Michelle Obama to headline Georgia rally aimed at young voters

Harris set for evening interview on Fox News

Fox News to broadcast town hall with Trump, Georgia women

State governments across the US are taking steps to eliminate protections for minors as rates of child labor violations, injuries and chronic school absenteeism rise, according to a report released today.

The report by Governing For Impact, the Economic Policy Institute, and Child Labor Coalition proposes actions the Biden-Harris administration can take in response to a recent surge in child labor violations around the country and a trend of some states passing legislation that rollbacks state-level child labor protections.

Its authors also warn that moves to weaken child protections will likely escalate under a second Trump presidency.

Obama to return to campaign for Harris as Michigan begins voting

Donald Trump’s pro-Israel stance has alienated the far right, which is ramping up antisemitic attacks, Ben Makuch writes.

One campaign issue where the Maga world and the extremists of Telegram and other fringe social media sites have diverged, is the former president’s support for Israel in its several military operations across the Middle East.

The ideologies of the far right and Donald Trump have for the most part been in agreement since he took the reins of the Republican ticket at the RNC convention in July.

While supporters waved ultranationalist “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” signs, Trump gave a speech mixed with hate, in a nomination that was roundly approved across the rightwing political sphere.

That sense of unity, however, has begun to crack under the weight of antisemitic attacks aimed at Trump for commemorating the anniversary of the 7 October attacks …

US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Washington was looking into reports that North Korea was sending troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine.

Western countries have long accused North Korea of sending weapons to help Russia fight in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the North was also sending personnel, becoming effectively a participant in the war.

Asked about that issue, Campbell said there were signs of the North’s enhanced material support for Russia “which is being felt on the battlefield”, but that Washington was still evaluating the reports.

Three officials from the US, South Korea and Japan earlier announced a new 11-nation team to monitor the enforcement of sanctions against the North after Russia and China thwarted a UN mechanism.

Tension has been growing on the Korean Peninsula recently, as the North accused the South of launching drones into its territory. Pyongyang also blew up inter-Korean roads and rail lines.

Products made by US computer chip company Intel sold in China should be subject to a security review, the Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC) said, Reuters reports.

CSAC alleges the US chipmaker has “constantly harmed” the country’s national security and interests.

While CSAC is an industry group rather than a government body, it has close ties to the Chinese state and the raft of accusations against Intel, published in a long post on its official WeChat account, could trigger a security review from China’s cyberspace regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

Last year, CAC barred domestic operators of key infrastructure from buying products made by US memory chipmaker Micron Technology after deeming the company’s products had failed its network security review. A similar security review on Intel products could negatively impact the company’s revenues, over a quarter of which came from China last year.

The allegations come at a time when China is dealing with a US-led effort to restrict its access to crucial chipmaking equipment and components, in what Washington calls a bid to halt the modernisation of China’s military.

The Biden administration has warned Israel that it faces possible punishment, including the potential stopping of US weapons transfers, if it does not take immediate action to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A letter written jointly by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, exhorts Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to ease humanitarian suffering in the territory by lifting restrictions on the entry of assistance within 30 days or face unspecified policy “implications”.

The four-page missive, dated 13 October, was sent to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, and Ron Dermer, the strategic affairs minister, and came to light after being posted on social media by Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist who works for Axios, after apparently being leaked.

Kamala Harris will aim to appeal to Republican voters as she plans to visit a battleground county in Pennsylvania joined by Republican supporters and to appear on conservative-leaning Fox News later today, Reuters reports.

In Bucks County, outside of Philadelphia, Harris is expected to emphasise Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss four years ago.

Over 100 Republicans will join Harris in Bucks County, including Adam Kinzinger, a former Congressman and member of the committee that investigated the 6 January attack on the Capitol by supporters of the then-president.

Trump will participate in a town hall hosted by Univision. And Fox News will air a separate Trump town hall with an all-women audience.

An Associated Press survey has found that more than 63,000 Georgia voters have had their eligibility to vote challenged since 1 July.

The news agency says that this represents a big surge from 2023 and the first half of 2024, when it found that about 18,000 voters were challenged.

Only about 1% of those challenged in recent months have been removed from the voting rolls or placed into challenged status, mostly in one county. Fewer than 800 voters since 1 July – mostly in the suburban Atlanta Republican stronghold of Forsyth County – have been removed from the rolls or placed in challenged status. Voters in challenged status can cast ballots if they prove their residence.

Most of the targeted voters appear to have moved away from their listed addresses, and activists argue letting them stay registered invites fraud. Challengers have been aided by tools which rely on change-of-address lists and other documents to help identify people who could be wrongly registered to vote.

The push to challenge voters in Georgia is part of a national effort coordinated by Donald Trump’s allies to remove people they view as suspect from the voting rolls. The effort to remove voters has drawn scrutiny from the US Justice Department, which has issued guidance that aims to limit challenges.

Donald Trump has said that if he does not win the election, he may cry fraud and not accept the results – just as he did four years ago when he lost to Joe Biden. Reuters looks at what might happen if Trump rejects the election result again …

Republicans and Democrats expect that vote counting could drag on for several days after 5 November.

If it appears Trump is losing, the delay will give him an opportunity to attempt to undermine confidence in election officials, while also possibly encouraging his supporters to protest. He has already threatened to jail election workers and other public officials for “unscrupulous behaviour,” although he would need to win the election first.

As they did in 2020, Trump’s allies in key states – local election officials, state lawmakers and perhaps judges – could seek to delay certification, the confirmation of a state’s official tally, through claims of fraud.

Those efforts did not succeed last time, and election law experts say the laws in those states are clear that local officials lack the power to throw out ballots or derail the process. After the 2020 election, Congress passed a reform law that makes it more difficult for candidate to mount the kind of challenge Trump attempted last time round.

Any effort by Trump to suggest the election was rigged could potentially lead to civil unrest, as it did on 6 January, 2021.

Experts who monitor militant right-wing groups, such as Peter Montgomery of the People For the American Way, a liberal think tank, say they are less concerned about a violent response from these groups than they are about threats against election workers counting votes. There also could be violent demonstrations in the capitals of battleground states, Montgomery said.

Hundreds of people who were involved in the 6 January attack on the Capitol have been convicted and jailed for their actions, a powerful deterrent to others who may be considering taking similar actions.

Two US officials who resigned last year in protest over president Joe Biden’s policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organisation and a political action committee (PAC) to advocate for a revamp of Washington’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Reuters reports.

Josh Paul, a former State Department official and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy advisor at the Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favour of unconditionally sending US weapons to Israel, but that elected officials have lagged behind.

Their PAC, called “A New Policy”, would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict align with US policies on human rights and equality and would ensure US arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel, comply with both US and international law.

Washington’s support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason for why Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly had backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.

“American voters are clear: they do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians,” Habbash said.

Judge halts new hand-count rule in Georgia

Elon Musk gave $75m to pro-Trump group

Opening summary