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Good Morning.
It was, by most reports, the worst televised presidential debate in American history, with two more to come. Donald Trump repeatedly interrupted and insulted Joe Biden on stage in Cleveland on Tuesday, giving his Democratic rival little opportunity to make sustained arguments and leaving debate moderator Chris Wallace struggling to control the ugly spectacle. At one point, Biden just sighed, “You wanna shut up, man? This is so un-presidential. “
Only one of the two men on stage looked remotely presidential, writes Daniel Strauss, “and he wasn’t the headline.” Trump repeatedly attacked Biden’s son Hunter. When given the opportunity to condemn white supremacists, the president instead revised the name of the far-right group Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stay out of it,” and then blamed recent partisan violence in the US cities exclusively left.
For The Guardian’s panel of experts, the debate was a fight without winners, least of all with the American people. At a surveillance party in Southern California, Lois Beckett found a crowd whose support for Trump seemed unwavering. But as Richard Wolffe writes, it is the swing voters that the president needs to convince, and they are unlikely to have been impressed with his performance:
As a debating tactic, Trump’s choice of endless talk managed to dominate the conversation. As a launch for America’s remaining swath of undecided voters, it was a charmless barrage of hostility and arrogance.
Trump’s apprentice earnings rescued a bankrupt empire
Trump played the role of a successful businessman on The Apprentice, but as the New York Times’ explosive report on the president’s tax returns shows, when NBC first hired him for the show, Trump was anything but successful. Instead, the $ 427 million he ultimately made from The Apprentice helped shore up his huge real estate and casino losses.
Florida’s ‘mini-Trump’ is cracking down on non-existent violence
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has announced plans to impose harsher penalties on protesters, even though his state avoided the kind of disorder that gripped some American cities this summer. His critics say the move is pure “mini-Trump” – an effort to distract attention from his overt failures on the coronavirus pandemic.
The Guardian’s Southern US bureau chief Oliver Laughland traveled to Florida for the first time in our new Anywhere but Washington report series, and found that Sunshine State voters live in two different realities. : one adherent to facts and science, the other rooted in conspiracies and political dogma.
Are Big Tech Companies Delivering Hong Kong User Data to China?
A senior US State Department official told The Guardian that big tech companies may already be complying with a new Chinese law imposed on Hong Kong, which would force them to share information about their users with Beijing on the Internet. supposedly semi-autonomous territory. Those tech companies, including Facebook, Google and Microsoft, should “clarify” the vulnerability of that data, the official said.
In other news…
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Walt Disney to lay off 28,000 theme park workers, the company announced Tuesday, blaming the “difficult decision” on the lack of assistance to its parks around the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
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The World Bank has announced a $ 12 billion vaccine initiative Allow poor countries to buy Covid-19 vaccines for up to 2 billion people as soon as effective drugs are available.
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Two out of every five of the world’s plant species are in danger of extinction as a result of the destruction of the natural world, according to a report led by the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Great reads
The American Year of Fire and Storms
In a year already tumultuous for other reasons, the United States has been hit by unprecedented wildfires in the west, while in the Atlantic there were briefly five major storms turning at once. Climate change is bringing great changes, writes Oliver Milman, that will ultimately change the lives of Americans like no other threat.
Can a friendship bridge the political divide?
Glenn Stanton is an evangelical activist and a committed opponent of gay marriage. Sheila Kloefkorn fought for an equal marriage for years and married his wife the day it was legalized in Arizona. However, thanks to an organization that fosters understanding across America’s political divide, they have become friends, as Poppy Noor is called.
How Egg Freezing Was Renamed Personal Care
Egg freezing was first developed for women with serious medical conditions who might want a baby later in life. Today, fertility startups sell the procedure as an option for the younger, freer, everyday woman. But some doctors are backtracking, saying it offers false hope and plays on women’s fears. Rebecca Grant reports.
Opinion: women are the most affected by the coronavirus
More men than women die directly from Covid-19, but around the world the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic are reinforcing traditional power imbalances and hitting women harder, argues Helen Pankhurst.
Like all emergencies, all disasters, Covid-19 absolutely discriminates. It is anti-aging, it is racist, it is classist, and it is worse for those with pre-existing health conditions or disabilities.
Last thing: jetpack paramedics from England
They were once the archetypal device of the future. But for several decades jetpacks have failed to find a practical application. They may not have much to wait any longer: After an impressive demo flight, paramedics powered by lightweight jet suits could be rescuing injured hikers in England’s Lake District next summer.
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