Author: PolitCens

Bob Woodward, facing widespread criticism for only now revealing President Donald Trump’s early concerns about the severity of the coronavirus, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he needed time to be sure that Trump’s private comments from February were accurate.
 
In Woodward’s upcoming book on Trump, “Rage,” the president is quoted saying the virus was highly contagious and “deadly stuff” at a time he was publicly dismissing it as no worse than the flu. Woodward, the celebrated Washington Post journalist and best-selling author, spoke with Trump more than a dozen times for his book.  
“He tells me this, and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, but is it true?’ Trump says things that don’t check out, right?” Woodward told the AP during a telephone interview. Using a famous phrase from the Watergate era, when Woodward’s reporting for the Post helped lead to President Richard Nixon’s resignation, Woodward said his mission was to determine, “What did he know and when did he know it?”Trump Knew of COVID Danger But Downplayed It, Book Recounts Journalist Bob Woodward says US leader was warned in early 2020 of deadly nature of disease, but in recorded interview said, ‘I wanted to always play it down’On Twitter and elsewhere online, commentators accused Woodward of valuing book sales over public health. “Nearly 200,000 Americans have died because neither Donald Trump nor Bob Woodward wanted to risk anything substantial to keep the country informed,” wrote Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce.  
The issue of daily journalists presenting newsworthy information in books isn’t new. The competition for attention is intense, and headlines help boost sales and guest shots for interviews. Reporter Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times recently attracted attention for his book, “Donald Trump v. The United States,” by reporting new details on an unannounced visit by Trump to Walter Reed military hospital in November 2019. Schmidt reported that Vice President Mike Pence was put on alert that he might have to briefly assume the powers of the presidency if the president had to undergo a procedure that required anesthesia.
Pence later said he didn’t recall being put on standby for the Reed visit, which the White House has said was part of the president’s routine annual physical. But Schmidt’s book renewed speculation about Trump’s health.
Political figures with book deals also have been chastised for holding back timely material. Former national security adviser John Bolton, whose scathing memoir “The Room Where It Happened” came out in June, declined discussing Trump’s actions towards Ukraine while the impeachment hearings were being held earlier this year.
Woodward’s book, which comes out next week, draws from 18 conversations with Trump between December and July. During his AP interview, Woodward said Trump called him “out of the blue” in early February to “unburden himself” about the virus, which then had few cases in the U.S. But Woodward said that only in May was he satisfied that Trump’s comments were based on reliable information and that by then the virus had spread nationwide.  
“If I had done the story at that time about what he knew in February, that’s not telling us anything we didn’t know,” Woodward said. At that point, he said, the issue was no longer one of public health but of politics. His priority became getting the story out before the election in November.
“That was the demarcation line for me,” he said. “Had I decided that my book was coming out on Christmas, the end of this year, that would have been unthinkable.”
Asked why he didn’t share Trump’s February remarks for a fellow Post reporter to pursue, Woodward said he had developed “some pretty important sources” on his own.  
“Could I have brought others in? Could they have done things I couldn’t do?” he asked. “I was on the trail, and I was (still) on the trail when it (the virus) exploded.”
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With the presidential campaign entering its final two-month stretch, both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden are ramping up travel to battleground states this week. But the candidates have very different approaches to getting their messages out to supporters. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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With the presidential campaign entering its final two-month stretch, both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden are ramping up travel to battleground states this week. But the candidates have very different approaches to getting their messages out to supporters. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Top U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to launch an investigation into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports on the increasing calls for punitive sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.Camera:  Russian ServiceProduced by:  Mary Cieslak
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The Trump administration is moving forward with a policy that expands protections for religious groups on college campuses and threatens to cut federal education funding to colleges that violate free speech rules.The Education Department issued the rule Wednesday, less than two months before the election, and cements much of what President Donald Trump outlined in a March 2019 executive order demanding wider speech protections at U.S. colleges. In taking up the issue, Trump highlighted concerns from conservatives who complained that their voices had been suppressed on university campuses.As part of the policy, the Education Department can suspend or terminate grants to public universities found in court to have violated the First Amendment. In extreme cases, schools could become ineligible for any additional grants. The same actions could be taken against private universities found in court to have violated their own speech codes.Public universities could also lose funding if they fail to provide religious student groups the same rights and benefits as other campus groups, including the use of campus facilities and access to student fee funding. That edict does not apply to private colleges, which have more flexibility in limiting speech on their campuses.FILE – U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos attends an event on reopening schools amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the East Room at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2020.Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the new rule protects the rights of students, teachers and faith-based institutions. “Students should not be forced to choose between their faith and their education, and an institution controlled by a religious organization should not have to sacrifice its religious beliefs to participate in Department grants and programs,” DeVos said in a statement.In his March 2019 executive order, Trump directed a dozen federal agencies to tie their university funding to free speech rules. The new policy applies only to certain Education Department grants, however, and does not cover much larger pools of research funding. It was not immediately clear if similar policies are being prepared by other agencies.A variety of religious groups welcomed the policies, saying that colleges too often discriminate against students based on their faith. Some groups cited a 2018 case at the University of Iowa, which disbanded several religious groups that declined to adopt a policy forbidding discrimination based on, among other classifications, sexual orientation or preference.The university launched its crackdown after a gay student was rejected from a leadership position in a campus Christian group.In its policy, the Education Department specifically forbids colleges from discriminating against religious student groups based on “leadership standards” that are “informed by sincerely held religious beliefs.”Greg Jao, a spokesman for the evangelical Christian group InterVarsity Fellowship, said the rule is needed to protect student groups that want leaders who agree with their religious beliefs. “Universities should welcome all religious groups equally, in order to encourage tolerance, pluralism and religious diversity,” he said in a statement.The policy benefits Muslim student groups by allowing them to choose their own leaders according to their faith’s principles, said Ismail Royer, director of the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team for the Religious Freedom Institute.”This right should be reserved for all student religious organizations, and not usurped by university officials based on their own shifting, unpredictable standards,” Royer said in a statement.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order requiring colleges to certify that their policies support free speech as a condition of receiving federal research grants, March 21, 2019, at the White House in Washington.Many universities, however, see it as an unnecessary intrusion. They say the penalties are too severe and that it would be too easy to trigger a loss of funding. The American Council on Education, a group of college presidents, previously said the policy would lead to “a flood of frivolous lawsuits.”Terry Hartle, the group’s senior vice president, called it a political move designed to energize Trump’s Christian supporters.”We see this as a politically motivated solution in search of a problem, being issued in an election year,” he said. “This is being done to appeal to a particular part of the president’s base.”When Trump initially proposed his executive order last year, he highlighted the case of an activist who was punched while recruiting for the conservative group Turning Point USA at the University of California-Berkeley. Trump revived the topic in July when he threatened to withdraw tax-exempt status for schools and universities.On Twitter, Trump said, “Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump has moved to bar offshore oil and gas drilling in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, a rare action against the fossil fuel industry from an administration that has made global energy dominance a priority.The order drew skepticism from environmentalists and disappointment from the oil and gas industry, but approval from Republicans in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina who have opposed drilling off their state coasts.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden places a note card in his jacket pocket as he speaks at a campaign event in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.Florida especially is considered critical to deciding November’s presidential election. Polls there find Trump in an extremely close race with his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.The memorandum Trump signed in Florida on Tuesday adds 10 years to an existing ban on drilling off Florida’s Gulf coast set to end in 2022. It extends the ban to the South Atlantic off Georgia and South Carolina.”This protects your beautiful Gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come,” Trump said.Extending the moratorium is “the wrong approach at the wrong time,” says Lem Smith, vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas industry trade group.“A ban on responsible energy development in the Eastern Gulf and the South Atlantic puts at risk hundreds of thousands of new jobs, U.S. energy security advancements and billions of dollars in critical revenue for states,” Smith said in a statement.The Trump administration had previously aimed to open more than 90% of U.S. coastal waters to FILE – Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy speaks during a news conference in Washington, Jan. 11, 2017.“This is a transparent attempt to manipulate Floridians two months before Election Day,” said Gina McCarthy, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama.”If President Trump wanted to protect the state’s beaches and waters from destruction, he would deep-six [dispose of] his five-year leasing plan to open up every coast in the country for drilling,” McCarthy said. “And he would stop doing everything in his power to make the climate crisis worse.”The Trump administration has weakened regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and vehicles. It has changed how the federal government calculates the impacts of those emissions, lowering the apparent benefits of climate regulations.The United States under President Trump is the only country in the world to announce plans to withdraw from the U.N.-brokered Paris agreement on climate change. The administration also has taken steps to loosen rules on mercury, methane and other pollutants with the aim of lowering regulatory burdens on industry.The New York Times tallies  a total of 100 environmental rules the Trump administration has or is working to roll back.Many of these face legal challenges, including the administration’s attempts to encourage more offshore oil and gas development.Shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order that lifted the Obama administration’s ban on offshore drilling in the Arctic and North Atlantic. A federal court in Alaska threw out that order last March. The administration’s offshore drilling plans have been in limbo ever since.Trump described himself as “the great environmentalist” at Tuesday’s Florida signing event. The White House released a statement promoting Trump’s environmental record, including cleaning up hazardous waste sites and funding improvements in drinking water infrastructure. Trump’s signature on the Great American Outdoors Act is “the single largest investment in America’s National Parks and public lands in history,” according to the White House.”President Trump’s policies are promoting economic growth, while still maintaining standards that allow Americans to have among the cleanest air and water in the world,” the statement said.
Trump’s new offshore drilling ban drew criticism from Democratic presidential candidate Biden, who noted Trump’s previous plans to expand oil and gas development off Florida’s coast.”Now, with 56 days until the election, he conveniently says that he changed his mind. Unbelievable,” Biden wrote on Twitter.”You don’t have to guess where I stand: I oppose new offshore drilling,” he added.Just months ago, Donald Trump was planning to allow oil and gas drilling off the coast of Florida.Now, with 56 days until the election, he conveniently says that he changed his mind. Unbelievable.You don’t have to guess where I stand: I oppose new offshore drilling. https://t.co/oxfQNIymBh— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 8, 2020 
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U.S. President Donald Trump knew in early 2020 how deadly the coronavirus could be in the United States, but he intentionally misled the American public about the severity of the disease to avoid panicking people, according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.As the virus started to sweep from China throughout the world, national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump in a January 28 White House meeting, “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” according to the book, Rage.“This is going to be the roughest thing you face,” Woodward, a Washington Post associate editor, quoted O’Brien as saying, an assessment deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger agreed with.’Very tricky’Trump publicly minimized the threat. Ten days later, he called Woodward and said he thought the situation was far more frightful.“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a February 7 call. “And so, that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.Publicly, Trump was telling Americans that the virus would soon disappear and that it was no worse than a seasonal flu. He insisted the U.S. government had it under control.FILE – Bob Woodward speaks during an event sponsored by The Washington Post to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate, June 11, 2012, at the Watergate office building in Washington.In one of 18 calls recorded by Woodward, Trump admitted March 19 that he had deliberately minimized the danger.“I wanted to always play it down,” he said.As copies of Rage circulated Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany tried to minimize the political damage.She said Trump wanted “to keep the country calm. That is what leaders do.”“This president has done an unprecedented job in dealing with COVID,” McEnany said. “He was always clear-eyed about the lives we could lose. Again, from this podium, he acknowledged that this was serious back in March, that 100,000, 200,000 lives could be lost.”The revelations came less than eight weeks before the November 3 presidential election between Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.Biden, on a campaign trip to the Midwestern political battleground state of Michigan, assailed Trump’s performance in dealing with the coronavirus, which has now killed nearly 190,000 Americans and infected more than 6.3 million. Both figures are the biggest national totals across the globe.Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event on manufacturing and buying American-made products at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.“He knowingly and willingly lied to the American public about the threat posed to the country for months. … He failed to do his job on purpose,” Biden said. “It’s beyond despicable.”Health experts now say FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 31, 2020.Woodward said infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, often the administration’s public face answering questions about the COVID-19 disease, at one point told others that Trump “is on a separate channel” and unfocused in meetings, with “rudderless” leadership.“His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said of Trump, according to Woodward. “His sole purpose is to get reelected.”In one Oval Office meeting Woodward cited, after Trump had made false statements in a news briefing, Fauci said in front of him, “We can’t let the president be out there being vulnerable, saying something that’s going to come back and bite him.”Woodward describes Fauci as particularly disappointed in Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a White House adviser, for talking like a cheerleader, as if everything was great about the administration’s response to the coronavirus.As the virus spread across the country, Kushner said of Trump, “The goal is to get his head from governing to campaigning.” 
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One segment of the electorate may be unable to vote if poll workers are not able to certify their identity. It is the reality facing hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.  An estimated 378,000 eligible transgender voters do not have identification such as a driver’s license that reflects their name, appearance or new gender identity, according to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.   “If those poll workers decide that those ID’s don’t adequately or accurately reflect the person who is standing in front of them, they wouldn’t be able vote,” said Jody Herman, a research scholar and co-author of the report.  The Los Angeles-based organization founded in 2001 conducts independent nonpartisan research on sexual orientation, gender identity law and public policy. Registered voters in states with strict identification laws must produce a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot at polling locations.  “Trans people in general are frequently placed under immediate suspicion if they don’t conform visually to what their ID shows,” Sasha Buchert, a senior lawyer with Lambda Legal, told VOAIn this Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 photo, pedestrians pass signs near a polling site in San Antonio.Obtaining ID documents Some states have made it easier to make changes in identification documents such as gender markers on birth certificates, a process that varies state by state. Name changes can cost $500, in addition the costs of hiring an attorney. Advocates say in some states, transgender people must undergo gender affirming surgery that many consider invasive before their birth certificates and other identification documents can be updated.  “The process can be very costly and sometimes even impossible for trans people to complete,” Herman, the report co-author, said. “Ohio and Tennessee don’t allow any changes to a birth certificate at all.”  Advocates say transgender people of color are likely to be more impacted than white voters because they have more difficulty in obtaining a proper ID. They believe the measures could have a chilling impact and keep people from voting, especially if they cannot vote by mail. “We found just under a million trans adults would be eligible to vote in the 2020 election, but about 900,000 of those voters reside in 45 states where they do not conduct elections entirely by mail,” Herman told VOA. “Voters in those places would have to show up for in-person voting.”  Political observers predict an unprecedented number of Americans will vote by mail because of the coronavirus. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia allow excuse-free absentee voting, according to state websites.  If transgender voters are turned away at the polls, they could be made to vote on a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot. Provisional ballots are only counted if certain requirements are met in strict voter ID states. That means they would have to come back to the election officials within a certain amount of time with an acceptable ID for their vote to be counted, according to the Williams Institute.   Increasing voter participation Nationwide, there are an estimated 11 million LGBTQ voters, of which 1.4 million are transgender, according to surveys by Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based organization. According to its U.S. transgender survey, the party affiliation for the respondents was heavily Democratic.  “Keeping trans people from voting could favor the Republican Party that is more conservative than its Democratic rival,” said Professor Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.  In 2016, the outcome of the presidential election was decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. “Transgender people should not be denied their opportunity to participate in our democracy because laws and regulations around identification documents haven’t kept up with reality,” said Mara Keisling, head of The National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund.  While some transgender Americans report progress in obtaining updated ID’s, human rights advocates maintain transgender people of color, young students, low income, and those with disabilities are overrepresented among those who would face barriers to voting.  “We hear about folks in our community who feel so uncomfortable or who are made to feel so uncomfortable that they simply give up when they are challenged on their own identity,” said Tori Cooper, a Black transgender woman and director of community engagement for Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative.  “I know someone who is listed on a voter registration form as female, which does not accurately reflect their current gender identity, which is male. He’s afraid the way he looks and presents himself could actually keep him from being able to vote in person,” Cooper told VOA. “Voting is not about challenging people on their identities. It is giving people an opportunity to express their constitutional right to vote,” she said. Election observers say mail-in voting will remove possible negative interactions between transgender voters and poll workers.  “We are trying to break down barriers, making sure folks have the tools they need to get to the polls safely or get their mail-in ballots,” said Jay Brown, senior vice president of Human Rights Campaign Foundation. “We are empowering trans people to do whatever they can and vote.” 
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Amid the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump attracted a crowd of thousands to his latest political rally at a North Carolina airport Tuesday evening.     Trump marveled at a crowd he said totaled 15,000 people –- a number that reporters on site said was exaggerated.  The rally was attended by 14,600 people and several thousand more either wanted to attend or were nearby, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on Air Force One on the flight back from North Carolina.    Journalists also noted the lack of social distancing among those seated and standing. Many of the attendees did not wear masks and some who did let them droop down below their noses.  It was a crowd clearly in defiance of state guidance limiting outdoor mass gatherings to 50 people with social distancing and cloth face coverings.   Trump contended again on Tuesday that his campaign has found a loophole to avoid violating such state regulations because “we decided to call all our rallies peaceful protests” – a reference to criticism from those on the right that some anti-racism protesters amid the pandemic have been hypocritical by not wearing masks.    The president contrasted his rallies with those of challenger Joe Biden, mocking the socially distancing circles in gymnasiums that have been a feature of the Democratic Party nominee’s relatively few appearances.     “Did you ever see the gyms with the circles? That’s his crowds,” Trump said.   It was Trump’s third visit to North Carolina in two weeks. He won the state by four points in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, but polls show him virtually tied in the state with Biden.Supporters cheer as President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Smith Reynolds Airport, Sept. 8, 2020, in Winston-Salem, N.C.The former vice president did not make a public appearance on Tuesday, but his campaign released two new television advertisements in North Carolina during the day.  One of the commercials, a narrator implored: “We need to get control over the virus. Donald Trump failed. Joe Biden will get it done.”   Trump, in his Tuesday evening rally, accused Biden and running mate U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of trying to spread “anti-vaccine conspiracy theories” because they have questioned his claims that a COVID-19 vaccine is near.   Biden and Harris released a joint statement on Tuesday “laying out three questions this Administration must answer to assure the American people that politics will play no role in the approval and distribution of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.”   The Democrats are asking the Trump administration to state what scientific criteria will be used to ensure safety and efficacy of the vaccine; who will validate an official decision greenlighting the vaccine; and what is the plan to allocate and distribute the vaccine to Americans “cost-free, safely, equitably and without politics.”   Trump has been hinting that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be ready by Election Day on November 3.   Nine drugmakers issued an unusual pledge on Tuesday, vowing to uphold the highest ethical and scientific standards in developing their vaccines.  The announcement follows concern that Trump will pressure the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine before it is proven to be safe and effective.  As Trump began his evening rally, confirmation came from the developer of one of the vaccines, AstraZeneca, that it was halting late-stage studies of its vaccine candidate developed at Oxford University due to “a potentially unexplained illness” suffered by one patient in Britain.     The “standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data,” the British-Swedish drugmaker said in a statement. “We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline.”     The United States has reported the most infections and deaths from the coronavirus.   More than 6.3 million cases have been reported in the country, with deaths totaling slightly more than 189,500 according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.
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One segment of the electorate may be unable to vote if poll workers are not able to certify their identity. It is the reality facing hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.  An estimated 378,000 eligible transgender voters do not have identification such as a driver’s license that reflects their name, appearance or new gender identity, according to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.   “If those poll workers decide that those ID’s don’t adequately or accurately reflect the person who is standing in front of them, they wouldn’t be able vote,” said Jody Herman, a research scholar and co-author of the report.  The Los Angeles-based organization founded in 2001 conducts independent nonpartisan research on sexual orientation, gender identity law and public policy. Registered voters in states with strict identification laws must produce a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot at polling locations.  “Trans people in general are frequently placed under immediate suspicion if they don’t conform visually to what their ID shows,” Sasha Buchert, a senior lawyer with Lambda Legal, told VOAIn this Friday, Feb. 28, 2020 photo, pedestrians pass signs near a polling site in San Antonio.Obtaining ID documents Some states have made it easier to make changes in identification documents such as gender markers on birth certificates, a process that varies state by state. Name changes can cost $500, in addition the costs of hiring an attorney. Advocates say in some states, transgender people must undergo gender affirming surgery that many consider invasive before their birth certificates and other identification documents can be updated.  “The process can be very costly and sometimes even impossible for trans people to complete,” Herman, the report co-author, said. “Ohio and Tennessee don’t allow any changes to a birth certificate at all.”  Advocates say transgender people of color are likely to be more impacted than white voters because they have more difficulty in obtaining a proper ID. They believe the measures could have a chilling impact and keep people from voting, especially if they cannot vote by mail. “We found just under a million trans adults would be eligible to vote in the 2020 election, but about 900,000 of those voters reside in 45 states where they do not conduct elections entirely by mail,” Herman told VOA. “Voters in those places would have to show up for in-person voting.”  Political observers predict an unprecedented number of Americans will vote by mail because of the coronavirus. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia allow excuse-free absentee voting, according to state websites.  If transgender voters are turned away at the polls, they could be made to vote on a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot. Provisional ballots are only counted if certain requirements are met in strict voter ID states. That means they would have to come back to the election officials within a certain amount of time with an acceptable ID for their vote to be counted, according to the Williams Institute.   Increasing voter participation Nationwide, there are an estimated 11 million LGBTQ voters, of which 1.4 million are transgender, according to surveys by Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based organization. According to its U.S. transgender survey, the party affiliation for the respondents was heavily Democratic.  “Keeping trans people from voting could favor the Republican Party that is more conservative than its Democratic rival,” said Professor Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.  In 2016, the outcome of the presidential election was decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. “Transgender people should not be denied their opportunity to participate in our democracy because laws and regulations around identification documents haven’t kept up with reality,” said Mara Keisling, head of The National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund.  While some transgender Americans report progress in obtaining updated ID’s, human rights advocates maintain transgender people of color, young students, low income, and those with disabilities are overrepresented among those who would face barriers to voting.  “We hear about folks in our community who feel so uncomfortable or who are made to feel so uncomfortable that they simply give up when they are challenged on their own identity,” said Tori Cooper, a Black transgender woman and director of community engagement for Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative.  “I know someone who is listed on a voter registration form as female, which does not accurately reflect their current gender identity, which is male. He’s afraid the way he looks and presents himself could actually keep him from being able to vote in person,” Cooper told VOA. “Voting is not about challenging people on their identities. It is giving people an opportunity to express their constitutional right to vote,” she said. Election observers say mail-in voting will remove possible negative interactions between transgender voters and poll workers.  “We are trying to break down barriers, making sure folks have the tools they need to get to the polls safely or get their mail-in ballots,” said Jay Brown, senior vice president of Human Rights Campaign Foundation. “We are empowering trans people to do whatever they can and vote.” 
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Israel and the United Arab Emirates will sign their historic deal normalizing relations at a White House ceremony on Sept. 15, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The officials said senior delegations from both countries will likely be led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of the UAE crown prince. The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ceremony would either be on the South Lawn, the Rose Garden or inside depending on weather.  The ceremony will come just a month after the agreement to establish full diplomatic relations was announced on Aug. 13. The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians. That announcement has been followed by the first direct commercial flight between the countries, the establishment of telephone links and commitments to cooperate in numerous areas. UAE has also ended the country’s boycott of Israel, which allows trade and commerce between the oil-rich Emirates and Israel, home to a thriving diamond trade, pharmaceutical companies and tech start-ups. The Palestinians have rejected the deal. The UAE presented the agreement as taking Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank off the table. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the pause was “temporary.”  
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Amid the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump attracted a crowd of thousands to his latest political rally at a North Carolina airport Tuesday evening.     Trump marveled at a crowd he said totaled 15,000 people –- a number that reporters on site said was exaggerated.  The rally was attended by 14,600 people and several thousand more either wanted to attend or were nearby, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on Air Force One on the flight back from North Carolina.    Journalists also noted the lack of social distancing among those seated and standing. Many of the attendees did not wear masks and some who did let them droop down below their noses.  It was a crowd clearly in defiance of state guidance limiting outdoor mass gatherings to 50 people with social distancing and cloth face coverings.   Trump contended again on Tuesday that his campaign has found a loophole to avoid violating such state regulations because “we decided to call all our rallies peaceful protests” – a reference to criticism from those on the right that some anti-racism protesters amid the pandemic have been hypocritical by not wearing masks.    The president contrasted his rallies with those of challenger Joe Biden, mocking the socially distancing circles in gymnasiums that have been a feature of the Democratic Party nominee’s relatively few appearances.     “Did you ever see the gyms with the circles? That’s his crowds,” Trump said.   It was Trump’s third visit to North Carolina in two weeks. He won the state by four points in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, but polls show him virtually tied in the state with Biden.Supporters cheer as President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Smith Reynolds Airport, Sept. 8, 2020, in Winston-Salem, N.C.The former vice president did not make a public appearance on Tuesday, but his campaign released two new television advertisements in North Carolina during the day.  One of the commercials, a narrator implored: “We need to get control over the virus. Donald Trump failed. Joe Biden will get it done.”   Trump, in his Tuesday evening rally, accused Biden and running mate U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of trying to spread “anti-vaccine conspiracy theories” because they have questioned his claims that a COVID-19 vaccine is near.   Biden and Harris released a joint statement on Tuesday “laying out three questions this Administration must answer to assure the American people that politics will play no role in the approval and distribution of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.”   The Democrats are asking the Trump administration to state what scientific criteria will be used to ensure safety and efficacy of the vaccine; who will validate an official decision greenlighting the vaccine; and what is the plan to allocate and distribute the vaccine to Americans “cost-free, safely, equitably and without politics.”   Trump has been hinting that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be ready by Election Day on November 3.   Nine drugmakers issued an unusual pledge on Tuesday, vowing to uphold the highest ethical and scientific standards in developing their vaccines.  The announcement follows concern that Trump will pressure the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve a vaccine before it is proven to be safe and effective.  As Trump began his evening rally, confirmation came from the developer of one of the vaccines, AstraZeneca, that it was halting late-stage studies of its vaccine candidate developed at Oxford University due to “a potentially unexplained illness” suffered by one patient in Britain.     The “standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data,” the British-Swedish drugmaker said in a statement. “We are working to expedite the review of the single event to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline.”     The United States has reported the most infections and deaths from the coronavirus.   More than 6.3 million cases have been reported in the country, with deaths totaling slightly more than 189,500 according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.
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