Good morning,
The US supreme court has dealt a significant election setback to Republicans in Pennsylvania by rejecting their plea to overturn the state’s recent extension to its mail-in ballot deadline – which will allow ballots postmarked by 3 November to be counted, even if they arrive up to three days later. On Wednesday, the court also declined to block a similar extension in North Carolina.
The newly confirmed justice Amy Coney Barrett did not take part in the cases, but the court’s decisions are being closely watched by those who fear the outcome of the presidential election could be close enough that it will come down to a ruling by the court – which now has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s top prosecutor, the district attorney Larry Krasner, has warned Donald Trump not to send his “goon squads” of armed supporters to the city, after a third night of Black Lives Matter protests over the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr, the 27-year-old whose family said was suffering a mental health crisis when he was shot dead by police officers on Monday.
Trump and Biden are blitzing the swing states
Trump and Joe Biden both campaigned in Arizona on Wednesday, and both will be in Florida on Thursday, as they fight it out for swing state votes in the final days of the presidential race. You can follow the Guardian’s coverage of the day at our liveblog.
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‘Most resilient and brave person’: Farage lavishs Trump with praise at campaign rally – video
Trump was joined on stage in Phoenix by the Brexiter and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who described him as the “most resilient and brave person” he had ever met. But as Maanvi Singh and Lauren Gambino report for our Phoenix Rising series, the president is bleeding support in a state where almost 6,000 people have died in the pandemic he has failed to control.
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Seven Trump supporters were hospitalised in Omaha, Nebraska, after suffering adverse reactions to the freezing temperatures when they were stranded following a late-night rally for the president on Tuesday.
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Former General Motors workers in Ohio tell Steven Greenhouse they are reconsidering their 2016 votes for Trump, after he failed to deliver on his promise to bring manufacturing jobs back to the region.
How athletes got into the politics game
On Wednesday, the four-time NBA champion LeBron James posted a video on Twitter to say that his mother had just voted in Ohio. James, who earlier this year launched the organisation More Than a Vote to help inform, protect and turn out Black voters, is at the forefront of a new activism in sports, which is driving new voters to the polls well ahead of 3 November, writes Andrew Lawrence.
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Black Americans could decide the outcome of the 2020 election in key states including Wisconsin and Florida – and a Biden victory may rest on turning out Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc – as Kenya Evelyn reports.
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The rapper 50 Cent has endorsed Trump, while Ice Cube is collaborating on a project with the administration, which progressives say bolsters the president’s bid to draw Black votes from Democrats, an initiative known as “Blaxit”.
In other election news …
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‘Who the hell elected you?’ Big tech CEOs grilled in US Senate hearing – video
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Republican lawmakers berated big tech CEOs over unsubstantiated claims of anti-conservative and anti-Trump bias, during a Wednesday congressional hearing ostensibly to investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”.
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An ex-Trump official outed himself as “Anonymous”, the administration mole who wrote a New York Times op-ed and later a book criticising the president. Miles Taylor, who left the Department of Homeland Security last year, revealed his identity in a statement urging people to vote for Biden.
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Israelis and Palestinians are split over the US election, reports Oliver Holmes from Jerusalem, with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, plainly favouring Trump, in stark contrast to the Palestinian leader, Mohammad Shtayyeh, who recently said:
If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world.
Stat of the day
Joe Biden will be 78 by inauguration day. And if he wins next week, he will eclipse Donald Trump’s own record as the oldest person ever to be sworn in as president. In fact, he will be at least 20 years older than any Democratic president to take office since Truman in 1945. David Smith reports on the age of the elderly presidential candidate.
View from the right
Joe Biden has offered an extensive critique of the Trump era and made repeated appeals for unity, but a message that’s merely “not Trump” is not enough to govern, argues Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Biden’s core message – that unity is essential to fixing America’s politics and restoring trust in its government – has been a powerful one throughout the country’s history. But it has been deployed most effectively by candidates with a vision for governing.
Don’t miss this
The total population of US prisons and jails is greater than all but four American cities, yet few of those prisoners are permitted to participate in the Democratic process. So Juan Haines and Kevin Sawyer, two journalists incarcerated at California’s San Quentin, decided to hold a mock election – and this was the result.
Last Thing: ‘to call Trump beyond satire is an admission of defeat’
The actor and longtime vocal star of the Simpsons Harry Shearer has a new comedy album, The Many Moods of Donald Trump. He tells Hadley Freeman that the president has the mind of “an encyclopedia salesman” trying to close a deal:
I think if you asked him, ‘What do you think of the Jews?’ he’d be, ‘Oh they’re great’ – with something about how he likes it when they do his taxes. But if that conflicts with something he says tomorrow, he wouldn’t notice.
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