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    Crowds eschew masks at Trump rally as president mocks Biden over social distancing

    A packed crowd of hundreds gathered in North Carolina for a Donald Trump campaign rally on Tuesday, with many people forgoing masks, in defiance of state guidelines capping gatherings at 50 people.Ahead of the president’s visit to Winston-Salem, the chair of the local county commission, a Republican, urged Trump to wear a face mask. The state has a mask requirement in place to slow the spread of coronavirus.“It’s been ordered by the governor,” said Dave Plyler, the Republican chairman of the Forsyth county board of commissioners, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in North Carolina, do as the governor says.”Trump “is a citizen of the United States, but he is also a guest in our county”, Plyler said. “Without a mask, he could get sick, and he could blame the governor.”However Trump did not wear a mask, and used the event to mock his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, for following social distancing guidelines. “You ever see the gyms with the circles?” he said, an apparent reference to a Biden event held in a school gymnasium with attendees observing social distancing guidelines.Nearly 178,000 people in North Carolina have tested positive Covid-19, with more than 1,000 cases reported on Tuesday – though the number of cases and deaths are slowly trending downward.Recent polls have found Trump locked in a close race with Biden in North Carolina. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the president has often sought to focus on the economy and policing rather than the virus.While supporters waited for Trump to arrive, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door played over the loudspeakers, making for an inadvertently dark soundtrack.Deriding the mass demonstrations across the country against racism and policing, Trump told the jam-packed, cheering crowd: “We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests.”The president has previously used the phrase to describe gatherings of his supporters, saying that if protestors against police brutality are allowed to gather then his supporters should be able to as well.“Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you cannot have more than five people,” the president said. “You can’t go to church, you can’t do anything outside. If you are willing to riot, running down the main street, if you want to riot and stand on top of each other’s face and do whatever the hell you want to do, you are allowed to do that because you are considered a peaceful protester.”His claims, however, are an exaggeration. In North Carolina, governed by Democrat Roy Cooper, gatherings are currently capped at 50, and masks are mandated. Going outside is allowed in North Carolina (as it is in all states), and churches are allowed to conduct services, though officials recommend that worshippers follow social distancing and wear masks.There have been more than 6.3 million cases of coronavirus in the US, with the country approaching 190,000 deaths. Trump’s rally comes as health experts warn the hunt for a vaccine has become increasingly politicized, with the Trump administration rushing to release one ahead of the November election.Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Trump, stressed on Tuesday that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the election.“It’s unlikely we’ll have a definitive answer” on whether a vaccine is safe and effective by the election, Fauci said at the Research! America 2020 National Health Research Forum. More

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    Trump expected to announce new list of potential supreme court justices

    The White House is expected to announce a new list of potential supreme court justices as soon as Wednesday, a move designed to shore up conservative support for Donald Trump as his race for the White House against Joe Biden enters the final stretch.Trump’s decision to name a list of possible picks during the 2016 election is widely seen to have boosted support among conservatives otherwise queasy about backing him against Hillary Clinton. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both now on the court, were included on that list of reliably conservative picks.Last week, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, flagged the impending announcement, telling reporters: “You will see it soon.” On Tuesday, Politico reported that the list was imminent.Trump signaled he was compiling a new list after a pair of supreme court rulings went against his administration in June.The updated list is expected to include many of the 2016 lineup, including Raymond Kethledge, 53, an appeals court judge on the sixth circuit, and Amy Coney Barrett, 48, a member of the seventh circuit appeals court.Both were reported to have been close to being nominated when Kavanaugh was picked in late 2018, to fill a seat vacated by the retirement of Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh, a former White House aide to George W Bush, was confirmed after contentious confirmation hearings featuring allegations of sexual assault, which he vehemently denied.After Trump’s two picks, conservatives hold a 5-4 majority on the supreme court, where seats are vacated by the retirement or death of an incumbent. Over the summer, the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, has announced health problems including treatment for cancer.Trump promotes his judicial appointments as perhaps his most important accomplishment. A Biden presidency, he warns, would mean more liberals on the highest court.But Trump’s appointees have not always performed as anticipated. This summer, for example, Gorsuch sided with the chief justice, John Roberts, and the liberal justices to guarantee protection from discrimination in the workplace for LGBTQ individuals – a disappointment to conservatives.Last month, Vice-President Mike Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network that Roberts, who was appointed by George W Bush, had been “a disappointment to conservatives”.But Trump’s appointments to lower courts offer plentiful consolation. During his first term, nearly 200 judges have been installed with lifetime appointments.According to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center, in July there were 792 active judges across the three main tiers of the federal system.Of those, Trump has appointed 194, or 24% of the total. Barack Obama appointed the largest share of currently active federal judges, 39%. Of judges still sitting, George W Bush appointed 21% and 11% were appointed by Bill Clinton.Much smaller shares were appointed by George HW Bush (2%) and Ronald Reagan (2%). A single federal judge, Puerto Rico’s Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, dates her appointment to Jimmy Carter’s administration. More

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    Donald Trump hopes for election boost from Kosovo-Serbia talks

    The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.The goal of the talks is “to create economic development that will then somehow change the dynamic amongst the political class”, said a senior adviser to Trump in a call with reporters earlier in the week. The adviser said it was not yet clear whether Trump would take part in the meetings – suggesting he would only meet the two leaders if there is a deal to be signed.Kosovo broke from Serbia after a war and Nato bombing campaign, and declared independence in 2008, but the two sides have no relations.The White House diplomatic push, led by the Trump loyalist Richard Grenell, has irritated some European diplomats, who say the EU’s long-running mediation process should be given priority.It has also prompted fears that a land swap could be on the table as part of the deal, which many believe would have knock-on effects in other parts of the Balkans. Grenell has long denied that a land swap is under consideration.Grenell, who has courted controversy as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and then as acting director of national intelligence, has also attracted criticism for his negotiation tactics. In April, Kosovo’s ousted prime minister Albin Kurti accused Grenell of mounting a coup to overthrow him so he could present Trump with a diplomatic success in an election year. “My government was not overthrown for anything else but simply because Ambassador Grenell was in a hurry to sign an agreement with Serbia,” said Kurti.A meeting at the White House planned in late June fell apart at the last minute after prosecutors at a court in The Hague announced they had filed a draft indictment against Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi. The statement was released as Thaçi was already en route to Washington.Now, two months before the US election, the meeting will finally take place, with the emphasis on economic progress.“We can either sit around and continue talking about political issues that get us nowhere, or we can do something that President Trump thinks might work, and we’re going to test it to see if it works,” said the Trump adviser.The EU-brokered talks were on hold for two years after Kosovo imposed import tariffs on Serbian goods, but have recently resumed. Meetings in Brussels, including expert dialogue and top-level discussions, are planned for next week.The EU envoy for Kosovo-Serbia talks, Miroslav Lajčak, has said an EU-brokered deal to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina could be ready soon.“Let’s see how much time we need, but I am speaking about months, I am not speaking about years,” he said at a forum in Slovenia this week. “Both parties are committed, both parties are serious, respecting each other.” More