Face to face: Trump and Biden to meet for final debate

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, are set to square off in their final debate Thursday, one of the last high-profile opportunities for the trailing incumbent to change the trajectory of an increasingly contentious campaign.

Worried about losing the White House, some advisers are urging Trump to trade his aggressive demeanor from the first debate for a lower-key style that puts Biden more squarely in the spotlight. But it's unclear whether the president will listen.

Biden, who has stepped off the campaign trail in favor of debate prep, expects Trump to get intensely personal. The former vice president and his inner circle see the president’s approach chiefly as an effort to distract from the coronavirus, its economic fallout and other crises.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, Biden is leading most national polls and has a narrower advantage in the battleground states that could decide the race. More than 42 million people have already cast their ballots. The debate, moderated by NBC's Kristen Welker, is a final chance for both men to make their case to a television audience of tens of millions of voters.

“The rule is that last debates before the election have a big impact,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who made clear the legacy of the candidates’ first faceoff: “That was the most out-of-control presidential debate we have seen.”

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Viewers' Guide: After chaotic debate, Trump, Biden try again

After meeting last month in perhaps the most chaotic debate in modern history, President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, will take the stage Thursday to give it another go.

The bar to improve upon their last prime-time meeting is low: Their first debate was punctuated by frequent interruptions, mostly from Trump, leaving the two men talking over each other and Biden eventually telling the president to “shut up.” A planned second debate didn’t happen after the president was diagnosed with the coronavirus and refused to participate in a virtual format. Biden and Trump instead participated in dueling town halls on competing television networks.

Thursday’s debate, starting at 9 p.m. ET, from Nashville, Tennessee, marks the candidates' second and final face-to-face meeting, with Election Day less than two weeks away.

Here’s what to watch:

MUTED MICROPHONES

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AP Road Trip: In Mississippi, Black voters face many hurdles

Meridian, Miss. (AP) — The old civil rights worker was sure the struggle would be over by now.

He’d fought so hard back in the ’60s. He’d seen the wreckage of burned churches, and the injuries of people who had been beaten. He’d seen men in white hoods. At its worst, he’d mourned three young men who were fighting for Black Mississippians to gain the right to vote, and who were kidnapped and executed on a country road just north of here.

But Charles Johnson, sitting inside the neat brick church in Meridian where he’s been pastor for over 60 years, worries that Mississippi is drifting into its past.

“I would never have thought we’d be where we’re at now, with Blacks still fighting for the vote,” said Johnson, 83, who was close to two of the murdered men, especially the New Yorker everyone called Mickey. “I would have never believed it.”

The opposition to Black voters in Mississippi has changed since the 1960s, but it hasn’t ended. There are no poll taxes anymore, no tests on the state constitution. But on the eve of the most divisive presidential election in decades, voters face obstacles such as state-mandated ID laws that mostly affect poor and minority communities and the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of former prisoners.

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Regulators, experts take up thorny vaccine study issues

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. regulators who will decide the fate of COVID-19 vaccines are taking an unusual step: Asking outside scientists if their standards are high enough.

The Food and Drug Administration may have to decide by year’s end whether to allow use of the first vaccines against the virus. Thursday, a federal advisory committee pulls back the curtain on that decision process, debating whether the guidelines FDA has set for vaccine developers are rigorous enough.

“We will not cut corners, and we will only use science and data to make that determination,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn pledged at a meeting of the Milken Institute Wednesday.

Exactly how much data his agency needs to be sure a vaccine is safe and effective is a key question for the advisers. An even bigger one: If the FDA allows emergency use of a vaccine before final testing is finished, will that destroy chances of ever learning just how well that shot -- and maybe competitors still being studied -- really work?

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that it is in our societal interest to see these trials to completion,” said Dr. Luciana Borio, a former FDA acting chief scientist who will be watching the advisers’ debate.

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Czechs enter 2nd lockdown to avoid health system collapse

PRAGUE (AP) — Czechs had been assured it wouldn't happen again.

But amid a record surge of coronavirus infections that's threatening the entire health system with collapse, the Czech Republic is adopting on Thursday exactly the same massive restrictions it slapped on citizens in the spring. Prime Minister Andrej Babis had repeatedly said these measures would never return.

“We have no time to wait,” Babis explained Wednesday. “The surge is enormous.”

Babis apologized for the huge impact the restrictions will have on everyday life but said if they were not taken “our health system would collapse between Nov 7-11.”

“I apologize even for the fact that I ruled out this option in the past because I was not able to imagine it might happen,” he added. “Unfortunately, it has happened and now, above all, we have to protect the lives of our citizens.”

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US officials link Iran to emails meant to intimidate voters

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials have accused Iran of being behind a flurry of emails sent to Democratic voters in multiple battleground states that appeared to be aimed at intimidating them into voting for President Donald Trump.

The officials did not lay out specific evidence for how they came to pinpoint Iran, but the activities attributed to Tehran would mark a significant escalation for a country some cybersecurity experts regard as a second-rate player in online espionage. The announcement was made late Wednesday at a hastily called news conference 13 days before the election.

The allegations underscored the U.S. government's concern about efforts by foreign countries to influence the election by spreading false information meant to suppress voter turnout and undermine American confidence in the vote. Such direct attempts to sway public opinion are more commonly associated with Moscow, which conducted a covert social media campaign in 2016 aimed at sowing discord and is again interfering this year, but the idea that Iran could be responsible suggested that those tactics have been adopted by other nations, too.

“These actions are desperate attempts by desperate adversaries,” said John Ratcliffe, the government's top intelligence official, who, along with FBI Director Chris Wray, insisted that the U.S. would impose costs on any foreign countries that interfere in the 2020 U.S. election and that the integrity of the election is still sound.

“You should be confident that your vote counts,” Wray said. “Early, unverified claims to the contrary should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.”

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Some world leaders have big stake in US election

JERUSALEM (AP) — While the world will be closely watching the U.S. election, some countries will be watching more closely than others.

A number of world leaders have a personal stake in the outcome, with their fortunes depending heavily on the success – or failure – of President Donald Trump.

Perhaps none has so much riding on a Trump victory as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader, who had a rocky relationship with President Barack Obama, has praised Trump as “the greatest friend” Israel ever had in the White House.

Trump has delivered a series of diplomatic gifts to Netanyahu, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, withdrawing from Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and offering a Mideast plan that heavily favors Israel over the Palestinians. The White House brokered the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

But Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump — and more broadly the Republican party and its evangelical Christian base — has come with a price. It has undercut Israel’s traditional bipartisan support in Washington and alienated many Democrats, especially the rising progressive wing, and the largely liberal Jewish American community.

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Mixed Philippine reaction on pope nod on gay civil unions

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Pope Francis’ endorsement of same-sex civil unions drew mixed reactions Thursday in the Philippines, Asia’s bastion of Catholicism, with a retired bishop saying he was scandalized by it while an LGBT group welcomed the pontiff’s remarks with relief.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman said the Philippine leader has long expressed support to same-sex civil unions but added it needed to pass through Congress.

Retired Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said he “had very serious doubts about the moral correctness” of the pontiff’s position. He said it ran against long-standing church teachings, which explicitly permit only the union of man and woman whether in civil, legal or church sacramental unions.

“This is a shocking statement coming from the pope,” Bastes told reporters in a cellphone message. “I am really scandalized by his defense of homosexual union, which surely leads to immoral acts.”

At least three other bishops expressed disbelief, saying they would verify if it’s the Vatican’s official position and if the pontiff was accurately quoted in context in a documentary, where he made the remarks.

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Sent from Gitmo to UAE, detainees fear final stop: Yemen

The Guantanamo detainees were promised they were being sent to a Muslim country for rehabilitation that would help integrate them into society, opening the way to jobs, money, and marriage, according to their lawyers and families.

It was a lie.

Instead, the detainees -- 18 Yemenis and one Russian, swept up from Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Sept. 11 attacks -- have languished in custody in the United Arab Emirates for as long as five years, their families and lawyers tell The Associated Press.

In short, sporadic phone calls from undisclosed locations in the UAE — including a notorious prison rife with torture — several whispered to their families that as bad as life in Guantanamo was, they wish they could return there.

When one complained of “pressures” three years ago, the call was cut off; he has not been heard from since. When the Russian staged a hunger strike, he was dumped in solitary confinement and roughed up.

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Analysis: Racial inequity in who takes career, tech courses

Alphina Kamara wonders what might have happened if she’d been introduced to science and engineering careers at her high school in Wilmington, Delaware.

Kamara, who is Black, was enrolled in an “audio engineering” course that taught her how to make music tracks and videos instead of a regular engineering course that she recalls was mostly filled with white students.

When she asked an administrator at Mount Pleasant High School about this apparent disparity, she said she was told that the audio engineering course was created for “regular students.”

“They thought we would be more interested in audio engineering than engineering,” said Kamara, now a junior at Wesleyan University studying English and sociology. “That was a hard pill to swallow.”

Historically, career and technical education (CTE) was seen as a dumping ground for students who weren’t considered college material. A two-tier educational system tracked predominantly low-income students and students of color into career and technical classes, then known as vocational education. But in recent years, schools have revamped these courses to prepare students for higher education and lucrative work in fields such as technology, health care and engineering.