Venezuela Seeks UN Security Council Meeting Over U.S. Oil Tanker Blockade 
Trump Administration Plans Major Increase in Denaturalization Cases for Naturalized U.S. Citizens 
Sydney Bondi Beach Terror Attack Kills 16, Sparks Gun Law and Security Debate 
Trump’s Rob Reiner Remarks Spark Bipartisan Outrage After Tragic Deaths 
Trump Attends Dover Ceremony Honoring U.S. Personnel Killed in Syria 
Lukashenko Urges Swift Ukraine Peace Deal, Backs Trump’s Push for Rapid Resolution 
European Leaders Launch International Claims Commission to Compensate Ukraine for War Damage 
Trump Taps Former DHS Official Troy Edgar for U.S. Ambassador Role in El Salvador 
Taiwan Political Standoff Deepens as President Lai Urges Parliament to Withdraw Disputed Laws 
Zelenskiy Urges Allies to Use Frozen Russian Assets as EU Summit Nears 
Dan Bongino to Step Down as FBI Deputy Director After Brief, Controversial Tenure 
Republicans Raise National Security Concerns Over Intel’s Testing of China-Linked Chipmaking Tools 
European Leaders Tie Ukraine Territorial Decisions to Strong Security Guarantees 
Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers, Raising Venezuela Tensions and Oil Prices 
U.S. Initiates $11.1 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan Amid Rising China Tensions 
The United States is still struggling with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with millions infected and over 200,000 Americans dead from the disease. This week, Donald Trump announced his administration’s plan of distributing 150 million COVID-19 tests to Americans.
Trump announced on Monday that his administration plans to distribute 150 million rapid COVID-19 tests to Americans that were first promoted back in August. Formally unveiling the plan at the White House Rose Garden, Trump claimed that the tests were there to be made available to teachers who will need it, as many schools across the country have reopened physically while others have chosen to reopen virtually this year. The reopening was part of the administration’s push to return to normal even with the ongoing pandemic.
The tests are made by Abbott Laboratories and were touted as a possible game-changer to the pandemic. This sudden plan to release millions of COVID-19 tests is a shift in Trump’s previous assertion that more cases of COVID-19 were noted because there was more testing happening. Trump also said, in another sudden shift from his previous stances, that more efforts made to testing and noting asymptomatic cases in low-risk populations should not be cause for alarm or panic. 100 million of the tests would go to states and territories in support of efforts to reopen while 50 million would be allotted for those who are at the most risk of contracting the disease.
Despite these plans, federal guidelines on how these testing kits would be released to the American public have yet to be detailed. Some states and cities have yet to be fully on-board with the sudden distribution, and some have also expressed reluctance regarding its use.
Meanwhile, Trump faced off with former vice president Joe Biden in the first presidential debate, ending with the Republican incumbent perhaps unsurprisingly losing to the Democratic challenger. Even with this loss in the first debate, a piece by Chris Cillizza in CNN notes that during Trump’s debates with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump lost all three of his presidential debates, despite claiming he had won every single one of them. Yet, Trump won the electoral college.
Exit polls from 2016 showed that at the time, ⅔ of the voters who said the debates mattered in their decision to vote for a candidate, Clinton won over Trump by four percentage points 50% to 46%. However, three in 10 voters who thought the debates did not matter in their vote, Trump overtook Clinton by a 17-point margin.
