Politics

Concern is growing over potential confrontations at polling places due to deep partisan divides and baseless claims by President Trump that Democrats will "steal" the election.

In Tuesday night's debate with Democrat Joe Biden, Trump repeated his attacks on widespread mail-in voting, calling it a "disaster" and saying "this is not going to end well."

The president also urged his supporters, as he has done before, "to go into the polls and watch very carefully."

Updated at 4:16 p.m. ET

The setbacks keep piling up in the long-delayed 9/11 case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A new U.S military court judge has canceled all hearings in the case until next year and delayed the start of the trial of the five defendants charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks until at least August 2021.

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin in January 2021, but the new judge — Col. Stephen F. Keane, who began overseeing the case in September — said a delay is necessary due to pandemic travel restrictions and his need to familiarize himself with the case.

"Puzzling," "arrogant," "unhinged," "bully," "classic Trump" — those were some of the words a focus group of undecided swing state voters used to describe President Trump's debate performance Tuesday night.

For Democratic nominee Joe Biden: "Politician," "predictable," "leader," "rehearsed," "nice guy," "compassion," "coherent," "evasive."

Updated at 1:55 p.m. ET

Former FBI Director James Comey says that if he knew today what he knew during the Russia investigation, he would have taken a more skeptical view about a key surveillance request.

Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the subsequent revelations about problems with the surveillance warrant requested against one ex-junior campaign aide to Donald Trump likely would have given him pause in pursuing it.

This was maybe the worst presidential debate in American history.

If this was supposed to be a boxing match, it instead turned into President Trump jumping on the ropes, refusing to come down, the referee trying to coax him off, and Joe Biden standing in the middle of the ring with his gloves on and a confused look on his face.

Trump doesn't play by anyone's rules, even those he's agreed to beforehand. He's prided himself on that. But even by his standards, what Trump did Tuesday night crossed many lines.

President Trump's hesitation, once again, to denounce white supremacy during Tuesday's presidential debate is drawing quick condemnation from anti-racism activists — as are his unusual comments directed at a white supremacist group called the Proud Boys.

During an exchange on the debate stage, moderator Chris Wallace repeatedly asked Trump if he would condemn white supremacists. Trump initially sidestepped that question, claiming that he mostly sees violence "from the left wing."

No one knows for sure when counting for the 2020 census is set to end.

A day after the Census Bureau fired off a one-sentence tweet announcing Oct. 5 as its new "target date" for ending all efforts to tally the country's residents, a federal judge said she thinks the new schedule is "a violation" of her court order.

Vice President Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris are debating Wednesday night in Salt Lake City, in the first and only vice presidential matchup.

Listen to NPR's live special coverage of the debate on this page, beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Follow updates and fact checks on NPR.org, too.

Susan Page, USA Today Washington Bureau chief, will moderate the debate in front of a limited audience at The University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

A version of this story was first published by Gothamist, a news site operated by NPR member station WNYC.

Updated at 4:47 p.m. ET

An attorney for former national security adviser Michael Flynn said she briefed President Trump and a lawyer working for him on the status of Flynn's criminal case in the past two weeks, according to statements in court on Tuesday.

The lawyer, Sidney Powell, initially told the judge she was wary of disclosing the contact because of so-called executive privilege, even though she does not work for Trump or the White House.

Two days after The New York Times published reporting on several years of President Trump's recent tax returns, Democratic nominee Joe Biden released his 2019 return and financial disclosures.

National security officials say the Kremlin is at it again: Just like in 2016, Russia is using social media to try to undermine the U.S. presidential election, only with even more sophisticated tools.

Senate Republicans plan to move forward with Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination with hearings before the Judiciary Committee starting Oct. 12.

Barrett's likely confirmation will lock in arguably the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s, with the potential to weaken patient protections of the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, among other decisions.

President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden square off in the first of three general-election presidential debates Tuesday night.

The debate is high stakes and carries risks for both candidates.

Here are six questions ahead of the debate, to be moderated by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace beginning at 9 p.m. ET and held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

1. Can Trump avoid the sitting-president first-debate slump?