potential fraud and vote manipulation in the process of mail-in ballots. He also stated that there is no guarantee the election results will be available soon and can see a delay to the same. However, his statements were met with harsh criticism from his Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Less than a week before the US elections, the state of Minnesota has decided not to bring in emergency intervention from the Supreme Court over an appeals ruling that questions legality of their decision to allow mail-in ballots which will be received after election day.

Less than a week before the US elections, the state of Minnesota has decided not to bring in emergency intervention from the Supreme Court over an appeals ruling that questions legality of their decision to allow mail-in ballots which will be received after election day. A ruling was issued in the state of Minnesota, which will not be considered as the final word of litigation yet, that states that the mail-in ballots received after the Election day, which is November 03, will have to be separated from the ones received before and on the day of the election. It states that the ruling by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals — which was seen in favour of Republicans — that stated all the ballots received after the Election day should not be counted is unlawful. "While Minnesota will comply with the 8th Circuit`s ruling to segregate the ballots received after November 3, we need to emphasize that there is no court ruling yet saying those ballots are invalid," said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat. Also read| Trump 'moves' his election night party to the White House "We absolutely reserve the right to make every argument after Election Day that protects voters," he added. Simon also urged people to deliver their mail-in ballot directly to the country election offices or bote in person instead of mailing in the envelope. As per the state law, the residents are supposed to deliver their mail-in ballots by the November 93. This rule, however, was changed a bit and the deadline was extended through a settlement reached with a citizens group that sued earlier this year. The settlement states that election officials can count mail-in ballot until November 10, but they have to be postmarked by November 03. The current President and Republican candidate Donald Trump has also warned about potential fraud and vote manipulation in the process of mail-in ballots. He also stated that there is no guarantee the election results will be available soon and can see a delay to the same. However, his statements were met with harsh criticism from his Democratic rival and former Vice President Joe Biden.

US Election 2020: Minnesota decides to accept mail-in voting till November 10; conditions apply

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-and-trump-campaign-in-heartland-states-in-us-election-finale-339143">Biden and Trump campaign in heartland states in US election finale</a>

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden Friday had the dais to himself as he and the incumbent US president, Donald Trump, sparred over American Midwest in the run up to the November 3 vote | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-and-trump-campaign-in-heartland-states-in-us-election-finale-339143">READ MORE</a>

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A US federal judge has issued an injunction temporarily blocking an executive order by President Donald Trump aimed at banning TikTok, throwing up a legal roadblock ahead of a November 12 deadline | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-judge-blocks-trump-bid-to-ban-tiktok-339147">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/el-salvador-landslide-kills-seven-over-30-missing-339152">El Salvador landslide kills seven; over 30 missing</a>

A landslide sparked by heavy rains has killed at least seven people in El Salvador and more than 30 more are suspected missing under a deluge of mud | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/el-salvador-landslide-kills-seven-over-30-missing-339152">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/no-fresh-ceasefire-commitment-from-armenia-azerbaijan-339144">No fresh ceasefire commitment from Armenia, Azerbaijan</a>

Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach agreement on a fresh ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during talks in Geneva Friday. They, however, vowed to now target civilians | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/no-fresh-ceasefire-commitment-from-armenia-azerbaijan-339144">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-moves-his-election-night-party-to-the-white-house-339149">Trump 'moves' his election night party to the White House</a>

United States President Donald Trump Friday has said he would want to relocate his campaign’s election night party to the White House "or another venue" if the coronavirus restrictions in Washington, prevent him from holding the event at his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-moves-his-election-night-party-to-the-white-house-339149">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/journalist-murdered-in-mexico-sixth-this-year-339146">Journalist murdered in Mexico, sixth this year</a>

A journalist has been shot dead in crime-ridden northern Mexico, authorities said Friday, the sixth such murder this year in one of the world's most dangerous countries for reporters | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/journalist-murdered-in-mexico-sixth-this-year-339146">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/canada-extends-international-travellers-ban-339156">Canada extends international travellers ban</a>

Canada has extended a restriction on non-essential international entries until the end of November as Covid-19 cases rise in the region | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/canada-extends-international-travellers-ban-339156">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kamala-harris-urges-voters-to-vote-in-large-numbers-bring-change-at-white-house-339150">Kamala Harris urges voters to vote in large numbers; bring change at White House</a>

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Biden and Trump campaign in heartland states in US election finale Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden Friday had the dais to himself as he and the incumbent US president, Donald Trump, sparred over American Midwest in the run up to the November 3 vote | READ MORE US judge blocks Trump bid to ban TikTok A US federal judge has issued an injunction temporarily blocking an executive order by President Donald Trump aimed at banning TikTok, throwing up a legal roadblock ahead of a November 12 deadline | READ MORE El Salvador landslide kills seven; over 30 missing A landslide sparked by heavy rains has killed at least seven people in El Salvador and more than 30 more are suspected missing under a deluge of mud | READ MORE No fresh ceasefire commitment from Armenia, Azerbaijan Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach agreement on a fresh ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during talks in Geneva Friday.

Biden and Trump campaign in heartland states in US election finale Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden Friday had the dais to himself as he and the incumbent US president, Donald Trump, sparred over American Midwest in the run up to the November 3 vote | READ MORE US judge blocks Trump bid to ban TikTok A US federal judge has issued an injunction temporarily blocking an executive order by President Donald Trump aimed at banning TikTok, throwing up a legal roadblock ahead of a November 12 deadline | READ MORE El Salvador landslide kills seven; over 30 missing A landslide sparked by heavy rains has killed at least seven people in El Salvador and more than 30 more are suspected missing under a deluge of mud | READ MORE No fresh ceasefire commitment from Armenia, Azerbaijan Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to reach agreement on a fresh ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict during talks in Geneva Friday. They, however, vowed to now target civilians | READ MORE Trump 'moves' his election night party to the White House United States President Donald Trump Friday has said he would want to relocate his campaign’s election night party to the White House "or another venue" if the coronavirus restrictions in Washington, prevent him from holding the event at his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel | READ MORE Journalist murdered in Mexico, sixth this year A journalist has been shot dead in crime-ridden northern Mexico, authorities said Friday, the sixth such murder this year in one of the world's most dangerous countries for reporters | READ MORE Canada extends international travellers ban Canada has extended a restriction on non-essential international entries until the end of November as Covid-19 cases rise in the region | READ MORE Kamala Harris urges voters to vote in large numbers; bring change at White House Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has urged the Americans to come out and vote in large numbers to bring a change at the White House | READ MORE

Morning news brief: Updates on US election, Karabakh conflict, and more

US President Donald Trump in a tweet said the US Special Forces had managed a "big win" today, while adding that "details will follow".

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Big win for our very elite U.S. Special Forces today. Details to follow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1322534172339150853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The President's tweet comes just days ahead of the US presidential poll on November 3.

The US president did not specify where the operation took place.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said the US forces have rescued an American hostage in Nigeria.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is committed to the safe return of all US citizens taken captive.&nbsp;

"We delivered on that commitment late last night in Nigeria, where some of our bravest and most skilled warriors rescued a US citizen," he added.

US President Donald Trump in a tweet said the US Special Forces had managed a "big win" today, while adding that "details will follow". Big win for our very elite U.

US President Donald Trump in a tweet said the US Special Forces had managed a "big win" today, while adding that "details will follow". Big win for our very elite U.S. Special Forces today. Details to follow! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2020 × The President's tweet comes just days ahead of the US presidential poll on November 3. The US president did not specify where the operation took place. Meanwhile, the Pentagon said the US forces have rescued an American hostage in Nigeria. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is committed to the safe return of all US citizens taken captive. "We delivered on that commitment late last night in Nigeria, where some of our bravest and most skilled warriors rescued a US citizen," he added.

Big win for our very elite US Special Forces today: Trump

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