Evening Briefing

President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden began making their final pitches to voters (though tens of millions have already voted), with the former vice president evoking the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt in a speech near the wartime president’s Georgia retreat, promising to heal the nation from a set of cascading crises. The Trump administration, in a bid to end a multistate lawsuit over its alleged attempts to slow delivery of mail-in ballots, told a federal judge mail delays during an election can’t be unlawful.

A pre-election coronavirus bailout package is now next to impossible after the White House appeared to bail out on negotiations.

The U.K. and France just reported their highest daily Covid-19 death tolls since the spring, as nations including the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Iran and Kenya reported record infections. More potential vaccines and treatments are running into trouble in the final stages of trials, and the U.S. strategy of relying on their future use rather than precautions like testing, masks and social distancing may doom the worst-hit nation to fighting the virus through 2023. As America’s infection rate flies off the charts, more people are again hoarding food. Current Covid-19 hospitalizations across the entire country have climbed 37% as a third surge spreads in 32 states, crushing hospitals as it goes. America continues to lead the world with 8.7 million confirmed infections and more than 226,000 fatalities, or approximately one-fifth of the global total on both counts. Here is the latest on the pandemic.

The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett by the Senate Monday night cemented a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. As a favorite of the religious right, Democrats fear her controversial ascent to the bench will mean the end of the Affordable Care Act and perhaps legal abortion. Critics of the nomination (and Trump) have said she could play a critical role in any high court rulings over the Nov. 3 election. The current conservative majority on Monday sided with the White House in its efforts to restrict absentee and mail-in voting despite the threat of coronavirus infection posed by in-person voting.

Adding to a string of acquisitions, private equity-backed Inspire Brands is poised to sign the restaurant industry’s second-largest deal ever as it plans a blockbuster $12 billion takeover of Dunkin’ Brands.

What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director says the term K-shaped recovery has become a surprisingly popular meme over the past several months, as some parts of the economy boomed while other cratered. Though the unemployment rate skyrocketed, many holders of financial assets are doing extremely well. But in a sense, this is nothing new, Joe says, and all crises and downturns have K-shaped results. What’s notable this time is how rapidly things unfolded. Years of economic change have been compressed into 6 months. And so we can see the unequalizing effect that downturns manifest in almost real time.

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