US News Roundup: Trump and Biden set to clash on Supreme Court, five other topics in first debate; Testing ahead of U.S. elections reveals struggle to quell disinformation and more

Wade decision hinged on women's right to privacy The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has raised concerns among reproductive rights advocates that women could lose the right to choose whether to have an abortion, with President Donald Trump poised to name another conservative justice to the nation's top court.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

As U.S. Supreme Court nomination looms, a religious community draws fresh interest

People of Praise, a self-described charismatic Christian community, has faced renewed interest since U.S. President Donald Trump put one of its purported members, Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on his short list of candidates for elevation to the Supreme Court. The group says on its website it is made up of liberals and conservatives, with a mixture including Roman Catholic and Pentecostal traditions, though at least one expert and a former member consider it very conservative. Until 2018, it used the term 'handmaid' for its female leaders.

As U.S. surpasses 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, Wisconsin sounds alarm over surges in cases

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Tuesday declared a new public health emergency and extended a face mask mandate into November to fight a coronavirus flareup in his state, as the number of people who have died across the United States since the pandemic began passed 200,000. In-person social gatherings have led to cases in Wisconsin skyrocketing among people aged 18 to 24, Evers said, as he pleaded with students who returned to colleges for the fall semester to stay out of bars and wear masks.

U.S. TV shows try a new election playbook: making voting part of the story

From "black-ish" to a "West Wing" reunion, television shows are using the power of entertainment in new ways to encourage more Americans to participate in the Nov. 3 election. Thirty years after "Rock the Vote," a liberal nonprofit group, fused pop culture and politics, TV makers are seeking to make dry topics like registering to vote, filling out the census and finding polling places feel vital and fun by writing them into the plots of popular shows.

Trump and Biden set to clash on Supreme Court, five other topics in first debate

President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden will spar for 90 minutes over the Supreme Court, the coronavirus, voting integrity and "race and violence in our cities," organizers of the first head-to-head election debate said on Tuesday. Trump and Biden will address each of those four topics on Sept. 29, as well as discuss the economy and their track records in six segments scheduled to last 15 minutes apiece, the Commission on Presidential Debates said in a statement.

Exclusive: How COVID-19 stimulus money will end up in U.S. tobacco farmers' pockets

U.S. government aid payments to tobacco farmers will be channeled through a new account within the office of the agriculture secretary, an unusual move that bypasses the normal mechanism for distributing farm aid and stokes concerns about how the government is using COVID-19 stimulus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Friday said it will pay up to $100 million to tobacco farmers from Congress' coronavirus economic stimulus package, as part of a $14 billion assistance program for farmers hurt by the pandemic.

Explainer: Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision hinged on women's right to privacy

The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has raised concerns among reproductive rights advocates that women could lose the right to choose whether to have an abortion, with President Donald Trump poised to name another conservative justice to the nation's top court. A woman's right to have an abortion through the first trimester of pregnancy was protected nationally in 1973, following the Supreme Court's landmark 7-2 ruling https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep410/usrep410113/usrep410113.pdf in Roe v. Wade.

Trump-appointed justice could signal major Supreme Court shift on abortion

With President Donald Trump poised to nominate a U.S. Supreme Court justice to fill the vacancy created by the death of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a new 6-3 conservative majority could be emboldened to roll back abortion rights. The ultimate objective for U.S. conservative activists for decades has been to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. But short of that, there are other options the court has in curtailing abortion rights.

Testing ahead of U.S. elections reveals struggle to quell disinformation

U.S. election day exercises simulating attacks ranging from hackers to anthrax to disrupt voting show state and local officials will struggle to quickly counter falsehoods flooding social media, according to five people familiar with the tests. The assessments come as U.S. intelligence officials and security analysts expect an onslaught of digital misinformation surrounding the election on November 3. Last week, National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone identified disinformation as the biggest threat to the election.

Three days of tribute at U.S. Supreme Court and Capitol for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The United States begins three days of tributes to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Wednesday, when members of the public will get the chance to pay their respects to her under the monumental Corinthian columns atop the court's front steps. Ginsburg, who over the course of her long legal career championed gender equality and other liberal causes, in recent years became something of a pop icon for the American left.

Mars drops Uncle Ben's brand image after racial stereotyping row

Mars Inc said on Wednesday it was changing the name and branding of its Uncle Ben's rice products after the brand came under fire for promoting racial stereotypes. The company said it would drop the logo of an elderly African-American man wearing a bow tie on the 70-year-old brand and replace it with an orange package with Ben's Original' written in a blue font. The brand was named after a Texas rice farmer.