Summary That’s it for today from me and Joan E Greve. The Senate passed a funding bill averting a government shutdown until 11 December, six hours before funding for the government was set to expire. The last-minute vote on the stopgap bill received bipartisan support but postponed big discussions on government funding till after the election. Republican senator Lindsay Graham, who as head of the judiciary committee is barreling ahead to approve Donald Trump’s supreme court nominee despite vowing not to consider one during an election year, is tied with his Democratic challenger in a new poll. A Democrat hasn’t been elected to the Senate from South Carolina since 1998, but Graham has found himself neck and neck with his challenger Jamie Harrison in recent weeks. Likely voters in a Quinnipiac poll ranked Harrison higher on honesty. Joe Biden told white supremacist groups to “cease and desist”, after Trump refused to condemn white supremacist violence at last night’s debate. Speaking to reporters during a campaign stop in Ohio, Biden said, “The president of the United States conducting himself the way he did, I think it was just a national embarrassment.” Trump denied knowing who the Proud Boys were, a day after telling the extremist far-right group to “stand back and stand by”. “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you’ll have to give me a definition because I really don’t know who they are,” Trump told reporters. “I can only say they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.” The Commission on Presidential Debates said “additional structure” would be needed for the remaining presidential debates. According to CBS News, the CPD will soon announce rules changes to the debates, including allowing moderators to cut candidates’ microphones when they ignore the agreed-upon structure of the debates. Former FBI director James Comey testified before the Senate judiciary committee. Comey pushed back against criticism from attorney general William Barr, who has denounced the Russia investigation as “completely baseless”. Comey said of Barr, “I have no idea on Earth what he’s talking about.” A judge granted the attorney general of Kentucky a two-day delay in releasing the grand jury records in the Breonna Taylor case, which were supposed to be made public today. Attorney general Daniel Cameron claimed more time was needed to redact information that could reveal jurors’ identities. The announcement comes one week after a grand jury declined to issue charges in direct connection to the killing of Taylor, who was fatally shot by Louisville police officers in March. Joe Biden saw one of the biggest crowds he’s encountered on the campaign trail since the pandemic hit when supporters gathered to greet him in Pennsylvania as he exited a train station in Greensburg. The Democratic candidate’s speeches are being delivered to distanced, sparse crowds. He has been critical of Donald Trump for hosting large rallies where supporters eschewed masks and social distancing. Biden was met by several hundred as he exited the train station, per reporters traveling with him. Several dozen Trump supporters had also gathered, per the press pool. The former vice-president is on a train tour in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Republican senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who is facing the toughest re-election race of his career, is tied with his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, 48-48, in a Quinnipiac University poll. Other recent polls have also suggested an increasingly tight race. Graham, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, is moving swiftly on the nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the supreme court seat vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg – despite saying four years ago no president at the end of his term should nominate a supreme court justice. “If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,’” he said in 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died, and Graham refused to consider then-president Barack Obama’s nominee. The Quinnipiac poll sampled likely voters. Of those polled, 49% said the winner of the presidential election should nominate a justice, whereas 47 % said Donald Trump should select a justice before the election. South Carolinians also said Harrison was more honest and empathetic than Graham. No Democrat has been elected to the Senate from South Carolina since 1998. 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The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) gave 63% of its citations for “loitering while standing” to Black residents in recent years, despite African Americans making up just 7% of the city’s population, a new analysis of public records has revealed. A report released on Wednesday by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights analyzed low-level infractions in California between 2017 and 2019 and found that LAPD and police agencies across the state disproportionately target Black residents. The advocacy group collected data on the most minor municipal offenses and tickets (outside of traffic citations) – including standing or sleeping outside, owning a dog without a proper license, jaywalking and entering a park after dark – and found a pattern of severe racial disparities in major cities and regions throughout the state. Key findings include: Overall, Black residents in California are 9.7 times more likely to receive a citation for local infractions than white residents in their jurisdictions, and Latinx residents were 5.8 times more likely to be cited than their white neighbors. Black residents in LA were 3.8 times more likely to be cited for minor infractions compared with white residents, accounting for 30% of all low-level infractions. Despite being only 7% of the adult population, Black Angelenos accounted for 27% of “drinking in public infractions”, 33% of “sleeping or sitting” loitering tickets; and 63% of “loitering while standing” citations. There were similar patterns of disparate treatment of Black residents in liberal and more conservative regions of the state, including in the Bay Area, the Central Valley, Kern county, San Diego and other municipalities. Americans rushed to Google “How to move to Canada” after last night’s debate. Following a debate derailed by interruptions, people speaking over each other, and insults hurled back and forth, Google reported a peak number of searches for “How to apply for Canadian citizenship” in the US. Some people seemed in such a hurry to get out they couldn’t even get the name right: searches for “How to move to Canda” also spiked alongside the correct “How to move to Canada”. Searches initially peaked about an hour into the debate, at about 10.30pm, according to the search engine. But it looks like the news unsettled people into the night – there has since been a second wave of searches on how to get Canadian citizenship – with most of the searches happening in the early hours of this morning. The search was most popular in Massachusetts, followed by Washington and Michigan. The results are not unprecedented, however – in fact, every election sees a swath of voters contemplating moving over to the other side (of the border). Some even go through with it. Senate approves bill to avert shutdown The Senate passed a spending bill, 84-10, to fund the government through 11 December. The bill will now go to Donald Trump for his signature, with six hours to spare before the government is set to shutdown. The House approved the bill last week. The bill includes some pandemic relief funds – including $8bn for food assistance. It also includes billions for a farm bailout program that Republicans championed, which will help farmers affected by Trump’s trade policies and the pandemic. A government shutdown amid the pandemic would be a political disaster for lawmakers from both parties, and lawmakers were exected to do what it takes to avert one. This stopgap bill avoids addressing bigger debates around federal funding – leaving those for after the 3 November elections. It remains unclear though whether Congress will now take a fall recess. House Democrats have yet to vote on their coronavirus relief bill – which faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy during Tuesday night’s debate fits into a pattern of extremist rhetoric that has already baselessly stoked fear of voting fraud amid the president’s urging of his supporters to descend on polling stations in November’s election. Experts have already warned that Trump’s encouragement of people to scramble to polling stations could have horrific consequences, given that armed, rightwing, Trump-supporting militias have already brought violence and fear to cities across the country in the wake of anti-racism protests. On Wednesday Trump claimed he had never heard of Proud Boys – the violent rightwing group that he urged to “stand by” when asked to condemn white supremacists. Whether the president was telling the truth or not – the Proud Boys have been widely covered in the media for years – onlookers have warned Trump has already used the rhetoric of white supremacists in recent months. On Tuesday, in front of perhaps his largest audience yet this election cycle, Trump doubled down on that rhetoric. Asked if he was willing “to condemn white supremacists and militia groups”, Trump instead sidestepped the question, and seemed to equate those groups with “leftwing” violence. He then name-checked the Proud Boys, in a move that the group itself quickly celebrated as a call to arms from the Oval Office. Trump’s answer fits with similar comments throughout his presidential campaign and presidency. After an anti-fascism protester was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, Trump claimed there were “very fine people on both sides”. Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat of California known for her prosecutorial questioning, excoriated the CEO of the drug company Calgene during a House Oversight Committee hearing. Using a whiteboard, she displayed the company’s repeated price hikes for Revlimid, which is used to treat bone marrow cancer. The drug now cases $763 per dose, compared to $215 per dose in 2005. “Did the drug start to work faster? Were there fewer side effects? How did you change the formula or production of Revlimid to justify this price increase?” Porter asked Mark Alles, who served as Celgene’s CEO until another company acquired it in 2019. “To recap here: The drug didn’t get any better, the cancer patients didn’t get any better, you just got better at making money, you just refined your skills at price gouging.” Watch the full exchange here: The hearing was held so that lawmakers could press CEOs of drug companies ono the findings of an 18-month investigation into the pricing of Revlimid and another drug. Congress no longer plans to vote tonight on a $2.2 trillion stimulus package, so they can take more time to work out a deal with the White House, per multiple reports. After meeting earlier with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, House speaker Nancy Pelosi initially seemed to indicate that the House would modify and move forward with voting on the Heroes Act, the latest coronavirus relief package. “Today, Secretary Mnuchin and I had an extensive conversation and we found areas where we are seeking further clarification. Our conversations will continue,” the Democratic speaker had said. While the bill, as is, is sure to pass the Democrat-controlled House, it’s future in the Republican-led Senate is uncertain. Efforts to pass a stimulus bill had been stalled for nearly two months - with Republicans and Democrats divided over the price tag. This latest legislation has been slimmed down though it contains many of the components of the $3.4 trillion package Democrats approved in May. Lawmakers cut aid to the Post Office from $25bn to o$15bn and cut in half a proposed $1tn for state and local governments. Today so far That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours. Here’s where the day stands so far: Joe Biden told white supremacist groups to “cease and desist,” after Trump refused to condemn white supremacist violence at last night’s debate. Speaking to reporters during a campaign stop in Ohio moments ago, Biden said, “The president of the United States conducting himself the way he did, I think it was just a national embarrassment.” Trump denied knowing who the Proud Boys were, a day after telling the extremist far-right group to “stand back and stand by.” “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you’ll have to give me a definition because I really don’t know who they are,” Trump told reporters. “I can only say they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.” The Commission on Presidential Debates said “additional structure” would be needed for the remaining presidential debates. According to CBS News, the CPD will soon announce rules changes to the debates, including allowing moderators to cut candidates’ microphones when they ignore the agreed-upon structure of the debates. Former FBI director James Comey testified before the Senate judiciary committee. Comey pushed back against criticism from attorney general William Barr, who has denounced the Russia investigation as “completely baseless.” Comey said of Barr, “I have no idea on Earth what he’s talking about.” A judge granted the attorney general of Kentucky a two-day delay in releasing the grand jury records in the Breonna Taylor case, which were supposed to be made public today. Attorney general Daniel Cameron claimed more time was needed to redact information that could reveal jurors’ identities. The announcement comes one week after a grand jury declined to issue charges in direct connection to the killing of Taylor, who was fatally shot by Louisville police officers in March. Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned. CNN host Jake Tapper cut short an interview with a senior Trump campaign official as he dodged questions about the president’s refusal to condemn white supremacist violence. Communications director Tim Murtaugh deflected Tapper’s questions by repeatedly trying to redirect the conversation toward Biden’s work with segregationist senators in the 1970’s. As Murtaugh kept talking over Tapper’s questions, the CNN host eventually said, “You know what, I’m not Chris Wallace. Thank you, Tim, appreciate it.” With that, the interview was over. Debate moderator Chris Wallace said he was “sad with the way last night turned out,” after the Fox News anchor was widely criticized for failing to rein in Trump as the president repeatedly interrupted Biden and ignored the format of the debate. “I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did,” Wallace told the New York Times, in his first interview since last night’s debate. “I guess I didn’t realize — and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 — that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate.” When asked if Trump was responsible for derailing the debate, Wallace said, “Well, he certainly didn’t help.” But Wallace declined to elaborate on that answer. “To quote the president, ‘It is what it is,’” Wallace said. The Commission on Presidential Debates reportedly intends to issue strict new rules for the remaining presidential debates. According to CBS News, the CPD’s new rules will include cutting off a candidate’s microphone if they ignore the agreed-upon format of the debate. The news comes shortly after the CPD issued a statement saying last night’s debate showed “additional structure” would be required for the remaining debates. “The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly,” the statement said.