Senate Democrats are expected to boycott Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Thursday Judiciary Committee vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Wednesday.
The big picture: The boycott will not prevent Barrett from moving forward in the nomination process, but the largely symbolic display is a symptom of Democrats and Republicans’ clashing over President Trump’s Supreme Court pick.
In his first campaign rally appearance on behalf of Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama urged Americans to vote, saying "we can't afford another four years" of a Trump presidency.
Why it matters via Axios' Hans Nichols:With less than two weeks until Election Day, Obama made his case for Biden in Pennsylvania, a state that Trump's campaign knows he needs to win.
The U.S. cannot locate the parents of 545 migrant children separated under a 2017 pilot program as part of President Trump’s immigration policy, NBC News first reported, citing a filing from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Why it matters: The number of parents who are currently considered “unreachable” is larger than was previously known. Search efforts have grown increasingly difficult given the time that has passed between when the children were released from federal custody and when volunteers started trying to find them.
The Justice Department filed a 63-page antitrust lawsuit against Google related to the tech giant's search and advertising business. This comes just weeks after the House subcommittee on antitrust issued its own scathing report on Google and other Big Tech companies, arguing they've become digital monopolies.
Axios Re:Cap talks with Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the subcommittee on antitrust, about Google, the DOJ's lawsuit and Congress' next move.
A Maryland man has been arrested and charged for allegedly threatening to kidnap and kill former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), according to a criminal complaint filed by the Secret Service Wednesday.
The big picture: Fears of potential political violence are running high with just two weeks until Election Day. Earlier this month, the FBI foiled an alleged militia plot to kidnap the Democratic governors of Michigan and Virginia.
Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a vote on Republicans' $500 billion targeted COVID-19 relief bill, a far less comprehensive package than the $1.8 trillion+ deal currently being negotiated between the Trump administration and House Democrats.
Why it matters: There's little appetite in the Senate for a stimulus bill with a price tag as large as what President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been calling for. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) "skinny" proposal was mostly seen as a political maneuver, as it had little chance of making it out of the Senate.
The recent firestorm over the New York Post’s publication of stories relying on data from a hard drive allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden shows the increasingly hazy line between domestic political “dirty tricks” and a foreign-sponsored disinformation operation.
Why it matters: This haziness could give determined actors cover to conduct influence operations aimed at undermining U.S. democracy through channels that just look like old-fashioned hard-nosed politics.
Pope Francis voiced his support for same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope in the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival, per the Catholic News Agency.
Why it matters: The pope’s remarks represent a break from the position of the Roman Catholic Church, which has long taught that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered" and contrary to natural law.
91% of likely voters nationally say they are "extremely motivated to vote," including 92% in battleground states Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to a Change Research/CNBC Poll.
Why it matters: The 2020 election could see record-breaking levels of voter turnout. Voters last week cast ballots at nearly five times the rate they did at this point in the 2016 election, per the U.S. Elections Project. Over 39 million ballots have been cast in early voting states as of Wednesday.
A new poll of nearly 1,000 likely voters suggests Joe Biden would have political wind at his back on the proposal on climate change if he wins and Democrats take the Senate.
Why it matters: 66% of likely voters support a plan to spend $2 trillion on clean energy and climate efforts, per this New York Times/Siena College poll.
Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, the Louisville officer who led the botched police raid that caused the death of Breonna Taylor, said the No. 1 thing he wishes he had done differently is either served a "no-knock" warrant or given five to 10 seconds before entering the apartment: "Breonna Taylor would be alive, 100 percent."
Driving the news: Mattingly, who spoke to ABC News and Louisville's Courier Journal for his public interview, was shot in the leg in the initial moments of the March 13 raid. Mattingly did not face any charges after Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said he and another officer were "justified" in returning fire to protect themselves against Taylor's boyfriend.
The QAnon conspiracy theory is growing — and being weaponized to boost President Trump ahead of the election.
Why it matters: What began as a single conspiracy theory linking Hillary Clinton to child trafficking four years ago is now part of a convoluted web of falsehoods being spread to undermine Joe Biden.
More than one-third of Americans think it's possible that elites in Hollywood, government and the media "are secretly engaging in large scale child trafficking and abuse," according to new polling for a U.K.-based anti-racism advocacy group reviewed by Axios.
The big picture: New findings by the group HOPE not Hate show 1 in 10 Americans say they are at least "soft" supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement and suggest that distrust in U.S. political systems could fuel further unrest in a fraught election year.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had $177.3 million in the bank at the end of September, per the latest Federal Election Commission filings.
Why it matters: President Trump's re-election campaign reported having $63.1 million in the bank at the end of last month, as campaigning enters the final stretch ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3.
North Carolina can accept absentee ballots that are postmarked Nov. 3, Election Day, until Nov. 12, a federal appeals court decided Tuesday in a 12-3 majority ruling.
Why it matters: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against state and national Republican leaders settles a lawsuit brought by a group representing retirees, and it could see scores of additional votes counted in the key battleground state.
President Trump's re-election campaign had $63.1 million in the bank by the end of September after spending some $139 million that month, filings to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday night show.
Why it matters: The Trump campaign reported having $121 million in cash and $900,000 in debts the previous month. Trump's campaign and the shared Republican committees had just over $251 million at the start of October.
Former President Barack Obama said while urging people to vote for Joe Biden at the virtual Pull Up & Vote Party voting initiative Tuesday he found it "inspiring" that young Americans were organizing and "fighting for change."
The big picture: "We can come out of this moment stronger than before," Obama said. "In times as polarized as these, your vote doesn’t just matter, it matters more than ever before. .. "Let's go win this thing." The event, hosted by activist Tamika Mallory and featuring a host of celebrities, was designed to encourage engagement and voter turnout in November's election.
Fort Hood Spc. Vanessa Guillén, whose remains were found in June after she disappeared in April, "died in the line of duty," Army officials said in a statement Tuesday.
Why it matters: "This determination establishes that the Guillén family is entitled to a variety of Army benefits for Vanessa's service to our nation," per the statement. Her family said she faced sexual harassment at the Texas base, which she didn't report for fear of retaliation. The Army is investigating "chain of command actions" related to Guillén's death.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday ruled that Jerry Boylan, the captain of the ship Conception, was at fault for a fire that killed 33 passengers and one crew member in September 2019 after failing to post a roving night watchman aboard the vessel, AP reports.
Why it matters: The fire was one of the deadliest catastrophes in modern U.S. maritime history. Authorities have been unable to determine the cause of the blaze because the boat burned and sank.
Officials further held the Coast Guard responsible for failing to enforce that requirement and recommended it build a program to ensure vessel with overnight passengers have watchman.
A U.S. Postal Service inspector general report out Tuesday found changes implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy led to "confusion and inconsistency in operations at postal facilities" that "compounded the significant negative service impacts across the country."
Details: The IG report concluded that the changes led to on-time delivery performance of priority and first class mail worsened. "No analysis of the service impacts of these various changes was conducted and documentation and guidance to the field for these strategies was very limited and almost exclusively oral," the report notes.
