First Thing: will GOP ‘follow conscience’ over the supreme court?

Good morning,

Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump and top Republicans of “abuse of power” over their plan to ram through a US supreme court replacement for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the presidential election. Biden appealed to GOP senators to follow their consciences, and refuse to confirm a new justice until after November:

I’m not being naive. I’m not speaking to President Trump, who’ll do whatever he wants. I’m not speaking to Mitch McConnell, who’ll do what he wants, and he does. I’m speaking to those Republicans out there, Senate Republicans, who know deep down what is right for the country and consistent with the constitution.”

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Biden: successor to ‘giant’ Ginsburg should be decided by US election winner – video

Already, Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have said they oppose efforts to install a new supreme court justice, while an Arizona race could give Democrats an extra senate seat in time for the confirmation fight – potentially splitting the senate 50-50 on the issue. On Sunday, several Republicans offered strident justifications for their party’s speedy attempts to nominate Ginsburg’s successor.

• Who is Amy Coney Barrett? The possible nominee was considered last time a supreme court vacancy arose, but Trump reportedly said he was “saving her for Ginsburg”. Soo Youn studies the career of the devout Catholic whom progressives fear could overturn Roe v Wade.

Gen Z climate activists edited a Guardian US special edition

Guardian US invited seven young activists from across America to edit a special “climate takeover” edition, to highlight climate issues ahead of the election, and, writes 20-year-old Alice Shinn, to “bring attention to the physical and mental burdens that our generation is saddled with due to the negligence of past generations”.

They chose to focus on the fight for carbon-neutral universities, on the push for driving schools to teach with eco-conscious cars, and on efforts to build a more inclusive and diverse climate movement.

Cora Dow, who is 18, writes that in her short life she has already witnessed drastic changes wrought by climate change in her home state of Alaska. Some young people believe it is already too late and have given up hope of averting disaster. But Jessica Díaz Vázquez says her Texas childhood has been defined by climate change, and she plans to vote on it for the first time in November:

Every day, my community lives with the fear that another devastating spill or explosion will occur at the numerous petrochemical plants around us.

• The world’s richest 1% produced more than double the CO2 emissions of the poorest 50% between 1990 and 2015, according to a new report compiled by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Succession, Watchmen and Schitt’s Creek swept the ‘PandEmmys’

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Emmy winners make political statements as Covid forces 2020 ceremony to go virtual – video

The first major entertainment awards show of the Covid-19 era was also the first annual Emmys without the previously dominant Game of Thrones and Veep. In their places, the major prizes were claimed by two other HBO shows, Succession and Watchmen – which won the best drama series and best limited series awards respectively – and by the Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek, which swept the comedy categories. Here is the full list of winners.

• Schitt’s Creek is a sleeper success story, taking home nine awards for its final season after years under the radar. Gabrielle Jackson explains what made it perfect TV.

TikTok’s new US company will float on the stock market

TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance says its new American firm – set up so the video sharing app can keep operating in the US – will be floated on the stock market, to allay the Trump administration’s concerns over its transparency. The agreement between ByteDance and American tech giant Oracle to create a new US company, TikTok Global, has been approved by Trump, thus averting a shutdown of the app in the US.

• A judge blocked Trump’s bid to ban WeChat from the Google and Apple app stores. The Chinese social media app has 19 million active daily users in the US; the Trump administration believes it is a threat to national security.

In other news…

• The US is closing in on 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, with the total at 199,509 on Monday morning, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker – approximately one-fifth of the global total.

• Some $2tn of potentially corrupt financial transactions may have been facilitated by the world’s major banks, according to documents leaked to an international group of investigative journalists.

• First class USPS mail delivery slowed down severely after Trump loyalist Louis DeJoy took over as the postmaster general earlier this year, according to new data obtained by the Guardian.

Great reads

Alex Winter: ‘I had extreme PTSD for many, many years’

Alex Winter just stepped back in front of the camera for the new Bill & Ted sequel, but he is also releasing his latest documentary as a director, Showbiz Kids, about his peers’ experiences as child actors – including his own “really intense and prolonged abuse”.

How addiction nearly destroyed me

The Guardian’s Mario Koran found his purpose as a journalist after years of alcoholism, addiction and a stint in jail. But winning an award for his reporting in 2016 was no cinematic ending, he writes. A few months later, “I picked up a drink and casually set fire to the life I’d built with five years’ sobriety.”

Opinion: we must accept that Covid-19 is here to stay

Hopes for a fast-turnaround vaccine and a quick return to normal after the pandemic summer were always overly optimistic. We’re better off abandoning the fantasy that the coronavirus crisis will soon pass, argues Samuel Earle.

Whereas we like to see crises as moments of transition – as ‘wake-up calls’ or ‘turning points’ that take us to a higher plane – the resurgence of the virus across Europe and beyond contradicts this traditional storyline: it feels like we’re back where we’re started, only more jaded.

Last Thing: the waves carried this surfboard 5,000 miles

When big wave surfer Doug Falter lost his board in a wipeout in Hawaii in 2018, he figured that might be the last he saw of it. But six months later, fishermen caught sight of the board 5,000 miles away, in the sea near Sarangani island in the southern Philippines.

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