Kentucky Votes on Who Will Face Mitch McConnell in November

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One other Main Day, and an unyielding virus. It’s Tuesday, and that is your tip sheet.

The place issues stand

• State and native officers — to not point out well being consultants — are expressing alarm on the coronavirus’s continued unfold in the USA. New instances are surging in practically two dozen states, and Oklahoma and Missouri on Sunday reported their largest single-day case will increase but.

• America accounts for one in each 5 new instances worldwide, regardless of making up solely four % of the world’s inhabitants. The virus is spreading extra quickly than ever earlier than throughout the globe.

• Pushing again in opposition to a story embraced by President Trump, Dr. Michael Ryan, the manager director of the World Well being Group’s well being emergencies program, stated on Monday that elevated testing was not driving the bounce in instances. “We don’t imagine that this can be a testing phenomenon,” he stated. “Clearly, hospital admissions are additionally rising in numerous nations, deaths are additionally rising, and they don’t seem to be attributable to elevated testing, per se.”

• As Florida surpassed 100,000 complete instances over the weekend, its surgeon common launched a brand new well being advisory: “All people in Florida ought to put on face coverings in any setting the place social distancing just isn’t potential.”

• Trump on Monday suspended work visas by means of the tip of the 12 months, successfully stopping over half 1,000,000 foreigners from coming to work in the USA, in response to White Home estimates. The transfer is meant to spice up employment prospects for American staff amid the financial downturn brought on by the pandemic.

• However enterprise leaders have lengthy lobbied in opposition to it — as they did in April, when Trump initially floated the thought of suspending visas. At the moment, he bowed to stress and suspended solely the issuance of inexperienced playing cards for 60 days.

• With Monday’s order, Trump additionally prolonged the green-card prohibition by means of the tip of the 12 months. The order targets the H-1B visa program for high-skilled staff and visas for some college students and seasonal staff; well being care professionals, farm staff and a few staff in different industries are exempt.

• Two Trump marketing campaign employees members who attended the president’s rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday examined constructive for the coronavirus shortly afterward, the marketing campaign introduced on Monday. It’s not but clear how many individuals these employees members interacted with on the occasion.

• Simply days earlier than the rally, six different members of Trump’s advance group examined constructive for the virus, including to issues over the knowledge of holding the occasion.

• However Trump continues to be in a reopening mind set. Inside hours of the announcement concerning the new infections, the White Home started rolling again restrictions which have been in place on the complicated since March.

• Fewer temperature checks shall be administered to White Home guests, and plenty of employees members who’ve been teleworking shall be allowed to return to their workplaces. However individuals who are available in shut contact with Trump or Vice President Mike Pence will nonetheless obtain temperature checks and coronavirus exams, they usually should reply questions on their historical past of signs.

• The Instances reported final week that the Trump marketing campaign was pushing so as to add a fourth presidential debate to the autumn schedule and looking for to exert management over who will reasonable the boards. However Group Biden is having none of it.

• In a letter to the Fee on Presidential Debates, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Joe Biden’s marketing campaign supervisor, wrote, “Our place is easy and clear: Joe Biden will settle for the fee’s debates, on the fee’s dates, underneath the fee’s established format and the fee’s unbiased alternative of moderators.”

• Three presidential debates are sometimes held in the course of the common election. However with Trump’s ballot numbers slipping, his marketing campaign is keen for an opportunity to reframe the dialogue. Brad Parscale, Trump’s marketing campaign supervisor, wrote in an announcement: “We would like honest debates. We would like them sooner and we wish an even bigger schedule. We additionally don’t need them up in opposition to soccer video games competing for viewers.”

• In different debate information, the College of Michigan plans to withdraw because the host of the second discussion board due to issues concerning the coronavirus.

Kayleigh McEnany, the White Home press secretary, at a briefing on Monday, the place she defended Trump’s use of a racist time period to explain the coronavirus.

What political adverts inform us about right this moment’s Democratic main in Kentucky

A number of states are holding main elections right this moment, and maybe no race is being watched extra intently than the Democratic Senate main in Kentucky.

For a lot of the previous 12 months, it appeared the overall election battle for the Senate seat was set, with Amy McGrath, a Democrat, anticipated to tackle Mitch McConnell, the incumbent senator and Republican majority chief. They’ve lengthy been buying and selling tv assault adverts in the course of the nightly information.

However over the previous few weeks, Charles Booker, a state consultant who’s competing in opposition to McGrath, has seen a increase in help for his progressive marketing campaign, and it has been turning into actual cash. Now, each Booker and McGrath are inundating Kentucky airwaves in a ultimate push earlier than voting on Tuesday.

McGrath, who has spent $3.1 million up to now week, started working a closing argument advert final Tuesday that options her reply to “Why I’m a Democrat.” She describes her lifelong need to be a fighter pilot within the army, one which she realized solely after elected Democrats handed new legal guidelines permitting girls to hitch the ranks. In contrast to lots of her adverts from this 12 months, this one makes no point out of McConnell.

For Booker, who has spent about $740,000 over the previous week, his most incessantly aired advert includes a debate reply from McGrath, wherein she says that she didn’t be a part of one of many protests within the state in opposition to police brutality and systemic racism. The display then cuts to Booker talking at a protest by means of a bullhorn along with his masks round his chin, “as your brother, as your cousin, as your neighbor, as your fellow good troublemaker.”

The dueling messages present how the nationwide push for racial justice has upended the Kentucky main, with McGrath grappling with find out how to reply and Booker elevating the motion because it, in flip, has introduced new consideration to his marketing campaign.

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