Skirmishes over yard signs, flags and other expressions of candidate loyalty emerge with regularity every election season, but this year seems more intense.

A Trump sign, booby-trapped with hidden razor blades, injured a worker in Michigan who was moving it because it had been placed too close to a roadway, sending him to the hospital to get his bloodied hand stitched up.

“Route 22 battle royale,” as described by the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, began innocently enough. On one side of the road, supporters of Mr. Trump turned a former salon into a “Trump Victory Center,” decked out in red, white and blue. Less than half a mile away, volunteers in favor of Mr. Biden staked out ground in a medical office building, complete with a cutout of the former vice president, smiling and wearing a blue face mask.

“It feels like a war,” said Michelle McFall, a local Democratic organizer who helped form the grass-roots group for Mr. Biden. “People are holding their ground as they would in battle, and they are strategically planning their actions and counter actions.”

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., is investigating his dodgy finances. Trump knows he could face charges as soon as he leaves office — and he won’t be federally pardoned.

The pandemic will still be raging, but Trump, who has consistently downplayed it and tragically mismanaged it, will feel absolutely no obligation to contain it.

He will be wounded, afraid and dangerous.

“The broader pool of potential extremists has grown during Covid, with Americans at home and online, consuming vast quantities of propaganda and disinformation. So even if a relatively small percentage of people might actually mobilize to violence, the milieu from which they will emerge has metastasized significantly. The November election is increasingly perceived as a ‘winner-take-all’ contest, with no room for those who don’t identify with a specific side.”

upswing in the past few months in the number of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — who said they think violence would be justified if their side loses the upcoming presidential election.”

has repeatedly told his supporters that the only way he can lose is if the election is stolen from him.

he said the Supreme Court will help secure a victory for him if he’s not declared the winner on election night: “If we win, if we win on Tuesday or, thank you very much Supreme Court, shortly thereafter.”

Trump doesn’t care if he “wins” ugly or unfairly, a win is a win. He doesn’t care if it could rip this country apart because he has never cared about the health and stability of the nation.

Intrinsic motivation is extremely useful, giving even serious work a sense of effortlessness.

often fails to take hold when they feel controlled, pressured or unsure.

young people should be given as much say over their learning as possible, such as giving them options for how to solve problems, approach unfamiliar topics or practice new skills.

etting tweens and teenagers decide the order in which they tackle their assignments, how they want to prepare for tests or where they feel they study most effectively, even if that means that their papers carpet their bedroom floors.

the utility of praise depends on how it’s done.

This is such a hard year. So long as we do it right, there’s no reason for adults to be stingy with praise.

Teachers and parents should keep a close eye for students who are checking out because they feel lost and work to recalibrate the material or the expectations.

This year, even more than usual, adults are asking so much of adolescents. One way to help is by talking openly about strategies that help muster motivation. These conversations will help teenagers now, and also long after the virus is gone.

“When you consider how much of our plastic waste isn’t actually recyclable because it is low-value, contaminated or difficult to process, it’s not surprising that a lot of it ends up polluting the environment,”

there’s no real standard for being able to provide good quality data on collection and disposal of waste in general,”

researchers had evaluated waste-disposal practices in countries around the world and used their “best professional judgment” to determine the lowest and highest amounts of plastic waste likely to escape into the environment. They settled on a range of 25 percent to 75 percent.

Of the plastics that go into the United States recycling system, about 9 percent of the country’s total plastic waste, there is no guarantee that they’ll be remade into new consumer goods. New plastic is so inexpensive to manufacture that only certain expensive, high-grade plastics are profitable to recycle within the United States, which is why roughly half of the country’s plastic waste was shipped abroad in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available.

China and many countries in Southeast Asia have stopped accepting plastic waste imports. And lower oil prices have further reduced the market for recycled plastic.

If the House and Senate arrive at different decisions, the law governing the proceedings is unclear about how to reconcile them, with the potential for an unresolvable constitutional deadlock.

The 2000 election was arguably the closest in history, decided by Florida by a margin of one one-hundredth of one percent, so close that we will never know who the true winner of the state was: Media recounts months later concluded that the results would change depending on which counting method was used. Even so, a concession occurred before the second stage.

If a state’s electoral votes are disputed, the House and Senate meet separately to adjudicate the controversy. A potentially small number of representatives or senators can break rank, conceding the election by agreeing to resolve the dispute in favor of the other party. There is a potentially dangerous legal ambiguity here:

The House and Senate could vote on the commission’s recommendation — but if the two houses disagreed, the commission’s decision would stand. The commission first recommended, on an 8-to-7 partisan vote, that Florida’s disputed electoral votes be allocated to the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. But while the Republican Senate endorsed the recommendation, the Democratic House rejected it. The pivotal moment came immediately afterward: With the speaker of the House at his side, the vice-president announced that the commission’s decision stood. The Democrats accepted the call; they allowed the count to continue.

Peaceful transitions of power require political will. In the end, people on one side must step back from the brink.

ut the World Bank and the I.M.F. have failed to translate their concern into meaningful support, say economists. That has left less-affluent countries struggling with limited resources and untenable debts, prompting their governments to reduce spending just as it is needed to bolster health care systems and aid people suffering lost income.

The wealthiest nations have been cushioned by extraordinary surges of credit unleashed by central banks and government spending collectively estimated at more than $8 trillion. Developing countries have yet to receive help on such a scale.

A longtime government finance official who worked in the Trump administration’s Treasury Department, he has displayed contempt for the World Bank and the I.M.F.

“The World Bank Group intends to respond forcefully and massively,” Mr. Malpass said. At the I.M.F., Ms. Georgieva said she would not hesitate to tap the institution’s $1 trillion lending capacity. “This is, in my lifetime, humanity’s darkest hour,” she declared.

$11 billion going to low-income countries.

excessive faith in a widely hailed initiative that aimed to relieve poor nations of their debt burdens to foreign creditors. In April 2020, at a virtual summit of the Group of 20, world leaders agreed to pause debt payments through the end of the year.

World leaders played up the program as a way to encourage poor countries to spend as needed, without worrying about their debts. But the plan exempted the largest group of creditors: the global financial services industry, including banks, asset managers and hedge funds.

As the pandemic spread, Pakistan raised health care spending but cut support for social service programs as it prioritized debt payments.

Mr. Summers recently described the debt suspension initiative as “a squirt gun meeting a massive conflagration.”

Private creditors maintain that poor countries have not requested relief, recognizing that credit rating agencies may treat debt suspension as a default — a status that jeopardizes their future ability to borrow.

the I.M.F. has allocated $500 million to cover the costs of debt suspension, while handing out more than $100 billion in fresh loans. More than $11 billion from the loan proceeds has paid off private creditors, according to a report from the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

Although shaken often by tremors, Izmir has many older buildings that are not quake-resistant. Earthquakes often show up the poor construction quality in Turkey,

It allows voters to list a second candidate and counts those preferences as votes if no one reaches 50 percent when the first-choice votes are tabulated. The system could prove particularly dangerous for Ms. Collins — who like Ms. Gideon has consistently drawn below 50 percent in public polls conducted in recent months — because Lisa Savage, a progressive running as an independent in the race, has urged her supporters to list Ms. Gideon second.

her supporters and opponents both deemed it a necessary political maneuver to woo moderate voters, with Democrats noting that it had done nothing to affect the outcome.

Max Linn, a brash businessman, secured 1.7 percent of the vote while Ms. Savage, a teacher who has ties to the Maine Green Independent Party, secured 4.7 percent, behind Ms. Gideon at 46.6 percent and Ms. Collins at 43.4 percent. The poll had a 3.3 percent margin of error.

Ms. Gideon frequently summoned the specter of Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to cast the race in national terms and argue that it was vital for Democrats to control the White House and Congress to set the agenda in Washington.

For Mr. Obama, that split spilled into a fight over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multicountry trade pact that became so politically toxic that Hillary Clinton disavowed it during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Mr. Biden has bridged these divisions so far in the campaign by focusing on criticizing Mr. Trump for his costly and erratic trade policy, which he says has alienated allies like Canada and Europe and failed to convince China to make significant economic reforms.

Mr. Biden criticized Mr. Trump for embracing “thugs” in North Korea, China and Russia, and he said the president “pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies.”

Some progressive Democrats have worried that Mr. Biden — who voted for NAFTA in 1993 and to pave the way to bring China into the World Trade Organization in 2000 — would put America back on the mainstream trade policy path that Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton pursued. Many of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers are holdovers from the Obama administration, who, like Mr. Biden, believe deeply in the benefits of global economic integration.

To help quiet any trade fights within the party, Mr. Biden has promised to first focus on domestic priorities like curbing the coronavirus pandemic, addressing climate change and investing in infrastructure and health care before writing new trade deals, signaling that the blistering pace of trade talks seen under President Trump is likely to slow.

Mr. Biden’s advisers tend to be more unified on China, but there is still a split, people familiar with the conversations say. Some see China as a challenge, but still believe in trying to integrate the country into the global system and work with the Chinese on issues like climate change and nuclear proliferation. Others see a clash between the two systems as more inevitable, and say China’s increasingly authoritarian behavior is likely to preclude much cooperation.

He has been on personal leave from the company for the past several months after endorsing Mr. Biden and has been organizing other Republicans to campaign against Mr. Trump’s re-election.

He responded with a short but telling tweet: ‘TREASON?’” Mr. Taylor wrote in his statement.

Mr. Taylor’s decision to assail the president anonymously in the Times article created a sensation in Washington because of its claims about the president’s lack of character and inability to govern.

In the book, Mr. Taylor said he decided to remain anonymous because he believed revealing his identity would have allowed Mr. Trump and his allies to distract attention from the substance of the critique he leveled against the president.

Ms. Nielsen’s resistance to some of Mr. Trump’s demands — including shutting down the border with Mexico and shooting people crossing the border illegally in the legs to slow them down — eventually led to her dismissal.

residents, particularly in communities of color, stopped turning to the police out of a lack of trust, leading to more disputes being settled violently.

“The increase has had nothing to do with the political affiliation of your mayor,”

homicides increased an average of 53 percent across 20 major American cities during the summer.

110,000 people in California bought guns this year because they were worried about the destabilizing effects of the pandemic. The number, based on a survey conducted over the summer, appears to be corroborated by the surge of firearm background checks this year, about 95,000 more than last year. And those are only the guns obtained through legal channels. Los Angeles has seen a 45 percent increase this year in the number of guns stolen from cars, some of which have later turned up in shootings.

affected community programs that have been credited with helping young people stay away from crime.

California’s relatively strict gun laws limit the carrying of firearms in public and ban assault weapons, among many other restrictions. Those laws are circumvented by bringing in guns from neighboring states with more permissive gun laws.

The court also ​ruled that Mr. Lee, a former ​executive of Hyundai, disguised his ownership of a lucrative auto parts maker under the names of relatives and embezzled 24 billion won from the company between 1995 and 2007.

The presidential pardon of Lee Kun-hee was criticized at the time as an example of how collusion between politics and business has often allowed top businessmen found guilty of serious white-collar crimes in South Korea to walk free with light punishment.

Almost all of South Korea’s former presidents, as well as many of its business tycoons, have been implicated in recurring corruption scandals

Mr. Lee​ won the presidency by promising to use his business skills to help rejuvenate the South Korean economy. But he was dogged by allegations of corruption before and after his election.

steady erosion of institutions meant to safeguard democracy,

The grievance with the church is also, in many ways, the culmination of watching the critical role many of its leaders have played in the political victories of the Law and Justice party.

The court’s decision halted pregnancy terminations for fetal abnormalities, virtually the only type of abortion currently performed in the country. Abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape and those threatening the life of women are still formally legal.

“ultimate populist manifesto: If you are criticizing us, you are against the nation.”

“Now it’s not really just about abortion, it’s a protest about the loss of humanity,

right-wing extremists rushing to join the fray. And Mr. Kaczynski’s exhortations to his supporters may encourage them further.

Spain went back into a state of emergency last week, while on Sunday the government in Italy moved to shut restaurants by 6 p.m. In Belgium, which currently has the continent’s highest infection rate, restaurants were shuttered this month, followed by museums and gyms over the weekend.

France, Spain, Italy and Britain are all among the European countries reporting spikes in new cases

More people have been protesting against restrictions

The motion noted that four justices had already indicated where they stood when the court deadlocked on Oct. 19. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said they would have granted a stay blocking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision.

Neither side gave reasons

“the Constitution reserves a special role for state legislatures in federal elections,”

Republican lawmakers, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign challenged the settlement in federal court, saying the board had exceeded its power. By a 12-to-3 vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled against them

“All ballots must still be mailed on or before Election Day,”

And last month he flew to his Bedminster club in New Jersey to collect checks before the September fund-raising deadline, even after a top aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for the coronavirus.

In private, Mr. Trump has continued to blame Mr. Parscale for spending decisions, despite the fact that the former campaign manager has said he made them all with the approval of the Trump family.

The $247.8 million he raised in concert with the party in September would have been a record before 2020. That high level of fund-raising has raised questions about his team’s spending habits, given the current cash situation.