US News Roundup: Trump rallies supporters in key battleground states of Florida, North Carolina; Justice Department asks judge to allow U.S. to bar WeChat from U.S. app stores and more

Explainer: 'Naked' ballots loom over U.S. election, as Trump blasts mail-in voting As Republican President Donald Trump assails the use of mail-in voting, a Pennsylvania court decision over the use of envelopes for hiding the identity of mail-in voters could have major ramifications for the Nov. 3 election between Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

U.S. House Democrats crafting new $2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief package

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are working on a $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package that could be voted on next week, a key lawmaker said on Thursday, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that she is ready to negotiate with the White House. With formal COVID-19 relief talks stalled for nearly seven weeks, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal said new legislative efforts got under way this week after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in congressional testimony that lawmakers needed to provide further support for an economy reeling from the pandemic.

Explainer: 'Naked' ballots loom over U.S. election, as Trump blasts mail-in voting

As Republican President Donald Trump assails the use of mail-in voting, a Pennsylvania court decision over the use of envelopes for hiding the identity of mail-in voters could have major ramifications for the Nov. 3 election between Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden. One official in the state has warned the ruling could lead to confusion and the disenfranchisement of more than 100,000 voters in the crucial battleground state.

Special Report: Will your mail ballot count in the U.S. presidential election? It may depend on who's counting and where

Two elderly women in small towns in Wisconsin voted by mail during April’s presidential nominating contests. Both were sheltering in place as coronavirus surged across their state. Each mailed her ballot to the local election office with a note explaining why no witness had signed the envelope, as Wisconsin’s strict voting laws require. The women didn’t want to risk virus exposure, they told Reuters in telephone interviews this month.

Pioneering Justice Ginsburg makes history again with U.S. Capitol honor

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of gender equality, will make history again on Friday as the first woman and the first Jewish person to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will be among those who will visit to pay their respects on Friday, when the late justice's casket will be placed in National Statuary Hall, encircled by sculptures of prominent Americans.

Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Biden leads Trump nationally, but race much tighter in key states

The U.S. presidential race is much closer than national surveys suggest, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls in battleground states that show Democrat Joe Biden with only a slim lead over President Donald Trump in three highly competitive states and in a dead heat in three others. The online state polls, conducted earlier in September and released this week, found Biden and Trump tied among likely voters in Florida and North Carolina. Biden led by 1 percentage point in Arizona, 3 points in Pennsylvania and 5 points in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Louisville anti-racism protests resume amid tensions over Breonna Taylor ruling

A second night of anti-racism protests got off to a tense but mostly peaceful start in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday, a day after a grand jury decided not to bring homicide charges against police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor. As a curfew went into effect after dark and police declared an unlawful assembly, a group of 200 to 300 protesters who had marched through the city for hours retreated to the grounds of the First Unitarian Church, set aside by organizers as a sanctuary near the Ohio River waterfront.

Teenager charged with killing two in Kenosha faces extradition hearing

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two people and injuring another during demonstrations on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, faces a court hearing on Friday about his possible extradition from Illinois. Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged by Kenosha County's district attorney with six crimes for shooting three protesters who tried to subdue or disarm him during protests on Aug. 25, killing 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, 26.

Justice Department asks judge to allow U.S. to bar WeChat from U.S. app stores

The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judge in San Francisco early on Friday to allow the government to bar Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google from offering WeChat for download in U.S. app stores pending an appeal. The filing asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to put on hold her preliminary injunction issued Saturday. That injunction blocked the U.S. Commerce Department order which was set to take effect late on Sept. 20 and that would also bar other U.S. transactions with Tencent Holding's WeChat, potentially making the app unusable in the United States.

Trump rallies supporters in key battleground states of Florida, North Carolina

President Donald Trump campaigned in the battleground states of North Carolina and Florida on Thursday, saying the country's economic prosperity was riding on the outcome of his Nov. 3 showdown with Democrat Joe Biden. "If you want to save America, you must get out and vote," he told thousands of cheering supporters, most not wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic, at the outdoor airport rally in front of Air Force One in Jacksonville, Florida.

Trump Supreme Court pick would slash odds of surprise liberal victories

Amid a flurry of major rulings early this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court in an under-the-radar case handed a significant win to Native Americans by finding for the first time that almost half of Oklahoma is tribal land. The ruling was a 5-4 decision in which conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices, one of a handful of such surprise victories by the liberal wing of the court in recent terms.

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