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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/politics/voting-trump-campaign-questions-wisconsin-georgia/index.html

    Joe Biden is telling blatant lies about the coronavirus and “living in an alternate reality,” Sean Hannity claimed in his opening monologue Thursday.

    “Joe actually wants Americans, you the American people, to believe that he can beat COVID-19, but only if you elect him,” the “Hannity” host said. “If he remembers what it is in November.”

    VIDEO MONTAGE SHOWS HOW MEDIA TAKE IT EASY ON BIDEN

    According to Hannity, Biden is “lying” when he claims President Trump did everything wrong in response to the coronavirus outbreak, while the former vice president was the one to “sound the alarm” on the pandemic.

    In fact, the host pointed out, Biden adviser Ron Klain had praised China on Jan. 27 for being “more transparent and more candid than it has been during past outbreaks.”

    BIDEN SPOKESMAN REFUSES TO DISCUSS WHETHER FORMER VP USED TELEPROMPTER TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

    “The same China where zero-experience Hunter Biden got the sweetheart $1.5 billion deal from the Bank of China,” he said. “Quid-pro-quo Joe sucking up to Hunter — he’s compromised by China.”

    The following day, on Jan. 28, Klain told CNBC that it would be “premature” to cut off travel from China since a quarter-million of those travelers were “already here.”

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    “Meanwhile,” Hannity said, “Joe Biden was still holding indoor rallies in the month of March and he was doling out his world-famous creepy hugs. Remember those? He wasn’t talking about social distancing, he wasn’t wearing a mask.”

    “Joe Biden did everything wrong,” he concluded, “but now he’s going to lie about it and hope that you will all forget what really happened.”

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/sean-hannity-joe-biden-everything-wrong-coronavirus

    While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will each be honoring the Americans who died in the attacks, their sharply divergent approaches to showing empathy may be on display on Friday. Mr. Biden, who has suffered a series of family tragedies, is perhaps at his best when comforting someone else grappling with grief, whether in a one-on-one conversation or while giving a eulogy. Mr. Trump, a lover of campaign rallies, is not known for those skills.

    Their appearances come against a backdrop of heated exchanges over honoring America’s war dead. Last week, The Atlantic reported that Mr. Trump had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as “losers” and “suckers,” among other instances of being dismissive of military service, assertions Mr. Trump has denied. Mr. Biden has expressed outrage over the reported remarks, declaring them to be “disgusting,” “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” Mr. Biden’s late son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer, served in the Iraq war.

    Mr. Biden has begun to travel more frequently, and Friday is another example of his stepped-up schedule of in-person appearances. He has visited Pennsylvania and Michigan this week, and he is scheduled to travel to Florida, Pennsylvania and Minnesota next week.

    The annual Sept. 11 ceremony at ground zero ended up being a heavily scrutinized moment in the last presidential race, as Hillary Clinton left abruptly and had to be helped into a van, a scene that was captured on video. Mrs. Clinton had received a diagnosis of pneumonia two days earlier, but her campaign did not disclose it until hours after she left the ceremony.

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/us/politics/shanksville-trump-biden.html

    Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/10/court-blocks-trump-attempt-bar-undocumented-immigrants-census/3463155001/

    Four Houston police officers were fired on Thursday after fatally shooting a 27-year-old man who was on the ground and appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis earlier this year.

    Police Chief Art Acevenido announced the firings as he showed graphic bodycam footage from the night of April 21, when the cops fired their weapons 21 times at Nicolas Chavez following a 15-minute confrontation.

    Chavez, who had already been injured in the standoff with police, was kneeling on the ground bleeding and grabbing a stun gun that had been dropped when the cops shot him.

    An internal investigation determined the cops had not used reasonable force. The chief said that although Chavez had picked up the stun gun, the officers had plenty of time to back up and take cover.

    “Quite frankly, it’s inexplicable to me when they had plenty of opportunity to back up and continue to be doing what they were doing for them to stay the line and shoot a man 21 times,” Acevedo said. “I cannot defend that.”

    “The action being taken today does say in our city, we hold everyone accountable,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner.

    The cops were identified as Officer Patrick Rubio, who had been with the department since May 2018; Officer Luis Alvarado, with the department since March 2019; Officer Omar Tapia, with the department since March 2019; and Sgt. Benjamin LeBlanc, with the department since October 2008.

    They were responding to a call about a possibly suicidal man who was running in and out of traffic. Callers to 911 had reported a man was running around and “having a mental breakdown.”

    In the bodycam footage, cops could be heard telling Chavez, “Hey buddy, hey bud, we’re here to help you, man” and “just relax. No one is shooting” and “we’re trying to help you man.”

    Chavez could be heard cursing at the cops while wildly flailing his arms and legs. His family has said he had a history of mental illness.

    Officers fired bean bag rounds from shotguns at Chavez and deployed their stun guns, but it had little effect on him. At one point, a cop said Chavez had a knife and the officers told him to put it down.

    Investigators later determined that Chavez had a piece of metal that he used to cut himself.

    Before he was fatally shot, the footage showed Chavez coming toward the officers, and two of them then fired three times at him, injuring him. Acevedo said those discharges of officer weapons were justified.

    Cellphone video of the shooting taken by a bystander circulated on social media in the week after the shooting, and activists had earlier called on Acevedo to release the bodycam footage.

    Leaders with the Houston Police Officers’ Union denounced the firings, saying the officers had followed their training and tried to de-escalate the situation, but were forced to shoot when Chavez pointed the stun gun at them.

    “It was clear… these officers did not want to shoot Mr. Chavez and did everything in their power not to,” said union president Joe Gamaldi.

    The shooting was found to be justified by the city’s independent police oversight board. The union suggested the firings were the result of political pressure following protests over police brutality and racial injustice sparked by the May 25 police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

    Over several weeks in April and May, there were six fatal shootings involving Houston Police, beginning with Chavez’s death.

    The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is still investigating his shooting and the case was expected to be presented to a grand jury.

    With Post wires

    Source Article from https://nypost.com/2020/09/10/four-houston-cops-fired-after-fatally-shooting-man-in-april/

    Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Thursday he hopes he can avoid getting “baited” into a “brawl” with President Trump when the two face off against each other in three general election debates in the coming weeks.

    “I’m looking forward to getting on the debate stage with Trump and holding him accountable,” Biden said during a virtual fundraiser. “I think I know how to handle bullies. We’ll find out.”

    WHEN ARE THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES?

    He added: “I hope I don’t get baited into getting into a brawl with this guy.”

    The first presidential debate is less than three weeks away in Cleveland on Sept. 29. The second presidential debate is set for Oct. 15 in Miami. The third presidential debate is set for Oct. 22 in Nashville. (The vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris is set for Oct. 7 in Salt Lake City.)

    Trump and Biden have not hidden their disdain for each other in the deeply-personal race: Trump routinely calls Biden “Sleepy Joe” and questions his mental fitness for the presidency. Biden has accused Trump of being the country’s “first” racist president. Both have dismissed each other’s claims.

    Biden made the comments to supporters at a virtual fundraiser with the musician Jon Bon Jovi, who kicked off the evening with a rendition of his song “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.” 

    During his remarks, Biden slammed the president over the revelations in author Bob Woodward’s new book that shows the president downplayed the severity of the coronavirus to the public at the beginning of the crisis.

    “This is a man who lied to the American people,” Biden said, adding that Trump’s “failings have not only cost lives, they’ve cost livelihoods and sent the economy into a tailspin.”

    TRUMP BLASTS BIDEN FOR CALLING NAFTA ‘A MISTAKE’ AFTER HE VOTED FOR IT

    Meanwhile on Thursday night, Trump was campaigning in Michigan, where he blasted Biden for admitting earlier that NAFTA was “a mistake” — despite the fact the Democrat voted for the Clinton-era trade agreement.

    “I have the distinct pleasure of running against the worst presidential candidate in presidential politics,” Trump said. “Can you imagine if I lost to him?”

    Fox News’ Madeleine Rivera contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-hopes-baited-brawl-trump-debates

    West Coast authorities have reported that at least 23 people have died in wildfires that are raging in California, Oregon and Washington state, as more than 500,000 Oregonians are forced to evacuate due to 100 major fires that have devastated nearly 4.4 million acres across 12 states. 

    A Northern California wildfire became the state’s deadliest of the year Thursday when authorities announced seven more deaths. Officials said the number may rise as searchers looked for 16 missing people.

    Three other deaths have been confirmed in Oregon and one in Washington state, authorities said. 

    Authorities in Oregon said Thursday night that more than 500,000 people statewide were forced to evacuate due to wildfires. The latest figures come from the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. That’s over 10 per cent of the state’s 4.2 million population.

    More than 1,400 square miles have burned this week in the state. Authorities say the wildfire activity was particularly acute Thursday afternoon in northwestern Oregon as hot, windy conditions continued.

    In California, Butte County sheriff’s deputies and detectives found seven bodies on Thursday, a day after three other victims were discovered. Among those unaccounted for are Sandy Butler and her husband, who called their son to say they were going to try to escape the flames by finding shelter in a pond.

    ‘We’re still hoping and praying for good news,’ said Jessica Fallon, who has two children with the Butler’s grandson and considers them her own grandparents. ‘Everything is replaceable, but not my grandparents’ lives. I’d rather lose everything than those two. They kind of held the family together.’

    Scroll down for video 

    West Coast authorities have reported that at least 23 people have died in wildfires that are raging in California, Oregon and Washington state. This aerial view shows a mobile home park in Phoenix, Oregon, that was destroyed by a fire 

    Hundreds of homes in Phoenix, Oregon (mobile home park pictured), have been lost due to wildfires in the state 

    Oregon residents evacuate north along highway Highway 213 on Wednesday near Oregon City, Oregon. As of Thursday night, more than 500,000 Oregonians – 10 per cent of the state’s population – have been forced to evacuate 

    More than 14,000 firefighters are battling 28 fires across California, according to the Department of Fires and Forestry Protection. An exhausted Cal Fire crew were seen taking a break in the grass next to Berry Creek Elementary School, which was destroyed overnight during the Bear Fire on Wednesday

    A bird bath is seen in front of the charred remains of a home after the passage of the Santiam Fire in Gates, Oregon, on Thursday

    A neighborhood destroyed by fire is seen as wildfires devastate the region on Thursday in Talent, Oregon

    More bodies could be found as crews manage to make their way into devastated areas. A team of anthropologists from Chico State University were helping in the search, sheriff’s Capt Derek Bell said.

    The weeks-old fire was about 50 per cent contained when winds thrashed it into explosive growth on Tuesday, driving it through rugged Sierra Nevada foothills and destroying much of the town of Berry Creek.

    More than 2,000 homes and other buildings had burned in the lightning-sparked collection of fires now known as the North Complex burning about 125 miles northeast of San Francisco. 

    Forecasters said there was some good news on the weather front: winds were expected to remain lighter this week in the fire area, while dense smoke actually knocked down the temperature slightly and was expected to kept the humidity somewhat higher.

    The fire is among five this year that have set records for the most land ever burned, including a blaze that broke the mark Thursday as the largest ever.

    More than 4,800 square miles have burned so far this year – more land than Rhode Island, Delaware and Washington, DC, combined – and fall is typically the worst season for fires. Nineteen people have been killed and nearly 4,000 structures have burned across the state.

    People fleeing from wildfires in Northern California gather at a temporary evacuation point in Gridley, California, on Thursday 

    A sign warning of impending fire danger is posted on a roadway in Estacada, Oregon. Multiple wildfires grew by hundreds of thousands of acres Thursday, prompting large-scale evacuations throughout the state

    Members of the Mormon Hot Shots from Arizona lay hose line down rugged terrain off Highway 39 near Crystal Lake in front of the Bobcat Fire, which has burned more than 23,000 acres on Thursday 

    Firefighters work on mopping up a back burn near Leaburg, Oregon, on Thursday. A dearth of resources has hampered the fight against the Holiday Farm Fire

    Oregon firefighters put out embers in Mill City, Oregon, on Thursday as they battle the Santiam Fire

    An orange smoke-filled sky is seen above Molalla, Oregon, on Thursday as fires burn nearby

    The fires, fed by drought-sapped vegetation amid warming temperatures attributed to climate change, have spread at an alarming rate and given people less time to flee.

    Hundreds of campers, hikers, and people spending Labor Day weekend at mountainside reservoirs and retreats had to be evacuated by military helicopters when they got stranded by a fast-moving fire that broke out in the Sierra National Forest in the center of the state during record-setting high temperatures.

    President Donald Trump spoke with Gov Gavin Newsom on Thursday ‘to express his condolences for the loss of life and reiterate the administration’s full support to help those on the front lines of the fires,’ according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.

    The North Complex fire is the 10th largest in the record books and growing as firefighters try to prevent it from advancing toward the town of Paradise, where the most destructive fire in state history two years ago killed 85 people and destroyed 19,000 buildings.

    Authorities lifted an evacuation warning for Paradise on Thursday, the day after residents awoke to similar skies as the 2018 morning when a wind-whipped inferno reduced the town to rubble. 

    Under red skies and falling ash Wednesday, many chose to flee again, jamming the main road out of town in another replay of the catastrophe two years ago. About 20,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings in three counties from the fire.

    Flames lick above vehicles on Highway 162 as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, California, Wednesday night. The blaze, part of the lightning-sparked North Complex, expanded at a critical rate of spread as winds buffeted the region

    Flames consume a home and car as the Bear Fire burns through the Berry Creek area of Butte County, California, on Wednesday

    Flames shoot from a window as the Bear Fire burns through the Berry Creek area of Butte County, California, in Wednesday

    In this photo provided by Frederic Larson, the Golden Gate Bridge is seen at 11am Wednesday morning in San Francisco, amid a smoky, orange hue caused by the ongoing wildfires

    The Bobcat Fire consumes a forest in the Angeles National Forest on Thursday north of Monrovia, California

    Some 14,000 firefighters continued to try to corral 29 major wildfires from the Oregon border to just north of Mexico, though California was almost entirely free of critical fire weather warnings after days of hot, dry conditions and the threat of strong winds.

    Smoke blew into vineyards in wine country north of San Francisco, and rose above scenic Big Sur on the Central Coast and in the foothills and mountains of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties in the southern part of the state.

    Numerous fires continued to burn in Washington and Oregon, as well, and dense smoke blanketed much of the West Coast on Thursday morning, darkening skies with hazardous air pollution.

    Authorities in Washington state announced the arrest of a second person for intentionally starting a brush fire in Pierce County.

    State troopers said a witness saw the man setting fire to grass with a match near State Route 512 and State Route 7 and called police. After a brief chase, troopers arrested the individual.

    The recent arrest follows that of a 36-year-old Puyallup man who was taken into custody for allegedly starting a large brushfire which temporarily shut down state Route 167 and several ramps near Meridian Avenue.

    In Oregon, a fire raging along the Oregon border destroyed 150 homes near the community of Happy Camp and one person was confirmed dead, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said. About 400 more homes were threatened.

    The fire that roared into the hamlet of Berry Creek, with a population of 525, incinerated countless homes and largely destroyed Camp Okizu, a summer getaway for children with cancer.

    A crew fighting the fire was overrun by flames when winds shifted and its members escaped with only minor injuries after deploying emergency shelters. It was the second time in two days that firefighters in California had to take the rare last-ditch effort to save their lives.

    Fallon, who had driven from the San Francisco Bay Area after hearing the Butlers were missing Wednesday morning, waited with her toddler son and 2-year-old daughter with dozens of evacuees gathered at a fairgrounds in the small city of Gridley, trembling in morning cold.

    A scorched car rests in a clearing following the Bear Fire in Butte County, California, on Wednesday 

    A hand crew works to save a home as the Bear Fire burns through the Berry Creek area of Butte County, California, on Wednesday

    A hand crew clears vegetation from around a barn as the Bear Fire burns through the Berry Creek area of Butte County, California, on Wednesday

    Among them was Douglas Johnsrude, who packed up his eight dogs and fled his home in the community of Feather Falls on Tuesday.

    Johnsrude said he assumed his house trailer burned, which would be the second time he’s lost his home in a fire. He inherited his mother’s house after her death, but it was destroyed in a 2017 fire.

    ‘The reason I haven’t rebuilt up there is because I knew it was going to happen again. And guess what? It happened again,’ he said. ‘Seeing the smoke and the flames and everything else, it’s unreal. It’s like an apocalypse or something.’

    Butte County spokeswoman Amy Travis described the evacuation center as a staging area while officials line up hotel rooms for families displaced by the fire amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    ‘COVID has changed the way we do sheltering,’ she said. ‘We don’t have a lot of hotel rooms here in Butte County, and a lot of them are definitely busy with people that have already made their own hotel arrangements for evacuations.’

    Fallon said she’d been peppering hospitals with phone calls in search of her grandparents.

    Her daughter, Ava, doesn’t understand what´s going on. She thinks they’re camping. The girl typically speaks with her great-grandmother two to three times a day.

    ‘I´m tossing and turning. I have just such bad anxiety. I´m just really worried about my grandparents,’ Fallon said. ‘I’m hoping that they’re up there sitting in some water waiting to be rescued.’

    Source Article from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8721227/West-Coast-wildfire-death-toll-rises-23-500-000-Oregon-residents-forced-evacuate.html

    A three-judge panel from a federal court in New York has blocked President Trump’s order to exclude counting illegal immigrants for the purpose of redrawing congressional districts.

    The panel ruled that the move would violate the law and granted an injunction halting it.

    They also blocked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who runs the department that oversees the Census Bureau, from excluding illegal immigrants when turning over data to be used to calculate the number of House seats each state receives.

    TRUMP DEFENDS DOWNPLAYING CORONAVIRUS AMID WOODWARD BOOK UPROAR, SAYS BIDEN USING PANDEMIC FOR ‘POLITICAL GAIN’

    “The Presidential Memorandum violates the statutes governing the census and apportionment in two clear respects,” the judges wrote in their opinion. “First, pursuant to the virtually automatic scheme established by these interlocking statutes, the Secretary is mandated to report a single set of numbers — “[t]he tabulation of total population by States” under the decennial census — to the President, and the President, in turn, is required to use the same set of numbers in connection with apportionment.”

    President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One for a trip to a campaign rally in Freeland, Mich., Sept. 10, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    The lawsuit was brought by dozens of states, including New York, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups in response to a July 21 order from Trump that sought to exclude illegal immigrants from being counted in the 2020 Census.

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Historically, the total population has been used to calculate congressional representation, whether residents are citizens or not, the judges wrote.

    “This is a huge victory for voting rights and for immigrants’ rights. President Trump has tried and failed yet again to weaponize the census against immigrant communities,” Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. “The law is clear — every person counts in the census.”

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-panel-blocks-trump-illegal-immigrants-2020-census

    LAS VEGAS — Attorneys for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign are urging a federal judge in Las Vegas to block a state law and prevent mail-in ballots from going to all active Nevada voters less than eight weeks before the Nov. 3 elections and amid the coronavirus pandemic.

    The campaign argues in documents filed Tuesday in a bid to keep its lawsuit alive that it is hurt by the state law passed in July by the Democrat-led Legislature because it forces Republicans to divert resources to “educating Nevada voters on those changes and encouraging them to still vote.”

    Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, declined to comment Thursday about the lawsuit. Attorneys for the state did not immediately respond to messages.

    The Trump campaign argues that sending ballots to nearly 1.7 million active voters in Nevada will impede Republicans’ ability to elect candidates “because the law will ‘confuse’ their voters and ‘create incentive’ to stay away from the polls.” Mail-in ballots are due to be sent out in the next few weeks.

    The 16-page U.S. District Court filing was an answer to Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s motion last month to throw out the lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign, Republican National Committee and state Republicans.

    Cegavske, also a Republican, opposed the law as unaffordable before it passed. The lawsuit targeted her as the state’s top elections official. The office of state Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, is defending the law in court.

    Nevada argues that the Trump campaign and Republicans don’t have legal standing to take the case to court and have failed to explain how they’d be harmed. The state also argues that Republicans do not support their “nebulous argument that (the state law) increases the likelihood of voter fraud.”

    The Democratic National Committee and state Democrats are seeking to join the lawsuit, and attorneys from around the country on both sides have applied to take part.

    Defenders of the vote-by-mail plan note that another federal judge in Nevada rejected a challenge against the use of mail-in ballots during Nevada’s primary elections in June.

    They characterize the state law as a modest change to address the dangers of voting in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Trump, who has acknowledged voting absentee by mail himself in the past, has repeatedly attacked what he terms “universal mail-in voting” as unsafe and a soft target for fraud and interference.

    “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he tweeted July 30.

    U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in Phoenix on Thursday that universal mail-in voting eliminates the intent of a secret vote.

    “Your name is associated with a particular ballot. The government and the people involved can find out and know how you voted. And it opens up the door to coercion,” Barr said.

    Senior U.S. District Judge James Mahan has not scheduled hearings ahead of a decision on Democrats’ requests to intervene, or Cegavske’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.

    Mahan, a U.S. Navy veteran originally from El Paso, Texas, was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2002.

    ————

    Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/trump-campaign-asks-us-judge-kill-nevada-vote-72929328

    President Donald Trump on Thursday defended comments he made to reporter Bob Woodward in early February in which he acknowledged the coronavirus “goes through air” despite publicly downplaying the threat in public and telling Americans the virus would disappear.

    At the time of Trump’s private comments to Woodward, it was unclear how the virus spread and scientists were debating whether and to what degree it could spread through the air. Trump, however, insisted on Thursday that it was widely understood that the virus spread through particles in the air before he made his private remarks in a Feb. 7 taped phone call between Woodward and the president.

    “This is stuff that everyone knew. There’s a report that I have here someplace where China said it was airborne earlier than the statements I made. People knew it was airborne. This was nothing,” he said Thursday in a White House press briefing. “When I say it was airborne, everybody knew it was airborne. This was no big thing. Read the reports. China came out with a statement that it was an airborne disease. I heard it was an airborne disease. I assumed it early on.”

    In response to a question about what report the president was citing, a White House official pointed CNBC to a Jan. 30 report from TIME. The report said Chinese authorities announced on Jan. 7 that they had isolated the virus, which “belongs to the coronavirus family… and spreads via airborne droplets.”

    A day after Trump’s private comments to Woodward, Chinese state media The China Daily reported that Zeng Qun, deputy head of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, said the virus can spread through aerosol transmission, suggesting the virus was airborne in some situations. But the next day, officials from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention disputed the earlier report, according to The China Daily, saying that there was no evidence the virus could spread through airborne particles. 

    Early in the outbreak, scientists stressed how little was known about the virus, which emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of December. In the nine months since the virus emerged, scientists have learned much about how it spreads and the disease it causes but continue to emphasize that it is a relatively new virus and much remains unclear. The role that airborne transmission of the virus plays in general spread has been among the more contentious questions debated.

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the virus is primarily spread through respiratory droplets, which an infected person can spread when they talk, cough or sneeze, for example. The CDC adds that these droplets can land on hands and surfaces, where they might survive for some period of time and can potentially infect people. The CDC adds that “short-range” airborne spread of aerosolized particles is a “possibility,” but stops short of definitively calling it a confirmed route of transmission. 

    The question of whether and to what extent these droplets might survive and spread through the air has been debated since early in the outbreak. The first strong scientific study backed by the U.S. government that showed the virus might spread through the air came on March 18. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University examined how long Covid-19 survives in the air as well as on a variety of surfaces and compared it with SARS, the coronavirus that emerged in late 2002 and killed nearly 800 people.

    They found that Covid-19 was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, though it remained unclear whether the trace amounts of the virus found in the air were potent enough to infect someone and replicate. The results suggested “that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects,” Dr. Neeltje van Doremalen, a scientist from NIH and a lead researcher on the study, said in a statement at the time.

    The Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said in a Feb. 11 press conference that “corona is airborne,” but he quickly clarified his remarks, saying that he meant the virus can “spread via droplets or respiratory transmission.” 

    It was not until March that the World Health Organization officially acknowledged that the virus-carrying droplets might be spreading through airborne particles in certain environments. 

    “When you do an aerosol-generating procedure like in a medical care facility, you have the possibility to what we call aerosolize these particles, which means they can stay in the air a little bit longer,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said on March 16. 

    On July 6, a group of 239 scientists from 32 different countries published an open letter calling on the WHO and other health agencies to update their guidance to reflect the threat of airborne transmission of the coronavirus. The scientists said there was emerging evidence that indicated airborne transmission could present a serious risk.

    “There is significant potential for inhalation exposure to viruses in microscopic respiratory droplets (microdroplets) at short to medium distances (up to several meters, or room scale), and we are advocating for the use of preventive measures to mitigate this route of airborne transmission,” the scientists wrote in the paper.

    That week, the WHO updated their official guidance to say that “short-range aerosol transmission, particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out.” But like the CDC, the United Nations health agency stopped short of confirming that the virus spreads in such a way.

    It was five months before that, on Feb. 7, that Trump told Woodward that the coronavirus was spreading widely through the air.

    “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” he said, according to the tapes of the interview. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

    At around the same time, members of the Trump administration and the White House coronavirus task force told Americans that the general public did not need to buy masks, which appear to help prevent the virus-carrying droplets from spreading. Trump defended his decision to downplay the threat of the virus early in the outbreak. 

    “The fact is there has to be a calmness,” he said Thursday. “You don’t want me jumping up and down screaming there’s going to be great death.”

    Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/10/trump-says-everyone-knew-the-coronavirus-was-airborne-in-february-its-no-big-thing.html

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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/politics/trump-disclosures-anxiety/index.html

    Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/10/2020-survey-voters-say-biden-cares-more-covid-than-trump/3456898001/

    In the four years since Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 presidential election, the GOP has registered nearly seven times more voters than Democrats in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

    BIDEN RETAINS EDGE OVER TRUMP IN BATTLEGROUND PENNSYLVANIA: POLL

    Keystone State Republicans have added almost 198,000 registered voters to the books since 2016, while Democrats have gained an additional 29,000, Politico reported Thursday.

    Democrats still outnumber Republicans by about 750,000 voters in the state, but the percentage of those registered is down two points from September 2016. The percentage of Republicans has risen from 38% to 39%.

    People register to vote during a GOP event in Brownsville, Pa., on Sept. 5, 2020. Less than two months before the Nov. 3 presidential election, the contrast between Republicans and Democrats is striking in Washington County, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

    Many party officials credit President Trump with narrowing the divide.

    An uptick in registrations in three critical areas across Pennsylvania — including Erie, Luzerne, and Northampton counties — helped Trump to flip the state in 2016, according to Politico; Hillary Clinton lost to him there by less than one percentage point.

    Republicans have made the biggest net gains in western Pennsylvania’s Westmoreland, Luzerne and Washington counties, Politico said, while Democrats have gained ground in the suburbs around Philadelphia including Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Bucks counties.

    While Democrats in the state said that they were not particularly concerned about the increase, Republicans said they have benefitted from the Trump campaign’s in-person canvassing.

    Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s team has largely opted for a virtual approach amid the COVID-19 pandemic, although local Democratic groups have held some socially distanced events focused on signing up voters, Politico reported.

    Democratic analysis firm TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier pinned Republican strides to lagging data, telling reporters in a newsletter that Democrats have signed up almost 415,000 new voters since 2016 and Republicans had comparatively only signed up about 282,000.

    The leader of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, Lawrence Tabas, told Politico that Democrats are making excuses.

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    “If I were them, I would say that I think voter registration is some sort of a lagging issue. You would, too,” he remarked. “Having this additional edge of newly registered Republicans from the Democratic base, these are people who are going to vote in November. These people are committed.”

    November’s upcoming election is going to be different for many voters due to a shortage of polling workers, a deadly health crisis, a widespread economic recession and recommendations to vote by mail to lower COVID-19 infection risk.

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/key-battleground-state-gop-see-voter-registration-surge

    Under federal law, the Census Bureau forwards preliminary population totals for each state to the secretary of commerce, who must deliver them to the president before the end of each census year. The president then forwards the totals to Congress for use in reapportionment.

    The court said the president’s order excluding unauthorized immigrants violated the law “in two clear respects.” It said federal law required the production of a single set of state population totals, making two separate counts illegal. Beyond that, the judges wrote, Mr. Trump’s memorandum “violates the statute governing reapportionment because, so long as they reside in the United States, illegal aliens qualify as ‘persons’ in a ‘state’ as Congress used those words.”

    It was not immediately clear how — or whether — the ruling would affect a second legal battle loosely tied to Mr. Trump’s order: a fight over the administration’s command last month to shave four weeks off the time reserved for the population count.

    The White House had earlier agreed to delay the delivery of census totals to the president, legally required by Dec. 31, to April 2021 because of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But the administration later reversed itself, ordering the count cut short so the original deadline could be met.

    That move was widely seen as an attempt to ensure that Mr. Trump would still be able to control the census totals and noncitizen estimates sent to Congress for reapportionment, even if he lost his re-election bid.

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/us/census-undocumented-trump.html

    The Biden campaign said that it was “aware of reports from Microsoft that a foreign actor has made unsuccessful attempts to access the noncampaign email accounts of individuals affiliated with the campaign,” and that it was preparing for the inevitable onslaught of attacks in the coming weeks. While the campaign did not confirm the company’s reporting, it has taken issue with the director of national intelligence’s assessment, issued several weeks ago, that Chinese leaders prefer Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump.

    The Microsoft investigation also concluded that hackers related to Russia’s G.R.U., the military intelligence unit that oversaw the “hack and leak” efforts in 2016 that made emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign public, were going to new lengths to hide their tracks. They are routing some of the attacks through Tor, a service that conceals the attackers’ whereabouts and identity, which slowed the effort to identify the hackers.

    So far, Microsoft officials said they found no evidence that hacking efforts this year were successful, but corporate officials noted that they had limited vision into Russia’s overall operations. They cannot say definitively that no materials were stolen, or what Russia’s motivations may be. That, they said, was the role of U.S. intelligence officials.

    Microsoft’s findings come just two weeks after the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, declared that he would no longer let intelligence agencies give detailed, in-person briefings about election interference to Congress. He said the restrictions were because of leaks.

    In a statement, Christopher Krebs, who directs the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, said, “We are aware that Microsoft detected attempts to compromise email accounts of people and organizations associated with the upcoming election.”

    Mr. Krebs noted that “none are involved in maintaining or operating voting infrastructure and there was no identified impact on election systems.” He also said that the company’s “announcement is consistent with earlier statements by the intelligence community on a range of malicious cyberactivities targeting the 2020 campaign and reinforces that this is an all-of-nation effort to defend democracy.”

    Mr. Krebs, who was a Microsoft executive before joining the Trump administration, said his agency was releasing on Thursday “guidance for improving cyberdefenses against account compromise attacks.”

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/us/politics/russian-hacking-microsoft-biden-trump.html