AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
It's on: Trump, Biden face off in campaign's final debate
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden squared off Thursday night in their final debate, which stood as the trailing incumbent's best chance to change the race's trajectory with just 12 days until the election.
The Nashville debate offered them a final national stage to outline starkly different visions for a country in the grips of a surging pandemic that has killed more than 225,000 Americans and cost millions of jobs. Despite historic tumult, the race has remained largely unchanged with Biden holding advantages in many battleground states while Trump faces a shortage of campaign cash and, crucially, time.
Worried that Trump could lose the White House and cost Republicans the Senate, some advisers urged him to trade his aggressive demeanor from the first debate for a lower-key style and put the spotlight on Biden, whom he derides as “Sleepy Joe.” But Trump made no such promise.
Biden, who has stepped off the campaign trail for several days in favor of debate prep, expected Trump to get intensely personal. Trump's focus on the Biden family in recent days appeared to come at the expense of his last significant opportunity to offer a unifying message to a nation reeling from a virus that killed more than 1,000 people on the day the two men faced off.
The former vice president and his inner circle see the president’s approach chiefly as an effort to distract from the coronavirus, its economic fallout and other crises of Trump's term.
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The Latest: Hundreds gather near site of presidential debate
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):
6:25 p.m.
Hundreds of people are gathering on sidewalks outside the site of the final presidential debate to show their support for the candidates.
Cars honked and slowed down Thursday evening to check out the scene just outside Belmont University's campus in Nashville, Tennessee.
Most of the attendees appeared to be wearing masks, though some proudly declared they would not while holding flags supporting President Donald Trump.
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US: Russian hackers targeting state, local networks
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Thursday that Russian hackers have targeted the networks of dozens of state and local governments in the United States in recent days, stealing data from at least two servers. The warning, less than two weeks before the election, amplified fears of the potential for tampering with the vote and undermining confidence in the results.
The advisory from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity agency describes an onslaught of recent activity by a Russian state-sponsored hacking group against a broad range of networks, some of which were successfully compromised. The alert functions as a reminder of Russia's potent capabilities and ongoing interference in the election even as U.S. officials publicly called out Iran on Wednesday night.
The advisory does not identify by name or location those who were targeted, but officials say they have no information that any election or government operations have been affected or that the integrity of elections data has been compromised.
“However, the actor may be seeking access to obtain future disruption options, to influence U.S. policies and actions, or to delegitimize (state and local) government entities,” the advisory said.
U.S. officials have repeatedly said it would be extremely difficult for hackers to alter vote tallies in a meaningful way, but they have warned about other methods of interference that could disrupt the election, including cyberattacks on networks meant to impede the voting process. The interference could continue during or after the tallying of ballots if Russians produce spoofed websites or fake content meant to confuse voters about election results and lead them to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome.
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GOP-led Senate panel advances Barrett as Democrats boycott
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans powered past a Democratic boycott Thursday to advance Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate, keeping President Donald Trump's pick on track for confirmation before the Nov. 3 election.
Democratic senators refused to show up in protest of the GOP's rush to install Trump's nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Never has the Senate confirmed a Supreme Court nominee so close to a presidential election.
All 12 Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Barrett, a conservative judge. No-show Democrats left behind posters at their desks of Americans they say have benefited from the Affordable Care Act, now being challenged at the high court. Senators plan to convene a rare weekend session before a final confirmation vote expected Monday.
“Big day for America,” Trump tweeted after the committee vote.
Barrett, 48, would lock a 6-3 conservative court majority for the foreseeable future. That could open a new era of rulings on abortion access, gay marriage and even the results of this year's presidential election.
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FDA approves first COVID-19 drug: antiviral remdesivir
U.S. regulators on Thursday approved the first drug to treat COVID-19: remdesivir, an antiviral medicine given to hospitalized patients through an IV.
The drug, which California-based Gilead Sciences Inc. is calling Veklury, cut the time to recovery by five days — from 15 days to 10 on average — in a large study led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
It had been authorized for use on an emergency basis since spring, and now becomes the first drug to win full Food and Drug Administration approval for treating COVID-19. President Donald Trump received it when he was sickened earlier this month.
Veklury is approved for people at least 12 years old and weighing at least 88 pounds (40 kilograms) who are hospitalized for a coronavirus infection. For patients younger than 12, the FDA will still allow the drug’s use in certain cases under its previous emergency authorization.
The drug works by inhibiting a substance the virus uses to make copies of itself. Certain kidney and liver tests are required before starting patients on it to ensure it's safe for them and to monitor for any possible side effects. And the label warns against using it with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, because that can curb its effectiveness.
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Trump posts unedited '60 Minutes' interview before it airs
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump took on the country's most influential news program in unprecedented fashion, posting unedited video of interviews that he and Vice President Mike Pence gave to “60 Minutes” before its broadcast this weekend.
The video released Thursday shows an increasingly agitated president parrying with interviewer Lesley Stahl on issues like the coronavirus, health care and his demeanor on social media before abruptly ending the session.
With Pence, Stahl said the men had insulted “60 Minutes” by giving campaign speeches and not answering questions.
“I feel aggrieved,” she said.
The president, in following through on a threat to make the full interviews public, tweeted that the public should compare Stahl's “constant interruptions and anger” with his “full, flowing and ‘magnificently brilliant’ answers.”
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Pope's civil union words spark reactions around the globe
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Across the globe, Pope Francis’ comments endorsing same-sex civil unions were received by some as encouragement for an advancing struggle and condemned by others as an earth-shaking departure from church doctrine.
In the Philippines, officials saw the potential for political change in the wake of the pope's words. In Zimbabwe, activists for equal rights applauded the move, but doubt it would quickly bring change in a country where discrimination against the LGBT community continues to be widespread.
Nowhere was reaction more divided than in Latin America, where the Roman Catholic Church remains influential — and where some countries have legalized same-sex marriage in recent years over objections of the church.
Earlier this year, Costa Rica became the sixth country in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage. Ecuador legalized it last year, and Panama is in the midst of a heated debate on the subject now. It is also permitted in some parts of Mexico as well as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay.
The latest push has been propelled in part by an opinion issued in January 2018 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It said the 25 countries that signed the American Convention on Human Rights had to guarantee that all rights available to heterosexual couples were also extended to homosexual couples.
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Colorado wildfires drag on later than normal, break records
DENVER (AP) — Orange skies, winds gusting up to 70 mph, smoke tornadoes and hazardous air. While it could be an apocalyptic scene out of a movie, it's become the reality of Colorado's wildfire season.
The blazes have burned the second-most acreage since 2000 and included the state's two largest on record. One of Colorado’s smaller fires exploded late Wednesday from 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) to 196 square miles (508 square kilometers) and closed Rocky Mountain National Park.
Normally, snow helps tamp down the devastation by this time of year, but drought across Colorado and warming temperatures have dragged out the season, fire scientist Jennifer Balch said.
“We don’t see October fires that get this large,” she said.
Colorado's fires haven't destroyed as many homes as the headline-grabbing wildfires in California and the Pacific Northwest the past few months, but they have worn down residents already weary from the coronavirus pandemic.
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Family: Man fatally shot by police wasn't extremist
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Strangers on the internet hailed Duncan Socrates Lemp as a martyr for their anti-government movement after a police officer shot and killed the 21-year-old man during a pre-dawn raid on his family's Maryland home.
A hashtag campaign spreading Lemp’s name on social media has been a mixed blessing for his grieving family. While grateful for the support, Lemp’s parents told The Associated Press that it has made them uneasy to see his death galvanize a loose network of gun-toting supporters of the “boogaloo," the nascent movement’s slang for a second civil war.
During two interviews in recent days about the March 12 shooting, Mercedes and Matt Lemp said their son wasn’t a threat to the tactical unit officers who stormed their Potomac house around 4:30 a.m. And they don't believe he was part of any extremist movement.
“It’s a bit strange,” Matt Lemp said. “And while it’s nice to know that people are thinking of him positively, he didn’t — and we don’t — agree with a lot of what they’re saying,”
Self-described “boogaloo bois” have joined protests against coronavirus lockdowns and racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear over Hawaiian shirts. The shirts refer to “big luau,” a riff on the term “boogaloo,” which comes from the title of a 1984 sequel to a breakdancing movie.
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Tesla 'full self-driving' vehicles can't drive themselves
DETROIT (AP) — Earlier this week, Tesla sent out its “full self-driving” software to a small group of owners who will test it on public roads. But buried on its website is a disclaimer that the $8,000 system doesn't make the vehicles autonomous and drivers still have to supervise it.
The conflicting messages have experts in the field accusing Tesla of deceptive, irresponsible marketing that could make the roads more dangerous as the system is rolled out to as many as 1 million electric vehicle drivers by the end of the year.
“This is actively misleading people about the capabilities of the system, based on the information I've seen about it,” said Steven Shladover, a research engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied autonomous driving for 40 years. “It is a very limited functionality that still requires constant driver supervision.”
On a conference call Wednesday, Musk told industry analysts that the company is starting full self-driving slowly and cautiously “because the world is a complex and messy place.” It plans to add drivers this weekend and hopes to have a wider release by the end of the year. He referred to having a million vehicles “providing feedback” on situations that can’t be anticipated.
The company hasn’t identified the drivers or said where they are located. Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla.