US Election 2020: What You Need to Know Right Now

US President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden will barnstorm through swing states in the Midwest, including Wisconsin, where the coronavirus pandemic has spread anew, ahead of the final weekend before Election Day.

As they gathered supporters on Thursday in the battleground state of Florida, Trump and Biden displayed their opposing approaches to the pandemic, reports Reuters.

Politics aside, there is one outcome of the 2020 US presidential election that could bring some relief to Pentagon planners: a clear-cut victory. By either candidate.

A federal appeals court said on Thursday Minnesota’s plan to count absentee ballots received after Election Day was illegal, siding with Republicans in the battleground state. This came a day after the US Supreme Court left in place North Carolina and Pennsylvania’s extended deadlines for receiving mail-in ballots.

With the two candidates proposing opposing plans for a moon mission and support for the International Space Station, Trump's disagreements with Biden stretch into space.

By the numbers

According to a count from the US Elections Project at the University of Florida on Thursday, more than 80 million Americans cast ballots in the US presidential election, setting the stage for the highest participation rate in over a century.

Global perspective

The World Trade Organization has two unpalatable choices for choosing its next chief in the face of a veto from the United States-bypass the largest paymaster with a vote or hope for a change of US president and wait before he takes charge.

Investor view

Biden, seeking to allay concerns that his plan to fight climate change would harm the economy, has promised a “clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized middle-class jobs” if elected. That vision, however, would require policy makers and clean-energy companies to overcome some major challenges in replacing the number and quality of fossil-fuel jobs that could be lost in a transition away from coal and oil.