Tuesday Briefing: Trump and Harris Prepare to Debate
🇺🇸 U.S. ELECTION
The presidential election is less than 60 days away. This is what we’re watching.
Trump and Harris prepare for a debate showdown
The first and only scheduled debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is on Tuesday in the U.S., and people are bracing for a nail-biter. It’s hard to predict what will happen, but here’s what my colleagues covering the race are watching.
“I would definitely define Harris’s debating style as aggressive,” Lisa Lerer, our politics reporter, explained in this video. “She has a philosophy that if someone hits you, you have to hit back harder.”
But in the past, Lisa added, when Harris has not methodically prepared, she has had “trouble being light on her feet.”
“That could end up being a problem with Trump, because he is, above all other things, a highly unpredictable debater,” Lisa said.
Russia’s push to capture a strategic city
Russian forces captured two villages in eastern Ukraine yesterday and are now encircling Kyiv’s forces in two locations, according to an analysis of the battlefield. It’s part of Russia’s pursuit of the territory around the city of Pokrovsk, which has remained a focus for Moscow even during Ukraine’s surprise incursion.
Neither country has commented on the status of the villages.
Details: Russia appears to be trying to cut off Ukrainian forces on two fronts: to the south of Pokrovsk and in a pocket of Ukrainian-held territory near another strategic city, Vuhledar. Experts say those areas would allow Russia to broaden lines of approach to Pokrovsk. The city is a logistics and transit hub and was recently strengthened by Ukrainian reinforcements.
Kensington Palace did not indicate that Catherine was cancer-free. Officials did not offer further details on her medical condition, citing her right to privacy.
Details: The palace has never confirmed what type of cancer she was being treated for, how far the disease had progressed or the details of her treatment, beyond chemotherapy.
MORE TOP NEWS
The social isolation of pandemic lockdowns rapidly aged the brains of adolescent girls, a new study found. One researcher said that an 11-year-old girl who was tested before the pandemic, and then returned to the lab at age 14, would have a brain that looked like an 18-year-old’s.
Rapid aging of this kind — which tends to happen during times of stress — has been associated with depression and anxiety, scientists said.
Lives lived: James Earl Jones, who gave life to characters like Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King,” has died at 93.
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Can you tell what’s A.I. and what’s real?
Artificial intelligence technology is creating more perfect faces and lifelike videos every day. It’s getting harder to tell the real from the manipulated.
Stuart Thompson, my colleague who covers the spread of misinformation, disinformation and other misleading content, created this quiz to help you learn how to tell whether video has been altered with A.I. (Heads up: It’s hard!)