THE BIG STORY

In the final debate, Trump dismissed the virus that killed 220,000 Americans and put him in the hospital

In a comparatively calmer debate — recognizing the first debate set this bar quite low — President Donald Trump and Joe Biden presented different visions for America.

The debate was the candidates’ last chance to make a pitch to a national audience before the Nov. 3 election. Trump spent the last debate downplaying the coronavirus pandemic, even as a third wave of cases sweeps most of the country. “We’re rounding the corner, it’s going away,” Trump said. “I say we’re learning to live with it.”

Biden countered that “people are learning to die with it.” He added that “We're about to go into a dark winter. And he has no clear plan.”

The debate also gave people of color old fights over the past and little insight into the future. Both men focused less on their plans for Black and brown Americans than on their pasts.

Other debate stories you should know:

👉 Trump’s final campaign strategy is to spread misinformation about Joe Biden, his son, and Ukraine. You’d have to really be paying deep attention to just understand Trump’s insinuations during the debate. Here’s what we know to actually be true.

👉 The president said that immigrant children in cages were “so well taken care of.”

👉 No, Trump didn’t say “good” in response to a question about kids separated from their parents at the border.

You see, they wear the ties to represent the colors associated with their parties, in case you don't know which is which. Jim Watson / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

Nigeria’s military shot and killed peaceful protesters who were calling for an end to police brutality

Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari made a rare address to the nation on Thursday, making vague references to “ongoing developments,” calling on “our youths to discontinue the street protests.”

What Buhari did not mention is that his security forces had killed people in the streets amid the country’s most powerful protests against police brutality ever.

For the past two weeks, protesters have demonstrated as part of an ongoing movement calling for an overhaul of Nigeria’s notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS.

On Tuesday evening, the Nigerian military opened fire on thousands of peaceful protesters, killing at least 12 and injuring several hundred.

The activists behind the End SARS movement have for years been calling to disband a police unit that has been accused of extortion, kidnapping, harassment, torture, and extrajudicial killings. Here’s how Nigeria got here.

Nurphoto / Getty Images

SNAPSHOTS

Remedesivir just became the first drug approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19. The drug was approved for all hospitalized COVID-19 patients age 12 and over who weigh at least 88 pounds. “It is absolutely not a blockbuster drug or a miracle drug,” one expert said. “We give it because we don’t have anything better.”

Republicans moved Amy Coney Barrett one step closer to the Supreme Court after Democrats boycotted the vote. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve Barrett’s nomination. The final vote on her confirmation is expected Monday.

The Supreme Court will let Alabama ban drive-up voting for people with disabilities during the pandemic. Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused her conservative colleagues of getting in the way of local election officials “ready and willing to help vulnerable voters.”

Don’t assume that lots of early voting means an advantage for Joe Biden. Democrats have shown strong enthusiasm in early voting, coming out in the millions, but Republicans can still catch up.

Fear of election unrest is driving a boom in private security. Plenty of industries are struggling in the midst of the pandemic. But heading towards a sharply contested election, in a year of unprecedented protests, the private security industry is booming.

EIGHT MONTHS OF RAINY DAYS

People have nothing left — literally $0 — because of the pandemic

There’s a troubling belief that people can simply achieve financial security if they work hard and become disciplined. The belief suggests being poor is an outcome of moral failings.

But the pandemic is shattering this myth as many Americans realize now what those in precarious situations have long known: so much is out of your control.

We’re now in the eighth month of the pandemic, and people who built rainy day funds over years are watching their savings run down to zero, with no relief from the government in sight.

Working people who followed the advice to save enough to cover three to six months of living expenses — a so-called emergency fund — are being hit by a crisis that is dragging on far longer. Here are their stories.

TAKE A BREATHER, PAL

Let’s wind down with some weekend long reads

Protest is part of the Black American tradition. Young activists are reshaping the movement in their image. As part of our Hopes Week, Ryan Brooks spoke with four very different young Black activists doing the work on why we’re here and what comes next: “Who exactly was this a reckoning for? Not for me.”

I told civil rights activists I was feeling hopeless. They responded “are you kidding me?” Emmanuel Felton wrote a moving piece on meeting despair with hope: “He didn’t have patience for my hopelessness, and told me... ‘They went through that and got us to this place... And we're going to cave in to despair, are you kidding me? No, we're made of better stuff than that.’”

Jeffrey Toobin can’t be the only person masturbating on work calls. This week, Vice reported that writer and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was suspended by the New Yorker for masturbating on a work Zoom call. Scaachi Koul puts it all into perspective: “It would be naive to think that most people aren’t engaged in some fuckery during a work Zoom.”

Wishing you the clarity that comes with a calm morning,

Elamin