SFAX, Tunisia (AP) — A third suspect is in French custody Saturday in connection with an Islamic extremist knife attack that killed three people in a Nice church, as the family of the suspected Tunisian assailant demanded to see video footage of what happened.
Investigators in France, Tunisia and Italy are trying to determine the motive of chief suspect Ibrahim Issaoui and whether he acted alone and whether he premeditated Thursday’s attack on the Notre Dame Basilica.
Authorities have labeled the attack, which took place amid growing tensions around cartoons published by a French newspaper mocking the Prophet Muhammad, an act of Islamist terrorism,
Issaoui, who transited through Italy last month en route to France, is in critical condition in a French hospital after being wounded by police as they arrested him.
A 35-year-old man who had met with Issaoui in Nice was arrested overnight, a judicial official said Saturday. A 47-year-old man who had met with Issaoui the night before the attack was already in custody, bringing the number of detained suspects to three. Their connection to the attack remains unclear.
A previously unknown Tunisian extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack, and Tunisian and French authorities are investigating whether the claim is legitimate.
In Issaoui’s hometown of Sfax, his family expressed shock and appealed for peace. But they also expressed bewilderment that this young man who drank alcohol and showed no outward signs of radicalism would flee to France and attack a church.
“We want the truth about how my son carried out this terrorist attack. I want to see what the surveillance cameras showed. I will not give up my son’s rights outside the country. I want my son, dead or alive,” his mother Gamra told The Associated Press, her words often interrupted by tears.
His father and brother Wissem said that if Issaoui indeed carried out the attack, he should face justice.
“We are Muslims, we are against terrorism, we are poor. Show me that my brother committed the attack and judge him as a terrorist,” Wissem said. “If he was the attacker, he will take his responsibility.”
On the dusty Tina Street in the Nasr neighborhood of Sfax, his friends and neighbors described Issaoui as a man who sold gasoline for motorcycles. While not starving or homeless, he was poor like many in the area, poverty that is driving more and more young Tunisians to seek jobs and opportunity in Europe.
He had had small-time run-ins with the law as a teen, but nothing that alerted Tunisian authorities to possible extremist leanings. That meant that when he was served an expulsion order from Italy, he was basically free to go where he pleased.
Italy’s interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, told the AP that Italy’s overburdened repatriation centers had no place for him, despite agreements with Tunisia governing the return of citizens who don’t qualify for asylum in Italy.
“Obviously, we give precedence to people who are signaled by law enforcement or by Tunisian authorities,” Lamorgese said. “The number of spots are not infinite, and he could not therefore be placed inside a repatriation center.’’
___
Charlton reported from Paris. Trisha Thomas in Rome contributed.
Joe Biden criticizes pro-Trump protesters at rally in St. Paul, Minnesota
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden jabbed at a group of Trump supporters who honked their horns at a campaign stop in Minnesota, while he attempted to detail his plans to combat the coronavirus pandemic on Friday night.
Biden spoke over the noise throughout his speech at the drive-in rally in St. Paul. The former vice president ripped the Trump administration’s handling for the pandemic and appeared to grow irritated when the horn-honking interrupted his explanation for supporting a nationwide mask mandate.
“Dr. Fauci called for a mask mandate last week,” Biden said. “This isn’t a political statement like those ugly folks over there beeping the horns. This is a patriotic duty, for God’s sake.”
Biden argued that Trump has “simply given up” on containing the virus. He cited a surge in COVID-19 cases and a mounting death toll in Minnesota and other states.
The Democratic nominee said he would focus on “bringing the country together around testing, tracing and masking” to contain the pandemic.
Biden again referenced the horn-honking rally attendees while criticizing President Trump’s tax policies. If elected, Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., have pledged to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% and raise taxes for people earning more than $400,000 a year.
“Why should a firefighter, an educator, even that guy blowing that horn, why should he pay?” Biden said. “Why should a nurse pay higher tax rates than the super-wealthy? Why should you pay more taxes than Donald Trump pays?”
The Trump and Biden campaigns stormed battleground states on Friday in a last-minute bid to rally support ahead of Election Day. Biden began the day with an event in Iowa and was slated to deliver another speech in Wisconsin later this evening.
An average of recent polls by Real Clear Politics showed Biden with 4.7 percentage point edge on Trump in Minnesota.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump teased Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask as she attended his campaign rally in Michigan on Friday.
“I do believe Laura Ingraham is here someplace,” the president said, scanning the crowd. “Where is Laura? Where is she?”
He continued, “I can’t recognize you. Is that a mask? No way, are you wearing a mask? I’ve never seen her in a mask. Look at you. Laura, she’s being very politically correct. Whoa!”
The Center for Disease Control and top health officials advise wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in situations where social distancing is difficult — like one of the president’s rallies.
A recent USA TODAY analysis shows that COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate after at least five of Trump’s rallies since mid-August.
Trump has continued to give conflicting statements regarding his feelings for masks, switching from saying he has no problem with them, to questioning their effectiveness, to mocking others for wearing them, and claiming there is political motivation by wearing them.
The president mocked a reporter in May for being “politically correct” when they did not want to take their mask off at a press briefing.
He has also made fun of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask, just before he, First Lady Melania Trump, and dozens of campaign and White House staffers contracted COVID-19.
Ingraham was at the White House Rose Garden event, where Trump announced his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, which can be traced to many of those cases. The Fox News Anchor did not wear a mask.
Ingraham and her show “The Ingraham Angle” have also routinely downplayed the seriousness of the virus.
In an interview Thursday, a day in which Johns Hopkins reported nearly 1,000 people died of COVID-19, Donald Trump Jr. wrongly stated that the rate of COVID-19 deaths has declined to “almost nothing.”
Trump Jr. said during an episode of “The Ingraham Angle” that he “went through the CDC data” and incorrectly claimed the number of COVID-19 deaths has significantly declined.
“Oh, because the number is almost nothing,” he told Ingraham, who did not correct him. “Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.”
Public health officials have been stressing the importance of mask-wearing now more than ever as cases skyrocket around the country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, voiced support for a national mask mandate on Wednesday.
ROCHESTER – President Donald Trump brought his campaign to Minnesota on Friday with a sharp rebuke for Gov. Tim Walz and other DFL leaders who he said had forced him to pare back his rally in Rochester to comply with the state’s 250-person limit on public gatherings during the COVID-19 emergency.
The president abided by the restrictions, in a departure from his previous rallies in Minnesota. But he launched into an attack on the state’s handling of both his event and the looting and arson in the Twin Cities that followed the police killing of George Floyd in May, an event that has reshaped the 2020 election amid a national debate of race and policing.
“We’ve been given a very hard time by your so-called leaders,” Trump told supporters at the Rochester International Airport, where he stopped on a swing through several key Midwestern battleground states. “But they’re not very good leaders, as you found out during the riots.”
A Walz spokesman said after the speech that the governor “thanks President Trump for finally following public health guidance at a campaign rally.”
Trump, recoiling at an agreement that forced the campaign to limit the number of supporters who could greet him at the airport, said at least 25,000 people had wanted to attend his speech. He provided no evidence for that claim, other than pointing to the large throngs of people and traffic outside the airport gates.
Trump’s tone was more subdued than past rallies, but he still took aim at Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for enforcing the crowd restrictions, as well as Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who leads in all polls of Minnesota voters heading into the final stretch of the campaign.
“Keith Ellison and Joe Biden want to imprison you in your homes while letting anarchists, agitators and vandals roam free as they try to destroy your cities and states,” Trump said.
Trump supporters who had gathered at the airport for hours ahead of his arrival on Air Force One also slammed the enforcement of state crowd restrictions, which the Trump campaign called “speech-stifling dictates.”
After drawing thousands at previous rallies in Bemidji and Duluth in defiance of the state’s limit on public gatherings, the Trump campaign agreed Thursday to limit entry to the Rochester rally. The state traced four COVID cases to Trump’s rally in Duluth and 16 cases to the event in Bemidji, where two people were later hospitalized with the virus. Another four cases were traced to counterprotests.
The Rochester event, coming the same day Biden was holding a COVID-compliant rally in St. Paul, looked very different from other Trump rallies. A scaled-down group, some wearing masks, sat in seats 6 feet apart.
But outside the event space a more boisterous crowd cheered, waved flags and signs and bought Trump merchandise. On his way into the main stage, Trump made a pit stop to greet a group that could not get into the event.
The Trump campaign’s announcement of the limited access followed a day of confusion over the location and size of the gathering.
It was initially planned for the airport, then shifted to McNeilus Steel, a private company in Dodge Center, before moving back to the airport. State officials asked the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Trump campaign for COVID-19 preparedness plans Thursday.
The RNC sent Rochester city officials a plan Friday, which was required as part of their venue rental agreement with airport authorities. The document showed they would pay $16,000 for the space and abide by Walz’s executive orders.
Trump supporters vented their frustration. Jamie Scherdin, a psychology student at Winona State who was wearing a “Women for Trump” hat, said protests throughout the summer had larger crowds, adding, “It’s just to try to silence the Republicans.”
Connie Anderson of Rochester did not make the 250-person cutoff but showed up along with hundreds of others who gathered outside the airport to show their support. She said the state needs to remove virus restrictions and believes businesses will follow health guidelines without mandates.
DFL leaders denied any political motives for the restrictions. Ellison noted that the state had just set its single-day record for COVID-19 infections.
“COVID-19 is not a political statement, it is a deadly virus and the cause of a global pandemic. … For this reason, Governor Walz and I jointly encouraged all campaigns and all Minnesotans to express their political views safely during the election season,” Ellison said in a statement.
Hong Kong (CNN)At the first meeting between Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, held over chocolate cake and sorbet at the US President’s vast Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida, the two leaders seemed on the brink of establishing an unlikely and potentially special relationship.
Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, weighs in on ‘America’s Newsroom.’
Gov. Tony Evers urged Wisconsin voters to come to the polls on Election Day, discouraging them from mailing in their ballots with just four days remaining in the presidential campaign.
“We need everyone to make their vote count,” Evers said at a press conference on Friday.
He reminded voters that they can also return their absentee ballots at a county clerk’s office or at an early voting location.
“Make sure you can vote safely,” he added.
Coronavirus cases have been surging in the state for more than a month. On Thursday, the state recorded 4,870 new cases of the virus and 193 hospitalizations, and the sky-high numbers have some worried that the virus could deter voters from the polls.
Thursday was the final day for Wisconsin residents to request a mail-in absentee ballot and Friday is the final day for residents to register to vote at their local municipal clerk’s office, the Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee reported.
Sunday will be the final day the state’s local clerks can offer in-person absentee voting, the report said.
The Democratic governor also said about 400 members of the National Guard will be deployed throughout the state to compensate for any shortages of poll workers on Election Day.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump teased Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask as she attended his campaign rally in Michigan on Friday.
“I do believe Laura Ingraham is here someplace,” the president said, scanning the crowd. “Where is Laura? Where is she?”
He continued, “I can’t recognize you. Is that a mask? No way, are you wearing a mask? I’ve never seen her in a mask. Look at you. Laura, she’s being very politically correct. Whoa!”
The Center for Disease Control and top health officials advise wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in situations where social distancing is difficult — like one of the president’s rallies.
A recent USA TODAY analysis shows that COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate after at least five of Trump’s rallies since mid-August.
Trump has continued to give conflicting statements regarding his feelings for masks, switching from saying he has no problem with them, to questioning their effectiveness, to mocking others for wearing them, and claiming there is political motivation by wearing them.
The president mocked a reporter in May for being “politically correct” when they did not want to take their mask off at a press briefing.
He has also made fun of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask, just before he, First Lady Melania Trump, and dozens of campaign and White House staffers contracted COVID-19.
Ingraham was at the White House Rose Garden event, where Trump announced his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, which can be traced to many of those cases. The Fox News Anchor did not wear a mask.
Ingraham and her show “The Ingraham Angle” have also routinely downplayed the seriousness of the virus.
In an interview Thursday, a day in which Johns Hopkins reported nearly 1,000 people died of COVID-19, Donald Trump Jr. wrongly stated that the rate of COVID-19 deaths has declined to “almost nothing.”
Trump Jr. said during an episode of “The Ingraham Angle” that he “went through the CDC data” and incorrectly claimed the number of COVID-19 deaths has significantly declined.
“Oh, because the number is almost nothing,” he told Ingraham, who did not correct him. “Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.”
Public health officials have been stressing the importance of mask-wearing now more than ever as cases skyrocket around the country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, voiced support for a national mask mandate on Wednesday.
The US has shattered the daily coronavirus record, with almost 90,000 new infections reported on Thursday and close to 1,000 deaths, as the country surged past a world-topping 9m cases and experts warned of death rates more than doubling by mid-January.
The sobering data and scientific outlook show a pandemic veering further out of control in America even as the president and his son hammered a public message dismissing the grim realities.
On Friday, the total number of cases in the US hit 9,018,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. So far, 228,677 people have died in the country, the highest figure in the world by a significant margin.
The US recorded its highest one-day total of new coronavirus infections of the pandemic, with 88,521 new cases reported on Thursday – a rise of 9,540 on the previous day. The death toll for the 24-hour period was 971.
Hospitalisations are soaring in all but 11 states, according to the Covid Tracking Project, with more than 46,000 people in hospital on Thursday and a number of states setting up overflow field hospitals and governors sending military helpers.
Donald Trump responded to the surge with a Friday morning tweet blaming case numbers on increased testing. “More Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN. Hospitals have great additional capacity! Doing much better than Europe. Therapeutics working!”
His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, said in an interview on Fox that deaths were “almost nothing”.
But experts warned that conditions are likely to worsen sharply going into winter and predicted that death rates could more than double by mid-January.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University School of Medicine said in its latest forecast that the death toll could hit 514,000 by the middle of January and added it was most likely that by that time 2,250 Americans will be dying every day from Covid-19, more than twice the current rate.
“The fall/winter surge should lead to a daily death toll that is approximately three times higher than now by mid-January. Hospital systems, particularly ICUs, are expected to be under extreme stress in December and January in 18 states,” it said.
The president continued to insist that the US was “rounding the turn”, arguing against taking stricter measures to combat the pandemic and told a campaign rally on Saturday “you don’t see death”.
“This is the hardest point in this pandemic right now – the next two months,” Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told CNN.
But with the election just days away, cases are soaring in every competitive state. In 13 potential swing states the weekly average of news cases has risen 45% in the last fortnight and Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have recently reached new weekly average highs.
In Utah, Gary Herbert, the governor, said hospitals “cannot keep up” with the infection rate. He tweeted: “You deserve to understand the dire situation we face.” And he warned that the state could face a similar fate to parts of Italy back in March or New York, where New York City became the world hotspot in the early spring.
Utah was one of 14 states to report record increases in deaths this month and among 30 states that reported record increases in cases.
Trump has been campaigning repeatedly in Wisconsin in recent weeks despite local elected officials and doctors begging him not to, as crowds turn up, jostling and not wearing masks. He was due to hold another rally there on Friday afternoon.
“There is no way to sugarcoat it: we are facing an urgent crisis, and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members, your friends, your neighbors,” said Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers.
At a drive-in rally in Florida on Thursday, the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said Trump “has given up” on tackling coronavirus.
“He is doing nothing. We’re learning to die with it and Donald Trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to the virus,” he added. “But the American people don’t give up, we don’t give in and we surely don’t cower, and nor will I under any circumstances.”
Half of US counties saw new cases peak during the past month. Almost a third saw a record in the past week.
Reported deaths can lag case numbers by weeks. But already deaths are increasing in about half of states.
In the past month, about a third of US counties hit a daily record of more deaths than any other time during the pandemic, the New York Times reported.
Election signs are seen outside a polling station this month in Plano, Texas.
Dan Tian/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images
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Election signs are seen outside a polling station this month in Plano, Texas.
Dan Tian/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images
Texas hit a significant milestone with four days to go before Election Day: The number of early voters who cast ballots in the Lone Star state this year passed the entire total cast in all of 2016.
So far, more than 9 million Texans have voted, according to a tally compiled by the U.S. Elections Project, a turnout-tracking database.
During the last general election, turnout for the nation’s second-most populous state was 8,969,226, according to figures from the Texas secretary of state’s office.
Texas joins Hawaii as the first states to surpass 2016 voter turnout figures through early voting alone, said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who runs the U.S. Elections Project.
Texas surpassed its 2016 total vote in its 2020 early vote, joining Hawaii as the second state to do so 🥳
The mark set Friday by Texas, which has 38 electoral votes, also comes on the last day of early voting in the state.
“Today is your last chance to vote early in Texas,” the state’s elections account said in a tweet Friday. “Find an early voting polling location, a list of 7 forms of approved photo ID you can use to vote, and what to do if you do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one at VoteTexas.gov.”
Voters line up at the American Airlines Center during early voting in mid-October in Dallas.
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Voters line up at the American Airlines Center during early voting in mid-October in Dallas.
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This early turnout statewide also comes on the heels of Harris County, which includes Houston, setting an all-time record with turnout on Thursday night.
“We just hit our highest voter turnout. Ever. Nearly 1.4 million votes have been cast in Harris County and we’re not even done with Early Vote yet. Let’s run up the score, Texas!” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo tweeted.
NEW: We just hit our highest voter turnout. Ever. Nearly 1.4 million votes have been cast in Harris County and we’re not even done with Early Vote yet. Let’s run up the score, Texas!
NPR member station Houston Public Media reported that Chris Hollins, the county clerk, echoed similar sentiments outside NRG Park, one of eight locations that held 24-hour voting beginning Thursday night.
Houston Public Media’s Jen Rice tweeted the moment, which was greeted, not with cheers, but with car horns by those attending a drive-in concert headlined by artists Bun B and the Suffers.
With millions of voters across the state expected to turn out on Election Day and mail-in ballots still to be tallied, the likelihood of Texas setting new record-breaking turnout could be a possibility, The Texas Tribune reported.
“The surge in votes is in part due to high turnout during early voting and increases in registered voters in Texas’ growing urban and suburban counties. But other factors of timing are also at play,” the news organization said.
For decades, Texas has been a reliably red state, voting for the Republican presidential nominee in every general election since 1980.
However, 2020 is proving to be a remarkable year, for a variety of reasons.
Recent polls show President Trump holds a slim lead in the state over his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
Trump leads by 2.3 percentage points in the state, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. The tight race prompted the organization to move Texas to its “toss-up” category, joining traditional swing states such as Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio.
Overall, more than 83.5 million Americans have voted thus far, McDonald’s analysis shows, including 29.5 million who voted in person and nearly 54 million who voted by mail.
Election Day is four days away, and more than half the number of Americans who voted in 2016 have already cast their ballots, as polls continue to show Democratic nominee Joe Biden with a large national lead over President Donald Trump, along with a smaller advantage in several key states.
The deadline for early voting ends Friday in several states where the race is tight, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Texas – and on Saturday in the key states of Florida and North Carolina. Though early turnout appears to favor Democrats in many states, Republicans are gaining ground quickly in Florida and other early voting states.
As the race enters the home stretch, the USA TODAY average of averages, which is based on data from RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight, finds Biden up 8.3 percentage points over Trump nationally. That is nearly a full point higher than Biden was at the end of September but 2 points lower than the 10.1-point edge he held in mid-October.
The polls were also shifting in Trump’s favor ahead of his upset win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, but that trend was more pronounced and her lead was not as big as Biden’s heading into the election. Four days before Election Day that year, Clinton’s average lead was about 2.1 percentage points.
If the states end up breaking according to their current polling averages, and assuming the non-swing states go the way they did in 2016, Biden would win decisively in the Electoral College, even if he lost Ohio, which is tied. But Biden’s polling average advantage is greater than 5 points in just four of twelve swing states and the race will hinge on what happens in the races where Biden’s margin is thin enough to leave the candidates in a virtual dead heat.
Boockvar’s comments come amid plans by some Pennsylvania counties to postpone counting of any mail-in ballots — whether they arrive before the polls close or after — until late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
Pennsylvania law permits counties to begin counting mail-in and absentee votes beginning at 7 a.m. on Election Day but does not require that they do so immediately. Cumberland County, a Republican-leaning area outside of Harrisburg, indicated Wednesday that it would not begin counting mail-in ballots until Wednesday, citing a need to prioritize resources for in-person voting. Several other smaller counties have reportedly indicated they intend to delay counting of mail-in ballots.
The significance of the push-and-pull between the state and counties could have national significance. Both campaigns see Pennsylvania, with its 20 Electoral College votes, as potentially decisive; Trump won the state by just 44,292 votes in 2016, and Scranton native Joe Biden has stumped there extensively.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week determined opted against expediting a Republican challenge to the state’s high court’s decision to permit ballots arriving up to three days after Election Day to be counted, but Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent, indicated the court may revisit the issue after the election. Newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett sat out that court’s move, but could represent a decisive fifth vote in either direction.
Trump on Friday again raised the notion that the election should “end” on Nov. 3, a continuation of his repeated calls to limit vote counting that might spill days after the election. Every election in modern history has included vote counting that continues days or even weeks, particularly in states with laws that allow overseas or absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted even if they arrive days later. Several states have also loosened deadlines to account for the increase in mail-in ballots because of the pandemic.
Boockvar said about 73 percent of the 3 million mail-in ballots requested by Pennsylvania voters have been returned.
In recent days, Democrats have urged their voters to avoid sending their ballots by mail across the country, amid hints from the Supreme Court that some states might be ordered to cut off the counting of ballots that arrive after Election Day.
The US has shattered the daily coronavirus record, with almost 90,000 new infections reported on Thursday and close to 1,000 deaths, as the US approached a world-topping 9m cases and experts warned of death rates more than doubling by mid-January.
The sobering data and scientific outlook show a pandemic veering further out of control in America even as the president and his son hammered a public message dismissing the grim realities.
On Friday, the total number of cases in the US surged passed 9m, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. So far 228,677 people have died in the country, the highest figure in the world by a significant margin.
The US recorded its highest one-day total of new coronavirus infections of the pandemic, with 88,521 new cases reported on Thursday – a rise of 9,540 on the previous day. The death toll for the 24-hour period was 971.
Hospitalisations are soaring in all but 11 states, according to the Covid Tracking Project, with more than 46,000 people in hospital on Thursday and a number of state setting up overflow field hospitals and governors sending military helpers.
Donald Trump responded to the surge with a Friday morning tweet blaming case numbers on increased testing. “More Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN. Hospitals have great additional capacity! Doing much better than Europe. Therapeutics working!”
His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, said in an interview on Fox that deaths were “almost nothing”.
But experts warned that conditions are likely to worsen sharply going into winter and predicted that death rates could more than double by mid-January.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University School of Medicine said in its latest forecast that the death toll could hit 514,000 by the middle of January and added it was most likely that by that time 2,250 Americans will be dying every day from Covid-19, more than twice the current rate.
“The fall/winter surge should lead to a daily death toll that is approximately three times higher than now by mid-January. Hospital systems, particularly ICUs, are expected to be under extreme stress in December and January in 18 states,” it said.
The president continued to insist that the US is “rounding the turn”, arguing against taking stricter measures to combat the pandemic and told a campaign rally on Saturday “you don’t see death”.
“This is the hardest point in this pandemic right now – the next two months,” Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told CNN.
But with the election just days away, cases are soaring in every competitive state. In 13 potential swing states the weekly average of news cases has risen 45% in the last fortnight and Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have recently reached new weekly average highs.
In Utah, Gary Herbert, the governor, said hospitals “cannot keep up” with the infection rate. He tweeted: “You deserve to understand the dire situation we face.” And warned that the state could face a similar fate to parts of Italy back in March or New York, where New York City became the world hotspot in the early spring.
Utah was one of 14 states to report record increases in deaths this month and among 30 states that reported record increases in cases.
Wisconsin, where Trump has been campaigning repeatedly in recent weeks despite local elected officials and doctors begging him not to, as crowds turn up, jostling and not wearing masks, and where he was due to hold another rally on Friday afternoon.
“There is no way to sugarcoat it: we are facing an urgent crisis, and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members, your friends, your neighbors,” said Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers.
At a drive-in rally in Florida on Thursday, the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said Trump “has given up” on tackling coronavirus.
“He is doing nothing. We’re learning to die with it and Donald Trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to the virus,” he added. “But the American people don’t give up, we don’t give in and we surely don’t cower, and nor will I under any circumstances.”
Half of US counties saw new cases peak during the past month. Almost a third saw a record in the past week.
Reported deaths can lag case numbers by weeks. But already deaths are increasing in about half of states.
In the past month, about a third of US counties hit a daily record of more deaths than any other time during the pandemic, the New York Times reported.
So Roberts, along with his fellow conservatives, has blocked changes imposed by federal judges in Alabama and Wisconsin. But he has been open, along with the court’s liberals, when state actors — the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and election officials in Rhode Island and North Carolina — agree to loosen restrictions.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Black Friday is traditionally known as the Friday after Thanksgiving, recognized by long lines, crowded stores, and rushing customers, but in the past 10 years deals have started earlier and earlier, with lines forming on Thanksgiving. This year retailers are starting even earlier, weeks early, in October.
This jumpstart to the savings season may be attributed to the pandemic, with companies wanting to avoid crowded stores and long lines. With more shoppers ordering online, stores are gearing up to meet shipping demands early. Retailers like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy usually offer their biggest deals over Thanksgiving, but not in 2020!
Here’s a look at when sales start (hint, hint: now!) and some of the best deals of the holiday season:
TargetTarget is one of the first retailers to kick off the deals of the 2020 holidays. Their Black Friday deals start now through the end of October. Each week will bring new deals, leaving shoppers coming back for more. This week’s deals include coveted items like the Ring Doorbell, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Bose Bluetooth Speakers, TVs, Tablets, and Alexa devices.
Republican officials have done little to take a stand against their candidates who have engaged with or embraced QAnon. Some GOP state parties, like the California GOP, have endorsed candidates who spread QAnon. In August, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denounced the theory, saying “There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party,” and recently voted for a bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon, but he also endorsed Greene, as has Trump himself. Trump recently refused to denounce QAnon supporters after he was told what the conspiracy theory was, saying “they are very much against pedophilia” and that he agreed with them.
Electoral college map: Who actually votes, and who do they vote for? Explore how shifts in turnout and voting patterns for key demographic groups could affect the presidential race.
(CNN)Daily Covid-19 cases in the US reached a record high on Thursday, with experts warning that death rates could triple by mid-January.
The investigation evaluated rallies in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida.
CNN’s Maggie Fox, Nadia Kounang, Andy Rose, Andrea Diaz, Lauren del Valle, Brad Parks, Kay Jones and Anna Sturla contributed to this report.
The killing of three people in southern France on Thursday has been deemed a terrorist attack by French officials — and it looks to be related to the country’s ongoing controversy over the public display of cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and the government’s general approach toward Islam.
Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi told reporters he believes the attack was perpetrated by an Islamist extremist. “He cried ‘Allah Akbar!’ over and over, even after he was injured” by police, Estrosi said. (“Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” is a common expression used by Muslims, especially during prayers.) “The meaning of his gesture left no doubt,” Estrosi added.
Two other incidents occurred on Thursday, the same day some Muslims observe Mawlid, a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. In Montfavet, also in southern France, a man was shot dead after threatening police with a handgun; in Saudi Arabia, a guard outside the French consulate in Jeddah was stabbed. The guard was hospitalized but his condition remains stable, the French embassy in Riyadh said in a statement, and the suspect has been arrested.
In response to the Nice attack and the other incidents, the French government raised the nation’s security alert to its highest level and increased the number of troops protecting schools and religious sites from 3,000 to 7,000. French President Emmanuel Macron, after visiting the scene in Nice, issued a stark message: “I say this with the outmost clarity — we will not give in to terrorism.”
Leaders in several Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, have condemned the Nice attack. “Under no circumstances are these attacks justifiable,” Egypt’s highest religious authority, Al-Azhar, said in a tweet, calling them “inconsistent with the tolerant teachings of Islam and all divine religions.”
The Nice attack happened amid a broader debate in France over Islam and free speech
Earlier this month, a suspected Islamist extremist beheaded Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old secondary-school teacher, as he walked home from school. Days earlier, as part of a class discussion on freedom of speech, Paty had showed his 12- to 14-year-old students two caricatures of Muhammad that had been published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo — the same images that inspired jihadists to kill 11 staff members at the magazine and six others in Paris in 2015.
Police found a Twitter account suspected of belonging to Paty’s attacker that featured a picture of the severed head along with a message: “I have executed one of the dogs from hell who dared to put Muhammad down.”
Macron’s government turned Paty into a freedom-of-expression hero. At a national memorial for the slain teacher last week, Macron said France “will continue the fight for freedom” and “intensify” efforts to end Islamist extremism in the country.
He also said France would continue to back anyone who wanted to display cartoons of Muhammad, noting his nation’s deep culture of secularism. Macron’s goal, as he describes it, is to create an “Islam of France” that aims to seamlessly integrate Muslims into French society.
Last week, French police raided numerous homes across the country as part of its probe into Paty’s killing. About 15 people have been taken into custody, and 51 Islamic organizations are under investigation.
The aftermath of Paty’s killing has rekindled a contentious debate in France about how to balance freedom of expression with respect for a religion. The Nice attack will only add fuel to the fire.
“The point of terrorism is to shock, incite tensions, and block this discussion,” said Charles Thépaut, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank based in Washington, DC.
Estrosi, Nice’s mayor, has already called for a harsher government response. “Enough is enough,” he said. “It is now time for France to exempt itself of peacetime laws to permanently annihilate Islamo-facism from our territory.”
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