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In August, local officials in Washington, Mo., a small city an hour west of St. Louis, voted against requiring residents to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

On Nov. 23, with COVID-19 cases surging and the local hospital overflowing, the City Council brought a mask order back for another vote. As protesters marched outside, Councilman Nick Obermark, an electrician, was the sole member of the nonpartisan council to change his vote, causing the mandate to pass.

One of his many reasons? He has a child the same age as Washington Middle School student Peyton Baumgarth, 13, who on Halloween became the youngest person in Missouri to die of COVID-19 complications.

"That hit pretty hard," Obermark said later. Though the councilman doesn't like wearing a mask, he said it's worth it to prevent even one or two people from getting COVID-19.

Washington became the latest community to flip its stance on masks and other restrictions while the coronavirus ravages the country.

As America enters a dark winter without national directives to curb the pandemic, numerous cities, counties and states must decide: enact more restrictions now or leave people to their own will? Some in this tight-knit city of 14,000 have discovered that the answer - and the key to changing hearts and minds - lies in how close and real the danger seems.

After a spate of nursing home fatalities early on in Franklin County, where Washington is located, two months in the summer passed without a death from COVID-19. Some residents saw the virus as a big-city problem and rejected preventive measures.

Families attended weddings with hundreds of guests. Downtown merchants held "Thirsty Thursday" with participants mingling over drinks. Even as officials at the city's hospital urged COVID-19 restrictions, 356 people signed a letter to the local paper vowing their opposition to being "forced to cover our mouths in public."

Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has declined to enact a statewide mask mandate. Franklin County Presiding County Commissioner Tim Brinker posted on Twitter July 29: "Franklin County MO. No mandates, low case counts, low to no hospitalizations. Logic! Keep hands clean, and if you don't have the space, cover your face. We love Freedom and respect human life. Come to Franklin County and raise your children in God's Country! #COVID."

Embracing freedom and tradition is as expected here as following deer hunting season or attending the Washington Town & Country Fair. The city's downtown, within view of the swirling brown Missouri River, is lined with historic red-brick buildings and quaint shops. The Missouri Meerschaum Co. still produces corncob pipes on Front Street. Its motto: "Over 150 Years & Still Smokin'."

In the months before the election, yards sprouted signs for President Trump, who has downplayed the threat of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

But the virus crept closer in September when 74-year-old Ralph Struckhoff died of the disease. The Missourian newspaper published a story describing him as a healthy man who had just done a day of construction work at his church before he fell ill. "Please wear a mask in memory of Ralph," his widow, Jayne Struckhoff, wrote in a letter to the editor. "If this virus can take Ralph, it can take down anyone."

Some locals began asking: What would it take for this town to change? University of Missouri health communication assistant professor Yerina Ranjit said many factors influence health decisions. For instance, she said, people usually follow health advice if they believe an illness is serious and that they are susceptible to it.

"That's true with COVID as well," she said. Older people are more likely to wear masks and social distance. But others might not wear masks if they think the virus wouldn't make them very ill.

Symbolic threats, or things that people feel threaten their values, can also affect behavior. In a survey of U.S. adults yet to be published, Ranjit and her colleagues studied media viewing and found that the kind of information people are exposed to makes a real difference.

Regardless of political affiliation, they found, Fox News viewers were more likely to think the pandemic threatens the American way of life, which made them less likely to wear masks. They were "buying into the idea that masks are against our identity," she said. On the other hand, people watching MSNBC felt more afraid of the virus, which caused them to wear masks.

But in November, Mayor Sandy Lucy noticed that attitudes were evolving. That's when residents heard about Peyton, the middle-schooler, who declined rapidly and died days after being admitted to the hospital, his mother told KMOV. According to his obituary, he was known for his love of Pokémon Go, flag football and the St. Louis Blues.

"Suddenly there was a death of a 13-year-old," Lucy said, "and you think, maybe this virus is more vicious than I give it credit for being."

Peyton's mother, Stephanie Franek, pleaded in a TV interview: "Wear a mask when you're in public, wash your hands and know that COVID is real."

Meanwhile, cases skyrocketed. Between the first and second mask votes, the total COVID-19 count in Franklin County, with a population around 104,000, climbed from 728 to 4,594, and deaths rose from 19 to 75. In the week ending Nov. 23, 25% of coronavirus tests returned positive results.

Mercy Hospital Washington was running out of space. Hospital President Eric Eoloff tied rising hospitalizations and deaths to the absence of safety measures. "As a hospital administrator, I knew we would be on the receiving end of the choices not to wear the masks and not social distancing," he said.

In a surprise move on Nov. 19, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners enacted a mandatory mask order. Presiding Commissioner Brinker told The Missourian that he had spoken to local doctors and the St. Louis regional pandemic task force, and the numbers "speak for themselves." Brinker did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Although the order already applied to the city, the Washington City Council went further and approved its own mask rule four days later. Unlike the county order, which expires Dec. 20, the city's mandate will stay in force based on metrics related to the new COVID-19 case rate, hospital admissions and deaths.

Dozens of protesters wielded flags and signs against mandatory masking outside City Hall the evening of the vote. Ali and Duncan Whittington came with their 4-year-old daughter. "I'm here because I feel my freedom is being violated," Ali Whittington said.

Councilman Obermark later said that he had lost a lot of sleep over his decision. "It wasn't one thing," he said. "It was several things that made me change my mind."

The high positivity rate, the lack of capacity at the hospital. Knowing healthy people whom COVID-19 "knocked down" for days. His wife having to quarantine. And Peyton's death.

He said he knows masks aren't a cure-all, but they could help reduce the spread until vaccines arrive.

"We tried nothing and it isn't working," he said, "so we have to try something."
(Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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What Changes Minds About Masks? In This Small Town, It Was A Child's Death

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In August, local officials in Washington, Mo., a small city an hour west of St. Louis, voted against requiring residents to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. On Nov. 23, with COVID-19 cases surging and the local hospital overflowing, the City Council brought a mask order back for another vote.

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After three years of bouncing between shelters, relatives' couches and a tent she pitched in downtown San Francisco, Gillette Christa, 63,and her 17-month-old dog, Shepherd, finally got into stable housing.

"It was like taking a load off," she said. "We were able to finally rest."

But now her future is uncertain as she waits to hear where she will go next.

Like some 22,300 people across California, Christa was placed in a hotel in San Francisco as part of a program called Project Roomkey - an effort to temporarily house seniors, and people who were medically vulnerable, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic. And now she's waiting to find out if she'll get placed into long-term assisted housing.

"I'm trying to stay optimistic," she said.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the program in April, the focus was on providing places for people experiencing homelessness to safely shelter in place during the pandemic. But, he also said it would be a jumping-off point for permanent housing.

"We're not just thinking short-term," he said during an April 3 press conference outside a motel in Sacramento. "We're also beginning to process an orientation of focus and energy around long-term supports, so that we can get people off the streets in a permanent way."

But data from seven Bay Area counties near San Francisco, which was analyzed by KQED, show that nearly 16% of the people who have already been discharged from the hotels as of Nov. 20 have made it into permanent housing, or 345 people out of 2,196.

The remaining 84% have gone on to emergency shelters, transitional housing, friends or family, other hotels paid for with private funds, drug rehab facilities, jail, or to tents, cars and encampments. At least 15 people have died.

Counties across the state are beginning to stop operating these hotels as shelters and are moving as many as possible into permanent housing.

But that's a big challenge in a state that already has a chronic shortage of affordable housing. The California Housing Partnership estimates the state needs 1.3 million new affordable homes for all the people who need them.

"No matter how you look at it, the big picture is the big picture," said Heather Freinkel, a managing attorney for the Homeless Action Center. "There is not enough permanent housing."

Last month, Newsom announced $62 million in grants for counties to help them transition more people into long-term homes, including $35 million to pay for rental subsidies, case management, help finding housing, and landlord incentives, among other things.

The state has also doled out more than $800 million for some of the hotels and other buildings to be converted into permanent and transitional housing. It will create more than 6,000 new units of permanent and transitional housing.

But it's still a small fraction of the need.

Despite the low percentage of people who've made it into housing so far, Freinkel still thinks Project Roomkey has been a success. Placing any number of people who have been homeless into permanent housing should be lauded, she said.

"The point [of Project Roomkey] is an emergency intervention to prevent the most vulnerable people from being exposed to COVID-19," she said. "Considering all the barriers and the lack of available housing, it's a great accomplishment that even some people were able to obtain permanent housing."
Mounting costs
In San Francisco, officials have backed off plans to stop operating seven of its Project Roomkey hotels by the end of the month, and will instead keep operating them through March. The remaining 22 hotels are slated to cease operating as a shelter in November.

San Francisco supervisors on Wednesday urged city officials to keep the hotels open for as long as possible and introduced legislation last month to mandate that everyone in the hotels gets placed into permanent housing.

But Abigail Stewart-Kahn, the city's interim director of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, told KQED the hotel program is not sustainable. Rooms cost roughly $260 per night, she said, compared to between $70 to $90 for other types of housing. The hotel rooms come with three meals a day, laundry service, wellness checks, security guards and case management.

FEMA pays for 75% of the cost of running the hotels as part of the emergency response to the coronavirus. California counties have been relying on additional federal funding from the CARES Act, which is set to expire at the end of the year, as well as other state grants or local funding to make up the remaining 25%.

Robert Barker, a spokesman for FEMA, said the federal agency would continue providing reimbursement on a month-to-month basis for the emergency shelters as long as there is need.

"These are extremely expensive compared to other solutions," Stewart-Kahn said in an interview. "They were always intended to be temporary."
A place to grow
For those who have gotten into long-term housing, the program has been a lifeline.

Jessica Ellis, 45,and her 8-year-old son, King, lost their apartment in June. They were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the landlord raised their rent, she said. The apartment had bug infestations, the air conditioning stopped working for seven days during a heat spell, and the heat had stopped working during the previous winter.

Rather than fight the landlord over the rent increase, Ellis decided to leave. She wanted a fresh start.

"I just didn't feel like trying to get water out of a rock," she said. "That's why we had to go."

Her son is autistic, and she heard about programs in the Bay Area that might help him. So, they put all their belongings in storage, packed up their car and hit the road.

"When I saw the 'Welcome to California' sign," Ellis said, "I started crying. It was such a relief."

After 10 days without knowing where she would be able to find a place to live, Ellis got in touch with an intake worker at Catholic Charities who placed her and King at one of the Project Roomkey hotels.

"It was like, 'Praise God,' " Ellis said. "For a single mom to know there were three meals a day I could come get, that was wonderful."

Ellis and her son got keys to their new apartment in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood in September, which she pays for with a Section 8 subsidy.

After moving every year for the past seven years, Ellis said they finally have a place where they know they can stay for good.

"It's a place where hopefully, King can be longer than a year," she said, "and grow into this wonderful little boy he's growing into."
A long-term home
San Francisco's Stewart-Kahn said the city is committed to making sure everyone in the hotels would be transferred to "short, medium or long-term" placements when they leave and that she believes there is adequate capacity available.

"We can try to wait until there is perfection, but we are never going to get there," she said. "This is an opportunity to end homelessness for more people in San Francisco than anyone in our field has ever gotten the opportunity to do."

With the coronavirus infection rates rising and many congregate shelters closed or at reduced capacity, advocates for people experiencing homelessness say it's critical that the people in these hotels stay housed.

Dr. Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine and the director of the Center for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California in San Francisco said it would be "unconscionable" to allow older, medically vulnerable people chosen for the program to go back into homelessness.

"To return them to homelessness would be a big lost opportunity and frankly, a tragedy," she said.

Gillette Christa said she's not sure when she'll find out whether she'll get a permanent home or temporary housing. She fractured her ankle in three places in August, she said, and it's still healing.

"There's the fear that there may not be a match," Christa said. "And my ankle won't be close to well."

But, she said, she's already met with a housing coordinator who is working to get her into long-term housing.

"I'm hopeful, but I'm not counting chickens," Christa said. "I'm waiting for them to hatch."
KQED staff reporter Molly Solomon contributed to this report.

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California Struggles To House Thousands Of Homeless Placed In Hotels During Pandemic

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After three years of bouncing between shelters, relatives' couches and a tent she pitched in downtown San Francisco, Gillette Christa, 63,and her 17-month-old dog, Shepherd, finally got into stable housing. "It was like taking a load off," she said. "We were able to finally rest."

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chicago moms band together to fight gun violence - cnn video

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Chicago moms band together to fight gun violence - CNN Video

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After an 18-year-old was killed leaving school, a group of parents came together to support the grieving family and fight back against gun violence. For more, watch "This Is Life with Lisa Ling" Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

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<p>Jorge Ortiz, manager of Perches Funeral Home in El Paso, placed a floral arrangement next to the casket of a Covid-19 victim this month (AFP photo)</p><p><span class="css-16f3y1r e13ogyst0"><br></span></p>

DALLAS: Lillian Blancas was a fighter, a proud daughter of immigrants, part of the first generation in her family to attend college and a lawyer in El Paso, Texas, who was on the brink of fulfilling her dream of becoming a judge.
Instead, Blancas, 47, died alone in her hospital room this week, just before a runoff election Saturday in which she was the favorite, becoming part of a grim cascade of Americans who have died from the coronavirus as it rages out of control. More than 3,000 deaths were reported Wednesday for the first time since the pandemic began.
"We're completely devastated. Heartbroken. We can't find a reason," said her sister, Gabriela Tiemann, who recalled staring through the glass doors of Blancas' hospital room, wishing that she could stroke her hair one last time.
Follow TOI's live blog for latest updates on Coronavirus
The new daily death record - 3,055 individuals who blew out birthday candles, made mistakes, laughed and cried before succumbing to the virus - far surpassed the spring peak of 2,752 deaths on April 15 and amounted to a stunning embodiment of the pandemic's toll. In a single day, the country, numbed and divided, lost more Americans to the coronavirus than were killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks or the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston, said she had cried watching the faces of coronavirus victims on "PBS NewsHour" and expected the death toll to accelerate, in part because current numbers likely do not reflect infections from Thanksgiving gatherings.
"The worst is yet to come in the next week or two or three," she said. "What happens after that is going to depend on our behavior today."
The most recent deaths come as the country is recording more new cases and hospitalizations than ever before. More than 290,000 people have died in the United States during the pandemic.
With a current average of more than 2,200 deaths per day, COVID-19 is, for at least this moment, surpassing heart disease and cancer as the leading killer in the United States. About 1,800 people on average die from heart disease each day, and 1,640 from cancer, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2018, the latest full data available.
During yet another week, the virus took the lives of the young and the old, the healthy and the sick, the prominent and the ordinary people known best by those who loved them.
Jamie Neff, 50, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, was a cook who tinkered with his recipes to perfection and loved cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to his obituary.
Richard Hinch, 71, a Republican and the new speaker of the New Hampshire state House, died Wednesday, just a week after he was sworn in.
And then there was Blancas, whose story struck a nerve in the tightknit border town that has been devastated by a surge of coronavirus deaths.
Blancas, who had no known underlying health conditions, first grew ill with mild symptoms at the end of October, when cases were climbing steeply in El Paso. By Nov. 3, the night she secured enough votes for the runoff election, she was exhausted in bed. And by the next week, she had been hospitalized with major breathing problems.
She never left the hospital.
Born and raised in El Paso, Blancas was described as a force of nature, fierce and unapologetic, but with an infectious, snorting laugh that brightened any room. A former teacher, she worked as a prosecutor and deputy public defender before running for municipal judge.
"She was a titan," said Kaitlyn Urenda-Culpepper, who was in Blancas' seventh-grade science class years ago. "She created a space for me to know, that at any age or stage of life, you can be whatever you want to be."
Now, Blancas may still win her election even as her family plans her funeral.
Blancas, who got about 40% of the vote in November, the most of any candidate, is still on the ballot for Saturday's runoff election. Her opponent, Enrique Alonso Holguin, a private defense attorney and associate judge for the city of El Paso also considered Blancas a friend, and told The El Paso Times that he was shocked by the news. "I am still numb," he said. "I am just very, very sad right now."
Should Blancas win, the El Paso City Council would vote to appoint a candidate.
The loss of a figure at the center of a contested election reflects the steep toll the virus has taken in El Paso, a city of 680,000 that has become the face of a reverberating virus crisis in West Texas and around the country. The city had to expand its supply of mobile morgues and deploy people from the county jail to help transport the dead. At one point in November, El Paso Matters, a nonprofit newsroom, estimated the city was averaging one coronavirus death an hour.
"There's not enough of us to go around," said Linda Azani, the assistant manager of Perches Funeral Homes, where she said about 70% of the death calls coming in are related to the coronavirus.
"Not enough directors to see families," she said. "Not enough facilities to have funerals. Not enough chapels."
But the virus surge is no longer isolated to any one place. Across the country, officials and funeral homes are sounding the alarm.
Barbara Ferrer, the seasoned public health director in Los Angeles County, who has given briefings since the earliest days of the pandemic, choked up this week while recounting the cumulative death toll in her area.
"The more terrible truth is that over 8,000 people - sorry - over 8,000 people who were beloved members of their families are not coming back," she said, her voice shaking in a display of emotion that was all the more poignant set against the usual charts and data points of health briefings.
Almost every call coming into the Bauer Funeral Home in Effingham, Illinois, involves a request for a service for a COVID-19 victim. In the past week, nine of the 13 deaths were from the coronavirus, said Brian Young, a funeral director, and the other funeral home in town was equally busy.
"It seemed like every time I answered the phone, it was somebody passing at a nursing home or a hospital from COVID," said Young, noting that there were sometimes two or three a day. With cases rising after Thanksgiving, he is bracing for even more.
The disease has altered the entire choreography of the funerals.
Previously, it was not unusual for anyone who died in the close-knit community of corn and soybean farmers to have 50-60 relatives show up at a funeral. No longer. The funeral home tries to arrange a quick viewing of just 10 people at a time, all asked to wear masks - although those who refuse are not barred - and to leave the building rapidly.
More than 800 miles away, in Amarillo, Texas, Shafer Mortuary Services has been equally inundated. Tasked with transporting, embalming and cremating bodies, the company has seen demand triple in the past few weeks, with about three in four deaths related to COVID-19, said Candice Shafer, a co-owner.
"It is overwhelming," said Shafer, who is maxing out capacity in her in-house refrigerator for the first time and has had to call in three mobile morgues.
So many people are dying, there is a two-week wait to be cremated. Two of her embalmers have quit, she said, for fear of catching the virus and infecting their families. Other employees are physically and emotionally spent, as they don masks, bodysuits and shoe coverings in homes where everyone in the family - not just the person who died - has the coronavirus.
In the latest blow, she said, they have had to go back to the same families again and again, as multiple loved ones die.
Yet there is barely time to process the grief, Shafer said. "The hospitals are calling us directly and saying, 'Come get this person, we need the bed.'"

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'Numb' and 'heartbroke,' the US confronts record coronavirus deaths - Times of India

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Jorge Ortiz, manager of Perches Funeral Home in El Paso, placed a floral arrangement next to the casket of a Covid-19 victim this month (AFP photo) DALLAS: Lillian Blancas was a fighter, a proud daughter of immigrants, part of the first generation in her family to attend college and a lawyer in El Paso, Texas, who was on the brink of fulfilling her dream of becoming a judge.

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United States v. Briggs

The Court reversed the United States and remanded it. Armed Forces Court of Appeals. The Court held that the prosecution of the respondents for rape under the Uniform Code of Military Justice was timely if a military offence, "punishable by death, may be tried and punished at any time without limitation.”

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Brown vs. Board of Education

I chose this because I think that it was a start to a better cause in America. Topeka's Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1954 in which the judges unanimously held that racial segregation of children was illegal in public schools.

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Currently especially with winter season coming up, I think that homelessness should be shown more attention. Many people don't have luxuries that others have and struggle to make it.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life was dedicated to change and an advocate for gender equality and women's rights, also, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court

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Follow NPR's coverage of Ginsburg's death and the political aftermath here.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by family. She was 87.

"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tireless and resolute champion of justice."

Architect of the legal fight for women's rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation's highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

She knew what was to come. Ginsburg's death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the court about to open a new term, the chief justice no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.
Upcoming political battle
Though Roberts has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones this year, casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to protect at least temporarily the so-called DREAMers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.

Indeed, a week after the upcoming presidential election, the court is for the third time scheduled to hear a challenge brought by Republicans to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. In 2012, the high court upheld the law in a 5-4 ruling, with Roberts casting the deciding vote and writing the opinion for the majority. But this time the outcome may well be different.

That's because Ginsburg's death gives Republicans the chance to tighten their grip on the court with another appointment by President Trump so conservatives would have 6-3 majority. And that would mean that even a defection on the right would leave conservatives with enough votes to prevail in the Obamacare case and many others.

At the center of the battle to achieve that will be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In 2016, he took a step unprecedented in modern times: He refused for nearly a year to allow any consideration of President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

Back then, McConnell's justification was the upcoming presidential election, which he said would allow voters a chance to weigh in on what kind of justice they wanted. But now, with the tables turned, McConnell has made clear he will not follow the same course. Instead he will try immediately to push through a Trump nominee so as to ensure a conservative justice to fill Ginsburg's liberal shoes, even if Trump were to lose his reelection bid. Asked what he would do in circumstances such as these, McConnell said: "Oh, we'd fill it."

So what happens in the coming weeks will be bare-knuckle politics, writ large, on the stage of a presidential election. It will be a fight Ginsburg had hoped to avoid, telling Justice John Paul Stevens shortly before his death that she hoped to serve as long as he did - until age 90.
"Tough as nails"
"My dream is that I will stay on the court as long as he did," she said in an interview in 2019.

She didn't quite make it. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nonetheless a historic figure. She changed the way the world is for American women. For more than a decade, until her first judicial appointment in 1980, she led the fight in the courts for gender equality. When she began her legal crusade, women were treated, by law, differently from men. Hundreds of state and federal laws restricted what women could do, barring them from jobs, rights and even from jury service. By the time she donned judicial robes, however, Ginsburg had worked a revolution.

That was never more evident than in 1996 when, as a relatively new Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg wrote the court's 7-1 opinion declaring that the Virginia Military Institute could no longer remain an all-male institution. True, Ginsburg said, most women - indeed most men - would not want to meet the rigorous demands of VMI. But the state, she said, could not exclude women who could meet those demands.

"Reliance on overbroad generalizations ... estimates about the way most men or most women are, will not suffice to deny opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description," Ginsburg wrote.

She was an unlikely pioneer, a diminutive and shy woman, whose soft voice and large glasses hid an intellect and attitude that, as one colleague put it, was "tough as nails."

By the time she was in her 80s, she had become something of a rock star to women of all ages. She was the subject of a hit documentary, a biopic, an operetta, merchandise galore featuring her "Notorious RBG" moniker, a Time magazine cover and regular Saturday Night Live sketches.

On one occasion in 2016, Ginsburg got herself into trouble and later publicly apologized for disparaging remarks she made about then-presidential candidate Trump.

But for the most part Ginsburg enjoyed her fame and maintained a sense of humor about herself.
The road to law
Asked about the fact that she had apparently fallen asleep during the 2015 State of the Union address, Ginsburg did not take the Fifth, admitting that although she had vowed not to drink at dinner with the other justices before the speech, the wine had just been too good to resist. The result, she said, was that she was perhaps not an entirely "sober judge" and kept nodding off.

Born in Brooklyn, Ruth Bader went to public schools, where she excelled as a student - and as a baton twirler. By all accounts, it was her mother who was the driving force in her young life, but Celia Bader died of cancer the day before the future justice would graduate from high school.

Then 17, Ruth Bader went on to Cornell University on a full scholarship, where she met Martin (aka "Marty") Ginsburg. "What made Marty so overwhelmingly attractive to me was that he cared that I had a brain," she said.

After her graduation, they were married and went off to Fort Sill, Okla., for his military service. There Mrs. Ginsburg, despite scoring high on the civil service exam, could only get a job as a typist, and when she became pregnant, she lost even that job.

Two years later, the couple returned to the East Coast to attend Harvard Law School. She was one of only nine women in a class of more than 500 and found the dean asking her why she was taking up a place that "should go to a man."

At Harvard, she was the academic star, not her husband. The couple were busy juggling schedules and their toddler when Marty Ginsburg was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Surgeries and aggressive radiation followed.

"So that left Ruth with a 3-year-old child, a fairly sick husband, the law review, classes to attend and feeding me," Marty Ginsburg said in a 1993 interview with NPR.

The experience also taught the future justice that sleep was a luxury. During the year of her husband's illness, he was only able to eat late at night; after that he would dictate his senior class paper to her. At about 2 a.m., he would go back to sleep, Ruth Bader Ginsburg recalled in an NPR interview. "Then I'd take out the books and start reading what I needed to be prepared for classes the next day."

Marty Ginsburg survived, graduated and got a job in New York; his wife, a year behind him in school, transferred to Columbia, where she graduated at the top of her law school class. Despite her academic achievements, the doors to law firms were closed to women, and though recommended for a Supreme Court clerkship, she wasn't even interviewed.

It was bad enough that she was a woman, she recalled later, but she was also a mother, and male judges worried she would be diverted by her "familial obligations."

A mentor, law professor Gerald Gunther, finally got her a clerkship in New York by promising Judge Edmund Palmieri that if she couldn't do the work, he would provide someone who could. That was "the carrot," Ginsburg would say later. "The stick" was that Gunther, who regularly fed his best students to Palmieri, told the judge that if he didn't take Ginsburg, Gunther would never send him a clerk again. The Ginsburg clerkship apparently was a success; Palmieri kept her not for the usual one year, but two, from 1959-61.

Ginsburg's next path is rarely talked about, mainly because it doesn't fit the narrative. She learned Swedish so she could work with Anders Bruzelius, a Swedish civil procedure scholar. Through the Columbia University School of Law Project on International Procedure, Ginsburg and Bruzelius co-authored a book.

In 1963, Ginsburg finally landed a teaching job at Rutgers Law School, where she at one point hid her second pregnancy by wearing her mother-in-law's clothes. The ruse worked; her contract was renewed before her baby was born.
The "mother brief"
While at Rutgers, she began her work fighting gender discrimination.

Her first big case was a challenge to a law that barred a Colorado man named Charles Moritz from taking a tax deduction for the care of his 89-year-old mother. The IRS said the deduction, by statute, could only be claimed by women, or widowed or divorced men. But Moritz had never married.

The tax court concluded that the Internal Revenue Code was immune to constitutional challenge, a notion that tax lawyer Marty Ginsburg viewed as "preposterous." The two Ginsburgs took on the case - he from the tax perspective, she from the constitutional one.

According to Marty Ginsburg, for his wife, this was the "mother brief." She had to think through all the issues and how to fix the inequity. The solution was to ask the court not to invalidate the statute but to apply it equally to both sexes. She won in the lower courts.

"Amazingly," he recalled in a 1993 NPR interview, the government petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that the decision "cast a cloud of unconstitutionality" over literally hundreds of federal statutes, and it attached a list of those statutes, which it compiled with Defense Department computers.

Those laws, Marty Ginsburg added, "were the statutes that my wife then litigated ... to overturn over the next decade."

In 1971, she would write her first Supreme Court brief in the case of Reed v. Reed. Ruth Bader Ginsburg represented Sally Reed, who thought she should be the executor of her son's estate instead of her ex-husband.

The constitutional issue was whether a state could automatically prefer men over women as executors of estates. The answer from the all-male Supreme Court: no.

It was the first time the court had struck down a state law because it discriminated based on gender.

And that was just the beginning.

By then Ginsburg was earning quite a reputation. She would become the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School, and she would found the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

As the chief architect of the battle for women's legal rights, Ginsburg devised a strategy that was characteristically cautious, precise and single-mindedly aimed at one goal: winning.

Knowing that she had to persuade male, establishment-oriented judges, she often picked male plaintiffs, and she liked Social Security cases because they illustrated how discrimination against women can harm men. For example, in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, she represented a man whose wife, the principal breadwinner, died in childbirth. The husband sought survivor's benefits to care for his child, but under the then-existing Social Security law, only widows, not widowers, were entitled to such benefits.

"This absolute exclusion, based on gender per se, operates to the disadvantage of female workers, their surviving spouses, and their children," Ginsburg told the justices at oral argument. The Supreme Court would ultimately agree, as it did in five of the six cases she argued.

Over the years, Ginsburg would file dozens of briefs seeking to persuade the courts that the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection applies not just to racial and ethnic minorities but to women as well.

In an interview with NPR, she explained the legal theory that she eventually sold to the Supreme Court.

"The words of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause - 'nor shall any state deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.' Well that word, 'any person,' covers women as well as men. And the Supreme Court woke up to that reality in 1971," Ginsburg said.

During these pioneering years, Ginsburg would often work through the night as she had during law school. But by this time, she had two children, and she later liked to tell a story about the lesson she learned when her son, in grade school, seemed to have a proclivity for getting into trouble.

The scrapes were hardly major, and Ginsburg grew exasperated by demands from school administrators that she come in to discuss her son's alleged misbehavior. Finally, there came a day when she had had enough. "I had stayed up all night the night before, and I said to the principal, 'This child has two parents. Please alternate calls.' "
The Supreme Court's second woman
After that, she found, the calls were few and far between. It seemed, she said, that most infractions were not worth calling a busy husband about.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter named Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Over the next 13 years, she would amass a record as something of a centrist liberal, and in 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court, the second woman appointed to the position.

She was not first on his list. For months, Clinton flirted with other potential nominees, and some women's rights activists withheld their active support because they were worried about Ginsburg's views on abortion. She had been publicly critical of the legal reasoning in Roe v. Wade.

But in the background, Marty Ginsburg was lobbying hard for his wife. And finally Ruth Ginsburg was invited for a meeting with the president. As one White House official put it afterward, Clinton "fell for her - hook, line and sinker." So did the Senate. She was confirmed by a 96-3 vote.

Once on the court, Ginsburg was an example of a woman who defied stereotypes. Though she looked tiny and frail, she rode horses well into her 70s and even went parasailing. At home, it was her husband who was the chef, indeed a master chef, while the justice cheerfully acknowledged she was an awful cook.

Though a liberal, she and the court's conservative icon, Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, were the closest of friends. Indeed, an opera called Scalia/Ginsburg is based on their legal disagreements, and their affection for each other.

Over the years, as Ginsburg's place on the court grew in seniority, so did her role. In 2006, as the court veered right after the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Ginsburg dissented more often and more assertively, her most passionate dissents coming in women's rights cases.

Dissenting in Ledbetter v. Goodyear in 2007, she called on Congress to pass legislation that would override a court decision that drastically limited back pay available for victims of employment discrimination. The resulting legislation was the first bill passed in 2009 after Obama took office.

In 2014, she dissented fiercely in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a decision that allowed some for-profit companies to refuse, on religious grounds, to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in health care plans. Such an exemption, she said, would "deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs, access to contraceptive coverage."

Where, she asked, "is the stopping point?" Suppose it offends an employer's religious belief "to pay the minimum wage" or "to accord women equal pay?"

And in 2013, when the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, contending that times had changed and the law was no longer needed, Ginsburg dissented. She said that throwing out the provision "when it has worked and is continuing to work ... is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

She viewed her dissents as a chance to persuade a future court.

"Some of my favorite opinions are dissenting opinions," Ginsburg told NPR. "I will not live to see what becomes of them, but I remain hopeful."

And yet, Ginsburg still managed some unexpected victories by winning over one or two of the conservative justices in important cases. In 2015, for example, she authored the court's decision upholding independent redistricting commissions established by voter referenda as a way of removing some of the partisanship in drawing legislative district lines.

Ginsburg always kept a backbreaking schedule of public appearances both at home and abroad,even after five bouts with cancer: colon cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer 10 years later, lung cancer in 2018, and then pancreatic cancer again in 2019 and liver lesions in 2020.During that time, she endured chemotherapy, radiation and, in the last years of her life, terrible pain from shingles that never went away completely. All who knew her admired her grit. In 2009, three weeks after major cancer surgery, she surprised everyone when she showed up for the State of the Union address.

Shortly after that, she was back on the bench; it was her husband, Marty, who told her she could do it, even when she thought she could not, she told NPR.

A year later her psychological toughness was on full display when her beloved husband of 56 years was mortally ill. As she packed up his things at the hospital before taking him home to die, she found a note he had written to her. "My Dearest Ruth," it began, "You are the only person I have ever loved," setting aside children and family. "I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell. ... The time has come for me to ... take leave of life because the loss of quality simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less."

Shortly after that, Marty Ginsburg died at home. The next day, his wife, the justice, was on the bench, reading an important opinion she had authored for the court. She was there, she said, because "Marty would have wanted it."

Years later, she would read the letter aloud in an NPR interview, and at the end, choke down the tears.

In the years after Marty's death, she would persevere without him, maintaining a jam-packed schedule when she was not on the bench or working on opinions.

Some liberals criticized her for not retiring while Obama was president, but she was at the top of her game, enjoyed her work enormously and feared that Republicans might not confirm a successor. She was an avid consumer of opera, literature and modern art. But in the end, it was her work, she said, that sustained her.

"I do think that I was born under a very bright star," she said in an NPR interview. "Because if you think about my life, I get out of law school. I have top grades. No law firm in the city of New York will hire me. I end up teaching; it gave me time to devote to the movement for evening out the rights of women and men."

And it was that legal crusade for women's rights that ultimately led to her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To the end of her tenure, she remained a special kind of feminist, both decorous and dogged.

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87

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Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, died from complications from cancer. Her death will set in motion what promises to be a tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her.

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Looks like we are coming to an end of this pandemic, maybe?

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(Reuters) - Britain began the mass-vaccination of its population against COVID-19 on Tuesday, becoming the first Western nation to do so in a global endeavour that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.

Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother from Britain, became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer vaccine outside of a trial following its rapid clinical approval on Dec. 2.

Pfizer said in November final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine showed it was 95% effective.

Below are the main details of the vaccine, progress on supply deals and potential approvals:

- The vaccine, called BNT162b2, is based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which uses a chemical messenger to instruct cells to make proteins that mimic the outer surface of the new coronavirus, thereby creating immunity.

- mRNA relies on synthetic genes that can be generated and manufactured in weeks, and produced at scale more rapidly than conventional vaccines.

- The new technology has not been approved for any other vaccines so far; Pfizer and BioNTech have already collaborated to develop influenza vaccines based on mRNA.

- The vaccine needs to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below

- Based on the supply deal with the United States, the price tag amounts to $39 for what is likely to be a two-dose course.

- Pfizer has said it will not charge other developed countries a lower price for the vaccine than what the United States will pay.

- BioNTech Chief Executive Officer Ugur Sahin has said he is optimistic the immunization effect of the vaccine would last for a year. Scientists do not know how long the effect will last.

- India is accelerating its review of Pfizer's vaccine to for emergency use, a senior official said on Dec.7.

- Canadian health authorities could approve the vaccine within the next week, medical officials indicated on Dec. 3.

- The European Medicines Agency said on Dec. 1 that if its experts have received enough data from Pfizer about the vaccine, the agency will complete its reviews by Dec. 29.

- Pfizer and BioNTech submitted approval requests for their vaccine candidates to the European drugs regulator on Dec. 1.

- U.S. FDA granted the vaccine a 'fast track' status in mid-July, and is expected to give more indications of its use this week.

- Pfizer signed a deal worth up to $750 million with BioNTech in March to co-develop the potential vaccine, and it ran clinical trials in April.

- Testing of the vaccine began in the United States in May after trials started in Germany the previous month.

- Trials are continuing globally in 154 locations, including in Germany, Japan, Brazil and in several locations within the United States in participants aged 12 years and older. The global Phase I/II/III trials enrolled about 44,000 volunteers. (https://bit.ly/3lfaaeF)

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka, Vishwadha Chander and Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis; Shounak Dasgupta and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Copyright 2020 Thomson Reuters.

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What's Next for Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine After UK Rollout

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(Reuters) - Britain began the mass-vaccination of its population against COVID-19 on Tuesday, becoming the first Western nation to do so in a global endeavour that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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-Donald Trump should honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg's wish to elect a new USSC Justice until after the election
- I think that the current way to elect a new USSC Justice is a good and fair system.

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I think a law that needs to be revised is the Nuisance Law which is "A nuisance occurs when a landowner engages in an activity that significantly interferes with the use or enjoyment of another's property, or that affects the health, safety, welfare or comfort of the public at large." I think this is in need of changing because Nuisance laws can backfire, resulting in less community protection as people are fearful of reporting abuse to the police and immunity is obtained by offenders.

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I think that a law that should exist is  Universal Health Care. Many people find health care too expensive and cannot afford it while many nations around the world provide basic universal coverage through public funds supplemented by private payments through employers or additional insurance.

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Quote summing up my thoughts on the trait/characteristics a president should have

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Quote summing up my thoughts on the trait/characteristics a president should have

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"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader" -John Quincy Adams

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to the national convention, individual state caucuses and primaries were held to allocate convention delegates. These delegates vote at the convention to select the nominee. In 2020, a Democratic presidential candidate needed support from 1,991 delegates to secure the nomination.

With the plurality of pledged delegates, Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee on April 8, 2020, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his presidential campaign. Biden crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination on June 5, 2020.

Biden announced U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D) as his running mate on August 11, 2020. Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Democratic presidential nominee

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) is the projected winner of the 2020 presidential election, according to a consensus call from ABC News, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, and The New York Times. Projected to win Pennsylvania on November 7, 2020, Biden secured at least 273 electoral votes, putting him over the threshold of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. President Donald Trump (R) won at least 213 electoral votes.

Biden will be the oldest president to take office on January 20, 2021, at 78 years old. His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), will be the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

Click here to learn more about the Biden presidential transition.

Biden announced that he was running for president on April 25, 2019. With the plurality of pledged delegates, Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee on April 8, 2020, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his presidential campaign. Biden crossed the delegate threshold necessary to win the nomination on June 5, 2020, and was formally nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020.

Biden announced Harris as his running mate on August 11, 2020. He called her "a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants." Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Biden framed his campaign as a challenge to Trump. "I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation-who we are-and I cannot stand by and watch that happen," he said.

He represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009 before serving as vice president under President Barack Obama (D) from 2009 to 2017.

Democratic National Convention

See also: Democratic National Convention, 2020 and Democratic delegate rules, 2020

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its presidential nominating convention the week of August 17, 2020, across four stages in New York City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Wilmington.

The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020, in Milwaukee. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of the convention's events took place remotely. The DNC announced in June 2020 that delegates should not plan to travel to Milwaukee to attend the convention. Instead, votes on reports from the Rules, Platform, and Credentials committees took place remotely from August 3-15, 2020.

The Democratic National Convention Committee announced on August 5, 2020, that former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and other speakers would not travel to Milwaukee. Biden was formally nominated at the convention on August 18, 2020.

Biden announced U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D) as his running mate on August 11, 2020. Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party's ticket in the United States.

Since the last multi-ballot Democratic convention took place in 1952, conventions have largely become ceremonial. They provide candidates with the "opportunity to shape their images to voters who hadn't really tuned in before," according to AP national politics reporter Bill Barrow.

Presidential nomination roll call

The following spreadsheet contains the number of delegates each candidate received during the presidential nomination roll call at the Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. It was updated live during the event.

In addition to Joe Biden, the following candidates appeared on five or more Democratic primary ballots:

Campaign finance

The following chart shows Democratic presidential campaign fundraising, including both total receipts and contributions from individuals, as well as campaign spending. Figures for each candidate run through the end of June 2020 or through the final reporting period during which the candidate was actively campaigning for president. The total disbursements column includes operating expenditures, transfers to other committees, refunds, loan repayments, and other disbursements.

Click on any of the following links to read policy positions from the 2020 presidential candidates.

Abortion

Criminal justice

Economy

Education

Energy and environmental issues

Foreign policy

Gun regulation

Healthcare

Immigration

Impeachment

Labor

Trade

Democratic primary debates

The following table provides an overview of the date, location, host, and number of participants in each scheduled 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate.

Democratic primary endorsements

With more than two dozen noteworthy candidates entering the Democratic primary for president in the 2020 election, endorsements from party leaders were one tool candidates used to distinguish themselves. According to political strategist Susan Del Percio, "Endorsements do matter; what you do with them is more important. They need to be treated as a way of targeting the group you seek to persuade, especially on certain issues."

Endorsements over time

The following chart shows the total number of noteworthy endorsements former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders received over time since January 2019.

Gubernatorial endorsements

The following table indicates which governors endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

U.S. Senate endorsements

The following table indicates which U.S. senators endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

U.S. House endorsements

The following chart and table indicate which U.S. represenatitives endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate during the primary.

PredictIt markets

General election

Campaign travel

Ballotpedia compiled the number of days each Democratic presidential candidate has spent in the four early primary states- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada -from January 1, 2019, through February 29, 2020.

Information about the candidates' schedules was sourced from The Des Moines Register, NBC Boston/NECN, The Post & Courier, The Nevada Independent.

The following table shows the number of days each candidate spent in each early primary state between January 1, 2019, and February 29, 2020. Candidates marked with an asterisk did not have complete information available for one or more states.

The following chart includes the campaign logo and slogan for each Democratic presidential candidate.

2020 Democratic presidential candidate logos

Candidate

Logo

Slogan

Joe Biden

Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead

Early voting states

New Hampshire

Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

The following chart shows the Democratic presidential ticket from every presidential election between 1900 and 2016.

Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees, 1900-2016

Year

Democratic presidential nominee

Democratic vice presidential nominee

General election result

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Democratic presidential nomination, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee at the 2020 Democratic National Convention on August 18, 2020. The convention was originally scheduled to take place July 13-16, 2020. Organizers postponed the event in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Last updated: September 11, 2020
General elections are often the focal point of election-year media coverage as they determine control of elected offices up and down the ballot. Primary elections, however, can provide insight on future elections as they help dictate the direction each party takes.

Although many of the most competitive primaries take place for open seats or offices that are held by a different party, even high-ranking federal officeholders can lose renomination to primary challengers. In the 2014 primary for Virginia's 7th Congressional District, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R), ranked behind only then-Speaker John Boehner (R) in Republican House leadership, was defeated by economics professor Dave Brat (R).

On this page, you will find information on noteworthy and notable Republican Party primaries taking place across the country for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and state executive offices.

Ballotpedia has identified 76 Republican battleground primaries taking place in 2020. This page is updated weekly. To nominate a primary for inclusion on this page, click here to email us.

Click here for information on Democratic Party battleground primaries in 2020.

It is typically difficult to predict how competitive primaries will be until after filing deadlines take place. However, Ballotpedia used a number of factors to give insight into the most interesting 2020 primary elections. Factors that were used to determine the competitiveness of primaries included:

Whether or not the seat was open (retiring or resigning incumbent)

Notable endorsements of multiple candidates

Significant fundraising from multiple candidates

Number of candidates

Incumbent's years in office (if seeking re-election)

Whether or not the district's general election was expected to be a battleground

U.S. Senate primaries

The following map shows each state with a Republican battleground primary for U.S. Senate in 2020. Use the buttons in the upper-right hand corner of the map or your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Hover over or tap a state to view the incumbent's name. There are seven U.S. Senate Republican battleground primaries in 2020.

U.S. House primaries

The following map shows each U.S. House district with a Republican battleground primary in 2020. Use the buttons in the upper-right hand corner of the map or your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Hover over or tap a district to view the incumbent's name. There are 53 U.S. House Republican battleground primaries in 2020.

State executive primaries

The following map shows each state with Republican state executive battleground primaries in 2020. Hover over or tap a state for information on which primaries are battlegrounds and who the incumbent is in each. There are eight Republican state executive battleground primaries in 2020.

State legislative primaries

The following maps shows each state with a Republican state legislative primary battleground chamber in 2020. Hover over or tap a state for more information on which chambers are battlegrounds and how many seats Democrats control in each. There are seven Republican primary battleground chambers in 2020.

Republican state legislative primary battleground chambers, 2020

Chamber

Primary date

Seats controlled by Republicans

Seats controlled by Republicans that are up for election in 2020

Number of contested Republican primaries

Top-two primaries for Republican seats

There are two top-two battleground primaries for Republican-held seats in 2020.

California uses a top-two primary system, in which all candidates appear on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, move on to the general election. In states that do not use a top-two system, all parties are usually able to put forward a candidate for the general election if they choose to.

Unlike the top-two format used in some states (Louisiana and Georgia special elections for example), a general election between the top two candidates in California occurs regardless of whether the top candidate received 50 percent of the vote in the first round of elections.

As of 2019, California was one of three states to use a top-two primary system. Washington used the system for congressional and state-level elections, and Nebraska utilized a top-two system for its nonpartisan state legislature.

This section lists every change that was made to our battleground list since we launched the page in September 2019.

August 7, 2020: Removed two battleground races from the list: MN-02 and WI-07.

July 27, 2020: Removed one battleground race from the list: AZ-04.

July 10, 2020: Added three battleground races to the list: FL-13, FL-26, and Alaska State Senate.

July 6, 2020: Added one battleground race to the list: NH-01.

May 18, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: OR-Sen and NJ-03. Removed two races: IA-02 and Montana Attorney General.

April 26, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: AZ-04 and South Dakota State Senate.

April 8, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: VA-02 and VA-05.

March 31, 2020: Added one battleground race to the list: Utah Attorney General.

March 23, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: FL-15 and NV-03.

March 15, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: TX-23 and Montana Attorney General.

March 1, 2020: Added five battleground races to the list: NM-02, NY-02, OR-02, UT-04, and Montana Secretary of State.

February 14, 2020: Removed two battleground races from the list: TX-23 and TX-24.

February 7, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: TN-Sen and TX-12.

January 31, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: GA-09 and GA-14.

January 24, 2020: Added nine battleground races to the list: KY-04, MS-03, Indiana Attorney General, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor, Alaska House of Representatives, Kansas State Senate and House of Representatives, Ohio House of Representatives, and Texas House of Representatives

January 13, 2020: Added eight battleground races to the list: IA-02, MN-02, NC-11, OK-05, TN-01, TX-13, TX-32, and VA-0. Removed NC-Sen.

January 3, 2020: Added two battleground races to the list: FL-03 and NJ-02. Removed two battleground races from the list: GA-06 and NC Gov.

December 3, 2019: Added one battleground race to the list: PA-7.

November 15, 2019: Added one battleground race to the list: FL-19.

September 18, 2019: Added five battleground races to the list: NH Senate, GA-6, GA-7, KS-3, and TX-23.

September 12, 2019: Launched initial battlegrounds list with 35 races.

2018 battlegrounds

Ballotpedia identified 78 Republican federal and state battleground primaries in 2018. There were eight senate battleground primaries, 43 house battleground primaries, and 27 state executive battleground primaries.

Disputes between potential members of the House Freedom Caucus and other members of the Republican Party occurred in U.S. House primaries in 2018.

Led by U.S. Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the House Freedom Caucus supported candidates who were likely to join its ranks if elected to the House. Other wings of the Republican Party, including those aligned with House Republican leadership, often preferred candidates not aligned with the Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus said it "gives a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them" and supported "open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety and prosperity of all Americans." The Pew Research Center said the group formed in January 2015 "with the declared aim of pushing the House GOP leadership rightward on certain fiscal and social issues" and wanted "power shifted away from the leadership to the rank-and-file."

Other House Republican caucuses more closely allied with leadership included the Republican Main Street Partnership, which aimed for "conservative, pragmatic, solutions-oriented policies that can gain support from legislators on both sides of the aisle," and the Republican Study Committee, which "is dedicated to a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government, a strong national defense, the protection of individual and property rights, and the preservation of traditional family values."

Scott Wong wrote for The Hill that the primaries were a "proxy battle over how much influence...the Freedom Caucus can exert over the House GOP conference next year- and who might lead Republicans after retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) steps down." Jordan emerged as a speaker contender and announced he would run for the position against Ryan's preferred candidate, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). After Republicans lost their majority in the general elections, McCarthy defeated Jordan in a contest for Republican minority leader. The vote was 159 to 43.

To detail this fight, we identified competitive open Republican primaries where the Freedom Caucus or its leaders backed a candidate. We also considered primaries where candidates said they would join the Freedom Caucus if elected.

The chart below shows a summary of results in the competitive open Republican primaries we tracked where either the Freedom Caucus or its leaders backed a candidate.

Top 10 Republican primaries in 2018

The list below was selected by Ballotpedia staff at the end of the 2018 primary season. Click the links to learn more about each primary.

1. Arizona Senate (August 28)

2. South Carolina's 1st Congressional District (June 12)

3. Florida governor (August 28)

4. Georgia governor (May 22) & runoff (July 24)

5. Kansas governor (August 7)

6. Ohio's 12th Congressional District (May 8)

7. Wyoming governor (August 21)

8. Minnesota's 1st Congressional District (August 14)

9. Texas state legislative Republican primaries (March 6 and May 22)

10. Michigan's 11th Congressional District (August 7)

1. Note: Candidates for Indiana state executive offices (other than governor and lieutenant governor) are nominated at party conventions rather than selected in primaries.

2. Ballotpedia research conducted December 26, 2013, through January 3, 2014, researching and analyzing various state websites and codes.

3. The original 35 races identified were: AL Senate, AZ Senate, KS Senate, NC Senate, WY Senate, AL-1, AL-2, IL-6, IL-14, IL-15, IN-5, IA-4, KS-1, KS-2, ME-2, MI-3, MI-10, MN-7, MT-AL, NY-27, PA-1, SC-1, TX-7, TX-11, TX-17, TX-22, TX-24, UT-1, WI-5, WI-7, MO Gov, MT Gov, NC Gov, UT Gov, and WV Gov.

4. We chose to focus on open primaries in order to see how many new members the caucus could potentially add after the 2018 elections.

5. We chose to focus on open primaries in order to see how many new members the caucus could potentially add after the 2018 elections.

6. This includes all seats not held by members of the Freedom Caucus prior to the 2018 elections, including those held by Democrats.

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Republican Party battleground primaries, 2020 - Ballotpedia

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Last updated: September 11, 2020 General elections are often the focal point of election-year media coverage as they determine control of elected offices up and down the ballot. Primary elections, however, can provide insight on future elections as they help dictate the direction each party takes.

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Especially during these times with COVID-19 absentee ballots in my opinion is the safest way to vote. In person voting seems too risky because I feel that there might be too many people which makes it very likely to spread

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What you need to know

Canceled debate: Dueling town hall events between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden may air Thursday since the town hall-style debate between the two candidates is off.

SCOTUS battle: Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are pressing ahead with confirmation hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the 2020 election .

President Trump took the stage in Sanford, Florida, tonight for his first rally since testing positive for coronavirus.

Trump tossed packaged face masks into the crowd as he walked to the podium. Trump was not wearing a mask. Most of the supporters directly behind him were wearing masks but most attendees at the venue were not wearing masks.

"Hello everybody, hello Orlando, hello Sanford... it's great to be back," Trump said.

"It's a lot of people," he said of the crowd, criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's rally size.

"I am so energized by your prayers and humbled by your support. We've had such incredible support, and here we are," Trump roared.

Earlier today, White House physician Sean Conley said Trump has tested negative for Covid-19 on consecutive days.

The White House still has not revealed the last time Trump tested negative prior to his positive diagnosis, offering varying justifications for withholding that information.

Trump is "not infectious to others," Conley added.

The doctor's assessment came moments after the President was seen boarding Air Force One without a mask on his way to the rally.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has officially scheduled a business meeting for Thursday to consider the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court.

With Sens. Thom Tillis, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz all set to attend proceedings in-person, the GOP will have a quorum to hold the meeting.

At the Thursday meeting, Democrats will use their power under the committee rules to delay the vote for a week - until Oct. 22.

In other words, everything is on track for the GOP to get Barrett confirmed by month's end.

Tillis' campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo confirmed the senator will attend the proceedings in-person. After testing positive for coronavirus, Tillis spoke remotely Monday as proceedings got underway. His office has not yet said if Tillis has tested negative.

Democrats criticized Graham's move.

Ranking member Dianne Feinstein called it "unprecedented" in her time on the committee that a vote on the nomination has been scheduled before the hearing has concluded.

"It's another example of Republicans ignoring rules and tradition so they can rush this nominee through before the election - and in time to supply a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act," Feinstein said in a statement.

White House physician Dr. Sean Conley has released a new memorandum Monday evening regarding President Trump's recent coronavirus test, saying the President has tested negative on "consecutive days."

"In response to your inquiry regarding the President's most recent COVID-19 tests, I can share with you that he has tested NEGATIVE, on consecutive days, using the Abbott BinaxNOW antigen card," Conley wrote, noting that those tests were taken "in context with additional clinical and laboratory data."

Trump is "not infectious to others," Conley added.

His memo comes moments after the President was seen boarding Air Force One without a mask on his way to Sanford, Florida, where he will rally a large group of supporters, many of whom are not wearing masks.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, blasted the Trump campaign for using his words in a campaign advertisement touting the President's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it "really unfortunate and really disappointing."

"I think it's really unfortunate and really disappointing that they did that," Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper this afternoon. "It's so clear I am not a political person and I have never either directly or indirectly endorsed a political candidate and to take a completely out of context statement and put it in what is obviously a political campaign ad I thought was very disappointing."

When asked if the Trump campaign should take down the ad, Fauci said, "I think so."

He also said that if the Trump campaign were to feature him in another ad, it would be "outrageous" and warned it could backfire.

"That would be terrible," said Fauci, when asked about being featured in a second campaign spot. "I mean, that would be outrageous if they did that, in fact that might actually come back to backfire on them."

"I hope they don't do that because that would be kind of playing a game that we don't want to play," he said.

The Trump campaign released the new ad last week after Trump was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following treatment for Covid-19.

The 30-second ad, which is airing in Michigan, touts Trump's personal experience with the virus and uses a quote from Fauci in an attempt to make it appear as if he is praising Trump's response.

"President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is America," the ad's narrator says. "Together we rose to meet the challenge, protecting our seniors, getting them life-saving drugs in record time, sparing no expense."

The ad then flashes to an interview with Fauci in which he says, "I can't imagine that anybody could be doing more."
Watch here:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN's Jake Tapper Monday, that "the President is what would be well within the 10-day timeframe of being non-transmissible."

Yet he might consider wearing a mask out of caution.

Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, was responding to a question about the statement made by President Trump's physician that the President was no longer considered a transmission risk after his bout with Covid-19.

"They have found that if you are 10 days from the onset of symptoms, the chances are extraordinarily low that you are going to be transmissible - that you would be able to transmit it. If you really want to nail it down, you do a PCR test and you show that the person has a level of virus that's not going to be transmitted. And that's what you can do sometimes. Whether they do that or not that remains to be seen," Fauci said.

Trump and Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, also recently infected with coronavirus, have been conducting official government business in the last few days, to the concern of many.

Fauci said that people who've very recently been infected, such as Trump and Lee, should probably wear a mask, out of an abundance of caution.

"As the better part of caution, I think that that would be appropriate to do that. I mean, I certainly think from a practical standpoint, I probably would do that myself just to be extra careful," Fauci said.

He also said the President or Lee could also get a test to determine the level of viral remnants.

That, Fauci said, "would probably get people to be feeling much more comfortable about the lack of transmissibility. And they very well may do that to just go that extra step to show that an individual, whoever that might be - the President or anybody else, a senator or anybody - to just go that extra step in addition to the 10-day period to show that the virus itself is not present in a form that would be transmissible."

As for whether the President is immune, Fauci told Tapper, probably yes - but it's unclear for how long.

"If he means that he's been infected and having been infected and recovered, that he will not get infected again - that's true for a limited period of time. What we do not know is how long that protection lasts. So technically speaking, the fact that he has recovered from an immunological standpoint, he has an immune response in him - that very likely would protect him from being reinfected," Fauci said.

He noted there have been well-documented cases of people getting reinfected with coronavirus a second time.

"So you really have to be careful that you're not completely quote 'immune,'" Fauci said.
Watch here:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said in the context of public health, having political rallies "is asking for trouble."

Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper Monday, Fauci said, "We've seen that when you have situations of congregate settings, where there are a lot of people without masks."

"The data speak for themselves," he said.

Now is a "worse time" to have them "because when you look at what's going on in the United States, it's really very troublesome," he said. "A number of states right now are having increase in test positivity."

All regions are seeing cases on the rise, he said. "So if there's anything we should be doing, we should be doubling down in implementing the public health measures that we've been talking about for so long," Fauci said.

"We're entering into the cool months of the fall and ultimately the cold months of the winter, and that's just a recipe of a real problem, if we don't get things under control before we get into that seasonal challenge," he said.
Watch here:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's economic message drove his remarks in Toledo, Ohio, Monday afternoon- his first of two stops in a state that President Trump won and the Biden campaign is recently investing in more as it considers it a potential "win back" state on its path to 270 electoral votes.

Speaking at a United Auto Workers hall at a drive-in rally, Biden continued to chip away at the class divide as he painted the campaign against Trump as "Scranton versus Park Avenue."

Biden commented on the Supreme Court hearing of Amy Coney Barrett, saying that it was purely about President Trump's desire to "wipe out the Affordable Care Act."

"In the middle of this pandemic, why do Republicans have time to hold a hearing on the Supreme Court instead of providing the significant economic need for localities?" he asked rhetorically. "I'll tell you why. It's about finally getting his wish to wipe out the Affordable Care Act."

Biden also slammed the President's campaign for misrepresenting Dr. Anthony Fauci in a campaign ad. "Point I'm trying to make is it's a knowing lie like everything we're being told about Covid consequences," he said.

Biden reiterated his criticism of the President's handling of Covid-19 - both personal and presidential. "He told Woodward he didn't want to panic the American people. That's why he said nothing. We don't panic! America doesn't panic!" Biden said. "But Trump panicked. His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable. The longer Donald Trump is president the more reckless he seems to get."

At the drive-in style rally, Biden notably received loud honks when he praised unions and promised to support them if elected. He touted his record working on the Recovery Act, making it local to the Ohioans.

With only 22 days until Election Day and early voting underway, Poll Defenders, a group of students working to secure on-campus polling sites, drop boxes and satellite offices across the country, is announcing three new on-campus polling sites at New York University, University California (UC), Berkeley and Wake Forest University.

Poll Defenders is part of a joint initiative between MTV and the Alliance for Youth Organizing, and, according to organizers, the polling resources will reach more than 335,000 students across the country up until and on Election Day.

The participating students, known as Poll Defenders, have confirmed a total of 22 polling sites to support students and their communities in 10 states including locations at Florida State University, University of Michigan, University of Texas Austin, Georgia Tech, Columbia University & Barnard College, University of Nevada Reno, James Madison University, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), Alabama A&M University and more.

The sites are a result of the work of a number of student leaders including Izzy McMahon, a college senior, who helped solidify the one stop early voting site on-campus at Wake Forest. Earlier this fall, McMahon worked on voter registration efforts including creating a QR code to help students check their registration.

"These incredible students have been working tirelessly in recent months to ensure that 22 on-campus polling places will be open this election season, allowing students across the country to cast their ballots early and on Election Day without leaving their campuses," Vaughan Bagley, senior manager of Social Impact at ViacomCBS Entertainment & Youth Brands, told CNN.

"MTV and our +1 the Polls partners are committed to continuing to support these Poll Defenders as we work to eliminate barriers and improve access to voting," she said.

Vice President Mike Pence was interrupted by protesters today while giving a campaign stump speech in Columbus, Ohio.

There were a couple of interruptions by anti-Trump/Pence demonstrators early in the speech, and Pence stopped briefly while security intervened.

When the protesters were removed, Pence said, "Boy is it good to be back in the heartland. I tell you what, I come from a place with strong hearts and opinion ... This is a country that loves the proud heritage, past, present and future of the good old USA."

At least one set of demonstrators were quiet and held signs saying "5K jobs lost in Lordstown."

Pence's speech touched on his support for law enforcement, the administration's coronavirus response, and tax cuts, among other topics.

On Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's Supreme Court pick, Pence said, "Now the Senate started their confirmation hearings this morning. All the senators were doing their opening remarks. Questioning will probably start tomorrow. The president said Democrats on the Judiciary Committee need to give Judge Barrett respectful and dignified hearing this time. But we have reason to be concerned."

What you need to know

Canceled debate: Dueling town hall events between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden may air Thursday since the town hall-style debate between the two candidates is off.

SCOTUS battle: Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are pressing ahead with confirmation hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the 2020 election .

President Trump took the stage in Sanford, Florida, tonight for his first rally since testing positive for coronavirus.

Trump tossed packaged face masks into the crowd as he walked to the podium. Trump was not wearing a mask. Most of the supporters directly behind him were wearing masks but most attendees at the venue were not wearing masks.

"Hello everybody, hello Orlando, hello Sanford... it's great to be back," Trump said.

"It's a lot of people," he said of the crowd, criticizing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's rally size.

"I am so energized by your prayers and humbled by your support. We've had such incredible support, and here we are," Trump roared.

Earlier today, White House physician Sean Conley said Trump has tested negative for Covid-19 on consecutive days.

The White House still has not revealed the last time Trump tested negative prior to his positive diagnosis, offering varying justifications for withholding that information.

Trump is "not infectious to others," Conley added.

The doctor's assessment came moments after the President was seen boarding Air Force One without a mask on his way to the rally.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has officially scheduled a business meeting for Thursday to consider the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court.

With Sens. Thom Tillis, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz all set to attend proceedings in-person, the GOP will have a quorum to hold the meeting.

At the Thursday meeting, Democrats will use their power under the committee rules to delay the vote for a week - until Oct. 22.

In other words, everything is on track for the GOP to get Barrett confirmed by month's end.

Tillis' campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo confirmed the senator will attend the proceedings in-person. After testing positive for coronavirus, Tillis spoke remotely Monday as proceedings got underway. His office has not yet said if Tillis has tested negative.

Democrats criticized Graham's move.

Ranking member Dianne Feinstein called it "unprecedented" in her time on the committee that a vote on the nomination has been scheduled before the hearing has concluded.

"It's another example of Republicans ignoring rules and tradition so they can rush this nominee through before the election - and in time to supply a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act," Feinstein said in a statement.

White House physician Dr. Sean Conley has released a new memorandum Monday evening regarding President Trump's recent coronavirus test, saying the President has tested negative on "consecutive days."

"In response to your inquiry regarding the President's most recent COVID-19 tests, I can share with you that he has tested NEGATIVE, on consecutive days, using the Abbott BinaxNOW antigen card," Conley wrote, noting that those tests were taken "in context with additional clinical and laboratory data."

Trump is "not infectious to others," Conley added.

His memo comes moments after the President was seen boarding Air Force One without a mask on his way to Sanford, Florida, where he will rally a large group of supporters, many of whom are not wearing masks.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, blasted the Trump campaign for using his words in a campaign advertisement touting the President's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it "really unfortunate and really disappointing."

"I think it's really unfortunate and really disappointing that they did that," Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper this afternoon. "It's so clear I am not a political person and I have never either directly or indirectly endorsed a political candidate and to take a completely out of context statement and put it in what is obviously a political campaign ad I thought was very disappointing."

When asked if the Trump campaign should take down the ad, Fauci said, "I think so."

He also said that if the Trump campaign were to feature him in another ad, it would be "outrageous" and warned it could backfire.

"That would be terrible," said Fauci, when asked about being featured in a second campaign spot. "I mean, that would be outrageous if they did that, in fact that might actually come back to backfire on them."

"I hope they don't do that because that would be kind of playing a game that we don't want to play," he said.

The Trump campaign released the new ad last week after Trump was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following treatment for Covid-19.

The 30-second ad, which is airing in Michigan, touts Trump's personal experience with the virus and uses a quote from Fauci in an attempt to make it appear as if he is praising Trump's response.

"President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is America," the ad's narrator says. "Together we rose to meet the challenge, protecting our seniors, getting them life-saving drugs in record time, sparing no expense."

The ad then flashes to an interview with Fauci in which he says, "I can't imagine that anybody could be doing more."
Watch here:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN's Jake Tapper Monday, that "the President is what would be well within the 10-day timeframe of being non-transmissible."

Yet he might consider wearing a mask out of caution.

Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, was responding to a question about the statement made by President Trump's physician that the President was no longer considered a transmission risk after his bout with Covid-19.

"They have found that if you are 10 days from the onset of symptoms, the chances are extraordinarily low that you are going to be transmissible - that you would be able to transmit it. If you really want to nail it down, you do a PCR test and you show that the person has a level of virus that's not going to be transmitted. And that's what you can do sometimes. Whether they do that or not that remains to be seen," Fauci said.

Trump and Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, also recently infected with coronavirus, have been conducting official government business in the last few days, to the concern of many.

Fauci said that people who've very recently been infected, such as Trump and Lee, should probably wear a mask, out of an abundance of caution.

"As the better part of caution, I think that that would be appropriate to do that. I mean, I certainly think from a practical standpoint, I probably would do that myself just to be extra careful," Fauci said.

He also said the President or Lee could also get a test to determine the level of viral remnants.

That, Fauci said, "would probably get people to be feeling much more comfortable about the lack of transmissibility. And they very well may do that to just go that extra step to show that an individual, whoever that might be - the President or anybody else, a senator or anybody - to just go that extra step in addition to the 10-day period to show that the virus itself is not present in a form that would be transmissible."

As for whether the President is immune, Fauci told Tapper, probably yes - but it's unclear for how long.

"If he means that he's been infected and having been infected and recovered, that he will not get infected again - that's true for a limited period of time. What we do not know is how long that protection lasts. So technically speaking, the fact that he has recovered from an immunological standpoint, he has an immune response in him - that very likely would protect him from being reinfected," Fauci said.

He noted there have been well-documented cases of people getting reinfected with coronavirus a second time.

"So you really have to be careful that you're not completely quote 'immune,'" Fauci said.
Watch here:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said in the context of public health, having political rallies "is asking for trouble."

Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper Monday, Fauci said, "We've seen that when you have situations of congregate settings, where there are a lot of people without masks."

"The data speak for themselves," he said.

Now is a "worse time" to have them "because when you look at what's going on in the United States, it's really very troublesome," he said. "A number of states right now are having increase in test positivity."

All regions are seeing cases on the rise, he said. "So if there's anything we should be doing, we should be doubling down in implementing the public health measures that we've been talking about for so long," Fauci said.

"We're entering into the cool months of the fall and ultimately the cold months of the winter, and that's just a recipe of a real problem, if we don't get things under control before we get into that seasonal challenge," he said.
Watch here:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's economic message drove his remarks in Toledo, Ohio, Monday afternoon- his first of two stops in a state that President Trump won and the Biden campaign is recently investing in more as it considers it a potential "win back" state on its path to 270 electoral votes.

Speaking at a United Auto Workers hall at a drive-in rally, Biden continued to chip away at the class divide as he painted the campaign against Trump as "Scranton versus Park Avenue."

Biden commented on the Supreme Court hearing of Amy Coney Barrett, saying that it was purely about President Trump's desire to "wipe out the Affordable Care Act."

"In the middle of this pandemic, why do Republicans have time to hold a hearing on the Supreme Court instead of providing the significant economic need for localities?" he asked rhetorically. "I'll tell you why. It's about finally getting his wish to wipe out the Affordable Care Act."

Biden also slammed the President's campaign for misrepresenting Dr. Anthony Fauci in a campaign ad. "Point I'm trying to make is it's a knowing lie like everything we're being told about Covid consequences," he said.

Biden reiterated his criticism of the President's handling of Covid-19 - both personal and presidential. "He told Woodward he didn't want to panic the American people. That's why he said nothing. We don't panic! America doesn't panic!" Biden said. "But Trump panicked. His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable. The longer Donald Trump is president the more reckless he seems to get."

At the drive-in style rally, Biden notably received loud honks when he praised unions and promised to support them if elected. He touted his record working on the Recovery Act, making it local to the Ohioans.

With only 22 days until Election Day and early voting underway, Poll Defenders, a group of students working to secure on-campus polling sites, drop boxes and satellite offices across the country, is announcing three new on-campus polling sites at New York University, University California (UC), Berkeley and Wake Forest University.

Poll Defenders is part of a joint initiative between MTV and the Alliance for Youth Organizing, and, according to organizers, the polling resources will reach more than 335,000 students across the country up until and on Election Day.

The participating students, known as Poll Defenders, have confirmed a total of 22 polling sites to support students and their communities in 10 states including locations at Florida State University, University of Michigan, University of Texas Austin, Georgia Tech, Columbia University & Barnard College, University of Nevada Reno, James Madison University, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), Alabama A&M University and more.

The sites are a result of the work of a number of student leaders including Izzy McMahon, a college senior, who helped solidify the one stop early voting site on-campus at Wake Forest. Earlier this fall, McMahon worked on voter registration efforts including creating a QR code to help students check their registration.

"These incredible students have been working tirelessly in recent months to ensure that 22 on-campus polling places will be open this election season, allowing students across the country to cast their ballots early and on Election Day without leaving their campuses," Vaughan Bagley, senior manager of Social Impact at ViacomCBS Entertainment & Youth Brands, told CNN.

"MTV and our +1 the Polls partners are committed to continuing to support these Poll Defenders as we work to eliminate barriers and improve access to voting," she said.

Vice President Mike Pence was interrupted by protesters today while giving a campaign stump speech in Columbus, Ohio.

There were a couple of interruptions by anti-Trump/Pence demonstrators early in the speech, and Pence stopped briefly while security intervened.

When the protesters were removed, Pence said, "Boy is it good to be back in the heartland. I tell you what, I come from a place with strong hearts and opinion ... This is a country that loves the proud heritage, past, present and future of the good old USA."

At least one set of demonstrators were quiet and held signs saying "5K jobs lost in Lordstown."

Pence's speech touched on his support for law enforcement, the administration's coronavirus response, and tax cuts, among other topics.

On Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's Supreme Court pick, Pence said, "Now the Senate started their confirmation hearings this morning. All the senators were doing their opening remarks. Questioning will probably start tomorrow. The president said Democrats on the Judiciary Committee need to give Judge Barrett respectful and dignified hearing this time. But we have reason to be concerned."

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By Melissa Macaya, Meg Wagner, Veronica Rocha and Mike Hayes, CNN

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What you need to know Canceled debate: Dueling town hall events between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden may air Thursday since the town hall-style debate between the two candidates is off. SCOTUS battle: Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are pressing ahead with confirmation hearings for Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.